The place really was a mess. As organized a mess as they tried to make
it seem, it really and truly was still a mess. What had once been an immaculate
and well-tended carpet was a gritty mess. Boots with street grit had stomped
all over it. As the carpet was soft and meant to comfort feet, the carpet
was crushed and ravaged by the heavy footwear worn by the also-heavy people
that stomped throughout the place. And then there was the desk in the large
room. Entire drawers were broken open and their contents carefully dumped
onto the carpeted floor. Piles and sheets of typewritten paper lay on the
floor and desk, miscellaneous items with all sorts of office double-speak and
fancy headers and important-looking signatures. Worse, the desk did not
deserve such treatment: The beautiful desk was made of real wood and ornately
carved. But crow-bars and pick-guns were doing their work. If it was a
mess so far, there was more of a mess to go as the people making the mess
were still at it.
It was a decent sunset that could be seen from the tall panoramic window
behind the desk. And the view was even better since it was from a window
quite a ways up from the street of the business district of this Midwestern
town. But the suited people working at making the place an organized mess
were too preoccupied to notice the sunset. No, uniform is the word that
--
better fits here. They all wore black and blue uniforms, complete with
neo-kevlar jackets. Most wore caps with "police" and "crime scene ops"
written on them, but some had taken off their caps when busy going through
the contents on the desk. For hours, this particular team of officers was
at work making an organized mess of the office. They seemed to be coming
close to finding things. Some of the office papers alluded from subject to
subject to subject. Every so often, some of the office files were placed
in plastic bags. The office files and such put into the bag did next to
nothing to diminish the mess, though. This "evidence" was taking some time
to collect.
If he had been around, the owner of the office would have seen to it
that the officers experience uncomfortable lives. In its prime, the office
was a seat of rising power in the corporate world. As the corporation had
political influences in most every corner of the city, the owner of the office
could have made things happen. He would have said, "I'll make your lives
Hell! I can DO that!" But there were not threats forthcoming this time.
The owner of the office was not in at the moment. In fact, the owner of the
office being taken apart was not to be seen at all. This gigantic, beautiful
office was abandoned. It was abandoned in hurry and haste. When the booted,
strong officers of the laws sought out the office's owner, the owner had
vanished. All that he left in his wake was a short note signed, "The Yachtsman."
2p
The police lieutenant overseeing the search of this office belonging
to "Mr. Yacht" (an alias to this Yachtsman) was perhaps as frustrated as
his subordinates--until midday. Then, he was also taking part in combing
through the office of the Yachtsman. This police lieutenant saw a prominent
pile of office files and decided to sift through it. From that pile, he
extracted several files of notice. Poring over them, some things were of
note. What's this, "temporal flux" and "tachyon currents" business? Perhaps
it was related to the nasty things the Yachtman did to those poor people
at ground level. (Some people over at the morgue were having a serious,
head-shakingly confused and shocked time: As the Yachtsman was a real
Dr. Frankenstein in terms of robotics and technology, he did "things" to
ordinary people that no one would figure out for years.) The things noted
in these files and office memos were becoming of increasing interest as the
police lieutenant continued to pore through them. But real payoff was in the
form of the noted items at the bottom.
With several memos in one hand, the police lieutenant used his radio.
"Dispatch, get me the reporter that brought us to this mess," said the
lieutenant through his wrist-transciever. "If you mean Dan, Lt. Steiner, he
should be on the office floor above you," said the on-scene radio dispatcher. The
--
The police lieutenant thanked the dispatcher and headed for the stairway:
After the creepy things done by Mr. Yacht or the Yachtsman to those people,
he did not trust the elevator. He used the stairs to get to the next floor,
another office floor with decent carpeting along marble hallways. "Dan, are
you around?" called out Lieutenant Steiner. "Sure, I'm in here, in Mr. Yacht's
secondary office," came Dan's voice from down the hall.
Looking down the hall, the officer saw a door ajar. The sounds of keys
and voiced frustration came into the hall from the room. Going into the
room, Lieutenant Steiner found Dan at work. And indeed, Dan the reporter was
helping one officer do some more investigation. Instead of making the office
proper a mess, they were doing their best to make an office computer a mess.
Dan was tapping away at a decent-sized computer workstation that had once
belonged to the Yachtsman. Without looking up, Dan said "Hello, lieutenant.
I'm just trying to help out this young officer of yours. This Yachtsman
really knows how to keep a hacker busy." After tapping in a few more lines
of commands, Dan only muttered another obscenity. The officer standing next
to Dan at the computer workstation seemed to have been running out of
suggestion.
"When you're done trying to hack your way into that computer, try out
these," said Lieutenant Steiner as he handed the seated reporter some files.
Quickly going over the files, Dan the reporter became somewhat energetic.
3p
"Steiner, these are EXACTLY what we need. Look, the file names and passcodes
are all over the bottoms of these memos," said Dan as he showed some items
on the newly-arrived papers to the standing officer on his right. "Where did
you find these?" Police Lieutenant Steiner shrugged his shoulders, then said,
"They were up in the Yachtsman's desk. We were so busy looking for heavy and
quick stuff to bring to the courts immediately, abduction evidence and such.
