The White Rabbit Chronicles - Part XIII

XIII

Slip up. Just fall out of rhythm. Slide out of your space and give me a crack.

A girl with snow white hair tied back into a ponytail burned holes through the air with a fixated gaze. Her eyes never drifted from her mark, even as her feet shuffled a slow tense beat over the dark mat. Padded fists were held up, primed for the moment of violent release. An equal and opposite image mimicked the motion.

As if the universe had dropped a spinning mirror in the center of the mat, the spitting images looped slowly around their center of gravity. An invisible well of latent brutality. Each orbit was the tightening of a spring. Each moment a test of stability.

But still there were no wild moves. No sudden sparks. Their eerie imitation of the other spoke of the reason why: they were perfectly matched. Identical. A closed loop. One the other’s beginning. One the other’s end.

Thirteen consciously pried her molars apart. She tried sinking into an easy groove, and getting her muscles onto the same wavelength. She needed every sinew in place. Her twin taunted her through mere existence. A cleaner cut of herself. No, reverse that. The image in front of her was the undiluted original. She, Thirteen, was the faded xerox. Each of her faded edges was a soft spot that the master didn’t have. Something she could exploit.

White Rabbit the First, her sparring partner, jabbed with the speed of lightning. Thirteen’s mind snapped back to focus, narrowing in on the impending threat. But she pulled her lunging reflexes back into line. It was a feint. A ploy. She tightened her guard and adjusted her footing. She wouldn’t let her worn edges show.

She was tuned up again. A thousand phantoms whispering in the dark corners of the room tried to snag her attention. But she had a reason to leave them swirling in the ether. It had been a minute since her talk with the Hawk. His hauntingly hopeful suggestion burned steady in her veins.

There was a chance for an end. She would seize it.

The myriad factors that would need to align for a final end to materialize were truly beyond her control. But the faintest whiff of possibility that it could manifest was enough to supercharge her resolve. If that moment came, if all of time allowed, if there was a window to act, she wouldn’t let it slip through her fingers. She would be ready.

And even if it dissolved into the void in the finale, the faint light was a beacon for now. A direction of travel. A source of momentum. It set the mechanics of her body in motion, transforming it from mere Newtonian matter into life itself. She thought, she felt, she pressed. She was purpose.

Thirteen could practically see into Prime’s mind. She was looking for those frayed ends. A lapse in concentration, a poorly placed foot, an overreaching probe. Prime knew she had the advantage.

No. She thinks she does. I’ve been in the field.

Thirteen suddenly jabbed in a series of quick pinprick assaults. A few discordant notes to sour her groove. Precise little drops out of the blue. Warning spackle before a thunderstorm.

Prime did, in fact, recoil in search of shelter. But the storm never came. Thirteen left no openings to exploit. She hadn’t lost her rhythm. Prime had to be wondering what it meant. What she could draw from it. What the play was.

There is no play. No reason. Except to have no reason.

Let’s jam.

Thirteen had been training again. She was honing every fiber and sharpening every instinct for The Opportunity. Brushing up on a little of everything. As if she was still the Prime, with the cosmic burden of delivering the message.

Same trick. The Opportunity could be anything. So she trained for everything. Combat, survival, infiltration. But most of all, she delved into the labyrinthine world of arcane tech and mysteries of a bygone future. Real mind-benders. She was bad at it. It was also the pivot point to this whole temporal gambit.

She had no illusions that she would uncover some lost bit of lore or solve some heretofore impenetrable quandary. But she needed to know how the machines of the Society of Angels worked on a rudimentary level. Or whatever passed for a rudimentary understanding at Time Peace.

Right here, right now, though? This was a test. A check, with a real challenge guarding the way. The first of many. If she could handle a simple controlled simulacrum of a fight, then maybe she could jive with something more real. Something with danger.

Prime feinted again. Nearly artful. But Thirteen clocked the hidden follow-up. She shuffled the beat.

She blocked, but rolled past and jammed in the advantage. An advantage she had just pulled out of thin air. The heat was on.

Prime was on the backfoot, but not shaken. Thirteen shifted gears, changed angles, and brought a storm. A hail of strikes and thrusts, pushing and prying at Prime’s defenses. Wild in power, controlled in application. A surgical pattern that should eventually pull her apart.

But it wasn’t easy.

Thirteen’s moves had grown from the seeds still in this Prime’s head. Even an edge in experience couldn’t overcome the latent talent of the target. Attacks were anticipated, blows blocked. The storm wavered.

Suddenly, Prime bolted, embodying the rabbit in her name. The sudden space between the two combatants was a cloying taunt. Prime was on her feet, ready to spring, daring Thirteen to keep up the fury. To lunge into that empty space that reeked of possibility. It was like the future itself – deceptively void, where any number of unexpected outcomes were just waiting to manifest – already seeded in this moment.

Prime didn’t seem to want Thirteen to ponder those possibilities. She filled the silence with a jab of a different kind. “You’re hot today. What’s got you fired up?”

Thirteen didn’t lunge. She slowly closed the space, her guard renewed.

“You want to lick me that bad?” Prime asked again. “What’s it to you?”

Thirteen jabbed. A test. Prime batted it aside – no sweat. She was charged up – practically bouncing as she demanded, “What are you looking to get?”

Thirteen locked in. Total focus. Killer instinct.

“I’m going to take your future,” she answered.

For a beat, Prime slowed. Thirteen pounced on the break. Full fury was wedged into that chance.

A sharp strike thudded into her ribs. But Prime responded quickly. A twist, a block, a thrust of her own. It was a scrap now. Each took a hit before dishing out another. Before either one knew what had happened, they had fallen apart again. But this time, there was barely a breather.

