Post by Alex Tamora on Apr 10, 2017 19:38:23 GMT -5
“No, no no no, no!” I hadn’t been expecting a temporal storm and because I hadn’t been prepared I was going to die. The hull shrieked and sparks erupted from the console as I desperately tried to correct my course. Of course every Chrononaut who piloted a ship through the time sphere received training ad nauseam on how to deal with the unpredictable nature of traveling through time and space, including how to correctly plot a course through a temporal storm. Man, I wish I was an actual Chrononaut. Yeah, I should probably mention that I kind of sort of borrowed-borrowed without permission-Okay, fine stole, I stole my ship.
I felt the ship shudder as hull plates started to peel away. An explosion from the aft end of the ship started it in a tail spin. Think of the time sphere as an actual sphere. You can get from point Z to point A relatively easy by plotting a direct course. But if you spin the sphere there’s no telling where you’ll end up. At this point I’d be lucky if the worst thing that happened was dying in a fiery explosion outside of time. If I was really unlucky, I’d be there to witness the big bang right before the titular bang.
The ship shuddered as another explosion rocked it. This was going to be the end and all because I wanted to watch some stupid wrestling. A third explosion tore the cockpit from the ship and the world went white.
That’s not actually what happened. But that’s how my brain likes to remember it, especially when I’m trying to sleep. This had been going on for about three weeks. In actuality I was able to mostly land the ship. I even ended up in right year. I would love to claim it was because of my unmatched skills as a pilot or coming up with some daring maneuver on my part. It was luck. Dumb, blind, stupid luck.
Speaking of dumb, blind, stupid luck, the cloaking field was still mostly functional. One of the first rules of time travel was not to interfere or influence the time stream. In that spirit they’d realized that maybe a time travelling space ship showing up during some ancient Chinese dynasty was probably a very bad idea. They were originally research vessels anyway. Scientists in my time used them to retrieve artifacts from past times and samples from species that had gone extinct in hopes of bringing them back. I think they made a movie about that in the late 20’th. If I recall it didn’t end well in the original or any of the seventeen sequels.
“Good morning, Alexandra. The local time is 5:52 AM.”
I rolled over and buried my face into the makeshift pillow I’d made from a seat cushion on the ship.
“Good morning, Alexandra. The local time is 5:52 AM.”
I groaned and sat up, “I wasn’t ready to get up yet, Quincy. Why’d you wake me up?”
Quincy’s physical form shimmered into being, a silvery holographic male figure with a pleasant enough face. Quincy was a Quantum Neural Computer, or QNC for short; hence the name Quincy. Everyone had one installed when they reached adulthood, it allowed us to interface with the various systems needed to live and work. As such, Quincy’s “physical” form was really just a retinal overlay. A kind of hologram that originated from my eyes. What that meant to anyone who didn’t speak 2754 technobabble was that I was the only one that could see or hear him. It’s a lot less creepy than it sounds, I swear.
QNE’s were also responsible for monitoring their partner’s biorhythms and augmenting their enhancements for peak performance. I’m not making this sound any less creepy am I? Oh well, can’t please everyone. I scrounged through my pack looking for something to eat. I was nearly out of rations and I’d have to venture out before long. As scary as being stranded seven hundred years in the past was, I was weirdly excited about it. I was going to see and experience things that no one from my time had. I was going to get to try things like taco bell, and Doritos, and if I was lucky, Pro Wrestling. It was the whole reason I’d stole…borrowed my ship.
Of course crashing had kind of changed my plans. I was stuck here until I could make repairs. I couldn’t make repairs until I knew exactly what was broken. And even then, I didn’t know if I’d even be able to repair what was broken. The technology gap could prove to be insurmountable.
“I did not wake you, Alexandra. I merely observed your biorhythms until they showed signs of waking and then provided you with a morning greeting and an update on the local time.”
Stupid AI.
I grumbled as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, “Were you at least able to figure out how to make those changes to my augmentations I asked about?”
“I believe so, Alexandra. But I must protest, your augments were not meant to be used this way. I do not know what effect lowering their efficiency will have on your body. It could cause catastrophic shut downs, causing irreparable damage to your nervous, musculoskeletal, respiratory, and endocrine systems.”
