Better get yourself together, and hold on to what you've got
Once the music hits your system, there's no way you're gonna stop
– Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine (Conga)
=/\=
"Yanno, this happens every time," Doug said, still in Lili's dream, still in 2192. There was no hint of exasperation. It was merely a simple statement of fact.
"I don't get it. This has happened before?"
"Yes," he said, "whenever you sleep by yourself, you dream about me, ever since Malcolm retired from Starfleet a few years ago. So it's not often – usually when you sleep, he's with you, and you dream together. I pick my moments with you. They don't come too often."
"Why do I forget these dreams?"
"You're supposed to," he said, "for otherwise, you'd just live to sleep, pretty much. You'd give up on life, and on him. And you shouldn't. You've got a whole lot of it left, and it's with him and it's going to continue to be wonderful." He took her hand, and there was a bit of sparking between them, although it went away quickly.
"Ionization," she said, "I bet I say that every time, too."
"Don't be upset," he said, "these dreams are – they are kind of a gift. And they're a break for me."
"A break?"
"Yeah, I uh, Purgatory is very real. Ian and I both have a lot to work off. Not so much for Jay."
"Jay, I take it, you mean your counterpart, Jay Hayes. But who's Ian?"
"Malcolm's mirror counterpart," Doug explained, "he wanted to distance himself from all of the terrible things he had done in his life, so he took a different name."
"Kind of like you decided you wanted to be Beckett instead of Hayes when you crossed over to this universe?"
"Originally, that was to protect Laura Hayes, Jay's sister, to keep her from just stumbling across me. But as time went on, I also felt the new name helped to give me a fresh start. Doug Hayes was a killer, he cheated on every girlfriend he ever had and he never let himself get close to anyone. Doug Beckett was a family man, a loyal husband –"
"In an open marriage," she reminded him.
"Yes, that's true, but I never wanted anyone but you and Melissa, never."
"Speaking of her, are you ever in her dreams?"
"Most nights. She tends toward depression; I think she needs the help. But she also forgets."
"I see," Lili said.
=/\=
From his seat near the bed, Malcolm clearly heard her say, "Are you ever in her dreams?"
=/\=
Helen Walker lived on Callisto. Or, rather, she was hiding out there, for a goodly portion of the Perfectionists' secrecy had been the faking of her death, in 3109. She and all of the Human Unit's less senior time travelers – including the AWOL Doctor Marisol Castillo – were interviewed by Carmen in a group interview setting. Then they had left the Temporal Integrity Commission in two shuttles. One shuttle was fine. The other crash-landed on Berren One.
Helen was presumed dead, a victim of the crash. Marisol even confirmed that, but it was all a part of the ruse. HD Avery had been on that shuttle, and he and the others had gotten out in time, before the shuttle was consumed by the superheated daylight side of that benzene-soaked tiny world. Because time was short and the other passengers were in peril, the body had been left in the shuttle. It seemed that rapid cremation was the only thing in Helen Walker's future.
Instead, she was very much alive, and had been beamed out, taken to 1959 in the Audrey Niffenegger – briefly swiped by an insider – and had observed Rick putting back a little test run of a temporal change.
She saw how he did things, he succeeded, she got herself back to 3109, and they were off to the temporal races. On the way, the Perfectionists got a hold of a dandy piece of time travel technology.
A temporal enhancer cuff would be held or worn, and a date and coordinates selected. All a time traveler had to do was swallow a dose of a companion substance known as trichronium and off he or she could go. Return was achieved when the dose of trichronium had worn off. It was far easier to secrete than a stolen time ship. Its only flaw was that it couldn't cross universes. For that, you needed a time ship.
Helen had been a time traveler for the Perfectionists, performing tasks such as keeping people off planes fated to crash. Or she would perform diversionary missions, like bribing a computer company executive in order to prevent his company from releasing the software that had become the first LAN.
She worked with other Perfectionist time travelers, and had even acted as the bait for a blackmail scheme. She had a medical degree and, before her falsified death, had been a Professor of Medical History at the Dione Medical School.
