Lilo & Stitch's Star Trek
Chapter 64: Temporal Investigations
In the three days since the incident, Nani hadn't let Lilo out of her sight.
Not that the little girl had showed any interest in caring. Whenever Jumba had seen her – in the lounge, or in her room, or on the beach, or at the cliffside – she'd been just sitting on the floor, her head in her hands, just staring into space.
Nan, on the other hand, appeared to have gone too far in the other direction. Since their fateful trip, she'd been treating Lilo like a porcelain queen. In the mornings, it was coconut cake for breakfast. She'd fuss over every scratch and bruise. And not only that, but anything Lilo wanted, Nani would give her – the problem being that, considering the state Lilo was in, she had to resort to naming things she knew Lilo liked, with which she responded with an apathetic 'whatever'.
Stitch seemed to be somewhere in between. He'd been silent since the event, but followed Lilo with a determined look on his face, as if to be sure he could protect her. His was the more reasonable and rational reaction, Jumba felt – that it was his own creation, built to destroy, surprised him a little, but he supposed he'd assimilated a little bit of character from everyone in the family, and thus strived for a median in his views.
And as for the other experiments, Jumba had confined them to his ship for the time being – better they not have to deal with drama that had very little to do with them.
For their part in the escapades, Jumba and Pleakley had been given an ultimatum: five days to move out or else very bad things would happen. Just what those things might be were left to their imagination, but Jumba had decided he didn't want to find out, and Pleakley didn't seem eager to either, judging by the speed at which he had packed that night.
Jumba had already packed most of his day-to-day belongings, and had finished dismantling the tunnel to his laboratory the day before – the last thing he needed was for Nani to find out about it after-the-fact.
Now, on this particular day, the sun was shining rather weakly through the window, and a slightly cool breeze puffed against Jumba's cheek – a reminder of the oncoming winter. Jumba had been pondering the thought of adopting a home that was close enough that he could just tunnel through to his laboratory, even earmarking houses in a real estate magazine.
Knock knock knock.
No, it was too risky. He'd have to transfer the information remotely to his new place, and rebuild there. Maybe even enable the self-destruct on this one – if it came to that.
"Coming!" called Pleakley from some far off part of the house.
Then again, the lab was separated from the house by five meters of cement., and another ten of dirt The likelihood of anyone finding it was astronomically tiny-
"Hey, Jumba! These guys want to see you!"
Urgh, just what he needed. More distractions.
Jumba lumbered down to the door.
The two men that greeted his sight as he came in view of the doorway were peculiar only in their normality. The man on the left had dark brown hair with a fringe that threatened to cover his eyebrows, slicked up in some kind of hair gel to maintain a professional look. The man on the right had ginger hair atop a high forehead ridged with worry lines, his large ears sticking over the scraggly follicles near the middle of his head. Both men were Caucasian, and both wore matching suits and ties.
"Hello, Jumba Jookiba," the ginger-haired one greeted.
"I'm Dulmer," said the brown-headed man.
"And I'm Lucsly," continued the other.
"We're from the Department of Temporal Investigations," they said together.
"Oh." Jumba hadn't heard of this organisation before, but then again he hadn't heard of a lot of things. "I suppose you are being here about our little trip to the future."
"That happened three days ago," noted Pleakley in a rather unimpressed voice. "Not very timely, are we?"
Dulmer stared at him for a second.
"Was that a joke?"
"What-no-of-course-not!" Pleakley stammered quickly.
"Good," said Lucsly. "We hate those."
"The United States takes temporal incurrences and interferences very seriously," said Dulmer rather monotonously. "As such, our job is to investigate temporal incidents to make sure that the course of history – both past and future – remains constant. It's a job we do not take lightly."
"Even if we were inclined to," continued Lucsly, "our superiors wouldn't allow it. Not after the Philadelphia experiment, at least."
"Or the Borealis incident, for that matter."
"That one was a doozy of a mess to clean up."
Dulmer nodded. "Lots of paperwork."
"Now anyway," said Lucsly, "do you have anywhere where we can sit and talk?"
"Specifically, we'd need to note down the events that conspired," said Dulmer, "and we prefer not to do it standing up."
"Of course," replied Pleakley. "This way."
He led the two to the kitchen, and, once there, pulled out two chairs for them,
"Thanks," said Dulmer, once everyone had taken a seat. "Now, let's hear it, from the beginning."
