Interlude I: Between the Cracks They Left Behind...
Thursday, November 3, 2033; Groom Lake Complex (beneath Dreamland), Las Vegas, Nevada; Night 8:23pm –
Field Marshall, General of the Armies, and Commander of Tech-comm Morgan Chase-Harris suppressed a yawn, squashing an impulse to rub his grainy eyes with a massive effort of will. It took an almost equally massive effort of willpower to force himself to focus on what Commander Seven and Doctor Mears were saying.
Possibly, just possibly, mind you, it might be his body's way of trying to tell him that he drastically needed sleep.
Nah...
The deeply buried inner smartass at the back of his mind blew a caustic raspberry at that notion.
Just because he'd been awake, on his feet, and on the go for well over seventy-two hours by now since before Dwayne Hicks' temporal jump was no reason for him to be tired. Really, now.
Human weakness. And human weakness could be banished and surmounted by an exertion of human will.
Mom and dad had never let mere human weakness get in the way of them doing what was needed.
'Suuuurrrreee they didn't, schmuck,' a sarcastic voice in the back of his head drawled. It sounded suspiciously like his half brother Kyle... 'And of course mom and dad would want you driving yourself halfway to death and trying to run a military campaign while you're dead on your feet. Snort. Pull the other one–it gives cappuccino.'
Heh. All he needed was a sharp dope slap upside the back of his head to go along with the voice, and he'd be looking over his shoulder for a smirking Kyle. Which that just wasn't going to happen...
"General? Morgan?"
Seven's sultry voice and puzzled tone brought him snapping up alertly from his half daze to find both her and Warren giving him quizzical looks. Okay, half alertly.
"Yes?" Morgan blinked at Seven even as his mind frantically replayed the last few minutes of conversation on automatic reflex. He forced himself to focus on the chronosphere console and the computer displays hooked up to the monitoring devices around it, commanding his face not to flush through sheer force of will.
Sheer force of will was proving inadequate, dammit.
"We're thinking you zoned out on us there for a minute, Morg," Warren said in a tone of exquisite dryness. Lieutenant Tech-Commander and General Wendie Sanders, his aunt and 3IC, was very carefully hiding an incipient grin twitching at the corners of her lips.
Sighing internally, Morgan forced himself to not look at his aunt. While he dearly loved Aunt Wendie, the resemblance to his mother was far too close for his comfort zone sometimes.
The dancing amusement behind those hazel eyes was beyond too close to the expression he figured Cordelia Chase-Harris would be wearing about now, only Wendie wouldn't favor him with an exasperated dope slap. Probably. Not in public, anyway.
Mom had never let the preservation of their dignities stand in the way of a quick attitude adjustment for her husband or son, public or private. And even after ten years, Morgan would give damned near anything short of what was left of the world to hear that affectionately exasperated huff and feel that light whap to the back of his head once again...
"Nonsense," Morgan said, letting a half smile he didn't remotely feel slide across his lips, "I was just thinking through the ramifications. Seven was just stating that she'd completed the analysis of the last set of diagnostics and correlated them with your readings and has come to the conclusion that while the Backstep appears to not have functioned precisely the way we'd anticipated, there are no, count 'em, zero valid reasons to link that with Commander Reese's collapse. Despite the coincidental timing."
A faint twitch that might possibly have been a ghost of a smile touched Seven's lips, and she exchanged sidelong glances with her husband.
"Of course, General Chase-Harris," she said, and her completely devoid of inflection tone of voice still somehow managed to convey a mixture of exasperation, affection, and epic sarcasm. "And if it were not for the fact that I was the one who taught you that mental exercise, I might possibly be completely taken in."
"What she said," Warren stated, smirking openly.
"Well... damn," Morgan said, sighing. An expression of honest affection and exasperation touched his own features, moving into his eyes as he regarded the pair of scientists. "Neither Kyle or me ever could fool you, Aunt Seven."
"An extremely implausible endeavor, considering the length of our association, Morgan," Seven stated, smiling slightly. "Considering as well the acuity of my observational skills, coupled with that length of acquaintance, the probability of your being able to do so continues to approach negative percentages."
"Seven taught you a good sized chunk of everything you know, Morg," Wendie said, shaking her head.
"But she didn't teach me everything she knows," Morgan said, giving up. Sighing, he rubbed the back of his neck tiredly, and then gave in to the urge to rub his burning eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I know the routine."
Thirty-five years of age, and three of his parents' oldest friends could still make him feel like a recalcitrant six year old. One of these days, he swore that he was going to manage to achieve adulthood and be able to deal with these people as a respected equal...
'Gee. How much respect do you want, moron?' this time the little voice sounded like his mother, complete to the patented Cordelia Chase undertone of exasperated affection underlying the sarcasm. 'You've got several dozens of the finest minds and the deadliest and most accomplished people of your parents' generation following your orders and willingly placing themselves under your command.'
Which was part of the problem. A regular kid had teachers and normal parents to live up to. He had living legends.
"You require sleep, Morgan," Seven said, gently.
"I know," Morgan said, nodding. "And I can't sleep. Not yet. Too... "
"Too much to do, yeah," Warren said, nodding, "And too much riding on it."
And yeah, Warren Mears would understand and know all about that. He drove himself twice as hard as almost anyone else, since even before the Long Night fell, and still somehow managed to pull one technological miracle after another out of his hat despite the pressure.
"I know for a fact that you've mastered the required biofeedback techniques," Seven said, her voice still gentle. "And if those are not sufficient, there are always sedatives."
"No!" Morgan held up a hand hastily at Warren's sudden start and alarmed look. "I know. Just... no sedatives. I don't like what they do to my thinking. They always seem to make me feel muzzy headed and like my brain is wrapped in cotton for days afterward."
"Understood, General," Seven said, giving him a not unsympathetic look. Of course... Seven had known about his reaction to sedatives and sleep aids for a long, long time now. Since he was still a teen, as a matter of fact. And the real reasons behind that aversion...
Sedatives stopped the dreams.
He'd never known for certain if the dreaming was some inherited aspect of his mother's Sight, some version of his dad's cockeyed and deadly accurate insight, or a combination of the two. Or whether it was something entirely of his own, unrelated to either...
Morgan just knew that to the best that he could remember, at around earliest puberty his dreams had changed.