I supposed we just passed right by it until now. Anyway, most of what's in
those memos is heavy on techie stuff your reporter buddies could pick through.
If you can get me more dirt on the Yachtsman from the passcodes on those
memoes, please be sure to let me know before you splash it all over tomorrow's
papers?" Dan patiently listened to the police lieutenant before nodding.
"We have an agreement, but give me an hour on these computers with these
passcodes," said Dan. The police lieutenant then ordered his officer to help
in other places, help collect more paper memos.
An hour later, the police lieutenant sent an officer up to the secondary
office to find out how things were going with Dan. Instead, the officer
said that Dan was not to be found. Lt. Steiner raised the on-scene dispatcher
on his wrist-radio. No luck, absolutely no one left the well-secured building.
First, the police lieutenant thought that Dan had skipped out with precious
evidence before vanishing. Then, the police lieutenant thought that Dan
vanished as completely as the Yachtsman did. Though not realizing it at the
--
time, the police officer was right about the vanishing part. But unlike the
obnoxious Yachtsman, Dan did not even leave behind a note.

The next thing that happened relating to Dan's disappearance happened
a decent ways into the past. Perhaps two centuries before Dan's
seemingly-bizarre disappearance in the 22nd century, a young lady of the late
20th century seemed to be having troubles of her own. It was an entire day of
troubles. Karen, the young lady, had awakened that weekend, expecting to go
about business as usual. It was not to be business-as-usual at all, though:
There was nothing usual about the whole business of that man in white clothes.
But not only was it a day full of trouble, it was a town full of trouble.
The man in white, the Yachtsman, was most probably responsible for whatever
happened to Karen's town.
Now, half of the downtown district and residences of the college town
were vacant that hot summer day. Normally, with a local supply of alcohol
from a well-stocked liquor place in town, there would always be something
going down. It was the 1980s after all, the time of the young and upwardly-mobile
professional. And the pre-yuppies of the town were always ready to party
down. That nicely-stocked place in town always did brisk business as a result.
Normally, on such a weekend as this, there would always be a buzz of celebration
hanging around the houses and such near the downtown district. That was
4p
on a normal day, though. Karen's day, as well as the day of most every person
in town, was ruined. After all, dying would ruin most anyone's day. At
least Karen was still alive, perhaps better off than what was left of many
townsfolk.
Fortunately, none of the police officers were down and out due to the
disaster that overtook most of the townspeople. As if they were playing the
part of the questionably-competent officers in the horror movies that filled
the decade, they were able to size up and take control of the situation after
the trouble ended. After Karen had chased the Yachtsman into some back
corridor of the town hall, he had vanished. An hour later, the police had
found Karen. They had found her among the many dozens of people who had
been made victims of the Yachtsman's macabre deeds. It was easy to find
Karen--as she was the only person left alive and standing for blocks around.
Karen was walking among the dead, calling out the names of her fallen
friends. The girl couldn't believe that her two friends were dead. The
police arrived on the scene and found heaps of freshly-dead people and Karen
still hoarsely shouting for her friends and former roommates. Indeed, it
was absolutely disgusting, a crowd of people that seemed to have died due
to some sort of poisoning. It must have been poisoning as many of the victims
had blood stains on their clothing. Someone noted that the blood must have
poured from the head, from noses and ears as from the patterns on their
--
clothing. There were simply too many for the local coroners to deal with at
once. At once, the town's police had to call in the state troopers.
Meanwhile, someone had to take care of the stricken Karen.
Ignoring warnings from some of the on-scene officers about the potential
for contracting some sort of plague, one of the female officers led Karen
away from the carnage by the shoulders. Karen was disheveled, emotionally and
physically. The cuffs of her jeans were somewhat bloodstained. Apparently,
it was blood from the fallen people. There was also some dried blood on the
pale shirt she wore, as well as some on her right hand. What, did she trip
and fall onto some of the dead people? Her t-shirt was wrinkled as well as
being splattered with dried droplets of blood. The clothing was perhaps a
reflection of how the young lady was feeling. With her left wrist, she was
nervously running fingers through her hair. As she was being led away, Karen
was shaking and sobbing. Karen could barely walk straight, having been among
so many who were no longer alive. The officers on the scene were doubly-sure
of no one being alive: Though many of the dead seemed to twitch a bit, the
people lying on the ground were all clearly deceased for some time.
As the police officer that led Karen away was ranked as a sergeant in
the force, she had leeway in considering procedures. Instead of putting Karen
in the back of the vehicle, the police sergeant carefully seated the girl in
the front. The police sergeant saw Karen as a girl, a very shaken and frightened
5p
one. After seating Karen in the car (but leaving the door open), the police
sergeant herself went for an insulating blanket. "Wait here. I'll get a
blanket; you look really shaken enough to need one," she said to Karen.