But now, with her father in the mirror – and a good 900 plus years before her, she had been cut loose – at least partly. Her father had been the leader of the Perfectionists, and he had been the one holding the Temporal Enhancer cuff. He had given the cuff to her when he had gone to the mirror – and eventually to the arms of Empress Hoshi.
His ostensible successor to the leadership of the Perfectionists was a time traveler named Donald Oliver. However, it was Helen who still held the Temporal Enhancer cuff, and she had been instructed to not give it up without a fight. Whoever held that cuff, held the real power in the Perfectionists' organization.
She sat alone in her home and spun the cuff around a finger, as if it were some small, ornate metallic hula hoop. She gazed at a PADD screen, performing research.
"All right," she said to no one, Titania drawl honey in her voice, "Daddy only wants us to cover the first epoch of the Space Age. That's 1957 – Sputnik – to 2063 – the first Warp One flight. I need one good kicker of a mission and one or two diversions. And I've got some ideas."
She shifted positions before continuing. "If the first epoch is so vital, let's see what happens if we put back one of the biggest space-related events of that time period? As for my diversions, let's define the space and time. So, one for 1957, and the other for 2063," she paused, "oh, these are gonna be so good! Ya'll are gonna be so proud o' me, Daddy!"
She smiled to herself and contemplated the consequences of all three proposed alterations.
=/\=
"I will bring you to Yimar," Doug said, changing the subject, "because I know this is important. Time is going to start to unravel. There are going to be any number of things going on at once, both on your side and in the mirror."
"But you said I'd forget. So warning me of that seems kinda pointless," Lili stated.
"That part you'll know. You just won't know how you know it."
They began to walk together. There were other people in the dream, but they did not make eye contact. It was if they didn't see Doug and Lili. They came to a door. "This is it," he said, "she's in there."
"When do I see you again?" Lili asked.
"In a year or so. This is one of the last times you'll see me before, well, before you see me and Jay and Ian and everyone else, all the time."
"So I'll die soon," Lili rolled that over in her mind.
"Just over a decade from now."
"Does Malcolm remarry?"
"No," Doug said, "he'll join you less than a month later."
"Suicide?"
Doug shook his head. "It's more that he just can't go on. You'll get here, and he'll get here, and one of the things you'll learn is just how intimately connected the two universes really and truly are. You see, whoever you loved, you love their counterpart, too, and vice versa. I mean, you ever notice how there are so many people who have counterparts? It's because the same people tend to pair up. So you're gonna find that you love Jay and Ian, too, and that they'll be in love with you. And Jay will also love Melissa, just as he and I love her counterpart, who's already here."
"Doug, my counterpart died when she was nine. Don't tell me," she shuddered, "that part can't be right."
"She – and you – and everyone – can be any age they like, even one they never got to experience in life. So she – she goes by Charlotte – Charlotte isn't a little child when, well, when you know."
"So there's lovemaking in heaven?"
"They wouldn't call it heaven if there wasn't. Now go. I love you. I am available whenever you need me, and I am always listening."
"How do you find time for it all?" Lili asked.
"We can bend time and shape it anyway we wish. But you shouldn't. And that's the problem." He leaned over, and they kissed, lingering.
Then he vanished into the mists and was joined by two other shadows – Ian and Jay, although they could not really be seen, and Lili had not known that they had been there all along. She changed back to age eighty-three, unaware that she had been any other age, however briefly.
Lili shook herself as if she had been dreaming within her dream, not remembering but knowing that something strange was happening to time, or was about to, and that she had to warn mirror High Priestess Yimar, and somehow they'd all have to figure out how to stop it.
She pushed on the door in front of her, and it opened.
=/\=
Come on, shake your body baby, do the conga
I know you can't control yourself any longer
Feel the rhythm of the music getting stronger
Come on, shake your body baby, do the conga
I know you can't control yourself any longer
Feel the rhythm of the music getting stronger
Come on, shake your body baby, do the conga
I know you can't control yourself any longer
Feel the rhythm of the music getting stronger
– Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine (Conga)