No longer the subconscious mind's eye sorting and filing the days and weeks events and projecting them in surrealist fashion on the big screen TV in his head, like a normal person. Or at least, not all of them.
Late at night in the deepest layers of REM sleep, he walked in worlds he'd never seen; places and realms of wonder and terror. People and things came and spoke to him in his dreams, and showed him things... and as often as not, when he was awake, later on those things either happened, or they proved to be the solution to problems he hadn't even known would arise. Until they did.
Mom and dad had known, of course, and Kyle. He'd told them as far back as when it first started happening. And Uncle Giles... and of course, Seven, who'd been his and Kyle's unofficial aunt since they were both little.
No one else, other than Aunt Wendie. Morgan didn't even want to think about the reactions if it were to become known that way more than half of the brilliant solutions and insane but workable strategies and tactics he repeatedly pulled out of his hat had been suggested in a dream. And ever since 2023 and the night that his personal world had ended, not often, but often enough, those solutions were visited upon him by his parents.
Dwayne Hicks had his talismanic photos. Morgan Chase-Harris had his dream images of Xander Harris and Cordelia Chase.
They were the only remaining contact he had with the two most important figures in his life, and he didn't intend to take any remote chance of losing them again.
And enough. He was way, way past dead tired if he was woolgathering like this in the middle of crisis analysis. Seven and Warren were right: he really did need sleep. And screw it –
Morgan Chase-Harris straightened his spine with a snap and brought his head up. "You're right," he said, looking down slightly to meet Seven's eyes with a level gaze that he dearly hoped was clearer than it felt. "I do need sleep. And I will get some. But first... "
An elegantly arched eyebrow was the only response, and Morgan sighed, plowing onward. "I feel absurdly like Hicks, all of a sudden."
Warren blinked at him, as did Seven, and then her expression cleared and she gave him an understanding look. "Of course, Morgan. Would you like for me to tell you a story as well?" she asked, in perfect deadpan.
Morgan snickered softly, followed by a choked back laugh. Laughter: so not a good idea when there was way too large a chance that you might not be able to stop...
"No," he said. "But that reassurance thing that Hicks took from you... Go? Or no go?"
Seven's mouth opened, and then she closed it carefully, exchanging a long look with her husband. Communicating without words, the way his mom and dad used to... the way that long, long time partners and mates often did.
"There is no viable reason not to go," Seven said finally, meeting his gaze levelly and evenly. "We have tested and examined the logs and readings exhaustively, and we can find absolutely no reason for the modified Backstep to have any possible connection with Tech-commander Reese-Harris' collapse."
"Timing of the event notwithstanding," Warren said, nodding crisply. "The only possible correlation is a minor but significant spike in the power curve at the moment of transfer that corresponds to Kyle's collapse."
"And even then," Seven added, "The anomalous power signature was well and safely within the calculated and allowed for maximum upper edge of the required power curves."
"And we're still not sure exactly what the nature of the additional power drain was?" Morgan asked, his eyes narrowing, "Nor of the analysis of the power signature?"
Another exchange of looks, followed by Seven stating simply. "We are not. Analysis is still proceeding."
Warren Mears had a thoughtful expression. "The anomaly is counterbalanced by the fact that Tech-sergeant First Geiger's simultaneous transference went like clockwork, with all readings and temporal signatures well within the calculated and expected parameters and curves."
That was reassuring except for the parts where it wasn't.
Like all of Hicks' Harriers, Elston Geiger was talented, skilled, beyond competent, and highly dangerous. You didn't get anything else in the Harriers: incompetents need not apply.
Master Tech-sergeant Dwayne Hicks, on the other hand, had that certain extra edge that couldn't be defined. That extra spark, whatever it was, that made someone like Benjy Sheridan transcend the merely deadly and competent and took them all the way up into 'phenomenon'.
It didn't hurt that Hicks had been put through the mill and through their own very peculiar and exacting finishing school by Benjy Sheridan herself and her Irregulars, as well as by the recently late and lamented Lieutenant Commander Hardesty.
Elston Geiger was good. Hicks was one of those rare people that, like Sheridan, you gave the most hopeless and critical of jobs to and then dismissed them from your mind because you knew that whatever it was, whatever got in the way or tried to, they were going to surmount it and get the damned job done. No matter what the cost or the odds.
Morgan really hadn't been lying when he'd stated that Hicks and Geiger didn't have the most critical of all of the Backstep missions, merely one of the most critical. It just happened to be the one that was the most personally critical to Morgan Chase-Harris...
All of that reflection cycled through his mind in far less time than it would take to speak it. Seven was saying, "We have a specialist enroute to examine the readings for mystical signatures. We should have more precise data after that analysis."
There was a tinge of distaste to her carefully modulated tones surrounding the term 'mystical signatures'. Not that Seven didn't believe in magic – all of them believed – she just didn't particularly care for it. It upset her world view despite the fact that she herself was a product of magic.
Hell, Morgan and Kyle Jordan both were the products of chaos magic, if you wanted to look at it that way.
Then again, perhaps the distaste was justified. Magic, and especially chaos magic, was at the root of their problems, as well as the struggle they were engaged in...
"Our time windows are precise," Morgan mused, his expression feeling as troubled as his thoughts. "And we're rapidly coming up on the next available one. So: go or no go?"
No exchange of glances this time. Warren visibly deferred to his wife with a minute shrug. Seven hesitated for an endless moment before speaking.
Well, not endless, exactly. No more than ten seconds. But for Seven?
It was eons. Stars were born and galaxies died in those moments.
Finally, she gave a crisp nod and those arctic blue eyes locked to Morgan's hazel ones. "Proceed. All of the other possible time slots for that insertion and the ones that follow have increasingly lower success to failure ratios. And failure is something that we cannot afford in this."
Morgan's turn to hesitate. He paused for what seemed an endless moment of his own, indecision swirling in his mind's eye and all of the percentages and calculations tumbling through his thoughts. And finally...
Finally, he surrendered to his instincts and decided simply to trust that vast intellect, the sharp and incisive mind behind it, and the razor honed instincts behind that. Just as his parents had so very many times over the years...
In the end, it always came down to trust.
It's the one thing that you can't buy, and it can't be earned. You just have to give it.
It was the one thing that both of his parents had stated again and again over the years. And the one thing they had demonstrated time and again. Trust.