Karen could only nod before wrapping her arms around herself. Several seconds
later, the police sergeant returned with the blanket reserved for people
bordering on shock. Hell, thought the police officer, anyone walking through
dozens of corpses was bound to go into shock.
The rest of the twelve or so police vehicles were parked in such a way
that they blocked off the permimeter of the scene. As there were just so
many bodies, the officers could do little else but cover the carnage with
what little tarp they had at the station. Already, two state trooper vehicles
had arrived. Ten more would be on the way, with a fleet of vans to carry away
the dead. Other officers had their hands full, but the police sergeant would
speak to the one living victim of the mess.
After taking a glance at the tarp-covered carnage, the police sergeant
turned her eyes and attention to the thin girl in the blanket. "Young lady,
I'm Sergeant Fuentes," said the police sergeant, holding out her hand. Karen
shook it. "I realize that the mess is nasty on you, but can you answer a few
simple questions for me?" she asked Karen. Karen bit her lip and nodded.
How hard was this going to be? "First, where were you before you came to
this place, the town hall?" asked the officer. The officer wanted to start
--
slow, not wanting to put the girl into a condition where she would need medical
attention. Karen took in a nervous breath, then said, "I was inside, in...my
apartment. I heard some sort of, well, weird parade outside. I went outside,
and found out that the 'parade' was some weird march of all of these...sick
people. At least, I thought they were all sick. But two people in the
parade crowd were my friends and roommates...." Karen's eyes went quickly
to the tarp, the shapes of what was underneath visible. Was there twitching,
or was that the wind?
The police sergeant quickly tried to keep Karen on topic. "Then what?" quietly
but quickly asked Fuentes. "You said there was a parade of sick people. And
then...?" The officer left Karen to end the statement. "Then, I...I
followed them all here. They all seemed alive when I got here but very sick.
Blood was pouring out of their noses and ears. And then, I saw that some
weird jerk was doing...something to them from a control box on that platform."
Karen then nodded in the direction of the raised platform, where the malfunctioning
remains of the Yachtsman's equipment lay exposed to suntlight. When the
Yachtsman vanished, some of it began to malfunction since his passage. Mentally
noting this, the police sergeant stayed quiet--hoping that Karen would continue
without further prompting. "Then, I faced him, and...." That was all Karen
would say before going very quiet. Fuentes knew that Karen was sinking into
shock just then.
6p
"Just sit still and stay calm," said the officer before using her walkie-talkie.
Turning her back to the girl, the officer spoke in a low voice into the radio.
"Lorens, can you spare someone? I've got someone going into shock. Bring
some O2 as well: No one else around here is going to need it, out." "I copy
that, will do, out." said the tinny voice on the other end. As soon as the
officer finished that very brief exchange, there was a very short shriek from
the girl in the car and the sound of ruffling blankets. Police Sergeant Fuentes
wheeled around. She only caught the sight of collapsing blankets: Karen had
vanished completely. "What the...?" exclaimed the officer as she rushed to
the blanket. But the person once in the blankets was not in them. Somehow,
however Karen had left the police car, she had been able to do so without
passing through doors.

A third related but very short incident occured centuries into the
future, a century or so from Dan the reporter's time. And it was a very nasty
time compared to that of Dan and Karen's. Dan and Karen would not have at
all recognized where the third incident took place. At least, they would not
have recognized the location of the third incident as being any place on Earth.
But it was Earth, an extremely polluted and ravaged one. The third incident
took place in a time when industrial pollution soaked the land and sky for
years and decades. The pollution was intense, destroying and twisting all
--
life on the planet's surface. The sky had become a grotesque color and swollen
with bloated clouds that sped across the terrible sky. In short, it was a
ruined future.
Somewhat luckily, people did not live outside any longer. People of
this time lived in buildings and underground. They were away from the noxious
and evil chemicals that filled the air and land outside. Though "alive," the
people were barely so as the people of this future lived terribly. They were
slaves in a society not of their own making. It was one man that made them
slaves in a society and time that was ruined due to misuses of industry. In
fact, one man's centuries-long efforts made all of the world the way it was.
Centuries into the future from Karen and even Dan's time, the thing that
passed for being a man ruled supreme.
In the gigantic underground and above-ground place that served as a sort
of palace for the supreme ruler of this ruined future lay a beautiful being.
A slender figure in a silken dress belted at the waist was close to a
panoramic window that looked out on the terrible and ruined landscape, a landscape
as ruined as the occasional beast that roamed it. The thin, beautiful being
lay with arms splayed out, face-up, on a tiled floor. Eyes set in a pretty
face looked up at the ceiling. But these were eyes that were not seeing at
the time as the eyes were as immobile as the face. And the once-sparkling
young eyes were open for so long that a thin layer of dust covered the pupils.
7p
One would quite quickly say that the young woman was beautiful. But this
was not a woman at all, as beautiful as "she" was. No, the "woman" on the
floor was really a robot. The "woman" was really a robot designed to
physically and personally pass for human. It was a gynoid. As far as being
"dead," the female robot's systems were only temporarily shut down. What to
be done with her, or its, body was still being decided by the supreme master
of those times, someone that wore a white fedora.
