The Andromeda Disagreement – Part 6

The first bullet suddenly sped forward with a degree of mathematical calculation above anything Katrina had ever seen and slammed into the barrel of the Andromedian diplomat’s gun, destroying it. The second bullet flawlessly shot straight into the path of the laser beam heading towards Katrina, distorting it. The momentum of the bullet and the energy of the collision dramatically shifted the path of the beam, sending it flying above the head of another diplomat. It fizzled out harmlessly against one of the silver walls of the room.

All this happened in the space of less than a second.

Katrina and the Sloon’ians didn’t waste time. One of the Sloon’ians threw a small metal device through the air which landed on the cage. As soon as it locked on, the bars of light dissipated. Katrina hurriedly stepped back and ducked behind the chair of the diplomat sitting on her right as the Andromedian roared with rage. He pulled out another pistol – funny how everyone was sneaking weapons past the GUC sensors – and tried to hit her. From her position on the floor, Katrina saw this blast fire through the now-empty cage and dissipate on the floor.

But now one of her (very few) allies had had enough. It was the diplomat in the chair she was hiding behind, the man who had spoken to her at the beginning of the meeting. His name best translates to Quezatan, and he wasn’t planning on Katrina dying today. While he knew she could take car e of herself (as she had been doing for the past 399 years), the battle seemed a little one-sided at the moment, and he didn’t want to take a chance.

Quezatan pulled out a slim silver tube. Yes, yet another weapon. He was quite proud of this invention of his. It took advantage of the use of quantum physics to store a large metal net in a tiny area, that would expand when fired. The technology used to take advantage of quantum physics was similar to the atom spacing technology used by Katrina to create her expandable jetpacks.

However, this tube Quezatan had brought today was only a prototype, as he hadn’t been expecting any trouble. The net it fired would only be 4-dimensional. While it would be able to restrain the Andromedian diplomat indefinitely, if the diplomat had any 5-dimensional weapons, he would be able to easily escape the net by the Universal Stacked Dimensionality law. Judging by the amount of weaponry the Andromedian had already snuck past sensors, it seemed likely he would have something that was 5-d. Ah, well. May as well try.

Quezatan pointed the tube towards the Andromedian and pushed a small button on the side. A tiny silver square shot out, rapidly expanding until it was a large, strong metal net that landed on the Andromedian and began restraining him. Certain portions of the net unraveled and then reraveled to cover more of the diplomat until it was almost completely sealed around him.

Unfortunately for Katrina and Quezatan, it was at that moment that yet another diplomat decided to join in.

Time Travellers’ Weekly News Article

EARTH, WESTERN SPIRAL ARM – Last Sunday, the infamous Katrina was tried by the C.P.H.E. court on a charge of “editing” the time continuum. Katrina, who many, if not all, of our readers will be familiar with, has been previously charged with “abusing time travel”, says a representative of the C.P.H.E. “She does not deserve [to] keep the privileges she now has.”

The C.P.H.E., or Court of Preserving History on Earth, released the verdict to Time Travelers’ Weekly yesterday. For those who have not already been informed, she was found guilty. Now, we reveal the sentence for the first time. Katrina may not time travel for an entire year.

Katrina has spoken out about the trial and how it was “unfair.” She brings up the question of the new evidence brought forth – evidence with no apparent source. In this article, we cover her side of the story. But first, a review of the case.

In 892 BC in Earth’s history, a boy named Cyllius was born. In his lifespan, he managed to meet up with a man named Ptolemy Munair, who quickly helped raise him to power. He was the founder of the great Cyllian Empire. This empire quickly rose to power and expanded over much of Eastern Europe and the region of Africa with the Sahara Desert. They conquered Egypt in 330 BC, 300 years before Octavian of Rome. In 140 BC, they completely conquered the growing Roman Empire. Their legacy left the present-day Earth world a much harsher, crueler and more barbaric place.