"That is, unless it's a predestination paradox," added Lucsly.
"We hate those too," said Dulmer.
"Jumba, you don't think it was-"
"As far as I am knowing, it is not," said Jumba. "But there are parts of story I am not knowing, so-"
"You didn't debrief your crew?" asked Dulmer.
"Er… I did, but you see, two of, uh, 'my crew' are undergoing some… how you say, psychological issues right now, and they refuse to be talking about it – or talking to me altogether, for that matter." He sighed. "Not that I am blaming them…"
"Very well," said Lucsly. "Tell us what you can, then."
The two government men listened patiently as Jumba and Pleakley took turns filling them in on the details that they knew about. Dulmer and Lucsly nodded along, only speaking to ask questions, and only moving to tap out a few notes into their phones.
When they had finished, the two exchanged glances and shook their heads.
"What is it? We are not going to… prison, are we?"
Jumba shuddered at the thought. To him, even exile was better than prison.
"No, Mr. Jookiba," answered Dulmer. "But… well, we try to avoid doing this at all costs, but to protect the integrity of past and future spacetime events, I'm afraid we have no choice."
"You aren't going to kill us-"
"Of course not, Mr. Pleakley," interrupted Lucsly. "Who do you think we are, the CIA?"
"Besides," continued Dulmer, "the events of the year 2374 have not been significantly altered by your presence-"
"We blew up a Borg ship!" exclaimed Jumba, standing up from the table. Pleakley looked at him as if he was insane – after all, weren't they trying to not get killed?
Dulmer glared at Jumba, and he shrank back into his seat.
"As I was saying, our simulations show that your actions, while undoubtedly effective, had no bearing on the destruction of the Borg vessel – they would have been replicated by someone else, for instance, Jean-Luc Picard, a man with intricate knowledge of the Borg. Going back in time to kill you prior to these events, even if we could possibly do that, and even if it wasn't completely illegal, would, essentially, be a waste of resources."
Nodding, Lucsly drew from his pocket a long metallic tube with what appeared to be a lens on one end and a flash on the other.
"A… camera?" asked Pleakley.
Lucsly ignored him.
"How long would you estimate you were chasing after 628?" he asked, sliding a dial at the back. "With return time, if possible."
"It'd… be in my ship's logs," replied Jumba slowly, eyeing the device suspiciously.
"Oh, don't worry, we won't use this on you two," said Lucsly.
"Our assessment of the facts," said Dulmer, "is that while the far future is not in jeopardy, the current condition of the three most affected people – that would be the two Pelekais and your experiment, number six-two-six – would alter the timeline significantly enough that we can't allow them to continue as they are."
Pleakley grasped his lower lip in shock.
"You're not going to kill them, are y-"
Dulmer put his hand to his forehead and shook his head.
"What my partner means," said Lucsly, "is that we're going to erase their memories of what happened. Nothing technical, no head-slicing – all they need is to see this go flash, and it would be as if it never happened."
Jumba glared at them. This seemed like a bad idea.
"Trust us, it would be better this way," Lucsly continued. "For both them and you. You told us earlier about how Ms. Pelekai smothers her younger sister, and how she herself seems emotionally detached from the world, right? And, of course, you would still have a home here on Earth."
"Besides," said Dulmer, "the moment you leave this house for good, you leave the protective custody of the Galactic Federation. While you won't be arrested, and the Council would no doubt be restrained by the Grand Councilwoman, there are plenty of bounty hunters out there that have no such legal restraints."
Jumba and Pleakley exchanged nervous glances.
"So, what would be a good time for them to, well, 'wake up'?" asked Dulmer, as if they'd already agreed.
Jumba looked from Dulmer to Pleakley, and back again. And he he sighed.
"Go get the logs, Pleakley."
"But- you can't seriously be-"
"Go get the logs, Pleakley."
"Fine!" He folded his arms, turned around, and left for the ship.
Jumba waited for the slam of the front door before turning back to the two government men.
"This is painless, no?"
"Absolutely painless," said Lucsly.
"They might feel a tingling sensation when they awake, though," said Dulmer.
"And it erases only specific memories?"
"Set how long you want to erase, and only those memories will be gone," said Lucsly.
"We have had some cases where it erased slightly more than we intended," said Dulmer.
"But never more than a few minutes," said Lucsly.
"There's no… ethical ramifications?"
"Oh, we know full well about the ethics," said Dulmer.