The person in the white fedora was hospitalized because of that gynoid's
actions. Even from a very old-fashioned medical bed, the Yachtsman still
radiated power. He had to radiate power--as the Yachtsman was the ruler of
Earth in the far times beyond Karen and Dan's time. At the moment, he
radiated much strength of his office. If one looked carefully, one could even
see the rippling air resulting from his presence. The medical room was quite
warm, but the Yachtsman did not mind. But the two bald-headed beings cowering
before him seemed to wilt in the hot room.
"Why the HELL did that robot-bitch thing turn on me?" asked the Yachtsman
out loud. It was probably the fifth time he asked that same question withing
the past half hour, with various obscenities peppering the speech. "Master,
it was programmed to have a mind of its own," said one of the bald people
standing before the Yachtsman. Just below the skin, one could see wiring
running through the bald beings' scalps: Both of the "people" quivering before
--
the Yachtsman were the Yachtsman's cyborg-servants. "I have realized THAT
for weeks now, jackass," growled the Yachtsman. "And I do not blame you
freaks at all for the way the robo-bitch turned on me. If I did blame you
two egg-heads, you two would be hobbling around on severed and bloody knee
stumps--on broken glass! But she was damned pissed at me before I shut her
down." Droplets of pure water, not sweat, glistened and dropped from the
cyborg-servants' scalps when the Yachtsman said that.
"You two, re-activate that gynoid. But THIS time, make her as weak as I
believe a HUMAN woman should be. I don't want those damned skinny arms of
hers putting me back into the hospital and all. The mind is fine; I like her
sass. The robot-bitch's personality keeps me from becoming bored. Do you
HEAR that, jerkies? Leave her 'brain' untouched. Just bring her back online."
After giving those orders, the Yachtsman leaned back in his bed. "What the
Hell? Move your asses!" The two cyborgs bowed and quickly left the room.
The two cyborgs then prepared a team of technicians to reconfigure and
reactivate the gynoid. They were going to cut the gynoid's slender "arms"
and remove half of the pseudo-musculature and tone down the power plant a
bit. And restoring the gynoid's power plant after the shutdown was going to
require surgery. They simply planned to remove all of "her" synthetic skin
and do all of what the Yachtsman did. There was not going to be pain or
sympathy for the gynoid. After all, the "woman" was just a robot built to
just appear human.
--
When three cyborg technicians and a low-tech metal robot went to get the
gynoid, they did not find it. Where the gynoid lay was just an outline of
clear tile on the otherwise dust-covered tiled floor. (Since the trouble
with the gynoid, the Yachtsman ordered all servants--cyborg and otherwise--to
stay clear of the room.) This briefly put the cyborgs into a panic: Where
was the gynoid, the female robot that could easily pass for human and escape?
What was worse was how there were absolutely no footprints leaving the room.
The gynoid must have simply vanished as Karen and Dan did centuries before.

Second Half
Dan seemed to be in darkness. Not only that, but this darkness seemed
cold. The cold seemed to be a quality of the air itself, hard and cold air
that made limbs just as inflexible. The cold and dark was the first thing
he noticed when coming back to consciousness. It was a real nuiscance: How
did the climate control of his bedroom go off as he slept? The power grid
must have gone down for a first time: Electrical in Dan's time was that
reliable. Then Dan realized that he was most probably not in his bedroom.
The last memory he had was of hacking at Mr. Yacht's computer, in an office.
Then, he remembered there being this immense sucking noise in the air
behind him and the smell of crackling electricity--ozone. Someone sprayed
something in his face. While losing consciousness, he remembered being
yanked by strong hands into that sound of sucking air. With it came the cold
and the darkness. Nothing came after that. Now, it seemed dark as well as
cold. Dark, sparkling dots of pain filled Dan's vision; he had a slight
headache. While Dan was flat out on the bed (?), Karen was having a somewhat
harder time of things.
Karen, in the same room, was also coming to consciousness in the room.
As Dan gradually came to consciousness, Karen came to because of a searing
headache. Her entire skull felt wrapped in a helmet of ice. As soon as she
could, Karen brought her hands to her forehead. She then sat up--TOO quickly.
As soon as she did, Karen almost fell out again because of the shooting pain
--
in her head. Now the headache seemed driven into her head, down her neck and
right into her gut. She would have thrown up--if there were anything solid
in her stomach to throw up. With an absolutely evil headache squeezing her
vision shut, Karen did not bother to look out at where she was at the moment.
The pain was all that she could think of, let alone the place and plight
she was in after being grabbed since being in the police car--the POLICE CAR.
As Karen and Dan, on respective soft surfaces, came out of their comatose
states, they heard a too-soft feminine voice--but an angry one--try to rouse
them with prattle. "I sure am glad NOT to be a flesh-and-blood being. If my
people had to go through what inefficiencies YOU people go through with that
weak and painful flesh of yours, next to nothing would get done. Nothing in
society would be done; all the real work would crawl slow. It's no small
wonder, heh, the Yachtsman made robots do most of the real work in the world.