“That’s true, Quincy. But if I’m going to be a wrestler I can’t have my augmentations giving me an unfair advantage. I know we can’t turn them off, that’s why I just want you to dial them back as far as we can.”
“I believe I can lower their efficiency by up to ninety percent. However I must also warn you that I do not yet know if the process can be reversed.”
“Down to ten percent,” I did some rough calculations in my head.
Quincy answered for me before I could finish the math, “That will place you in the upper percentile for peak human strength.”
I grumbled again and looked down at myself. I wasn’t scrawny, but I wasn’t some muscle bound freak like the ones grown for combat duty.
“Any way to get it a little bit lower?”
“Not without killing you.”
Well that was a happy thought. I scrolled through the emails that Quincy had downloaded onto my data pad for me and reread my favorite one for what I
was sure what the three billionth time. I’ll spare you the gory details, but it was an invitation for a try out match from PCW. It was the entire reason I was here. Well technically I was originally here just to watch it, but when you’re stuck in the twenty first century, do as the twenty first centurions do.
“Quincy, have they picked out an opponent for my try out match yet?”
My head spun with the possibilities. PCW was legend in my time. It was the penultimate example of story telling combat sports, everyone who was anyone knew everything about PCW. At least that’s what I told myself. To most people, professional wrestling was a barbaric blood sport that had the good sense to die in the twilight years of the twenty first century. To me, it was pure poetry; men and women telling their stories through physical prowess, violence, and undying will. What could be better?
I ran through the known roster in my head, getting more and more excited at the prospect of facing some of the PCW greats in my very first match. Would it be Eira? Would it be Whitey Ford? Would it be Razor Blade?
“Lunatic.”
My fantasy booking screeched to a halt.
“Wait, who?”
“Lunatic. Real name Marcus McGwire. No listed date of birth. Billed from Kansas City, Missouri. Weight…”
I tuned Quincy out as he continued running down Lunatic’s stats, no doubt lifted directly from PCW’s employee database. No, I was more concerned with the fact that I had never heard of Lunatic before. I was kind of a little….a lot obsessed with Pure Class wrestling and I thanks to the fact that I had an AI living in my brain I could give you stats and histories for every single competitor current, past, and technically future. Lunatic wasn’t listed in any of my internal memory files.
I just got here. How could things already be changing?
I felt the ship shudder as hull plates started to peel away. An explosion from the aft end of the ship started it in a tail spin. Think of the time sphere as an actual sphere. You can get from point Z to point A relatively easy by plotting a direct course. But if you spin the sphere there’s no telling where you’ll end up. At this point I’d be lucky if the worst thing that happened was dying in a fiery explosion outside of time. If I was really unlucky, I’d be there to witness the big bang right before the titular bang.
The ship shuddered as another explosion rocked it. This was going to be the end and all because I wanted to watch some stupid wrestling. A third explosion tore the cockpit from the ship and the world went white.
That’s not actually what happened. But that’s how my brain likes to remember it, especially when I’m trying to sleep. This had been going on for about three weeks. In actuality I was able to mostly land the ship. I even ended up in right year. I would love to claim it was because of my unmatched skills as a pilot or coming up with some daring maneuver on my part. It was luck. Dumb, blind, stupid luck.
Speaking of dumb, blind, stupid luck, the cloaking field was still mostly functional. One of the first rules of time travel was not to interfere or influence the time stream. In that spirit they’d realized that maybe a time travelling space ship showing up during some ancient Chinese dynasty was probably a very bad idea. They were originally research vessels anyway. Scientists in my time used them to retrieve artifacts from past times and samples from species that had gone extinct in hopes of bringing them back. I think they made a movie about that in the late 20’th. If I recall it didn’t end well in the original or any of the seventeen sequels.
“Good morning, Alexandra. The local time is 5:52 AM.”
I rolled over and buried my face into the makeshift pillow I’d made from a seat cushion on the ship.
“Good morning, Alexandra. The local time is 5:52 AM.”
I groaned and sat up, “I wasn’t ready to get up yet, Quincy. Why’d you wake me up?”