Trust in Seven and her sharp and brilliant mind. Trust in Warren, Faith, and Riley Finn, despite their dubious histories. Trust even in Creed, and his even more dubious nature. Trust in Benjy Sheridan and her ability to pull victory from the grasp of disaster by a whisker's margin. Trust in Kendra Young and her ability to push beyond the outer limits of even Slayer strength and capability to defeat even overwhelming odds. Trust in him, even though Morgan knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that both of them had sometimes despaired of Morgan getting it.
Trust the in wealth of abilities and variety of memories that Ethan Rayne's misbegotten spell had given to a bunch of Sunnydale teenagers and children.
Trust in an untested, untried, and untrained teenage Dwayne Hicks on nothing more than the strength of one of Morgan's dreams...
And that trust had been repaid tenfold time and again. Never blind, often calculated, but once given, given without reservation or hesitation.
And the people it was given to all too often turned themselves inside out demonstrating that they were worthy of it.
Morgan Chase-Harris opened his mouth and–
"Morgan!"
Morgan turned irritably, his words dying unspoken for the moment as he switched immediately to an urge to deliver an epic ass chewing to whatever moron decided that this was a great time to interrupt. Whatever the hell it was, it had better be an emergen–
The scowl and the snapped out comment both vanished as he recognized the figure behind the shout and clatter of boots on concrete flooring, to be replaced by raised eyebrows and a startled expression.
"Jamie? Summers?" Morgan shook his head slightly, as one of the few people he hadn't expected to see charging up came to a halt in front of their little gathering. Wearing nearly full combat kit, yet. "The hell?"
"What I was going to ask you," Jamie Summers said, not even winded by the run from wherever she'd come. She blinked, taking him in. "Damn, Morg. Commander, Sir. You look like pureed shit. And not all that well pureed, either." (beat) "All due respect and all that crap, sir."
"We've been carefully trying to avoid telling him that," Wendie said, her lips twitching again.
"Not too carefully," Warren added, "But, yeah. Kinda."
Long years of practice allowed Morgan to mostly ignore his relatives and family. He gave the youngest Summers sister an exasperated look. "As in, the hell are you doing here, Summers?"
"Reporting for duty, General Commander, Sir. Duh."
Both Commander Wendie Sanders and Lieutenant Commander Warren Mears made muted choking sounds that suspiciously resembled muffled laughter, and Morgan viciously suppressed an urge to roll his eyes theatrically.
Yet another hazard to commanding family and old family friends. To possibly 98% of the Resistance and Tech-comm, with the exception of a few of the older officers and noncoms, he was not just the son of Tech-commander Alexander Harris-Chase and Field Marshall Cordelia Chase-Harris. He was also General of the Armies Morgan Chase-Harris and a commander and a figure of nearly mythical proportions in his own right. As was his half brother...
Morgan had the deepest suspicion, constantly borne out by reality, that to Dawn Summers' daughter, he and Kyle Jordan both always were and always would be 'Morg' and 'KJ' first and foremost. Not the semi-mythical Commander in Chief and his Executive Officer and right hand man, but the gangling and often awkward pair of teenagers that she'd grown up with in her first few years and then the long years of the Long Dark afterward...
Not quite uncles or cousins, often best friends and frenemies, and for a long time, either victims or objects (take your pick) of her very earliest adolescent crushes. If they were also sometimes larger than life to her, it was just because just about everyone was larger than life to the four year old she'd been when they all fell back in stunned disarray to Pylea.
While this was running through Morgan's mind's eye, as if she also were belatedly realizing that there was sometimes a difference, Tech-sergeant First Jamie Summers snapped to attention, clicked her heels together, and snapped off a militarily precise salute.
"Senior Tech-commander and General Sanders, ma'am," Jamie said, meeting and holding Wendie's eyes briefly before moving on, "Commander Seven, Lieutenant Commander Mears. Tech-sergeant First Jamie Summers reporting, ma'ams, sir."
"At ease, Tech-sergeant," Commander Sanders said, smiling broadly. "We're all family here for once. Save the military formalities for tomorrow or in public."
"Speak for yourself," Morgan muttered, getting a sidelong quelling look for his troubles. "I'd kinda enjoy a few military formalities for once."
"I'm sure you would," Jamie murmured back before giving Wendie a crisp nod and saying, "Ma'am, yes ma'am," and falling into a relaxed stance. Riveting her gaze on Morgan, she then demanded, "Okay, Morg: what the hell happened to KJ?"
Looking down at his childhood friend, Morgan opened his mouth, immediately swallowed the first ten things that ran through his mind, most of them sarcastic, then simply held up a hand and said, "Bide a moment, Sergeant. Business first." He turned back to his trio of staff officers -slash- family, began to open his mouth, and paused momentarily...
Data and calculations scrolled past his mind's eye again, were weighed, considered, and evaluated yet again. Nope. Nothing changed.
Facts on the ground: they had at least five combat Terminator instances enroute to the past. A T-101L, Blaisdell pattern. A T-XH Harmony Kendall pattern Hunter-Killer Infiltrator. A T-888, imprint pattern unknown, but they strongly suspected that it would be one of the DuFours or Kelley pattern infiltrator-assassin models. And a pair of T-950i Infiltrators, patterns unknown as of yet, their precise missions unknown. They only had temporal coordinates for those two. Plus a T-1000, pattern unknown but suspected, mission unknown as of yet.
Facts on the ground: the nature of temporal resonance theory dictated that they had a limited number of optimal transferal points in each resonance window in which to send back operatives of their own. After those windows passed, the success failure rations began to drop precipitously. Miss this set of windows, and the next optimal set wouldn't arise for another seven months, give or take a few days and hours.
Facts on the ground: the Resistance had their own set of Final Solution plans in the works that depended upon those temporal transfers going off first before they were set into motion. Missing these windows meant that those plans would also have to be pushed back for another seven months. And far, far too many things could happen in seven months... MALCOLM could discover their base here in the old Event Group facility. MALCOLM and CAIN could discover – or build – a new temporal transference facility, and add in a whole new set of variables that had to be accounted for. Morgan or any of the other critical personnel could get themselves killed on a mission.
Or the horse could sing.
Facts on the ground: five combat Terminator instances enroute to the past to attempt to accomplish a Hail Mary play for MALCOLM and CAIN by eliminating the Resistance and Tech-comm via eliminating the leadership and founders before they became such. Never mind that it just flat wasn't gonna work the way that MALCOLM and CAIN thought it would.
