When Worlds Collide

[Miyanokouji]

- Some days later.

Subject: A Life From The Past

Body

Greetings, weary traveller. I sense your discomfort. I see you wish you could return to a life from the past. Return to save those you called friends. Those you left behind to save yourself. Those no longer within your ability to see. Those you feel guilty towards and think about night after night.

I know this. And I shall share with you what I have learned. I am here to help you, but I must not do it again. All I am at liberty to disclose is this. I hacked it from the NSA and I'm sure you'll find it interesting.

>> Kuki Nusumi
>> Height: 6'1"
>> Sex: Female
>> Species: Human.
>> Appearance: Rather hairier than your average woman. Possibly transexual, though no
>> records of any such operations could be found.
>> Kuki Nusumi owns a fantastic cruise ship named the Plexus, which she had commisioned
>> specifically for her by a team of friends in 2004. She earns money by sailing people
>> around the world on it. She is an excellent sailor, and won an award in 1999 for her
>> skills.


> I have discovered what appears to be a lab at
> Lat 54°36.8
> Long 158°52.1
> It's in the middle of freaking nowhere, just South West of New Zealand. I'll go check it
> out tomorrow, go hire a boat and see what's over there. I'll write back if I find
> anything. ~TheTrev

> The building has no windows, and is amazingly quiet. There appears to be no security
> around the front door. I'll just go in.
> Well I got in the door okay. It's very clean here. Like a hospital. Only it smells less.
> Anyway I don't like the feel of the place. Even inside it it's still silent. There's a
> door here with a window. I had a look through it. It's a strange room with a white glow.
> There are cats inside. And a large, round plastic machine. I just realised I have no
> connection to my partner's plane, providing the uplink to post. I'll go outside and post
> this. ~TheTrev

That was the last message received from TheTrev.

You're welcome for this information. Don't try and reply.

--

Al sighed. He had no idea who had sent him this information. He looked at the POP3 logs on the EC's mailserver. The email had said that the address that sent it was zyqpij@anon-informants.bizi.with.your.mother.com . A spoofed address. The email was sent from a US govt SMTP server, meaning it was either the president or one of his cronies, or a hacker. Al presumed the second. Then decided that worrying about who sent him the email was irrelevant. He knew what he had to do...Go find out where 54°36.8, 158°52.1 was. After a few Google Earth searches (Al didn't know that Latitude was South and Longitude was East in degree system), the pointer landed directly on a small island. He saved it as a placemark. Time to mod the Ice-Cream Truck. He gave it hydraulics and 4x4 wheels for good handling on what could be any kind of terrain. Just a few days later (Al isn't exactly an engineer) it was ready to go.

-- Lunchtime, in the Cafeteria

Dement was the first to speak after Al sat down, "Cafeteria food gets worse and worse"
"It's alright for you, you don't have to eat it," Al replied, dryly, "Anyway guys. I've got a favour to ask some of you."

[Miyanokouji]

I've resurrected this story.
May have another chapter next week, or the week after.

Stay tuned.

[Miyanokouji]

---Several days later, a small island south-west of New Zealand

"So, what do we do now?" Cloud prodded Al in the chest.
"I don't know, look for a way to break into the-waagh!" Al suddenly found himself moving upwards at great speed.
"Break into the waagh, okay.....Wait a minute. What's a waagh?" Cloud turned round. And round. And round. "Huh. Well, I'm going home."
"So much for EC loyalty," Addman said while pulling a face at Cloud, "....Don't leave me here!"

-
Meanwhile, Al was being pulled upwardly by some kind of rope attached to a large black mass in the sky. The mass lurched sideways, and began moving forwards at a great speed. Soon after Al was travelling faster, obviously being pulled in by the giant metal thing.

About a minute later, Al was very close to the flying object. It was a gigantic airship, roughly twice as big as 747. It seemed to be being held aloft by a number of quick-spinning wheels, similar to helecopter blades inside circles. There were also two pointed backwards, obviously providing the forward thrust. A hole opened in the general direction of the rope Al was attached to, and he was pulled further in. A man appeared in the hole, and held his arms out. Al allowed the man to take him inside the airship, as he really had no other choice. (Would you like to jump off an airship high above the clouds going at a great speed, with no parachute?)