Or rather,that will be the Yachtsman SHALL have the world work. Temporal
flux is a killer on grammatical consistency, isn't it?" The voice was trying
to put on an angry rant, but it was just too soft and breathy to do so.
Intrigue caused Dan and Karen to slowly open their eyes. They were in
a well-lit, beige room. Indeed, they were both on medical beds--of sorts.
At least, they seemed to be beds without sheets but warmed from below. It
was a room perhaps large enough to hold a dozen beds, but just those two beds
were there. "Come on, you meat puppets! From what I know of human physiology,
2p
the transition should not have put you two out for THAT long. It's just pain,
that's it. Nothing should be wrong with those soft, mush-filled heads of
yours. Come along, come along...." continued the woman's voice. And both
the humans came to rest their bleary eyes on the gynoid, who had been up and
around long before those two were.
Karen slowly brought down her hands from her forehead. Through squinted
eyes, she saw a somewhat thin woman in strange khaki pants and turtleneck
sweater. Karen--and Dan perhaps more so--was intrigued by the "lady" who
tried to get them awake. She had clear, pale skin. The skin was set against
dark and shimmering hair, with large and dark eyes to match. She was Eurasian,
perhaps? She asked, "Lady, would you please calm it down a bit? YOU don't
have a headache, but I DO. What is all this...?" "We will get more than a
full explaination as soon as you two meat creatures are up and about. I have
patience, but not too much of it in light of the current situation," prattled
the female android in answer.
"By the way, do not try to address me as being any more human than I am.
I am a robot, one done up in a pretty casing and all that. But there's
nothing but circuitry and plastic where my soul allegedly resides. I AM NOT
A HUMAN." The gynoid enunciated the words as if speaking to slow-witted
children. Incredulity seemed to replace the pain Karen and Dan had. That,
or they thought they came to consciousness in a room with a crazy woman.
--
"All right, you two are still a-whirl in trying to realize this whole
situation. Again, a nice someone around here will probably be more likely
to make you believe anything at all. Can you two walk?" continued the pretty
gynoid to the two people. Dan and Karen eased themselves off of raised beds,
then nearly fell on their faces. "I'll carry you two if I have to," said the
gynoid in something that sounded like human frustration.
First, the gynoid placed Dan's left arm around her seemingly slender
right shoulder; she easily helped Dan to his feet. Then, the gynoid helped
Karen to her feet similiarly. She easily but carefully helped the two along
to the door, then along a solid and wide throughway to a set of double-doors
guarded by beige-suited and bulky-looking guards. As the gynoid arrived
with her two human burdens, one of the guards moved to open one of the doors.
The second door opened automatically. Then, he said, "Miss Flambeau awaits
within this room. Be seated; she wishes to hold audience with you." The
gynoid, not exhausted at all (with no breath to exhaust), thanked the guards
and helped the still somewhat-shaky people into the office. She helped the
two to plush seats, seats set before a wide desk and tall window whose glass
stuck out some inches from the wall. The gynoid went to the double doors and
stood with arms crossed.
By now, Dan and Karen were sober and clear-headed enough to listen and
talk to anyone besides the gratingly-impatient crazy robot-lady. Whomever
this "Miss Flambeau" person was, she was taking her time as she sat with back
turned at the wide desk. When she wheeled her desk around, Dan and Karen
3p
looked upon a tall and stately woman in a conservative business dress-suit.
The woman's age was not to be determined from her unlined face, but she
seemed to be roughly the same age as the Yachtsman if not younger. When the
woman behind the desk spoke, her somewhat-haughty voice was no help in giving
age either. "Ah, you two are finally awake. You must forgive the discomfort:
We were never able to get temporal transfers full comfortable and painless.
At least you two are the right people in the right place, this time."
Dan, having been in the presence of powerful corporate suits before,
was bold enough to interrupt. "What's this, 'temporal transfers?' Were we
guinea pigs for one of your experiments? First, Yacht pulls experiments on
living people, now this. Why are we the right people, and why were we
kidnapped? One minute, I was in Yacht's office. The next, I was...." Dan's
angry rant was silenced with the raised hand of Miss Flambeau. "Dear man,
things will be explained. If this 'Mr. Yacht' is the damned Yachtsman, and
you want to take care of him, then please listen. You, young miss, have also
probably had a run-in with the Yachtsman. According to our records, half of
your town's population was decimated due to the Yachtsman's activities,
correct?" Karen's cheeks were an angry red, but she only gave an affirmative
and silent nod.
Miss Flambeaux again addressed Dan and Karen both. "Both of you, you two
and the advanced gynoid prototype, have a serious gripe against the man called
--
the Yachtsman. Then we have an understanding. First, let me begin on what you
three are doing here. By 'here,' you must know that this a place and time
that shall remain undisclosed. If I were to tell you two, you two not from
this time, the time streams would become more polluted and upset than they
already are. We can't have any more flux paradoxes in our time-stream than
necessary: The Yachtsman has already caused too many tears in history as it
is.
