Posted 06-18-24

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Chapter 5

The Third Force

Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Let me specify," Gabriel said to me. "To accomplish what we must, we must journey together beyond the boundaries that you never imagined could be crossed. You will find yourself addressing an entirely new perspective involving the secrets of Creation."

"I see. So, what's the downside?"

"To function efficiently, you must acquire the same enhancements received by our official time agents, such as Diana."

"Enhancements? Screw that! If I let your tech into my body, you could turn me into a controlled shell of myself!"

"I assure you, Mantra, your persona will not be overwritten. You must remain the capable person you are. The enhancements I speak of are necessary to accomplish the task ahead of us."

"So you say, but how can I trust a person with powers like yours? I once trusted a man I shouldn't have, and look where I ended up!"

"You are alluding to Archimage and that is, of course, true. But for all his faults, Archimage set you on a course leading to your becoming a consummate ultra-hero."

"I think you mean ultra-heroine! I didn't ask for this! My life was complex enough the way it was!"

"I seem to recall that when you lost your ultra-powers, you very much missed them."

I tossed my head. "Why wouldn't I? My powers have been the only good thing I've gotten out of this deal!"

"Haven't you gained comfort in being part of a family?"

"Don't bring the kids into this! I'm willing to play along with you for a while unless I decide you're not playing straight with me. If you're using me for a dupe, I may have to introduce you to my Sword of Fangs!"

"It's a bargain!" he said, offering me his hand. This time, I decided to take it.

"What happens next?" I asked.

"It's already happened."

I frowned. "Nothing's happened."

"Something has happened, but it played out in attenuated time while you were in suspended animation."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying you have undergone an extensive modification process while we've been standing here."

"I didn't agree to anything like that!"

"Oh, excuse me. I thought you did. We shook on it, as your people say. It is lamentable that language is such an inefficient mode of communication."

I might have done something violent had I not then been distracted by strange feelings. Nothing around me looked quite the same. My perceptions were sharpened. My mind had become keener, like radio a souped-up to receive new wavelengths.

"Your nanobots have been tied into the same VIGOPS feed as the rest of our time-agent corps. You will learn how to draw upon the information it provides, but it must be done slowly. Too much information at once overwhelms a human mind."

"I don't like the sound of this!"

"The new configuration you've received is harmless! Think of yourself as a computer that has gotten an extensive upgrade. The programming will operate for your benefit without you needing to think about it."

I thought he was describing a cyborg! Damn! I should have killed the fat little rat before letting him touch me!

I was taken off guard by Gabriel's next question. "Mantra, what do you think we should do next?"

"You're asking me?"

"This is a test of your VIGOPS access. How should we address the obstacles ahead of us?"

"How do I answer that? What do I know about the obstacles we're facing?"

"You do know about them because the VIGOPS knows. Contemplate the question, and our options will manifest in your mind."

I thought for a moment. "The one thing coming through loud and clear is that we should be aggressive. We should kill that bitch Sersi before she hooks up with the Ego Gem. Wouldn't that be the logical step?"

"It certainly would be, but the Gem already controls Sersi in zero time. As you might say, we are forced to play the cards we've been dealt."

"If you want better answers, why don't you ask them yourself?"

"I do, constantly. But we can accomplish so much more as a team. Now, tell me, what other inspirations do you have?"

Deciding to play along, I said, "We need more information. Getting it should be our priority. I'm one of those people who doesn't like to have grass growing under his feet."

"Very well, we commence an intense investigation," the Timekeeper affirmed.

In a flash, we were out of the Dark Shoppe and occupying a region with an imprecise and unreal look. The only distinct in sight was an object -- a vehicle, I thought -- parked ahead of us. I somehow knew that the object was Gabriel's "Time Capsule," a metal thing structured like a piece of tubing. The little man crossed to it, opened a hatch, and invited me inside. When I entered, I saw that the Time Capsule was larger on the inside than it was on the outside!

Gabriel began a spiel about "Inter-dimensional engineering" while leading me on a tour of the Time Capsule. I couldn't believe its size! It was like exploring a city. No person was going to get claustrophobic while occupying the thing!

On the other hand, that uninhabited place made me feel as lonely as all hell!

After my awe had worn off, I asked the Timekeeper, "If nothing that happens in zero-time can be changed, what is the situation? What's going on in zero time at this exact microsecond?"

Gabriel answered with a twinkle in his eyes and I began to get a feed from the VIGOPS. The gist of the tale it told was that several other heroes, ultra types hailing from the Scaffold Universe, had arrived on the Main Bough. They represented a group called "the Avengers" that had come searching for their ally Sersi, who was missing from their home world. These beings included the god Thor, whom I had already met.

The VIGOPS further informed me that upon entering this timeline, the Avengers had fallen into the power of Loki, who had been super-charged by his control of the Infinity Array. The nut-case god forced them into a kind of gladiatorial competition against ultras abducted from my own Earth. These ultras happened to be the UltraForce, most of whom I knew slightly. Furthermore, I was informed that Sersi had not yet gained possession of the Infinity Array.

"Can we intervene and stop her?" I asked my companion.

"Possibly," Gabriel replied. "Are you ready to embark on an adventure?"

"Where are we going?"

"To a place that the VIGOPS tells me is very primitive and dangerous. You have heard of it."

"Heard of what?"