The scientists and tech weenies could debate all they wanted to on causal versus non-causal physics, quantum mechanics, temporal resonances, and the merits of linear versus non-linear time.
Morgan Chase-Harris knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, on a gut level and intuitive basis, that the debate was pointless:
When you attempted to change the past, if there wasn't one already, then you created a cusp event. Time branched from that point onward as the ripples of the Butterfly Effect spread outward from the point of change. You didn't change the future/present by altering the past...
You created an alternate universe branching off from that cusp event. You created a branching timeline and alternate history. The multiple worlds theory was accurate.
No matter what happened in the past, the battle against the machines was going to be settled here and now, in the present and future, one way or another. Win or lose.
And it didn't matter.
Morgan Chase-Harris didn't have to go into deep dreaming and ask the shades of his dead parents, should they happen to show up, what their advice would be. He knew beyond the shadow of a doubt what Alexander Harris and Cordelia Chase would say.
You fight. You win. And you don't give up your world or your people to the demons, the machines, and the forces of Hell. Not now, not ever.
Not any world. Nor anyone.
It just flat didn't matter that the Alexander "Xander" LaVelle Harris and the Cordelia Desiree Chase in the 1997 that Hicks and Geiger had returned to were not and never would be his parents. They'd become the parents of another Morgan Chase-Harris, or those of someone completely different. Or not. It didn't matter that the Faith Michelle Lehane of that timeline might or might not give birth to a Kyle Jordan Reese-Harris, or might become the mother of someone completely different... might never meet up with and join the founders of the nascent Resistance, or that the Resistance itself might never be born in that worldline.
They were not going to give those people up to MALCOLM and CAIN's assassins. They were not going to give up those worlds, nor any of the worlds that might be born from those cusp points to the machines and the forces of Hell.
It was just not gonna happen.
And just like that, the decision was made.
It had never really been a decision to begin with.
"Never give up. Never surrender," Morgan said, his voice soft.
Tech-commander and General Wendie Sanders gave him a long look, the corner of her mouth quirking up into a slight half grin. And if that grin were tinged with appreciative irony?
So what.
"I foresee terrible troubles," she said.
"And yet we stand here just the same," Seven murmured, nodding. "Your decision, Commander General?"
"Though the roads may be paved with good intentions, and though all the forces of Hell may bar the way," Morgan said, finishing the ritual. He nodded crisply, all of the exhaustion and the incipient tension born migraine falling away momentarily. His head came up, and cold hazel eyes met blue gray and then green hazel and brown evenly in turn. "All right, Seven, Warren," he said. "It's a go. Make it happen."
Throw the dice and let them fall. You could do all of the calculations you wanted, analyze all of the data you could, review all of the intelligence, worry over all of the variables... and still the inexorable calculus of combat reigned supreme: no plan ever survived first contact with reality on the ground, much less contact with the enemy.
Sometimes you just had to say 'what the fuck', and jump.
Seven inclined her head and said, "Of course, General."
"Orders received and understood Morgan," Wendie said. Eying him carefully, she added, "Now. You: go deal with your family. And then get some- no, wait," she raised her hand, aiming an index finger at Jamie, "You: Tech-sergeant; feed him and then make him get some sleep."
Straight faced, Morgan clicked his heels together, snapped his spine straight and his hand to his temple in a militarily precise salute. "Ma'am, yes ma'am, Tech-commander mom ma'am."
The hairy eyeball that got him from his aunt wasn't improved any by Jamie Summers dope slapping him smartly upside the back of his head. Morgan rubbed his head and gave her an irritated look that rolled off like water from a duck, naturally.
"Yes ma'am, Tech-commander Sanders, ma'am," Jamie said, hooking Morgan's arm with her own. "I know it's a stretch, but don't be a wiseass, Morg. Now, come on."
Decision made, all of the high-wire tension that had been keeping him momentarily alert and wide awake fell away, leaving him filled with exhaustion again and aware of the incipient migraine still throbbing behind his eyeballs. Nonetheless, Morgan resisted Jamie's attempt to turn and pull him away, shaking off her hold on his arm.
Fixing a bleary glare on Commander Sanders, he said, "Push back the pre-jump briefings and orientations by, ah... three, no four hours tomorrow. I'll take care of them after I've woken and had time to become human again."
"I'll take care of it, Morg," Wendie said, shaking her head and giving him an exasperated look. "We'll take care of it. We are not amateurs here, Commander General, sir."
"I know, I just," Morgan held up a hand, palm out, swaying on his feet momentarily. "It's just that– "
"Commander General Morgan Chase-Harris," Wendie Sanders said crisply, not quite snapping it out, "It will be taken care of. I will make it happen, sir. Now, get thee gone and to bed before you fall over and end up in a med-bed right next to your brother. Hear me?"
Her eyes flashed at him, and Morgan once again remembered exactly why it was that Wendie Sanders was Third in Command of the Resistance, just marginally below General Kendra Young. And it wasn't just because of her close, nearly identical physical resemblance to their dead General and Field Marshall. They could have and had created a Life Model Android to fill that role and purpose.
It was because for all intents and real purposes, she had earned that position a hundred times over. From the beginning of the Resistance discovering and making contact with her in 2015, for every field mission that Cordelia Chase-Harris had gone out on, Wendie Sanders had undertaken an equally critical, dangerous, and simultaneous mission of her own in a widely separate location.
And had pulled it off. All of them. And had continued to do so for all of the years of the long decade after her cousin's and Xander Harris-Chase's deaths in 2023. She was by now an accomplished commander and leader in her own right, and had been so for a long, long time now.
"Ma'am," Morgan said, inclining his head and giving her a rueful and semi-apologetic half grin. "I'm– "
"We are gone now, ma'am," Jamie said, nodding. "Come on, Morg. Don't piss off Our Aunt the Commander. You really won't like it when she gets angry."
"I am aware." Sighing, Morgan let himself be turned and pulled away from the group at the Chronosphere. Gonna have to revoke Jamie's clearance some day. Not that she'd actually pay attention to that or let it stop her.
He spared one quick, reflexive glance at the rigidly motionless form of Wendie Sanders' T-888X Model bodyguard. Shivering slightly at the physical resemblance it bore to his dead father, he dismissed it from his mind and fell in alongside of Jamie Summers, stumbling only slightly from weariness. Morgan barely registered his own gynoid Life Model bodyguards leaving their own motionless stances and falling in behind them.