Al walked down a small set of stairs and into a room. The door was instantly shut behind him, and Al heard a loud spraying noise. Then a thunk. Then he felt a sharp pain in his head. Then he fell asleep.

[Miyanokouji]

"Shfrf apgina asdorunsa"
Al stopped listening. His brain was too clobbered-feeling to translate English into brain-speak.

A few moments later, a large "BOO" resounded through his head, bouncing off the walls of his skull and echoing for a whole two minutes.

"Is he dead or not? I wanted him alive."
"Sorry miss...These things happen. Ack-"
"You'll pay for your insolence." A squishy snapping sound, followed by a thud, "Sleep well, 37. I trust you'll wake shortly."
Footsteps.

Al fell back to sleep. No dreams came to him, and soon he was waking again.
There was a horrid smell of rotting flesh. Once he managed to open his eyes he noted a body whose neck had been crushed.
He sat up on the hospital-esque bed. He had a headache of monstrous proportion.
"Ungh", he moaned, wiping his head with one hand. He noted his wristband, pistols, katana, and eyebrow-mounted HUD had been swiped. He looked over at a man standing in the corner of the pastel-painted room. The man smiled at him. He smiled back. The man walked over and asked, "How you doin'?"
Al replied, "I have a killer headache."
"It'll pass"
Al snorted, "Yeah, maybe."
"You oughta get more rest."
"I'm fine."
"Don't say I didn't warn you."

Two other, armed, men now entered the room.
"Good morning, gents," the man from the corner said.
"Morning!" they replied in unison, saluting the man from the corner.
"Accompany this guy to the deck."
"Yes, sir." One of the men moved behind Al, and pointed his sub machine gun at Al's back. The other stood to Al's side. Unarmed and tired, and harbouring the largest headache this side of the solar system, Al didn't wish to put up a fight.

"Come with us."
Al was marched up to the deck, where he was pushed in, and the door locked behind him. The two men walked off to continue their round.

"Good morning, Al" a female voice came from about eight different places in the room. A speaker system. A woman walked up to Al. She was wearing a fursuit or something, she looked quite similar to Al.
She began talking, "I've been looking through your stuff. Very interesting. Where did you get your pistols from? They're beautifully crafted."
"Uhh...Eric Boccara. A friend of mine. Met him at an anime con I was roped into going to."
"And that wristband you had on you...What is it? What does it do?"
"I don't wish to tell you."
"Well, okay. She motioned towards the door, and held her hand against her head. Her voice was heard throughout the airship. "Drop the band", she said.
"What've you done?" Al asked.
"Threw it overboard."
"Why?"
"Well, it could've been dangerous."

[Miyanokouji]

Al dived towards the woman in a fit of rage. He was going to attempt to crash her to the ground, forwards-roll over her on just his hands, and fling her into the wall. It was not to be. A hard blow to the back of his head threw him to the floor, and the woman recovered quickly.