"The Yachtsman, the focus of this little exercise, has become quite a
trouble for those of us in this time and place. Through his activities, he
has altered history enough to begin to set himself as a ruler of all of the
world's governments. In doing so, he has made too many warps and ripples in
history. If his activities were to continue indefinitely, all Hell could
break loose--literally. That deceptively-human robot that accompanied you
two was already told of this when we managed to reactivate her. Now, it is
time to tell you three what you must do to set things right and why...."
From there, Flambeau essentially told Dan and Karen that they had to
assassinate the Yachtsman before he could even begin to cause so much trouble.
According to research conducted by this "Miss Flambeau" and her shadowy
corporation, the Yachtsman was a person that had somehow developed time travel
through unknown means. (Flambeau said that the word 'person' was used loosely
concerning the Yachtsman: He was probably "not biologically human," and
4p
Flambeau would not elaborate.) After developing means of time travel, the
Yachtsman decided to travel to various points of history--with no regard for
the effects of his activities were having.
Meanwhile, wherever the Yachtsman acted, the effects of his time-travel
sometimes had counter-effects on particular individuals. With allusions to
Gaia theory, Flambeau said that the Yachtsman's travels had effects on the
lives of certain people whose lives the Yachtsman had affected. Somehow,
those specific people developed a ridiculously-high amount of luck and were
able to temporarily counter the Yachtsman's operations. The three individuals
(including the gynoid) were somehow given supernaturally-high luck in being
able to stop the Yachtsman. Flambeau's temporal physics researchers were
unable to explain exactly how this was so, but said that several of the
people were most probably the safest bets in countering the Yachtsman and
wiping him permanently from time and space.
But the Yachtsman was strong enough to have survived the efforts of all
three individuals--Dan, Karen and the gynoid--and escape. However, if the
three were to pool their luck in an attempt to silence and stop the Yachtsman,
they would most probably be very successful in doing so. It would take the
fate of those three to stop the Yachtsman. According to the extensive checking
and re-checking of the temporal researchers, the three people brought to that
room were just the people to do it. If they didn't, then time would be
--
polluted with so many paradoxes that the Yachtsman could cause Earth to become
a pocket of semi-unreality. In short, reality itself would become much worse
than the polluted and ruined place that the Yachtsman made in the 23rd century.
Finally, using the "window" behind her desk that doubled as a video screen,
Flambeau showed the three where and when they had to stop the Yachtsman.
Aftwerward, the three were escorted by guards to prepare for their
journey. All three were given handguns contemporary to the place and time
in history where they had to stop the Yachtsman as well as simple kevlar vests.
It was most likely that the Yachtsman was armed, and they were most probably
not going to speak at all to the evil man. As Dan and Karen were being told
about basic handgun use by one of Flambeau's guards, the gynoid was in another
room. After being shown how to use the handguns and test firing them a few
times, Dan and Karen were rushed to the temporal-transfer room. When Dan
asked where the gynoid was, the guard said that the gynoid was being 'refitted'
for a 'secondary effort at eliminating their 'target.' Wordlessly, Dan and
Karen came to know that the gynoid was probably being made ready for a
last-ditch plan if they were to fail.
This time, Dan and Karen were prepared for their trip through time. The
human-looking robot claimed that she experience no discomfort in traveling;
it was just meat-puppet humans that suffered from temporal transfer
discomforts. The fabric of the air itself seemed to twist when the warp
5p
modulators went online. Dan and Karen felt some nausea as the warp modulator
yanked and stretched time and space. They also heard the same sucking and
crackling noise that accompanied their abduction to this place. "Come on,
you two. There's a job to do, and you are just wasting air," prattled the
gynoid as the portal wavered and rippled before them. Karen, in her dark
kevlar jacket, stepped through. Dan shrugged and walked into the rippling
portal in time and space. The gynoid calmly walked through.
When their heads were clear, Dan and Karen were able to take in their
surroundings. According to Flambeau, this was very close to where the
Yachtsman would begin to cause trouble. The three were in Nevada, in the
late 1990s. From the looks of the surrounding and dusted desert, it may as
well have been any time. The land was practically flat for at least eight
miles around. There were low hills in the distance and an occasional stone,
but the land was flat and hopeless-looking. Though the redenning sun was
coming close to setting, it was very warm in this desert. The only feature
that did not seem part of the baked and plain surroundings was a red,
three-story house that seemed more fitting to an upscale neighborhood in the
suburbs than this baked desert.
All three checked their weapons. They had to squint as they turned off
the safety and did basic checks. The weapons would fire. Then, Karen and
Dan were sure that their kevlar vests were snug; the gynoid was without a
--
bullet-proofed vest. "I don't need one," commented the gynoid. She
continued. "Anyway, it seems that we are set to take out the Yachtsman. I
would have taken him out myself but couldn't finish. That red house out there
must be where he's staying right now. If we are good and can get him to come
out into the open, we can finish this job. We can eliminate the Yachtsman,
all will be well with things. If not, and the Yachtsman stays holed up,
things could get messy.
