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      T he movies got it wrong. This boring mid-level thought kept coming back over and over as Jeff scanned the seats full of concern and worry. Theirs and his. Being in a bar full of aliens was not a fantastic experience. It sucked.  The Universe wasn't doing well. At least, that's how he interpreted the news stories. He'd catch glimpses of news as he pounded the pavement looking for work. It's like they don't understand that people don't have time to listen to your narrative when you've messed up their life. They are busy dealing with what you did to them. A planet facing its very first resource depletion, already in peril due to the incompetence of its leaders, wasn't even paying attention to the stories about  the holes in the sky.  His habit of looking at his feet while walking did him huge disservice.  Just, this time instead walking into a thirty-nine year old CPA from Greensborough, it was a forming puddle of entangled condensate. The "hole

  6 "We are very compatible."  Said Ree. Once again his vision started blurring but not because he was being copied. He was waking up. He did his trademark stretching his arms and legs to max before opening his eyes. If he didn't he'd fall back asleep. "It worked." he heard. When he opened his eyes she was exactly the same. She was all smiles though. Ear to ear. It was a good look. "This is my almost perfect 1.0. I figured out he's using a consciousness sharing technology Jasher came up with and sure enough they put it in the Archive. I had to retrieve it and tweak it a little. I haven't perfected the durability to the same level."  She had figured out she could use a matter map to recreate her saved human form, but then replace the central nervous system with embedded quantum receivers in each cell. It would work like her current body, and exactly like a human one. The best of all worlds. Better, she'd have precision control over all b

  5 "So, let's talk." In a split second the three were seated in a, well, space restaurant. Boaz looked at Jasher and began to raise his finger, but then stopped and really looked around. "This isn't your restaurant." he said clearly stunned. "Well it can't be. He's not temporal. This is actually the Three Second Universe attempt." said Jasher. "Because the Multiverse has a sense of humor, I got bounced here when Frank bounced there." said Jasher. "Back and forth is no problem now that we've broken the paradox with Frank."  "But, that makes no sense!" said Boaz. "He didn't know about this place when he was here or there and he's not really you." "No, and that's not the only truly bizarre and fucked up shit. You had to wonder where Momon went, right?" asked Jasher. "No." said Boaz. "Yup." said Jasher.  Jasher slid the now manually operated viewport slider t

  4 "Time to get the plug. We should get the plug." Said Boaz after finishing his treatise on his beloved sister. Boaz would have just done it and said nothing but Frank asked a question. Frank just fucking LOVED asking the kinds of questions of temporal beings that create spendy time buffers. It was like his gift. Getting directly to the core of things efficiently was prerequisite for a temporal being like Boaz or Jasher or Kay or even Stephy now that she had the hang of it. A non-temporal standard projection being that kept doing it artfully with thought was draining. What should have been the smoothest interaction possible became bogged down by automated probability alarms. Thousands of them. Frank was unknowingly choosing perfect outcomes and the system had no idea how to interpret it, so it over-reported. Not that Frank would or could ever know how irritating he was to the infinite. He'd never understand why. Frank wasn't temporal. He was just inconveniently the

 3 “How do you… work?” Asked Frank simply. “I find it’s easiest to work with things I understand.” he finished with a smile. Boaz practically beamed. Explaining how he worked might be his third most favorite thing to do. Frank had been boring through Ceres with a Tplani mining frigate, when the projection (he thought) appeared on his bridge and said,  “A little more to the left or you’ll fuck up lining up with the aft entry." Boaz then preoccupied himself with flitting around the ship at terrifying speed. He paused in front of the main mining controls while Frank asked him how he worked. "You should probably stop now. I mean I would. This loud hunk of shit woke me up. Mission accomplished. This stops the racket right?" asked Boaz as he effortlessly pressed the one button that would bring everything in Frank's ship to an immediate halt. "But um I mean." and Frank stopped talking because Boaz moved like a phantom and looked like a pornstar gunslinger. There w

 2 “How do you… work?” Asked Frank simply. “I find it’s easiest to work with things I understand.” he finished with a smile. Boaz practically beamed. Explaining how he worked might be his third most favorite thing to do. Frank had been boring through Ceres with a Tplani mining frigate (not the newest, but just so good looking and well made), when the projection (he thought) appeared on his bridge and said,  “A little more to the left or you’ll fuck up lining up with the aft entry." But let's rewind a bit With both his Duroxan and Mylox ships pinging on Ceres, and that making no sense, he asked Grik. Grik, currently busy with the latest Aurora contract between Zeta and Earth. He didn't mind the distraction. He enjoyed being mean to Frank. And the second Frank brought up Ceres, Grik was very happy the connection was only audio because he was already smiling. Grik took great care to make sure that smile did not creep into his voice. "Ceres is weird. Lots have seen what y

 1 Edward Franklin Drake (or just Frank) had felt off for years. He could pinpoint the day. He had taken possession of a Candy Ship from one Jemsase. She was a DAL/REC hybrid born to move between both Universe. A genetic hybrid being all of four foot ten that could have walked out of a Charles Dickens novel. It hadn’t occurred to Frank how she did the Universe hop. That is until he fumbled with the key fob and ended up in DAL Universe. Of course she’d use a ship. Of course she’d be so irresponsible she’d sell one of them to someone and not warn them. “Holy fuck.” was all Frank said under his breath, then he froze and thought. He had to very quickly think about everything that had just transpired and reverse it. “I was rotating my thumb here near this metal loop lanyard thing on the weird side where you’ll never instinctually touch. Maybe if I” was what he was thinking when the first and only shot hit his ship. He stopped thinking. He repeated the circle motion on the awkward end of the