Quincy’s physical form shimmered into being, a silvery holographic male figure with a pleasant enough face. Quincy was a Quantum Neural Computer, or QNC for short; hence the name Quincy. Everyone had one installed when they reached adulthood, it allowed us to interface with the various systems needed to live and work. As such, Quincy’s “physical” form was really just a retinal overlay. A kind of hologram that originated from my eyes. What that meant to anyone who didn’t speak 2754 technobabble was that I was the only one that could see or hear him. It’s a lot less creepy than it sounds, I swear.
QNE’s were also responsible for monitoring their partner’s biorhythms and augmenting their enhancements for peak performance. I’m not making this sound any less creepy am I? Oh well, can’t please everyone. I scrounged through my pack looking for something to eat. I was nearly out of rations and I’d have to venture out before long. As scary as being stranded seven hundred years in the past was, I was weirdly excited about it. I was going to see and experience things that no one from my time had. I was going to get to try things like taco bell, and Doritos, and if I was lucky, Pro Wrestling. It was the whole reason I’d stole…borrowed my ship.
Of course crashing had kind of changed my plans. I was stuck here until I could make repairs. I couldn’t make repairs until I knew exactly what was broken. And even then, I didn’t know if I’d even be able to repair what was broken. The technology gap could prove to be insurmountable.
“I did not wake you, Alexandra. I merely observed your biorhythms until they showed signs of waking and then provided you with a morning greeting and an update on the local time.”
Stupid AI.
I grumbled as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, “Were you at least able to figure out how to make those changes to my augmentations I asked about?”
“I believe so, Alexandra. But I must protest, your augments were not meant to be used this way. I do not know what effect lowering their efficiency will have on your body. It could cause catastrophic shut downs, causing irreparable damage to your nervous, musculoskeletal, respiratory, and endocrine systems.”
“That’s true, Quincy. But if I’m going to be a wrestler I can’t have my augmentations giving me an unfair advantage. I know we can’t turn them off, that’s why I just want you to dial them back as far as we can.”
“I believe I can lower their efficiency by up to ninety percent. However I must also warn you that I do not yet know if the process can be reversed.”
“Down to ten percent,” I did some rough calculations in my head.
Quincy answered for me before I could finish the math, “That will place you in the upper percentile for peak human strength.”
I grumbled again and looked down at myself. I wasn’t scrawny, but I wasn’t some muscle bound freak like the ones grown for combat duty.
“Any way to get it a little bit lower?”
“Not without killing you.”
Well that was a happy thought. I scrolled through the emails that Quincy had downloaded onto my data pad for me and reread my favorite one for what I
was sure what the three billionth time. I’ll spare you the gory details, but it was an invitation for a try out match from PCW. It was the entire reason I was here. Well technically I was originally here just to watch it, but when you’re stuck in the twenty first century, do as the twenty first centurions do.
“Quincy, have they picked out an opponent for my try out match yet?”
My head spun with the possibilities. PCW was legend in my time. It was the penultimate example of story telling combat sports, everyone who was anyone knew everything about PCW. At least that’s what I told myself. To most people, professional wrestling was a barbaric blood sport that had the good sense to die in the twilight years of the twenty first century. To me, it was pure poetry; men and women telling their stories through physical prowess, violence, and undying will. What could be better?
I ran through the known roster in my head, getting more and more excited at the prospect of facing some of the PCW greats in my very first match. Would it be Eira? Would it be Whitey Ford? Would it be Razor Blade?
“Lunatic.”
My fantasy booking screeched to a halt.
“Wait, who?”
“Lunatic. Real name Marcus McGwire. No listed date of birth. Billed from Kansas City, Missouri. Weight…”
I tuned Quincy out as he continued running down Lunatic’s stats, no doubt lifted directly from PCW’s employee database. No, I was more concerned with the fact that I had never heard of Lunatic before. I was kind of a little….a lot obsessed with Pure Class wrestling and I thanks to the fact that I had an AI living in my brain I could give you stats and histories for every single competitor current, past, and technically future. Lunatic wasn’t listed in any of my internal memory files.
I just got here. How could things already be changing?