That was expected, after all. And they didn't have uncomfortable physical and mental associations for him...
Traversing the Time Tunnel enroute to the elevators, Jamie glanced up at him. "So. I'm guessing that I interrupted important Tech-comm business, huh?"
"Gee. What was your first clue?"
"Again, don't be a wiseass. That's Kyle's job, and he's actually good at it," Jamie said, tossing her collar length hair. "Speaking of... ?" she gave him a pointedly inquiring look.
"I'll fill you in," Morgan said, "I promise. Let me make a quick check on his condition first, okay?" He cut across Jamie's incipient protest by holding up a hand, palm out, as he pulled his combination pad computer and Blackberry from a cargo pocket. "Text. It'll only take a bit."
Sighing, Jamie made a go ahead gesture and stepped back, watching him. Morgan quickly connected to the med center's comp and entered his query, almost immediately reaching the on duty medic and getting a response.
Not a good one. No change. Nothing he could do about that either, dammit...
Sighing, he put the e-Pad away and shook his head to Jamie's inquiring look. "Okay," she said, "Well?"
"We don't know," Morgan said, simply. To her scowl, he elaborated, "He simply collapsed for no apparent reason at the same moment that Hicks' jump hit transference stage. High brain activity, no obvious trauma – he just won't wake up."
"Crap."
"Yeah," Morgan breathed. "We suspect, or at least we're concerned," he added, "That given the nature of Hicks and Geiger's transfer that there might be a resonance connection to the transferal. Even though that shouldn't theoretically be possible."
"Because of course, there is no difference between theory and practice," Jamie said, nodding. Glancing down, Morgan saw the play of emotions and concentration across her features outlining her thought processes as she worked out the implications.
Of course. Jaime had inherited her mother's brains, after all.
"Except when in practice there is, yeah," Morgan said, sourly.
"Because they were jumping to the exact point of the chaos event that started this whole mess," Jamie said, scowling.
"Yup. Allowing for time passage, and 'temporal cascade resonance frequency shifts', whatever those are," Morgan grinned slightly, "They had to leave here precisely at midnight 13:13 on November first in order to land there at 5:20:13pm Friday, October thirty-first."
Jaime blinked at him, and Morgan shrugged. "Don't ask. Science I'm good at. Temporal physics and quantum mechanics are a bit over my head, though. I let Warren, Fred, and Seven do the math; I just nod and trust what they tell me."
Snickering slightly, Jamie nodded. "Makes sense."
"So. How'd you– "
"Get here? Jumped in with Commander Mom," Jamie said, frowning.
Commander – oh. Right. Dawn Summers, aka Commander Mom. The sequenced temporal transferences weren't the only missions on the docket. Duh. Dawn and Jamie Summers, Hicks' – no, Hayden's now – Harriers, Creed and Barkley, Amy Madison, Benjy's Irregulars, Commanders Aura and Jonathan, both Hells-Gate teams, Michael Czajak, and Joel Garrity all had a set of equally critical operations that were set to go off from here with full briefings scheduled to begin tomorrow evening.
Final operations.
Countdown for the final phase of Tech-comm's war against the machines was up and running.
By the end of November, mid December at the very latest, either MALCOLM and CAIN would be on the way to becoming bad memories, or... or else Tech-comm, North American Resistance Command, would be coming up with entirely new definitions to go along with the phrase: "We are well and truly fucked."
And damn. If he'd managed to lose sight of all of that, Morgan Chase-Harris was seriously beyond just a need for sleep.
"Ow!" Rubbing the back of his head, Morgan gave his youngest and oldest friend a half irritated, half exasperated look. "The hell?"
"I know that look, Morg," Jamie said, scowling up at him. "You are not going to hare off trying to take care of eleventy-dozen critically important things while you're dead on your feet, hear me?"
"I wasn't!"
"Uh huh."
"Seriously!" Morgan huffed irritably, glaring down at Jamie. "Honest. That 'look' was me realizing that if I managed to somehow completely blank out the fact that you and Dawn were due here for the mission briefing tomorrow evening, I seriously was way, way past just tired."
"Hrrmph." Reaching out to push the elevator button for the residence and shops levels of the complex, Jaime unhooked his arm and stepped away, turning to face him. Folding her arms over her chest, she favored him with a suspicious looking glare before finally giving him a reluctant nod. "All right. Sold and purchased."
"Good."
Crossing his own arms over his chest, Morgan favored her with a downward glare of his own.
Downward, because while Jamie had inherited her mother's looks and figure on the seven eighths scale, she hadn't inherited the family height gene. At least not her mom's height gene: she took more after the older Summers' sister in that respect. Without heels, she was just under an inch shy of being a foot shorter than Morgan's six foot two.
The clinical portion of his mind noted yet again that Warren Mears and Seven had done a phenomenal job of designing the cybernetic prosthetics for her. Even knowing of the enhancements, you couldn't see where they had replaced Jamie's limbs and eye following the blast that had shredded both legs, her left arm and right forearm, while trashing and destroying her left eye and ear along with that side of her face.
The aesthetic portion noticed yet again that his youngest surviving friend had grown up to be beautiful. Dawn Summers naturally gorgeous features had dominated in that mix, and combined with Jamie's Hispanic father's dark tan skin tone, her mother's blue eyes were startling in the cinnamon tinted face. (Not widely spoken of, but it was common knowledge in their families that despite the lack of a marriage certificate, the long dead Carlos Trejo had been Jamie's father. And no one cared. Anyone who did care could take it up with Morgan.) The primitive male in the back of Morgan's mind translated 'beautiful' to 'hot babe'.
Make that 'extremely hot babe'. Her mom's sharp features had softened in this iteration, with fuller lips, and slightly larger and fuller breasts. Add in a narrow waist and full hips to the muscular and curvy legs – cybernetic or not – and it was probably a good thing in some ways that Jamie had come into adolescence well after the Long Night. By the time she started developing serious curves and looks that would have almost guaranteed lustful attention from males, her and Morgan's family's stature had lessened the need for him and Kyle to have more than a few very short, sharp barracks room chats with various Neanderthals.