“I’m going to make you obsolete,” Thirteen bragged, and then dove back in.

At the last moment, she pulled back. Prime thought she was ready, but swung at a ghost. Thirteen’s opportunity had finally materialized.

She struck like a thunderbolt. Prime reeled. Her guard buckled, and another blow hit home. Thirteen had her now. The pattern was locked in. She could see every subsequent strike and punishing pummel. Victory assured.

But before the fourth blow could find its mark, her legs fell out from under her. As Prime twisted and went down, she took Thirteen with her. In a snap, Thirteen was re-mapping her moves. Changing things up to deal with the tussle on the ground.

Prime was just a hair faster. A quick snap and a sudden hold later, and it was all over.

“For what it’s worth,” Prime panted, “good luck.”

She set the fallen Thirteen free. The defeated Rabbit sprang back to her feet, but her fists hung limp. The game was over. She didn’t argue with the outcome.

“Be sure to stop by when you’re ready for more,” Prime said, grinning through her exhaustion.

Thirteen tried to smirk back, but it was bitter. She hadn’t passed the test. There was still a long way to go. She took off her gear and walked off without another word.

Prime watched the strangest of her lost echoes walk off. She was doing her absolute best not to let the true harrowing panic that had come over her in the last engagement show. It was hard for her to believe that this twin really was an imprint of herself. She watched in wonder as Thirteen left, and tried to picture what it would take to actualize the sheer strength she had displayed.

As she reflected on how many tumbles through time Thirteen had supposedly taken, Prime decided that she would strive to manifest that same talent. But there was comfort in the idea that she never would have to. If she were so lucky.

***

Thirteen strode through Iterant Point looking for someone. It was lousy with ghosts – familiar faces covering different souls. In a way, she was looking for a particular set of phantoms. But these two seemed to have reconstituted a bit different. They were familiar in appearance, but enough had changed that the resemblance wasn’t as uncanny. Or maybe it was because they had been linked by her old mission. Either way, there were two old faces she was actually looking forward to seeing again.

She had been startled to hear they had gotten themselves into trouble again. Vanished after their debacle in Aechyr. Presumed dead. She had heard late, and the news was far from welcome when she had needed focus. By a true miracle, they had returned. Naturally, because she was still a White Rabbit, she had gotten a line into the inside details.

She shook her head in wonderment as she passed by the various buildings on one of the many sprawling streets. How they had pulled themselves out of this mess had been quite the tale. And it had provided another piece of the puzzle. Or at least a hint. It was too early to say how it would all slot together.

But more important to her now was that they were back and alright. Mostly.

Finally, she saw them loitering outside of a command building, used mostly for briefings. Right where she thought she’d find them. Kennedy Frost and Blake Anthony. Standing next to each other, Kennedy looking fierce at an awkward Blake. Clearly an impassioned conversation had just taken place.

That’s my cue.

“We can never go back,” Blake finally said, breaking the silence.

Crossing the road and feeling a pang of sympathy, Thirteen called out, “That’s time, dude.”

Two heads snapped towards her as she approached, both clearly shocked to see her. She found it amusing, and this time, her casual attitude was anything but affected. The scene felt familiar. It felt good. And this time, there was no pressure.

Kennedy wasn’t looking pleased at her interruption, and Blake seemed about ready to say something. But she held him off with a raised hand.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m crashing your party. But listen for a moment, would ya?” she almost apologized. She knew how they were feeling. Strung out. Lost. It had been a long journey for them, and they needed to hear what she had to say. In this moment, she was a sympathetic soul. Though she couldn’t resist saying, “I’m retired, pity me.”

“Retired? Pity?” Kennedy said, aghast or astonished.

Thirteen flashed him a smile that had been just waiting to burst out. His startled expression was just the injection of joy she needed.

“That’s right!” she explained happily. At first. But the subject soon turned to the sobering realities of being a white rabbit. She started to explain it to them, and with every word, a little of her newfound joy left her. But the words came easily. “All of my history, all of the war that I memorized, it’s been erased. Taped over like an old VHS. An entire universe scrubbed clean when I did my job. Now I’m out of the game, and there’s none of the old familiar haunts to return to. There’s shadows of them – this new and shiny version on this meta-timeline. But it’s not quite the same. Real trippy if you think too long about it.”

It had been a while since she had, actually. The training had thankfully soaked up that melancholy. But now, as she relaxed with these two oddly familiar presences, there was a moment where it bubbled back up. The uncertainty. The hints that she wasn’t who she thought she was. That she’d never be whole. That her existence was an error in the product of reality.

“I don’t know what to say,” Blake’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

And suddenly, she was back to reality. Back to the reason she was here. She might be lost, but she wasn’t the only one. And none of them could afford to drown.

“Say nothing,” Thirteen suggested. Then, she shrugged and added, “What can any of us?”

Though as she said it, a thought occurred to her. This was a new journey for all of them. A new beginning. Much like an old opportunity from not too long ago. And some of the words she had said casually as a way to bend a timeline into order seemed suddenly soulful.

“Same deal as last time,” she suddenly said to the two, voicing her thought. “There’s just one choice: stay or go.”

She cocked her head towards the busy street beside them. Kennedy glanced down it.

“Go where?” he asked suspiciously.

And Thirteen found she was smiling again. In a way, it was all so easy after all.

“On,” she explained.

After a deep breath, Blake said, “Let’s get to it,” and that was that.

The three turned down the road and faced the future.

***

END FINAL TRANSMISSION