"You'd be wise not to try that again."
"Argh! Why are you doing this?"
"12 years ago, where were you?"
"In some lab on a small island. Probably south-west of New Zealand. You ended my mission before I could find out." Al thought of Addman and Cloud, and assumed they'd just got away safely. It wasn't a particularly dangerous island, after all.
"And what did you do when you left that lab?"
"I found a hole in the wall and ran away. Fiddled with a trashed gramophone, turned it into a makeshift boat. Travelled to some place. The EC happened to be scaring the villagers at the time. Saw I had potential, having modded a gramophone. They took me back to the cave. Grew me up. It was in my fate to join them."
"Stop there. What do you think I did there?"
"...You're one of us?"
"No. I am a later model of you. After much research, the developers of us decided that males just couldn't cut it. They were too...vulnerable to certain...stimulants, as well as just generally sluggish. They found they could fiddle with female's responses to those sorts of things easier. The AL~X-series was born. The first models, X1s, were a little...lacking in intelligence. I have a number of them aboard this ship. I have more AL-numbers though. The males were in large supply.
Shortly after I escaped at the age of about 10, the X3s were beginning to be produced. These were more...hideous...than the previous models. That's why I decided not to employ any aboard this ship."
"Wait a sec. Why are you telling me this? And how did you get this ship?"
"I'm telling you so that you don't leave us today without this knowledge. Perhaps you could be of assistance to us. Anyway, this ship was built by a number of escaped AL-numbers, mostly of the 23-27 series. They were weaker than your series."
"My series?"
"You are an AL37. The 37th series. Every major improvement in the genome was marked as a higher number."
"I see."
"Still, you are useless trash. Anyway, as I was saying. When I left I too fashioned a makeshift boat out of rubbish and sailed away. For days I was stuck out in the cold and wet on the sea. After a year or so I decided to return to the lab (unlike you I had kept note of where I was going). I attained a huge sum of money from forging a lottery ticket, and paid to have my own cruise ship built. I also paid for a lot of black-market weaponry. Anti-aircraft cannons, anti-tank shells, that sort of thing. Heavy weaponry. I hired a few thugs and sailed off to the island. Once there I obliterated one of the walls and took as many ALs as I could. By then they were on the 39 series, and you would had just recently left. They stopped production of AL-numbers around then, I think. I then sailed away with all my hyper-intelligent half-cats. I turned and sailed back to Sydney. Only to find a large amount of weirdos on the street, scaring random people. That was your lot, the EC. Later in life, I read a newspaper. You were on the front."

[Miyanokouji]

"Alright, so that brings us up to the present. Now what? Why did you tell me all this?"
"So that I could explain why I resent your very existence. You're the most feared and respected AL in the world. Probably in the universe-"
"Multiverse"
"Whatever. It makes me very angry, that while I am faster and more intelligent than you, you are the one everyone fears. Today I'll change that."
"Do I get to test your claim?"
"Fine," the woman clicked her fingers.
"We each get a shortsword and one of your pistols," she said, handing Al the weapons, and several clips "I will unlock all the doors in this ship. After that, we duel. In and around the ship. Any questions before I go?"
"What's your name?"
"Kuki Nusumi. Looked through a Japanese dictionary and thought it was nice. It means air-theft."
"Okay."
She walked into a lift. The doors in the deck opened soon after. A minute or so later she spoke over the intercom, "Brace yourself. Here I come. The duel begins now"
With that, Kuki (metaphorically) flew through a window out of the cockpit, located near the top of the deck, and landed on a scaffold. Al looked up to it and shot at the floor of it in vain.
"You'll have to do better than that!" she chuckled over the intercom.
Al ran into the cylindrical corridor on one side of the deck, and looked for a way to shut the door. Finding none, he ran through the corridor into a dining hall. He heard a quick clanking to his right, up high. He looked and saw Kuki, up on the scaffold. He sidestepped through the dining hall at great speed, firing as many rounds in her direction as possible. She was whirling hir shortsword about. Al noticed she was actually deflecting the bullets with it. He gave up shooting and began running forwards again. He noticed stairs to his left. He ran as fast as he could towards them. In doing so, he created a large surface area, which Kuki targeted and shot at. Al tripped over, his foot in immense pain. Kuki holstered her pistol and drew her shortsword, leaping down from the scaffold at least 20 feet above the ground. She landed on her feet and walked over to Al, who was beginning to stand up. She laughed at him.
Al lashed out with the shortsword, spinning around and falling over, but connecting with Kuki's shin enough to cause a deep cut. She moved to the ground sharply, bringing her sword down to Al's throat. He blocked this with his sword, and repelled her attack, almost bowling her over. He got up and jumped (well, hopped) toward her, his sword in a position to cut a huge gash across her chest and stomach. She parried this, and used her sword to cut a big chunk out of Al's left arm. He screamed in pain, and sideswiped his sword at her face. She hopped back and he missed again. She thrust her sword into his chest.
"I have won," she announced via the intercom.
She let go of the sword, and Al fell to the ground, unable to get up again.
"Someone clean this up."
Al groaned, spluttered, and then stopped moving. Kuki walked down the corridor Al had come through, through the deck, and into the infirmary. She wrapped a bandage around her bleeding leg, walked back to the deck, and went up to the cockpit.