Even if they hadn't... the looming presence of Victor Creed in the background would have had a dampening effect. Any rough hewn trooper or less than tightly wrapped male survivor that might have been tempted to treat the nubile and teenaged Jamie like a B-girl in a leave tavern had second, third, and then fourth thoughts at the concept of crossing a gruffly paternalistic Sabretooth. That was even more chilling than the thought of having a pissed off Xander Harris coming after you with blood in his eye.
Almost as chilling as having a pissed off Cordelia Chase and Dawn Summers wanting to have a 'shotgun and shovel' talk with you.
And then by the time she hit eighteen, Jamie was a trooper on her own merits: a graduate of the finishing school of Creed, Barkley, and the Sunnydale Irregulars. And far too dangerous in her own right to trifle with.
You just flat didn't earn a combat position in Hicks' Harriers through nepotism–
"Again, Morg," Jamie said, breaking into Morgan's idle and sleep deprived musings, "You look like frozen shit."
The ding of the arriving lift temporarily interrupted his response. The four of them crowded into the elevator, and Morgan reached past Jamie to enter the code for the food court levels.
"Gee, thanks, Jamie," he said, shaking his head sourly. Apparently while he'd been... appraising her, not checking her out, no... she'd been giving him a critical study of her own. "And here I was thinking that you were looking awfully good."
"Well, of course I do," she said, tossing her dark hair again. "Which has zero bearing on you looking like frozen crap. When the hell was the last time you slept?" she asked, looking askance at him.
"Ah– "
"Seventy-eight hours, forty-two minutes, and twenty-six seconds," ALICE stated, "Allowing for the four brief catnaps he's taken during the past three days, as well as the various moments in which he has nodded off for minutes at a time."
Morgan gave his gynoid bodyguard a sour glance. "Thank you, Alice. Your precision is noted and unappreciated."
"And your snark is wasted on Alice, Morg," Jamie said, smirking at him. "Thank you, Alice."
"Fine. What she said," Morgan huffed. "I've been busy."
"Uh huh." Continuing her critical appraisal, Jamie finally sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. "Or the last time you ate. Or, hell, Morg – when was the last time you got laid, for crying out loud?"
Morgan choked, staring at her. "Uhhh... " he managed, completely derailed and boggled.
"I'm gonna take that as meaning 'awhile now' for both questions," she said, smirking up at him again. "Hopefully you've eaten more recently than you've managed to get your ashes hauled."
"Ah, yes?" Okay, and his voice cracking on the 'yes' was downright embarrassing.
"Good." Jamie fixed him with a narrow eyes look. "And the other would have been when... ?"
"None of your business," Morgan snapped, glaring at her. He gave both of his bodyguards a look that flat forbade a response from the peanut gallery. APRIL closed her opening mouth with a click, glancing away.
"I'm making it my business," Jamie snapped back. Folding her arms over her chest, she arched her eyebrow. "'Fess up, Morg."
"Uhhh... " okay, that was just embarrassing. Morgan flat was not going to admit that he couldn't remember.
When in doubt or cornered, attempt a lame joke. Always worked for his dad... Morgan pasted on a bland expression, waggled his eyebrows, and asked, "You mean with a real girl?"
He apparently wasn't his dad. Jamie's expression suggested that that one wasn't even in the shopping cart, much less for sale.
"Very funny," she said, glaring at him.
"When was the last time I was in New Sunnyvale? Or back at Beluria?"
"A year ago, after the Black Mesa penetration," she said, matter of fact. "And I know for a fact that you didn't spend any time with Miranda Breckenridge during the four months you were there. We've talked."
"About me?" His eyes widened, and the 'me' came out in another squeak, dammit.
"Don't get your head all swelled," Jamie said, her lips quirking. "You were a minor topic."
"I do know other girls," Morgan said, more than a bit stiffly.
"Yeah?" Jamie tossed her hair, smirking up at him again. "Name three. Alice and April don't count." Glancing apologetically at the two gynoids, she added hastily, "No offense."
"I– " exasperated, Morgan shook his head, huffing slightly, and said, "Fine. I was busy. We had planning, data and intelligence assessment, and– "
"Work to do, yeah," Jamie said, nodding. "Story of your life. Morgan... " she shook her head, looking equally exasperated. "You have got to do something about that."
Rolling his eyes, Morgan smirked down at her and shrugged. "Why? Are you offering?"
Okay, and where the hell had that popped up from? That hadn't been even remotely on his list of responses...
Oh. Right. Hot girl. Healthy, adult male exhausted far beyond normal control of his faculties. Do the math.
Jamie snickered, and her full lips spread out into a broad grin. She gave him a speculative look and said, "I'm seriously tempted to say yes, Morg, just to make sure the job gets done properly."
"Jaime!" it came out in a kind of a strangled squawk and his mouth fell open as he stared at her.
"What?!"
"I've known you since you were four, dammit!"
"Jeeze, Morg," Jamie said, rolling her eyes. "It's not like we're related. You didn't even baby sit me as a kid."
Okay, it's not like the concept was revolting, exactly, Morgan thought. Looking down at the big blue eyes, gorgeous face, wide full lipped mouth, and impressive chest pushing out against the fatigues blouse, far from it. Just... startling.
Not like he'd been completely oblivious to the crush she'd had on him and Kyle when she was younger, either. Nor oblivious to the fact that the gawky teenager had turned into a stunner of an actual girl around the age of eighteen or so.
And naturally, he had the distinct impression that those sharp blue eyes were following every nuance of his thoughts across his features. Dammit. Gonna have to put that poker face in the shop and get it repaired...
The broad grin turned lopsided and Jamie batted her eyelashes at him. "I always kinda thought it'd be lots of fun, myself."
Right about then, naturally, the light flashed and the bell dinged for their stop, leaving Morgan spluttering at her. Jamie winked and stepped out through the opening doors, throwing a bright flash of grin over her shoulder at him.
It didn't help that the treacherous hindbrain part of his mind had him appreciating the way that the camouflage pants clung to her legs and hugged that rounded bubble-butt as she strode off, leaving him spluttering.
He probably just imagined that there was an extra bit of twitch and swing to her hips going away. Probably.
The fact that the curvaceous legs that the fatigues were clinging to weren't original equipment didn't bother him in the least. Morgan had even less of the prejudice to cybernetics and robotics than the majority of Tech-comm personnel did, and it wasn't prevalent among those.