"We will have to be careful, by the way. Do you see those five short
and metal things by the Yachtsman's house?" Karen and Dan nodded. "Those
are the Yachtsman's prototype security robots. I was programmed with information
on every one of the Yachtsman's personally-designed creations. And I tell
you two now that those things are lightly-armored cans on wheels with simple
computer brains, two low-resolution cameras for eyes and armed with nine
millimeter guns with about a hundred or so rounds each. They fire slow but
are about as accurate as a human marksman--the Yachtsman's first toy
robo-bodyguards."
Karen said, "I suppose we have to sneak in low instead of gabbing out
here all day. What are we waiting for? The jerk owes me." With that said,
all three walked in the direction of the Yachtsman's well-protected house a
quarter of a mile away. The hard grit shuffled under their feet as they
made their way close to the place. As they came within several hundred
yards of the Yachtsman's house, the five security robots began to wheel quickly
6p
around and into formations. "We've been spotted. Let's get low!" stage-whispered
Karen. Everyone managed to find a brown and round desert boulder to get behind
before the bullets began to fly.
The waist-high and wheeled robots had stopped wheeling around and stopped.
Standing on four wheels, the Yachtsman's security robots fired exactly a
dozen rounds. Karen had never been in a gunfight before: To her, the
gunshots coming from the robots sounded like cracking fireworks. Each high
cracking pop was accompanied by a ricocheting bullet that whacked the boulders
the three protagonists were ducking behind. But the three would not run.
And the shots were spaced enough to pin down the three behind the boulders.
Then, after the shots were fired, there was the sound of footsteps in
the quiet desert. Someone was coming from the direction of the red house--the
Yachtsman. Dan popped his head out an inch from the side of his boulder and
nearly had it shot of when a bullet from the security 'bots cracked and
ricocheted too close. He managed to get a glimpse at the white-hatted
Yachtsman. When the Yachtsman was two hundred yards away, he yelled out to
the three crouching for cover behind the boulders.
He said, "I don't know who the hell you three jackasses are, but you
don't belong here. I know you three are out there: I can FEEL you. That's
right! I can FEEL you three people out there. You people must hate me with
a passion. You three must want me dead. Well, some jackasses are going to
--
die at sundown. And guess what? It's not going to be me. All units, sic'em!"
Suddenly, there were dozens of pops and cracks coming from the Yachtsman's
security robots they opened fire on the three behind the boulders. "You two
gun for the Yachtsman! I'll try to get the robots!" shouted Dan over the
cracking of gunfire and ricocheting bullets. He then crouched against the
boulder and lined up a shot against one of the waist-high robo-barrels on wheels.
Several of Dan's shots went wide, but two of them hit one of the robots.
The first shot only opened a smoking hole in the robot. But with bullets
cracking all around him, Dan's second shot smacked the robot high. It sparked
a few times as it went over.
That's one of them; four to go, thought Dan as he put a fresh magazine
in his gun. Karen and the gynoid were trying to hit the Yachtsman, who had
ducked behind one of his cylindrical security robots. The Yachtsman, over
the sound of gunfire, seemed to be laughing. This is too hard to be a game,
thought Dan as he emptied a clip in the direction of another robot. It took
three shots to take out the second one, sparks and smoke indicating its defeat.
Then, things took a turn for the worse--if not the very worse.
As soon as Dan took out the second robot, the two robots away from the
Yachtsman switched to automatic fire. First, Dan heard the rapid poppity-pop
of automatic gunfire and the desert floor was lit up with muzzle flashes from
the robots' guns. Then several shots in succession smacked Dan in his exposed
7p
arm and shoulder. The vest managed to stop the bullets, but his ribs were
cracked in several places. After he was knocked away from his boulder, Dan
was showered with a hail of rapid fire. He was defeated.
"The jerks got Dan! You...!" shouted Karen as she leaned out from her
boulder and fired on another one of the robots. She managed to take out one
of the three remining robots before two shots spraying out from the robots'
auto-guns knocked her back. The gynoid managed to scramble out and lean Karen
against the boulder. Karen was breathing very quickly. With her chest somewhat
caved in and internal bleeding, she might not make it. Then, there was silence
in the desert. For a while, all that was audible was the hissing of the
Yachtsman's robots cooling systems as they tried to compensate for their
temporarily overheated gun. The auto-guns of the robots were small versions
of the rotary-barrel kind seen on military helicopters and were slowing spinning
after firing on the three protagonists.
"Yep, it took quite a bit of my bots' ammo, but I got rid of one of you!"
shouted the Yachtsman from behind one of the robots. "And I smacked another
one of you asses, didn't I? I got one of you GOOD." Karen only hissed
through gritted teeth, some blood on her lips. "In a few more seconds, it
will all...be...OVER!" shouted the Yachtsman. With Dan down and Karen dying,
the gynoid seemed to be the only one left to do anything about the Yachtsman.
Karen, propped against the boulder, weakly tapped the gynoid on the
--
ankle. She handed the gynoid her gun; the gynoid's own weapon was out of
bullets. The gynoid nodded. It was time for the last-ditch effort the
female android was fitted for.