However, Katrina states that Cyllius was never supposed to rise to power. Her story is that a stream of neutrinos, emitted from a defective time machine that was being driven past the area, caused a series of tiny changes which eventually led to the nucleotide sequence of Cyllius slightly changing. The slight change caused a mental syndrome which manifested itself in psychotic and megalomaniacal tendencies when Cyllius was older. Unfortunately, by that point he had come into a position of power. This mental syndrome led to the barbaric empire that arose.

Katrina claims that she traveled back in time, tracked the neutrinos’ radiation signature, and located the time traveler with the defective time machine. She then apparently traveled a little farther back in time and blocked the stream of neutrinos from ever reaching Cyllius. This caused him to never have had the mental syndrome, never rise to power, and never create a barbaric empire. The effects of this meant that present-day Earth was not nearly as barbaric or cruel.

It must be kept in mind that Katrina is only saying that this is what occurred. She has no evidence, and getting evidence would require traveling back in time to a spot where fatal paradoxes for several parties are quite likely. The C.P.H.E. has refused comment on her story at this time, and only agrees to talk about the verdict of the case and Katrina’s punishment.

More on this story as developments occur.

The Mafia Scandal – Part 1

The girl didn’t look dangerous enough, or even dangerous at all. She looked sweet and innocent, someone you would pass in the street and take no notice of. Unfortunately, the picture of innocence was somewhat shattered by the two bodyguards walking behind her.

The trio headed across the cool metal floor to a motionless figure, tied to a chair with a cloth sack over their head. The girl’s high heels clicked on the metal, while her bodyguards moved silently. The room they were in was large and frigid; a warehouse of some kind, the shadows at the edge of the room held stacks of boxes and large containers.

Stepping forward, she yanked the cloth sack off the figure’s head and let it slip to the floor. Now they could see that it was a girl tied to the chair, who appeared to be only about nineteen years of age. She was unconscious, and her dirty blond hair was tangled around her face.

“Wake her.” It was an order, directed at nobody, yet the girl in the high heels knew that it would be followed instantly. And it was. One of the bodyguards stepped forward with a syringe, which he injected into the unconscious girl’s arm. She stirred, and slowly raised her head.

The girl in the high heels (whose name was Kirstie) started slowly walking around the chair as the other girl straightened up in the chair. Kirstie began to talk.

“So, Katrina.”

Katrina’s expression, strangely enough, appeared to be changing to one of boredom.

“We have a lot to talk about.”

“I don’t think we have anything to talk about, Kirstie.”

In a sudden violent movement, Kirstie grabbed Katrina’s chin with her impeccable scarlet nails and tilted it upwards. The bodyguards stood in the background, motionless.

“I think we do.”

She knelt on the floor, still grasping Katrina’s chin, until their eyes were level. Katrina’s were full of hate, Kirstie’s of triumph.

“Why don’t we start with what you were doing hanging around that base in Russia.”

Katrina wrenched her face away. “I was there on business.”

“Whose business?”

“My own.”

“Then why was the FBI there as well?”

Katrina looked away. “Because they won’t give up, that’s why. I’m not telling you anything else.” She looked back, her blue eyes meeting Kirstie’s steely gray ones.

Kirstie circled around to the back of the chair again. “Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider?”

Katrina smirked. “Quite.”

“Then I guess we have nothing else left to do here.” Kirstie began stalking away, towards the single door they had entered in. A motion to her bodyguards told them to stay. When she reached the doorway, she called out, “Take care of her.” She closed the door and from an outside switch, turned out the lights.

A single shot echoed in the darkness.

The Andromeda Disagreement – Part 5

Thankfully, although time had slowed her movements, they had not slowed her perceptions. While she could not move her eyes very quickly, she could comprehend what she was seeing at a normal speed. And what she saw was the Sloon’ians (that is as close a translation of the name of their race as possible) using their ability to slow down time, down at the end of the table.