That there was rampant speculation in some quarters surrounding the fact that both of his android bodyguards were functional gynoids that strongly resembled attractive women hadn't escaped him along the way. Whether or not there was any truth to the speculation was no one's business.
Hey. The massively screwed up man that he was today had once been an equally screwed up and desperately horny male teenager once. Do the math.
Sighing heavily and rolling his eyes, Morgan shook it off and stepped out after her before the doors started to close on him, with ALICE and APRIL following close behind. Lengthening his stride a bit, he caught up and fell in alongside.
He really needed some sleep. He was apparently far, far too fried for this conversation.
He was definitely too fried to be having it with the person he was having it with.
"I'd probably fall asleep on you," Morgan said, shrugging.
"I know. And that would be unforgivable," Jamie said, grinning up at him. "You'd almost certainly want to be awake for this."
"Seriously, Jamie?" he said. "For Chrissakes."
"Hey, Miranda says you're pretty decent," Jamie said, shrugging and derailing him completely once again.
"Ahh... " Morgan gave his head another shake, starting off after her again.
"Oh, crap," Jamie said, snickering, "I done went and broke you."
"You did not!" Morgan snapped out. "And hey, why all of the interest in my love life, anyway?"
"I don't have any, really," Jamie told him, shrugging again as he caught up with her. "But seriously?"
Lengthening her stride, Jamie drew ahead a bit and then spun on him, scowling. Morgan stumbled to a sudden halt. Fortunately, his bodyguards were far enough behind that neither of them stepped into him...
"Morgan," Jamie said, her eyes flashing. "You don't have a freaking life."
"Hey! I do so!" he said, blinking at her. Of all of the things he'd been expecting, that wasn't any of them. That... stung.
"Bullshit," she said, snorting. "Morgan. You can't remember when the last time you got laid was. You have three, count 'em, three close friends, and one of them is currently out for the count in a med-bed. The other is across the country on a mission, and you probably haven't exchanged four sentences in as many months. You barely sleep any more. You eat when you think about it, or when Alice or April reminds you to. You work all the time– "
"Hey, I'm– "
"In charge of freaking Tech-comm and the Resistance, right," she said, rolling her eyes and glaring up at him. "It's called Command Staff. Look it up."
The Event Group complex was huge, and severely underpopulated, but now that they were in the living and commissary levels, there were enough personnel about that other troopers, techs, scientists, and staff officers were going about them on business. All of them very carefully not noticing the General and Field Marshall of Tech-comm and a Tech-sergeant practically having a yelling match in the middle of a major corridor.
"I know what it's called, Jamie," Morgan snapped, glaring down at her. "I have one."
"Then fucking delegate some of this stuff," Jamie snapped back. "Before you have a freaking breakdown on us."
"You know," Morgan said, heatedly, "I can fucking order you to shut the fuck up and leave it be, Tech-sergeant."
"Oh, yeah, like that's gonna work," Jamie retorted, just as heatedly, "General and Field Marshall sir." Snorting derisively, she continued, "Just about as well as it did when I was fourteen and crushing on you and Kyle and following you guys around everywhere you went, huh?"
"Oh, for... I can't, Jamie," Morgan said, shaking his head. "I'm the only one that can do a lot of this. The only one that can sort through a lot of this, and make the calls that have to be made."
"Which is why we can't have you running yourself out on the ragged edge, Morg," Jamie said in a much calmer tone, gazing up at him steadily. "And continually pushing yourself until something gives and you finally hit crash and burnout stage on us."
"Jamie... " Morgan gave her another exasperated sigh and a look to match. Spreading his hands, he said, "If I could find time for a life, or a way to fit one in, I'd have one."
"Your mom and dad always found a way," Jamie said. And, ouch. That was hitting below the belt and it practically cut his legs out from under him.
"I'm not my mom and dad," Morgan ground out between clenched teeth.
"I know," Jamie said, calmly. "And that's the problem. You're trying to be."
If looks could kill, his glare would have incinerated her on the spot. "You're going to have to explain that one."
"You can't do it, Morg. It can't be done," Jamie said, ignoring the near lethal glare. "Your mom and dad weren't your mom and dad, even."
"You know, Summers, this oldest friend thing?" Morgan told her, his eyes narrowing. "We're getting perilously close to hitting the end of the road for that here."
"And that would suck, truly," Jamie said, nodding.
"Then maybe you should drop it, Jamie," Morgan said, his voice sounding frozen in his own ears.
"Would love to. Can't." Jamie shook her head. "Because someone has to, and apparently Kyle's not available. Not that you'd ever listen to him, even when he is."
"I always listen to Kyle, when he has something to say," Morgan said, stung.
"Not on this you don't," Jamie said, her expression set in her best stubborn. "You can't. And Kyle isn't capable of making you listen because of who and what he is."
"And that would be?" Morgan asked, half derisive and half honestly curious. Combined with his near total exhaustion, the conversation was starting to take on a tinge of surreality.
Starting to, hell. It started out that way.
"He's the son of Faith Lehane and Alexander Harris-Chase," Jamie said, quietly, "The Hero of Boldt Castle, and the Father of Tech-comm." Cocking her head slightly, she gave him an indecipherable look. "His parents are living legends too, just like yours. He can't tell you anything on this that you'll listen to, because he's too busy trying to live up to his own legend and expectations."
Ouch. That cut way too close to the quick. Far too accurate for Morgan's comfort zone, too.
"And of course, you don't have that problem at all, Jamie Summers," Morgan drawled out, snorting derisively.
Nodding, Jamie said, "I'm not my mom. I'm not my Aunt Buffy, either. Unlike you, I know this, and I'm not trying to be. I'm carving out my own legend."
True. And doing a damned fine job of it, too, Morgan thought. The ruthlessly honest part of himself that he inherited from his mother the living legend wouldn't let him think anything less.
Shaking his head tiredly, Morgan gave her a bleak look and began, "Jaime – "
He wasn't really sure what he was going to have followed that with, but Jamie didn't give him a chance to explore it. With a sharp gesture, she cut him off.
"Morgan... Alexander LaVelle Harris and Cordelia Desiree Chase didn't set out to be living legends or heroes. As I understand it, they were just a couple of normal teenagers who got stuck in the middle of extraordinary events and found themselves forced to become extraordinary in order to survive it," Jamie said, looking up at him earnestly. The concept of seeing his parents as ordinary anythings boggled Morgan for a moment, and robbed him of speech. "Faith Michelle Lehane, too. Just a bit less with the 'ordinary', because hey: Slayer."