The Yachtsman was not ready when the female android--a future creation of
his own indirect making--made a run straight for the Yachtsman. Midway
through one of those toothy laughs of his, the Yachtsman went to wide-eyed
shock and ducked behind one of his security robots when the gynoid came
running at him. The gynoid eliminated another one of the robots, but two
of the Yachtsman's robots began to open fire on her. The guns were still
overheated and were only firing at a very slow rate, but some of the shots
hit home.
One of the shots from the overheated auto-guns knocked the gynoid down.
The gynoid got up quickly and continue to rush at the Yachtsman. But her
run was now just a fast jog. Another two rounds from the securit robots'
auto-guns brought the gynoid to her knees. Again, the gynoid continued to
go against the Yachtsman with a now somewhat-awkward canter. "Fire, FIRE!"
shouted the Yachtsman as the gynoid continued to come close to the Yachtsman.
Finally, the gynoid got a two-armed grip around the Yachtsman.
The gynoid would have crushed the Yachtsman, but she was too damaged to
do so. Nevertheless, the grip was suffficient for what was to be done.
"You can't be human, you bitch!" shouted the Yachtsman. "I wish I could have
8p
finished you off. Then I would have danced all over your dead asses!" With
smoke and something looking like greyish blood coming from where the autoguns
hit her, the gynoid was as weakened as she looked. Still, with one eye half-closed
and her grip strong around the Yachtsman's shoulders, she said, "Dear sir,
didn't anyone tell you not to call the ladies 'bitches?'" The gynoid grinned
a too-human wider grin as the Yachtsman's jaw dropped in shock. He saw
something in the gynoid's eyes.
Then, there was immense flash of searing white light in the desert. It
was brighter than any daylight when the small nuclear charge planted in the
gynoid first went off. Everything seemed to go eerily silent, outlined
against this ultra-brightness. Then, there was a blast. The blast shook the
desert floor for several miles around. It blasted and flattened everything,
even fused the sand of the desert to a molten polish. The nuclear fireball
lasted half a minute.
Afterward, for several miles around, there was nothing and almost no one.
Alone, the Yachtsman stood. At least, something that looked like the Yachtsman
was standing--something roughly in the shape of the Yachtsman. As the
Yachtsman was not human, he had just barely survived the nuclear blast. Barely
is exactly the word, judging from his condition. The Yachtsman's skin and the
layer of fat below it was all burned away in the intense heat. Much of the
muscle tissue was burned away as well. And maybe magically, the only piece of
--
clothing that had remained untouched was the Yachtsman's hat. The Yachtsman
looked like a skinless, fried turkey.
On wobbling and hissing legs, the Yachtsman began to mouth obscenities.
And somehow, his voice was still strong though the rest of him was going
quickly. "You killed me, you bitches! You asses! I wish I had a chance to
finish off you mortals! Aargh!" The Yachtsman's anger reduced him to
growling and shouting. Meanwhile, he tried to escape through time. He tried
to think his inhuman thoughts of time and space rippling for him to walk through.
But there would be no escape this time: The heavy radiation from the blast
locked him in that time and place. With one last lungful in his suddenly
festering lungs, he gave a mighty and bellowing growl into the heated desert
air. That finished off the last of his strength.
Then, the Yachtsman fell backwards and didn't get up again. As he
continued to gurgle and gasp, the ground began to soften and hiss. Large hands
spotted with large blisters reached up from the ground. The large hands held
his ankles and wrists. One grabbed him by the meat of his exposed back. Still
gurgling and gasping, the suddenly-softened ground split open and the
Yachtsman was quickly pulled into the pit. The pit closed up, and all that
was left was a white hat on the baked and blasted land.
Things began to change centuries in the past and the future. In the
1980s, Karen awakened to an absolutely normal Sunday morning. She had a
headache from sleeping on her desk, and that was it. Belinda and some friends
came back from the party, as usual. Shaking her head, Karen had the slight
notion that she should be quite happy. But nothing was wrong; all was well.
Centuries into the future, Dan was a reporter. He continued to write
stories for the town's premier newspaper. And as Dan was a good reporter, if
not the best, he continued to write enjoyable articles. Though Dan's career
was a long one that occasionally put him into some danger, none of his stories
were about any corporation experimenting with living human bodies to make
robots.
And a century from Dan's time, an Omnicorp executive named Flambeau
finally developed a gynoid--a female android. This was a robot that not only
looked and could move as a human, but could hold moderate conversations on
topics ranging from philosophy to fiction. And the gynoid loved music. Out
of some misplaced whimsy, Flambeau decided to make this robot resemble a
somewhat thin, young Eurasian woman. Something compelled Flambeau to direct
her researchers to make a gynoid exactly like this one. When the too-human
robot walked into her office, it asked if she had seen Flambeau anywhere before.
Flambeau only gave a vague grin. So, after being defeated in the time and
place before he could even begin to traipse through the currents of time,
the Yachtsman is brought to an end.