XI. Theory
Joanna stepped out of the shower, running a towel over her short hair as her eyes looked around the small room that made up Samus' sleeping quarters.
Her bed was as small as someone of Samus' height would allow, and very plain. Hanging strategically on the wall beside the door was a wooden staff, smooth with age and simply decorated. On the wall next to Jo, facing the bed was a tattered tapestry, surrounded by children's drawings of a human child interacting with what looked like a bird-like race. The tapestry was decorated in geometric designs running both vertically and horizontally. In between the patterns were what looked to Jo like Egyptian hieroglyphs, except every character appeared to be of the same bird-like race as those in the drawings. Jo noted a particular symbol in the center of the tapestry: A bird-like humanoid sat with hands before it, palms open as if receiving or offering something to some unseen figure. She recognized it from the image Samus had showed them in brief before they took off. She noted the oddity in her mind and then turned, surveying briefly the room, noting the best places to hide a pistol. She then proceeded out into the cockpit area, her hand lightly brushing the doorway as she exited.
"Have we arrived yet?" she asked, draping the towel over her shoulders and smoothing her hair.
"We're approaching the planet now." Samus answered, pressing a series of buttons on her console.
Joanna glanced behind her to see Lara sitting up against the wall. Her dark shades covered her eyes and her head was bowed. Jo noted how her arms were crossed, her hands a good distance from her guns. Still, as she looked at her, something seemed unsettled, as if at a moment's notice, she could be on her feet, guns drawn, her enemy dead-to-rights before she was even fully awake. Perhaps she would make a good spy after all.
"Would you like to do the honors?"
Joanna looked back at the screen. The Mayian homeworld loomed in front of them and Samus gestured towards it. Catching her meaning, Jo cleared her throat.
"This is Joanna Dark." Jo said awkwardly. "Um…I'm a friend of Elvis. Did he make it back here? Is he alright?"
Jo looked back at Samus to see how she had done. The stunned bounty hunter stared wide-eyed at Joanna.
"Well pardon me if I'm not very experienced at contacting an alien species." Jo snapped.
"Greetings, human Dark."
Jo looked back at the screen to see a gray, teardrop-shaped head staring back at her with large, solid, black eyes.
"Elvis! You're alri-"
"The one you know as Elvis arrived here yesterday. He is recuperating and will be well again soon. Upon his arrival, he mentioned you and will be eager to see you. We will transmit coordinates for you to land."
"Thank you." Jo replied.
"You are most welcome."
With that, the image disappeared and the screen once again showed the looming planet.
"Are you sure these aliens are non-hostile?" Samus asked as her console indicated the receiving of a transmission.
"Only if you don't consider a barrage of bad jokes hostile." Joanna replied.
Samus tapped a few buttons and the ship moved in to land at the transmitted coordinates. The ship sailed through the thick clouds of mikrium, a rainbow of colors flashing and shifting before them. It was a brilliant sight and Jo couldn't help but smile at its beauty. The ship came to land gently and effortlessly upon a landing pad. The Mayians had already built an air tube and were moving it to the ship.
"You might want to let them know where to hook that up." Jo instructed Samus. "I'd rather not get sucked into a vacuum."
Samus did so and Jo walked towards the platform, noting again the sleeping Lara.
"Should we wake Lara?" Jo asked Samus.
"I'll stay here with her." Samus replied, not having risen from her chair. "I have some things I need to tend to with the ship. Don't worry. I won't take off without you. Just see if your friend knows how we might get back to our own times."
Samus spoke with the authority of Daniel Carrington. Jo didn't much like that, but didn't let it bother her, noting instead that Samus had previously done a diagnostic on the ship and all systems read as nominal.
The sound of pressurized air echoed overhead and Jo stepped onto the platform. She noted one last time Samus sitting with her back to her, her hands tapping various buttons on her control panel. As the platform began to rise, Jo's hand reached lazily to the inside of the hatch and brushed its metallic surface.
The walk was short and the Mayians, happy to have a visitor from Earth, led Jo to a chamber filled with empty glass tubes, each large enough to house one of their kind per tube. One lay filled with a blue liquid and floating in the midst of it was Elvis. Jo didn't know how, but she knew it was him.