"It's not that simple, Jamie," Morgan began...
"Sure it is. You just can't see it."
"I'm pretty sure I've been seeing my parents my whole damned life, Jamie," Morgan said, his voice flat and weary in his own ears.
She cocked her head again, studying him. "You've been seeing what they became, Morg," Jamie said. "You started out seeing them as a kid, and to a kid, parents are always larger than life. And then the Long Night happened and the Long Dark fell, and you watched them become living legends because that was what Tech-comm needed someone to be. They were it. And they groomed you to be that after they were gone, because they knew they weren't going to be around forever, and someone had to. Someone they could count on."
Old and familiar ground, finally, and Morgan found a footing on it at last. "Let me know when you hit the parts I don't already know, okay?"
"You know it above the eyebrows, Morg. Not deep down where you live," Jamie said, her voice still calm and her eyes still earnest on his own. "Xander Harris, Cordelia Chase, and Faith Lehane didn't become living legends on their own, or in a vacuum. They had a cast of hundreds helping them do it. And according to mom, they never ever lost sight of who they were."
"Right," Morgan began, nodding–
"You and Kyle have been trying to do it by yourselves," Jamie said, cutting across him. "Sure, you've had help, but way deep down, everyone, even the people who know better, have always been expecting and needing both of you to be the sons of the legends. Doesn't help any that all of your lives, you've been surrounded by living legends. You both have been so busy trying to be that, and trying to live up to that legend that you never have even figured out just who the hell Morgan Chase-Harris is."
"I– "
Oh, crap. Morgan suddenly found that he didn't really have anything to say to that. Probably there was something, and he was just too brain dead exhausted to think of it. Damned women... always hitting you with stuff like this when you were least capable of dealing with it rationally...
"Right." Jamie nodded, still studying him intently. "Morg. What are you going to do with yourself when we finally put paid to MALCOLM and CAIN and there's no more wars to plan?"
"Ah... "
No answer to that, not a truthful one at least. He just flat was not going to tell Jamie Summers that if their plans finalized out, that there just wasn't gonna be an after for him...
Because Morgan Chase-Harris had already figured out that there wasn't a place for someone like him in the brave new world the survivors of the war against the machine would be building. He'd known nothing but war and the preparation for it all his life, even before the Long Night.
Fucking Victor Creed would be more capable of adapting to peacetime than he would be. And wasn't that just a hell of a notion?
"Well?" Jamie arched an eyebrow at him, looking uncomfortably like her mother all of a sudden, and Morgan was damned glad that she couldn't read minds...
Morgan flushed under that knowing gaze, and shrugged. "I'd kinda planned on retiring to Pellucidar. Finishing the exploration there and mapping it out for full colonization and settlement. Maybe doing some fishing, and a few hunting vacations to Limbo."
"Well, at least you've thought about it," Jamie said, nodding. "You'll be bored to tears in three months, and eating your service pistol in six."
"I will not!" Morgan stared at her, incredulous.
"Right," she said, drawling it out. Jamie rolled her eyes at him. "Morgan... in order to live, you have to have something to live for. And right now? You have Tech-comm and seeing the end of MALCOLM and CAIN and putting paid to the war against the machines. Once that's gone?"
"I notice you didn't and haven't said 'if'," Morgan observed, studying her in turn.
"Nope. Losing isn't an option, so we won't."
"Simple as that, huh?" Morgan shook his head, suddenly bemused.
"Yup." Jamie nodded, grinning for the first time since the conversation went deadly serious on them. "Simple. Not easy. You'll pull it off, regardless. It's what you were meant to do."
Snorting, Morgan shook his head again, the corner of his mouth curling up into something resembling a smile. "I thought you didn't believe in destiny and fate, Jamie."
"I don't. I inherited it from your mom and dad," she said, nodding seriously. "Which is kind of odd, considering that I'm the one that's not related to them."
"No fate but what we make," Morgan murmured.
"Right. To you, it's a catch phrase," Jamie said, smirking up at him. "For me, it's reality."
"How does that square with me being meant to do this thing?" Morgan asked, honestly curious.
"Simple. You've been raised and groomed your whole entire life to do just that," Jamie said, seriously. "You won't let yourself do anything else. And you have a cast of hundreds working double time to make sure that you pull it off."
"Ah." Morgan shook his head again, smiling slightly. "Well, then," he said, "Since it's a given, then, I guess I'll just have to figure out what I'm going to live for afterward."
"Yup. At least now I know you'll be thinking about it," Jamie said, her grin turning lopsided on him. "Even if I did have to practically whop you upside the head to get your brain to jump the tracks and head that way."
"I will," he said, looking at her seriously.
"I know. I'm appointing myself to make sure you act on it instead of just thinking about it," Jamie said, narrowing her eyes up at him.
"You are, huh?"
"Yup. Damned officers can't even tie their shoes without a good Command Sergeant making sure they know which ends to pull," she declared, smirking again.
"Good thing I wear boots, then," Morgan said, laughing quietly. "Command Sergeant? Did I promote you while I was half asleep and forget about it?"
"Tempted to say 'yes' and let you wonder about it."
"Guess I'll have to do something about that."
"Reckon you will."
Morgan had a pithy rejoinder to that, honestly, but a sudden yawn that threatened to split his face in half coupled with a cavernous sound from his midsection derailed whatever it was completely.
"C'mon, General Schmuck," Jamie said, snickering. Taking his arm, she turned and started heading them both toward the commissary, APRIL and ALICE trailing along after them. "Let's feed you and then put you to bed."
"Sounds like a plan," Morgan said, nodding. "I won't argue. Gonna tuck me in, too?"
"Yup. I'll even sleep with you to make sure you fucking stay there," Jamie said, nodding back.
"Ah... " Morgan stutter-stepped, nearly stumbling to another embarrassing halt. Damned woman.
"Just sleep, moron," Jamie said, laughing, "Considering that I've been up and at 'em since before daylight, Pylea time, and I'm beat as well."
"Ah. Well, all right, then," Morgan said, shaking his head in complete bemusement and swallowing another yawn. "Good plan."
"Anything else we'll have to negotiate on later. You'll definitely want to be awake for it, I promise you."
.