[Miyanokouji]

"Where are we headed?" Kuki asked to the AL42 standing next to the pilot's chair.
"We're currently flying over Australia. In several hours we'll be in Saudi Arabia. We're travelling slowly."
"Right."
Kuki sat in the pilot's seat, pushed a button to open the metal casing over the windshield, and flicked on a monitor above her and to the right.
"Hmm.. I know a small island off the coast of Finland."
She punched in new coordinates to the airship's autopilot, and twisted the speed dial to a high setting. The airship moved slightly, and then speeded up, flying diagonally upwards as per the coordinates. It stopped later at around 15,000 feet. She then slid out a keyboard on a tray and used it to flick open her bookmarks on the monitor. She clicked "The Evil Council" and was immediately brought to their website.

An explanation for why the EC have a website is that finding supernatural, sick, twisted freaks is hard when you live in a dimension all of your own. At present they have just 30-odd members, and an infinite (According to the Cat Theory) amount of space to inhabit. They only (knowingly) share their cave with five other beings: Cornelius, Slugfoot, the Evil Angel, the cloned grunts, and the wall slime. So it's not a busy place, and fresh talent is hard to find. So they set up a website to draw people who would interest them from the Earth. It had been successful so far, having been used to collect several new members.

Back to Kuki. She found the "Contact Us" link, and sent an email to the EC headmaster, Fort.

[Miyanokouji]

--Day 1

"What is it that we're missing?"
"SEX!"
"Giggity!"

--Day 2
"But seriously, what could we be misssing?"
"Uhh. Well I did lose a hampster once."
"Aww!"

--Day 3
"A biscuit tin?"
"Stolen almost from right under my nose. Though, if it had been, it would have been stolen from the inside of a book. So while I was reading the book, it must've been stolen."
"You could've said that in one word: yes."

--Day 4
"Well, I haven't seen Ace Addman in ages."
"That's true. Maybe she stole him!"
"He'll fight his way out using just his teeth if necessary!"
"What a guy..."

--Day 5
"..."
"..."
"..."
"....What a guy."

--Early morning, Day 6
"You guys seen AL anywhere? Sinks are spewing cyanide instead of water again."
"Sure he was just...Here...Last week."
"...."
"Oh crap."

--Mid-Morning, Day 6, aboard Kuki's airship, a few thousand metres above Rauma, Finland
"Well I think it's fair to say they're not coming."
"Patience. Your version is known for extreme ADD. We continue to wait until midnight. Then we dispose of the body and leave."
"What's that?"
"Your finger. Please try to look at the monitor."

--Noon
"I'm hungry."
"Right, we'll have lunch, then save Al!"
"Right!"
"The taps still spray cyanide."
"Then we shall drink fizzy drinks or alchohol in their place."
"Alchohol."
"Seconded." Many hands were raised.
"Alchohol it is!"
".....What a guy!"

--Late afternoon
"Right, sho we wash going tsho shave arr right now, right?"
"Yesh"
"To the E-Shee Mobile"
And so, drunkely, Fort and Addman staggered towards Raven's bedroom, before being pointed in the right direction with force. It was decided a less intoxicated member of the EC should go with them.
"Aaaaaaalrighty then!"

[Miyanokouji]

"A car just appeared out of nowhere on the island."
"Pick it up."
An electromagnet was lowered from the ship's massive hull, and the ship moved down to just above the clouds. It pulled the EC Mobile up a metre before connecting, then dragged it back to the ship. While this was happening, Kuki was walking down the passages to the cargo hold. She waited for the EC mobile to be brought up to it, and the airlock to be released. Once this was done, she walked up to the 2 and a half EC members gathered to meet her.

"Greetings, EC. I am Kuki Nusumi."
"I am ROSE. You have AL somewhere on this ship."
"Yes. Come with me"
She lead them up to the deck, where AL's body lay.

