Chapter Eighteen: Does Not Compute

"I thought you were good with these machines." Emma teased.

"Give me a pc, or even a mac. Make me run Linux if I have to! But really, alien computers with:" Jubilee looked to the screen to make sure she read it right "Temporally reversed linear processed database access" she looked Emma in the eye "And I'm a little out of my league."

Emma smiled good-naturedly. "So no news on why we cant transfer the Keeper's Station voice commands to one of us?"

"I found one thing. But I don't know what these numbers mean." She tapped a few keys and brought up a new screen where she entered the query: How are voice commands transferred?

It brought up a screen that said, "voice commands could not be transferred until" Followed by a long set of grouped numbers.

"These are dimensional co-ordinates." Emma explained. "They pinpoint..." She processed them for a moment. "Oh, here. That's here." She gestured to the last two number groups "And this is a time reference. It was last..." She worked out the math in her head "Next week."

"Last next week?" Jubilee prodded.

Emma ignored her. "Key the first and last sequences in to the surveillance system." Emma leaned over the small viewer and while pretending to shield it from glare, blocked Jubilee's sight of the image.

The image flared to life, depicting a scene from the station, in the future. An impossible scene so far as Emma was concerned.

"What is it Em?" Jubilee asked.

"Just an empty room." She lied, shrugged and keyed the screen off. "How are the gauges?"

"No problems." Jubilee looked to confirm.

"Are you hungry?" Emma asked.

"I could eat." J answered.

And Emma turned off the light as she left the room behind Jubilee.

Then Emma waited. Emma hated waiting. But she waited none the less. Soon the temporal co-ordinates would be approaching. Tomorrow at this time. Could it really happen? Is it supposed to happen?

She was in no way prepared for what she had seen on the monitor.

Every pore on her body wanted to cry out in excitement and possibility. She wanted to...

She wanted to wait. She didn't want to trust in alien technology she didn't really understand. She didn't...

Emma wrapped her arms around herself. She didn't trust herself anymore.

How could that screen have shown what she saw? How could it be?

Emma turned her attention away, to Jubilee. Jubilee. She was resting two rooms away. Sleeping.

Emma remembered sleep, although it had been days since it had come.

Maybe this was it. Maybe she broke herself with worry and did something foolish. Maybe that's how it happened.

She pulled her attention again to Jubilee. Emma closed her eyes and could see Jubilee's dream. She was in a great school, tall as an office building, brushing past people she had known and seen on t.v. in the halls. Everyone was dressed well, except Jubilee, who was still wearing her pink nightgown, although no one noticed.

Emma saw herself in the dream, surrounded by men. None of whom was Kurt.

Jubilee went to talk to her best friend in the dream world. At first he was too distracted to notice her. Then when he did turn her way and smile, he burst in to flame and fell to dust. The dust got on to Jubilee's pink, fluffy bunny slippers, and everyone in the hall began laughing at her and pointing.

Suddenly something happened. The scene changed. Emma recognized this change. It happened when a person was having a precognitive dream. Suddenly Emma was shunted away as though she were observing the image from a great distance. It was a scene of a door on the station, with a silhouette, and with a rush of sexual release, the image was gone.

Jubilee woke suddenly. And the dream vanished from her mind entirely.

The communication system was signaling an incoming transmission.

"Who even knows we're here?" Jubilee asked as she joined Emma at the console.

"Let's find out." She keyed the control.

The image flickered and flared to life. "Greetings and Salutations to the inhabitants of Keeper One." Hank McCoy smiled "I bring news of Lucas." He smiled.

"Lucas is dead." Emma told him.

"Micro-waved and dropped to earth – yes. Dead, hardly." He straitened his glasses. "We got his note. . ." He began.

"Note?" Emma was hopeful but reserved.

"Ah, my stars, yes. Clever boy. Left it with a Native American tribe who handed it down." He smiled. "You see, he's landed in our past."

"Why your dimention? Do you know?" Emma was suspicious now. She could see Jubilee's interest and her willingness to believe.

"Indeed." Beast suddenly realized that he was being viewed as questionable. "He was recently her on a personal matter. He left this world just before returning home to have his accident. It was the most recent and therefor strongest exposure to a dimentional vibration. Those microwaves struck him like a tuning fork and he began to vibrate with our dimentional constant."

"And he's back in time?" Jubilee chirped up and bobbed in between Emma and the screen.

"Yes." He cocked his head slightly and continued. "The microwaves were calibrated to strike another dimention. This second frequency became the pattern for his temporal displacement. It pushed him back in time instead of in to another dimention."

"I see." Emma replied, ushering Jubilee away from the screen.

"I'm not sure you do." Hank shifted his focus to Emma. "I have his parents here. With our information and your resources I believe they could mount a rescue effort."

Emma paused. "And you would require access to our station." It wasn't a question.

"Under any terms you set down of course." Hank let his sentence trail off. He had expected more enthusiasm.

"I will contact you shortly." Emma told him. "Station out." She killed the comm.

"I don't think we should. . ." Emma was turning slowly on Jubilee. When Jubilee interrupted her with a violent slap across the face.

"We're helping them." She let her eyes burn with her anger. "I'm going with them and you're staying here to watch the station, but so help me – If I have to – I'll come. . ."

But Emma continued despite her, holding her face. "Of course we're going to help them." She snapped. "But we have to be careful you stupid girl. Think of what could happen if this station were in the wrong hands." She was bitter and swelling but not angry. She understood what Jubilee saw here; A chance for redemption.

And she knew what loyalty she felt too. For the first time in a long while she was truly sure of not only some thing but someone. Not since she had first met her Kurt and explored the depths of evil had she felt such a pull as this; To explore the heavens and rain down blessings upon the strange and troubled.

She wanted to be more like Lucas. Not to possess him or enjoy him as she had so many others. All she wanted was more to emulate. To see him home, as he would have done for her.

"I'm sorry." Jubilee hugged herself "I thought. . ."

"I know." She said softly and let go of her face. It was deep red and still pained her but she ignored it. "I come off like that because I used to be like that." She swallowed. "It's not always easy to change."

Jubilee dropped her eyes and left the room.