"He is conscious." Said her guide. "You can speak with him if you like. He'll be fully healed within a few hours."
With that her guide left her and Jo was left staring at the seemingly unconscious alien. His black eyes stared out into nothing. She had forgotten the Mayians didn't have eyelids. Jo suddenly felt very uncomfortable and understood why people were so terrified of these annoying little aliens.
"Elvis?" she called aloud. "Can you hear me?"
"Clear as a bell on a cow's neck that we took and experimented on, Joanna." Came Elvis' voice in her head.
Jo shook her head. Definitely Elvis.
Samus sat in her bedroom, her eyes fixed on a large screen that had been hidden in the wall. The screen displayed a single-perspective, black and white image of Lara wandering about and examining the ship and Joanna underneath the console, attempting to repair it. Their conversation from before Samus awoke played back in crystal clarity. Motion-triggered security cameras were great things.
"I don't like it." Came Joanna's voice.
The agent had made no secret of her distrust of Samus. Why did she trust Lara? Samus couldn't figure, though she herself didn't trust either of them, or anyone for that matter. Her distrust of people kept her distant from those around her, but she had decided long ago that it was the best choice. It was just safer that way.
"Neither do I." Came Lara's voice.
Lara was probably just as guarded as the both of them, though she hid it much better. She didn't allow it to get in the way of being friendly and even being herself. Samus would have envied that ability, if she could even understand how such a thing could be possible. But somehow, Lara pulled it off and Samus had to remember not to let her guard down around her.
Samus cocked an eyebrow. That must have been it. Lara's easy-going nature had drawn Joanna in. But Jo seemed too sharp and too paranoid for that. She would have to talk to the two of them more. At the thought, Samus groaned. She hated being social.
"So you have no idea how we arrived here?" Jo asked the little gray alien.
"I'm afraid not, Joanna." Elvis replied from inside his tube. "One second we're decelerating towards Earth, the next, we're hurtling towards it. Who knows at what point the time-transfer happened. But one thing I can do once I'm better is to board my ship and see if I can't find out what happened and then duplicate the process. Say 'Goodbye, retro-Joanna', 'Hello, thoroughly-modern Joanna.'"
Jo would have rolled her eyes if they were not so busy examining the chamber in which Elvis floated.
"Elvis." She said. "Can I ask you about this chamber?"
"Its design was a gift from another race of aliens called the Chozo."
"Are they a bird-like race?"
"They were. They disappeared from this area of space long ago, but not before leaving behind traces of their technology. Some of it you humans acquired from my downed space craft in Area Fifty-one. Your visors and some other items you have are based on Chozo technology."
"That makes things very interesting." Jo mumbled.
Samus emerged from her bed chamber to see Lara still sitting on the floor, her hands now rubbing her eyes as she attempted to wake herself. Samus looked to the screen and noted the shifting colors and the little, gray aliens going to and fro about the area as she thought about the video she had just watched. She wasn't sure the extent of the damage the ship had taken, but she suspected the repairs should not have taken three hours. What had Joanna been doing all of that time?
"My memory banks have been repaired, Samus." Creto informed his mistress. "I can now determine what it was that brought us to this time period and may be able to duplicate the process."
"Give me a read-out." Samus said, moving to her chair.
Samus read the un-translated Chozo words as they filled the small screen on the control panel. Lara walked up behind her, stretching her body. She'd slept in less comfortable places, but such a position still left one's body stiff.
After several moments, Samus sat back in her chair and stared into the viewscreen. The large screen revealed Joanna standing in the middle of the air tube, staring at the ship, her hand on her hip. Samus reached out and tapped a button. The viewscreen instantly zoomed in on Joanna's face. Her eyes were dark and full of thought as well as things deeply hidden. Her face was inexpressive and unreadable. Samus tapped a finger, wondering.
"So, do we have a solution?" Lara said, tired of waiting.
Samus watched as Joanna spoke with a Mayian who promptly ran off afterwards. Joanna then proceeded down the air tube towards the ship.
"What did you say the date was?" Samus asked without looking at Lara.
"April fourth, Nineteen, Nintey-Eight." Lara replied. "Why?"