"He's dead?"
"Yes. He fought me for, after I told him I was quicker, and more intelligent than he, and lost."
Fort stumbled and hit the ground
"Waaaagh. I'm shee the shtars"
"You alwaysh she the shtats"
"You tchoo"
"Blesh you"
"...Okay, I'll just ignore the pair of you," Kuki turned to ROSE, "I have a request."
ROSE quickly calculated what the most probable question was, and answered it, "I can take you in the EC Mobile to the Corrupted Cave. The members of the EC would then collectively vote you in or out."
"Actually, I have a request. I'd like to transplant your EC Mobile's engine into my airship, so I could travel transdimensionally."
"Hmm. The EC Mobile is a favourite of the EC's. However there is a Interdimensional Ice-Cream Truck in our garage. I will get it for you. Do not allow the airship to move. You remind me of AL, so I will help."
ROSE walked back to the EC mobile, plugged in, and drove off. The EC Mobile faded out. Just a minute later, an icecream truck faded in, and ROSE moved off to the deck again. Kuki saw all this on a monitor.
"You like? ROSE said, hovering a metre or so from Kuki's face."
"I do. I'll have my mechanics install it, but we'll have to land and camouflage for a day or so. What are your friends names?"
"The demon is Fort, and the muppet is Addman"
"Right. Fort, Addman, anywhere you'd like to see on Earth?"
Addman attempted to say "Madagascar!", but failed miserably, instead saying "Mahabalaagasshhacassa!"
Fort managed to say "I wantsh to go to Ireland", and Kuki replied.
"Since I only understood Ireland, I'll take you there, though it's a strange place to take a cruise."

Kuki walked up to the lift to the cockpit. Soon after, the airship began to move further below the clouds. As they descended, portions of the airship disappeared, changed colour, or moved. By the time it landed in the sea, it was almost disguised perfectly. The large wheels that were keeping it aloft stopped spinning, the blades flattened, and the wheels twisted until they were flush against the body, at which point they too camouflaged.
The cargo bay was now in the very lower area of the ship, acting as a section of the parking lot, the deck on the same level as the cockpit with the lift going down to the end of one of the cabin corridors. The interiors of the ship also changed colour to seem much more cruise-shippy.

"You see," Kuki began, "this ship was in fact just that, a ship. A cruise ship, largest in the world. A team made up of myself and a group of my friends engineered it so that it ended up a much more sensible flight-ready layout, while retaining the ability to fly. Consequently, many of the lower decks get thin in two places, where the hover wheels are. I made a lot of money by taking people on cruises. I particularly like the Carribean and Antarctica."
"Interesting," Rose said.
Fort chose a less intelligent thing to say, "Consheqeuntaly, your mum ish a flight-ready layoutsh...Yeah."
"Take these...people to the cabins. Lock them in. Allow them out tomorrow morning."
"It is nice hearing about your ship, Kuki. Would you mind continuing? It is a fascinating topic."
ROSE switched on her HUD and displayed a "Yes/No/Cancel" dialog box, as a jestful remark toward old operating systems.
"Yes," Kuki said, poking her tongue out at the HUD.

By the end of the evening, ROSE knew all about the construction and schematics of the ship in both cruise-ship and flight modes. She also knew its name, The Plexus, and that it had a wireless network with a server to connect to to control The Plexus, and what messages to send it, and where the power plugs were. She needed to recharge.

[Miyanokouji]

[edit: After reading this through I realise it makes no sense, one minute they're in Antarctica, the next in Ireland. Just assume they're in Ireland and that Antartica never happened >.>]