The Sloon’ians’ are a peculiar race that started evolving approximately 5 billion years ago from a primordial soup on their planet. This was 1.2 billion years before the first single-celled organisms appeared on the planet Earth.

The Sloon’ians planet is in the outer regions of the Miilky Way, but they are held with great respect, mainly because they are some of the most dangerous enemies you could possibly have in the galaxy, due to their ability to temporarily slow down time around them for very brief periods of time. You don’t want to fight an enemy who can shoot you before you can even get your gun raised.

Katrina knew all this, and she also knew there were seconds before the Sloon’ians could no longer hold back the flow of time. Luckily, they had already sprung into action. As their ability didn’t affect themselves, only other people, they could act at a normal speed. Katrina saw, as if in slow motion, the bullet from their gun spiraling through the air in the direction of the Andromedian diplomat’s gun barrel. Another one, a few seconds behind, was aimed towards the laser light that was still slowly moving towards Katrina. Turning her head very slowly, she could see the two Sloon’ian diplomats smiling and lowering their guns as in slow motion. Then time snapped back.

The Notre Dame Fiasco- Part 1

Jane booted up the computer with her boot. It was an old computer, and even though the power button apparently could not turn it on, whacking it with the boot apparently could. The computer was boxy, fat, and beige-colored, as well as being insufferably slow.

The computer whirred and hummed, and the screen went from black to the Toshiba 1996 logo.  After a few more moments, the username screen came up.

The date was 11/6/2012.

The background color of the screen was gray.  There were two choices for users, and a create new user button. Jane clicked on the create new user button. She filled in the username as top secret, the password as XXXXXX, and the password hint she left empty.

The stupid computer was so old that it still took floppy disks, forgotten by all by this date. Jane pulled out a drawer from the desk that the computer rested on, actually the only non-broken-or-gone drawer left in the desk. In it was a rack of floppy disks and a small wire container holding ten or twelve thumb drives.

Jane pulled out a thumbdrive that was black and red and stuffed it into the port in the side of the computer. She took off her other boot.

The computer beeped shrilly, high-pitched and annoying. The thumbdrive popped up in the bottom right hand computer. Clicking on it, Jane waited as the computer processed the click, sent it to the controlling part of the hard drive, sent it to the document hard drive by mistake, made a pop up window saying “do you wish to save document.click”, was hit by Jane, undid everything it had just done, and opened the thumbdrive.

Jane leaned back in the old office chair, heard the springs creak, picked at a loose thread on the cushion, spun around and took in the small room. The walls were pine planks, the room was very small (barely holding the desk and chair) and it was drafty. On the floor under the desks were two large racks of file folders, stuffed with folders and papers. The walls all had bulletin boards, with multicolored pins, and in a corner was another rack of files full of photographs, drives, and microchips.

The thumbdrive finally opened. In it was just one file folder, labeled Stuff. Clicking on it, Jane waited as documents and files were loaded. Now, folders showed up, one for every continent. Clicking on Europe, she selected the folder labeled “France.” Inside were ten or twelve documents. Jane hovered the mouse over, then pressed on the doc labeled ‘notre dame agreement.’

Inside, she read the document.  It was as follows:

The Notre Dame Agreement.

Set in Paris, France, the Notre Dame cathedral,

Date December eleventh, 2002.

An agreement made between Jane XXXXX and Katrina XXXXXXX.

The agreement is as follows:

On 11/9/2014, Jane and Katrina will meet in the Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France.

They will exchange information peaceably.

Jane and Katrina will then go their separate ways. They may also, on that date, agree to meet again.

Jane and Katrina will also not try to kill each other again during this meeting, and hopefully never (but that is negotiable.)

Jane and Katrina will not influence their future selves in any way, including a time capsule, delayed email, time travel, dimensional travel, or any other way, method, or other item of communication.

Signed this day by Jane and Katrina (signatures are censored but certified to be real.)