"And Joanna appeared in the Earthen sky yesterday, April third."
"That's right. Something peculiar about that date?"
"Peculiar isn't the word."
A clicking and whirring was heard as the hatch opened and Joanna was lowered down on the metallic platform. Samus spun around in her chair.
"You're certain the date was April third when you left your own time period?" Samus asked her.
A little surprised at the question, Jo cast a questioning glance at Lara who merely shrugged.
"Yes." Jo replied. "What about it?"
Samus regarded the both of them before speaking once more.
"According to my ship's memory and its internal clock, my ship went into a spin and somehow arrived on Earth, April third in the Earth year Thirty."
"Thirty?" Lara echoed her. "As in Thirty A.D.?"
"Why?" Joanna asked. "What's so significant about that year?"
"Well, aside from the fact that she's been asleep for almost two-thousand years," Lara replied. "a lot happened that year, not the least of which was the crucifixion, and some say resurrection, of Jesus of Nazereth, the founder of the Christian religion."
"Oh, lovely." Jo spouted. "First aliens, then time-travel, now resurrected god-people. I suppose next we'll have…oh, bugger-all I can't even think of anything more ridiculous."
"I wouldn't discount it so quickly, Jo." Lara said. "Every legend has some basis in fact."
Jo just rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"Look, the year wasn't my point." Samus interrupted. "The point I was trying to make, is that all three of us wound up arriving at April third at the same location. My ship's sensors didn't record any anomalous event, portal, wormhole, or anything. My ship just somehow appeared on Earth at that date and place as I suspect your ship did, Joanna. Whatever happened brought all three of us together. So it seems to me that all three of us need to be present at that same location for it to happen again."
"And for us to be thrown even further back in time?" Lara asked. "What's to stop that from happening?"
"Maybe nothing." Samus replied. "But it's been my experience that any step, even backwards, reveals more truth about where you need to go next. Sometimes it's just best to dive in and see what happens."
"There's just one problem with your theory:" Jo said. "I wasn't the only one to come back from my time period. It was Elvis' ship that brought me to Earth and he was on board at the time as well."
"But you were unconscious at the time and Elvis wasn't, right?" Samus asked.
"Yes."
"So was I."
Jo nodded.
"I'm beginning to see what you mean."
"Have you two forgotten that I was neither unconscious nor on a space ship nor thrown through any kind of portal to arrive here?" said Lara.
"Yes, Lara, but you didn't time-travel either." Jo told her. "Elvis was conscious because he probably didn't need to be unconscious to survive whatever happened."
"So the two of you time-traveled while unconscious which links you together and you were brought to my precise location which links you to me."
"Exactly." Said Jo.
"You're right." Lara said, crossing her arms. "Peculiar isn't the word. Especially since we still have no idea what caused the two of you to time-travel."
"Whatever the cause, we are somehow all linked." Samus suggested. "Something brought the three of us together and we need to find out what. Jo, you said Elvis was with you. Maybe he's not a part of this equation, but it wouldn't hurt to have him come along."
"He is." Said Joanna. "He's standing by in his ship. He'll travel to the estimated point in space where his ship came through while we travel to the one your ship came through. I'm assuming you didn't come from this section of space."
Samus sat for a moment, wondering how Joanna knew that.
"Yes." She said, not revealing her thoughts. "That's correct."
"Well then I'd say that's our best bet." Said Jo. "Elvis is ready when we are. Just open your communications link and he'll tap in."
Samus regarded Jo a moment.
"Four hours ago you weren't nearly this eager." Samus challenged her. "What's changed?"
"Not that it's any of your business, but as anxious as I am to get back to some sense of normalcy, the longer I spend thinking about this, the more I tend to agree with the two of you. There's something more to this than we're seeing and I don't care to be left in the dark about it. I want to know what this is all about and who's behind it."
"Who?" Lara echoed her.
"There's an intelligence at work here." Jo replied. "And I think Samus would agree with me. I've spent my life asking the question 'who?' and discerning dumb luck from design. It's not something. It's someone. I want to know who and why."
She then turned to Samus and spoke with the authority of Daniel Carrington.
"Open your comms link and let's get moving."