"I knew this was a bad idea," Fort whined about how disappointing Ireland was.
"You were drunk. It happens to everyone," Addman said, in attempt to console him, "anyway, it must be winter. Everything's covered in ice."
"Shall I tell them or you?" Rose asked to Kuki.
"Heh, you can."
"We're not near Ireland. We're on the other side of the Earth," Rose said in her metally voice to the pair, while displaying a >.> face on her holographic HUD.
"...Well where are we then?"
Rose's HUD changed to a 3D model of the Earth, with Ireland marked on it, and "You Are Here" just above Antarctica.
Fort managed to comrehend, and groaned, "...Whyy??"
Addman used his amazing knowledge of Physics to understand something far more significant and said, "So that's why it's cold. Where are we though?"
"Off the coast of Antartica," Kuki said before Rose could begin replying, "a fantastic cruise spot and the most highly-booked whenever I sail."
This Addman couldn't understand with Physics, and questioned Kuki's intelligence, "But. It's. COLD. Why would anyone want to go somewhere cold?"
"Look out the window over Antarctica. It is a beautiful region made entirely of ice and snow. The patterns the light makes on it are astounding."
"Well, I don't buy it. How long till we can go home?"
"The engineers are finishing up now. We should go to the cockpit."
With that, the four walked back to the cabins, and took the lift straight to the cockpit. Which was filled with smoke.
"Augh, the pair of you, how many times have I told you, don't smoke inside!"
"Sorry, Kuki. Anyway, we're done, so to travel interdimensionally you just use more coordinates. Where on Earth we'd plot courses based on the Earth's degree system, we now plot exact coordinates and rotations in as many as 12 dimensions. That's all we could work out how to use of the ice cream truck's engine."
"Okay. Now go, before I pass on from an inability to respire!", so they did, and Kuki addressed Rose, "You can enter the coordinates and rotation if you have some kind of USB keyboard emulation. The ports are here," she pointed at a pair of sockets on the cockpit's desk. (There wasn't a control yoke or a steering wheel or anything, unless it was activated by a button on the desk, which would slide the desk to one side of the room, raise and lower standard helicopter controls from the floor and ceiling, and open the windshield's casing)

Rose jumped up to the desk and slotted a cable into the socket from her lower opening. She entered the coordinates at lightning speed, as can be expected, then removed the cable and hopped off the desk, pulling in her legs and replacing them with thrusters to hover at Kuki's level.
"Done."
Kuki pressed enter and waited while the ship transferred to flight mode, firstly by moving the hover wheels into the right place, taking off, changing the layout of the ship, and then de-camouflaging. Once this process was finished, and the ship stableised, a whirring sound could be heard, getting louder until it was almost deafening, at which point the ship lurched and buffeted in directions which its passengers couldn't imagine, let alone feel.
"Let's see if it's working, Kuki said, pushing the button on the desk. The windshield casing opened to reveal they were still in much the same place, pointed at Ireland, with many onlookers wondering just what the heck a cruise ship just took off for, except for one detail. The colour was completely off, and there were all sorts of patterns in the sky. The colour grew in intensity, until they could no longer see Ireland, and for the onlookers, the ship simply seemed to fade out of existence. They all looked at their bottles, pulled faces, muttered "Never going to that pub again!" and continued walking to wherever they were going. A lot of West Irish pubs have since closed.

The colours in the group's eyes slowly faded, and it appeared they were in a room, and a very large one at that. Raven and Panther sat up in bed and screamed "WHAT?" at the ginormous mechanic monster. So did all their partners.
"...Rose, where are we?"
"Raven and Panther's bedroom, the largest room in the known Corrupted Cave, and the only with the capacity to hold the Plexus. Due mostly to the size of her bed. For all their 'partners'"
Fort and Addman looked at each other, and yelled "LET US OFF THIS SHIP...NOW." in a manner attempting to sound like disgust.
"Sure, just go down to the cargo hold and use the ladder. I have to land using legs against the walls. The bed is just too full. Addman and Fort did so, and were soon in bed with all the others.
"Is the EC always like this?"
"Well, there are some nonsexual members. Some."
"We will leave through the door at that back. There's a door in the room in the same place."
"Good. Let's go quickly. My relationship value with Raven, Fort, Addman, and Panther, just took a great hit. Any further and I fear it will wrap-around* and be incredibly high."
"Haha, what's your word-length?"
"64-bit. But relationships are on a double."
The pair left the Plexus, and Rose lead Kuki round the Corrupted Cave, introducing her to the various but few who weren't in Raven and Pather's bed.

This is what it's like when worlds collide.

* It's a geek joke. When you run out of bits to set to one, it sets it back to 0 and starts again. Rose's relationship values are unsigned 128-bit (double 64) integers, so the maximum value is (ahem) 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,455.
That's about 340 undecillion, or for Europeans, 340 sextillions.



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