End of document.

Jane signed and put her boots back on. Three days. She could make that. Probably. The matter of arriving in Paris, however, was not as great as the matter of leaving there alive.

Alternate Universe – The American Revolution

Once, there was a particle.

But something was wrong. For reasons as yet unknown to the scientists now in 2043, this particle was a neutrino. And it was in the wrong place.

It should have been about two feet to the left. But it wasn’t. And so this neutrino was diverted, presumably by the gravity of the nearby star Sol, towards a planet. The planet was Earth. The neutrino hurtled towards Earth and struck an atom, which moved slightly and completed the last link in a dysfunctional DNA strand. The strand then, with other factors of the environment, eventually produced a small oak sapling. This grew up to be an oak tree. The oak tree grew until it was a large oak tree with plenty of large roots everywhere. The date was October 2, 1777, and because of a neutrino that was two feet off, an oak tree was formed.

5 days later, a militia was passing along that path, headed for what would come to be known as the Battle of Bemis Heights. Among them was Timothy Murphy. He was riding a horse, and carrying a rifle. He was supposed to go on and shoot the British General Simon Fraser. But his horse tripped over a root of the oak tree, and he was severely injured. In fact, he died of a broken neck twenty minutes later. Because of this, at the battle, not only did Simon Fraser survive, but he went on to lead the British army and because of his supreme battle skills, the battles of Gloucester, Red Bank, and Beauford were won by the British, as well as the battle of Bemis Heights. These four having been won led to several others being lost by the patriots, which ultimately led to the British winning the Revolutionary War and the American Revolution failing three years before it was supposed to have been won by the patriots.

For a certain patriot of the name Thomas Jefferson, this was a very big deal, and all because a neutrino particle was two feet to the left of where it should have been.

The Andromeda Disagreement – Part 4

Part 4

By Madigan

Katrina was caught off guard, and as she realized the man yelling at her was an Andromedian, she felt a sharp pang of fear. It truly had been an accident that led to the vaporization of those planets, but she was still nervous for the upcoming trial. And she also knew that Andromedians were not to be underestimated.

Trying to smile she said, “Um, yes?”

His nostrils flared as he glared at her. “You! How dare you show your face here! You do not deserve to look at an organization of peace!”

“Whoa, that’s a little strong. I truly am sorry about the accid – “

“Accident! That was no accident! You purposefully targeted us, and I and several others have made it our mission do the same back to you!” With that, the diplomat pulled out two Andromedian handguns, some of the most lethal in the sector. Katrina froze.

Everyone had been sitting in shock at the diplomat’s outburst, but with this the overseer stood up.

“All right, sir, please sit down, I’m not sure how you got those through security – “ no weapons were allowed at the peace meetings – “but no matter. Um, perhaps it would be best if we were to remove you, Miss – “ He was interrupted by another tirade from the Andromedian.

“No! I will show her suffering! She has no idea the pain she caused in my galaxy!” With that, he fired one of the pistols in her direction. Katrina had the reflexes to duck, and had done so before, but his words had struck her hard and she could not move. She could only watch as the beam of laser light came closer and closer, and it seemed as though it was moving through molasses, as if time were slowing down.

Then she realized time really was slowing down.

The Andromeda Disagreement – Part 3

Part 3

Back to the present. Katrina decided to temporarily shut up and wait a few more impatient minutes to start terrorizing her captors again. Finally, they came to the plain gray door of the meeting room. She knew that inside were gathered diplomats from all over the galaxy, representing their respect civilizations. The door slid open and the cage was pulled through by the two G.U.C. employees with her. Swoosh! The door slid shut.

To Katrina’s surprise and dismay, the cage did not release her, but instead was guided over to an obviously predetermined spot at the table – the only place that had no chair. Katrina seethed. She yelled to the speakers she knew were in the room, “Oh come on! It’s not like I’ll try and escape through the windows again!”