"We're altering people's memories. Of course there are ramifications," said Lucsly. "But we think – and the Department thinks – the rights that we are doing far outweigh the wrongs that could possibly be done."
"Preventing mass hysteria," said Dulmer.
"Saving lives," said Lucsly.
"Stopping wars," said Dulmer.
"That kind of thing," said Lucsly.
"Wars?"
"There was one man who went back in time to convince a Russian general to launch a nuclear attack on the United States," said Lucsly.
"All the Department had to do was wipe their memories," said Dulmer.
"It was like he never thought of the idea," said Lucsly.
"And as if the general never heard it," added Dulmer unnecessarily.
"But anyway, we believe the risk of harm to the timeline is worth the ramifications."
Dulmer nodded. "When we say that, it's usually rather serious."
"World-changing serious-"
"Alright, I am getting point!"
Jumba stood up from the table, looked at Lucsly, and sighed.
"So, uh… how are we going to be doing this?"
"Once Mr. Pleakley returns with the data, you will gather the family together," said Dulmer. "We'll take care of the rest."
Thinking.
It was all Lilo could do these days. Thinking stopped the buzzing feeling in her brain. Thinking stopped her emotions from overwhelming her.
Thinking stopped her from remembering what she had done.
Sometimes she thought about rationalisations, about justifying herself – but that was all they were, justifications. It would have mattered little to the people she assimilated, to the people she'd destroyed, whether there was a reason to the madness. Even if they were freed from their slavery, they'd still look at her face with the same degree of hatred they had then, with the looks reserved for murderers, dictators, and the scum of the Earth. She could see them when she slept – one nightmare replaced with another – and she wondered if she'd be able to take it in the long term.
She shook her head and tried to think of more positive things.
It was some time before Nani's echoing voice roused her from her ponderings. And so, with heavy heart and what felt like the weight of the world on her shoulders, she dragged herself onto the lift, waited for it to settle at the bottom, stumbled down the hallway and into the lounge.
"Honey," said Nani as Lilo entered the room, gesturing at a pair of unfamiliar men, both wearing the same black suit. "These are some men from… uh,,,"
She glanced towards Jumba.
"Temporal Investigations," said the one with the red hair.
"I'm Dulmer and he's Luscly," the brown-haired man named Dulmer continued.
"We've been taking statements about the… incident," said Lucsly.
"I don't want to talk about it," muttered Lilo.
"That's fine," said Lucsly. "We just need one thing."
"A photograph, to be precise."
Nani raised her eyebrow. "A… photograph?"
"Of all of you."
"For the file, of course."
"We don't like it much either…"
"But it's department policy."
"Our heads would probably fire us on the spot."
"A bit too dramatic," Dulmer muttered.
Lucsly glared at his partner, and then sighed. "Er… well, it wouldn't reflect well on us, at the very least."
"So… uh, where do you wanna take the photo?" asked Nani.
"In front of the couch is as good a place as any," said Dulmer.
Lucsly nodded. "It's not like we're trying to make artwork here."
It took two minutes to arrange them all in front of the couch – a record, as Stitch would normally be too rambunctious to stand still for a photograph. Now, though…
"All right, then-"
"Oy, Jumba, Pleakley, don't be rude – take those sunglasses off!" whispered Nani. Lilo looked up at them and noticed they were indeed wearing shades (although Pleakley's single monocle was held on by a strap, due to his lack of ears.)
"Actually, we've requested they wear them," said Dulmer.
"Their eyes are… sensitive to the kind of flash we'll be using," said Lucsly.
"The humans and 626 should be fine, though," Dulmer hastily added when Nani raised her eyebrow.
"Manufacturer defect, been meaning to send it in," said Lucsly.
Dulmer knelt down and held out a small tubule. Lilo had the strange feeling she'd seen it before - in a movie or something.
"That's a camera?" asked Nani.
"Special classification," said Dulmer.
"Our technology's a bit more advanced than what's available to the public," said Lucsly.
"Alright then, please look directly into the camera."
"Smile!"
Nobody smiled.
"Really, Lucsly? After what they've been through?"
"I just wanted to make it realistic."
Dulmer shrugged, and held his finger ready over the button.
It was at that moment, staring at the distinctive shape of the device, that Lilo recognised the device.
"Hey, isn't that the dene-"
But before she could finish, Dulmer pressed the shutter.
And Lilo, and the entire world around her, was lost in a blinding flash of white.