"New York City."

The Time Capsule we occupied started making noises like musical instruments being badly played. The next thing I knew, the monitors let us know we were hovering over the Bad Apple.

I suddenly understood that this scene was about to become a battlefield between an alliance of the Avengers and the UltraForce against the zombie god Nemesis. We had entered a timeline recently cloned from the Main Bough, looking at events that had not occurred in my world as yet. Gabriel intended to run a controlled experiment in this place. He wanted to see what would happen if we failed in our effort to interrupt the march of events.

My informational download told me Nemesis had successfully snatched the six gems from Loki. The God of Mischief, who had defeated me so handily the month before, had proved to be no match for the resurrected Nemesis and had slunk away, leaving the saving of the Multiverse to the Avengers and the UltraForce.

I thought I was about to watch a rousing good battle, but my monitor had not been configured for a viewer's entertainment. All I could see were flying figures in the distance.

Then it all went dark.

"What happened?" I asked Gabriel.

"Eureka!" he exclaimed.

"Eureka? Is that good?"

"It's very good," he replied.

"Why did the screen go dark?"

"That was caused by the self-defense system of the Time Capsule. It's programmed to avoid destruction. If we had remained in that timeline, released Nemesis Energy would have obliterated us along with the entire timeline.”

“That’s it? That’s how a universe dies?”

"Unfortunately, yes. But before we left, the VIGOPS recorded a secret. Something hitherto unexpected occurred there. It seems to be a mystery wrapped in an enigma."

"Tell me straight, Winston Churchill, what did you find out?"

"We have discovered an overlooked event that defies the Law of Conservation of Energy."

"So what? I thought Timekeeper science was way more sophisticated than the scientific notions of the planet Earth."

"That is true, but Émilie du Châtelet's basic concept of his law was not wrong. The problem is that Earth's physicists have understood that basic concept. "

"I didn't see anything noteworthy on my monitor. What did you see?"

"Not a great deal more than that. Even my trained eyes and expanded mind failed to notice all the action. But the subtext of the event has been recorded by the VIGOPS."

"Don't hold me in suspense. Have we learned how to save the Multiverse in zero time?"

"No, it is still doomed."

"Oh, bugger!"

"But we have learned that a third force was engaged in the conflict we just witnessed."

"On whose side was it?"

"It was on our side, definitely!"

"So some hidden party was secretly helping us?"

"Yes! In truth, we now know that the Black Knight played only a small part in Nemesis' defeat. It was this third factor that delivered the destroying blow. And the blow, I must say, was infinitely more sophisticated than the knight’s sword blow."

"But this secret flanking maneuver was still ineffective, you say?"

"Lamentably, yes. The intervention was not one hundred percent effective. The particle of Nemesis Energy that escaped from the god’s directed will cause the entire timeline to blink out of existence."

"That timeline is missing now?"

"Not exactly. I advise you to ask consult the VIGOPS. Time is pressing and you need practice in mastering your assets."

I did as he asked and realized that the clone world's original timeline had been replaced with an imperfect copy, a phenomenon I had witnessed on that wacky timeline I had been trapped in for a few days.

"If we can properly interpret the information we now have,” said Gabriel, "we may return to the Main Bough with knowledge enough to defeat Nemesis!"

"How easy will that be?" I asked.

"It will not be easy, but at least we have discovered a new road to success."

"What about killing Sersi? Wasting her still sounds like a good idea to me."

"We shall leave that possibility open. But if we discover and identify the third force, we may have an easier time of it."

"So, what do we know for certain?" I asked.

"By the current analysis, some force that we do not yet know about intervened in the battle and intercepted the great majority of the energy released by Nemesis. In a strange application of the Law of Conservation of Energy, it was converted into harmless electromagnetic wave energy."

"How harmless?"

"As harmless as visible light."

"Wait a minute! Nemesis is supposed to command energy powerful enough to destroy the Multiverse. Are you saying it was changed into a few megawatts of visible light? Shouldn't there have been enough energy to fuel a supernova?"

"Far more than that, one would think. The VIGOPS is still trying to understand the actual physics of the phenomenon."

"Where does that leave us?" I asked.

The little man looked elated. "If a force, or a being, can do a thing so incredible, we need to bring that phenomenon into our own Main Bough. If the Main Bough can be saved, the entire Multiverse will be saved with it. Our task is to discover how that energy-conversion field came to be applied against Nemesis and how it can be made even more effective."

"Effective enough to save the Multiverse?"

"Yes, that is my hope!"

The monitors came on just then, displaying us in a completely different location.

"Where have we just ended up?" I asked.

He frowned down at his monitor. "We're back on the Main Bough. We have already begun our pursuit of the third force as it exists in zero time. The VIGOPS is currently creating a broad search pattern to discover the phenomenon. When it is found, we shall go after it!"

"Do we have time to carry out any long search?"

"No, we do not, but the search is being carried out in attenuated time. We have been sensible of a few passing minutes. That means tracing the third force must be an extraordinarily difficult task for the VIGOPS. I've never seen it take so long as this."

"So, what can we usefully do while we're waiting?" I asked.

"We can greatly profit from reordering our thinking. One cannot solve a problem until first he knows the proper questions."

"What are the proper questions?"

And so he told me.

Wow! It now appeared that we would have quite a day ahead of us!

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 6