A few people chuckled. The man seated on her right, one of her (very) few allies, said “You would not do that again?”

Katrina snorted. “Of course not. They probably have reinforced windows by now. If I had to escape, I’d go out through the wall.” Several people laughed at this, and even more did so as they all heard reinforced sheets of metal sliding up behind the already thick walls.

Katrina rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

The overseer, a member of the G.U.C. seated at the end of the table who had been watching all of this with a 10% worried, 90% bored look on his face, finally spoke up. “All right, that’s enough of that. Here, at the (earth date) 3/15/15 meeting of the G.U.C., we have representatives from the civilizations of Akerferrbeth, – “

A diplomat inclined his head –

“- Albujitania, – “

Another diplomat inclined her head –

“-Ber’ktth.m, – “

And so on. All the way down to

“Katrina, of planet Earth”

And finally, to the Zarg’tt’s of Okkd’sn VI.

“And last, but most definitely not least, a diplomat from the Andromeda galaxy!”

There was a small round of applause. The diplomat started and looked up. Up until now, he had been scrolling through the electronic program on the small screen in front of him, one of which every member had. He had been trying to ignore some girl complaining, and had completely missed that she was the girl that had so severely angered him.

As he turned his head to the right, to where the overseer sat at the end of the table, he caught a glimpse of the girl’s face through the shimmering bars of the cage. He felt a sudden rise of rage. He leapt to his feet.

“You!” he roared.

The Andromeda Disagreement – Part 2

Part 2

By Madigan

On this particular occasion, it was the March 2015 meeting. Katrina normally hated going to these meetings, and made it a point to avoid going at whatever cost necessary. However, this time they had made her go.

Of course, “made” here means “kidnapped her off her home planet to a meeting room in the center of the galaxy with a lot of people who hated her quite a bit and a lot of people who didn’t hate her quite as much.”

A bit more background history – Katrina had, about half a year ago, “accidentally” done something to the Andromeda Galaxy. This something was making a lot of planets in the Andromeda Galaxy vaporize anybody who stepped on them without shoes. As shoes are nonexistent in Andromeda, this took out a large chunk of the population on the targeted planets. There were survivors, however, such as the 302-year-old Hepzibah Onnx’blikm, who was dozing on a bench when the vaporization started. Due to her being 3 feet tall, she was one of the lucky few who survived.

These vaporizations had made the government of Andromeda quite mad. They had insisted on a trial, which by sheer coincidence, was due in one month and two weeks from the March meeting of the G.U.C.

Of course, some idiot high up in the G.U.C. failed to realize that perhaps it might not be a good idea to have an Andromedian diplomat and Katrina in the same room. Had they realized this, what followed might have been averted.

The Andromeda Disagreement

Part 1

Being kidnapped by an organization that promotes peace and cooperation is pretty ironic, but you don’t appreciate it so much when you’re the kidnappee. Unfortunately for her, that was Katrina.

“If you’re done displaying your complete and total lack of anything remotely resembling intelligence, I would like to get back to my life now,” she said. Being told off by your kidnapped victim is normally pretty funny, but unfortunately for the G.U.C., they had kidnapped Katrina in particular. Unfortunately for their ears, at least.

“Apparently you’re not done displaying your stupidity. Well, at least it’s entertainment,” she said, even as the hovering force field cage she was in was being directed to a meeting room.

Before we continue, a little background history.

The G.U.C., or Galactic United Civilizations, was an organization founded many years ago by a few people in the Milky Way galaxy who were tired of all wars. They founded the G.U.C. in the hope of establishing peace and symbiosis throughout the galaxy. Soon, a huge group of followers was amassed, and they now hold regular meetings, at which a representative of all major civilizations in the galaxy comes. These meetings are held for the purpose of creating peace, but often, they do not accomplish this goal.

They do, however, get a great deal accomplished towards war.

To be continued…