The Holy Spear-Warrior and His Channel
One: Time-Traveling in a Chrome-Colored Egg Isn't Fun
Hi, my name's Saljerr Martin, but you can call me Jerry. I was born on March 15th 2298 and I'm fourteen, I go to TimeTriumph Boarding School, it's basically built in the lab/building that the very first time-travel took place at (which happened in 2217).
I'm a direct descendant of someone from the 1700s, which is actually very rare these days, usually one in every hundred-thousand-something people are related to someone famous, which is actually pretty big since there are only 2 billion people in the world now. A lot of them moved to the moon, Mars, or the other few planets that we've found habitable in close-enough galaxies.
"Mr. Martin, I would appreciate it if you paid attention to the screen." Comes the coolly drawling voice of my teacher, Mr. Kendall. He's the youngest teacher here, but he's also one of those teachers that doesn't care about anything but making sure that his students get the best grades because of their own minds, no matter how unorthodox the method may be, he doesn't even notice how a lot of the girl teachers drool over him.
Another thing is that this school uses old methods. Usually, kids go to school online, instead of going to the school itself and learning from teachers in person and spending time with other students.
"Sorry, sir." I say, putting my eyes on the screen so that my thoughts can wonder and not get caught doing so, but it might not hurt seeing to what's on the screen.
"And so Benedict Arnold was branded a traitor, but it wasn't his betrayal of the colonies that made him a traitor, it was his lack of selfless morals." The woman on the screen says. I feel my fist clench, I know Benedict was a traitor, but he was also a hero, so something had to've gone wrong somewhere... And I know what had, it's just that these people don't have their facts straight.
"Mr. Martin, would you care to say anything about this film?" Mr. Kendall asks, slightly questioning purple eyes looking at me through his glasses.
"It was informative," I quip, and that's all I have to say.
Mr. Kendall's eyes linger for a second before saying, "I see." Then the clock rings three and the bells of the school chime, signaling that school is over. "Every one of you should have an essay on Benedict Arnold by Monday; turn it in first thing once entering. The one with the best essay will get his or her's read out loud to the class." He says, hands on his desk authoritavely.
"Yes, Mr. Kendall." The class choruses.
"Good, you're all dismissed." He says.
I get up, putting my stuff into my bag, dropping it when someone purposely bumps into me. My things are scattered all over the ground. I pick it up, leaving without one glance back while feeling eyes gazing apathetically at my back, which is usually how I leave a classroom.
"Hey, Jerry!" I hear someone call, I turn to see Kyle Phantom, he's my roommate, also my best and only friend.
"Yeah?" I ask as he catches up.
"Do you have any homework?" He asks.
"Yeah, an essay on Benedict Arnold for Kendall's class." I answer.
He looks at me weirdly, "And you're in no way upset by this?" He asks.
"Why should I be?" I ask.
"Because Benedict's your ancestor! And... you know..." He says, trailing off, and I know then what he's trying to convey.
"Thanks for worrying, but I'm perfectly fine." I say.
"You should know not to say perfect, because we all know that whenever there's perfection in this world, it always leads to trouble." Kyle says seriously.
I nod, "I know."
And so we walk back to our dorm room, I listen to Kyle as he tells me about his day, which whenever he does so I suspect he exaggerates some (most) times.
"I'm going to go out for a little while; I'll be back at nine." He says once he gets dressed in normal clothes (at TTBS we have to wear uniforms).
I look at him curiously, "Where are you going?" I ask.
He winks, "That's a surprise."
I sigh, "Just make sure that you don't accidentally wander into the red-light district like you had last time you were planning something. I spent hours trying to find you, and that was with the help of the Tracker." A Tracker is a PDA-like device that lets you track someone if you feed it their DNA, like hair or something, or if you have a picture of them.
He waves me off, "You worry too much." He says before leaving.
I stare at the door before sighing and changing out of my school clothes into regular clothes, then go over to the shared computer. I open up X-Act (it's something that like Google, but Google's been dead for a century and a half now) and type in the name "Benedict Arnold" and start reading his bio on different websites. I decide I'll read about his bio on thirty different websites and use the things from my notes and then write an outline, the rough draft tomorrow, and then the final thing on Sunday, so that way it'll be ready for Kendall on time.
As I read I think, What if I could go back and make him be remembered as a hero? Every time I read it's clear that Benedict was a man who was ruthless, radical even, even before his betrayal, but he was brilliant. But I know that he must've had a soft side, or else he never would've betrayed the Colonists. You see, he actually―
"I'm back!" Kyle says cheerily as he walks in, breaking me out of my thoughts, stashing something under his bed. "Sorry, I'm two hours and fifty minutes late."
"We're going to go back in time and see Benedict." I say straightforwardly.
Kyle's jaw drops, obviously not expecting what I'd just said. "Are you crazy? Just how do you propose we do that? That's it! I've just realized, I'm best friends with a loon!" He rants.
I don't blame him for being that way. Time-traveling is expensive, and even once doing it you have to have someone monitoring you, if you do something remotely threatening to reveal the secret that you're from the future or if you get close to messing up history, then they bring you back to our time and you get sent to jail for a while, how long depends on how bad you (almost) messed up.
"And to think I got you a puppy for your birthday! Do you want to be a bad parent? I mean seriously, thinking of going back in time, the only way that's going to happen is if you can use the time-travel machine in the school, without a monitor! And that's illegal!" He keeps on ranting, but I think I might've misheard what he said first.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Stop right there, what did you just say?" I ask.
He must've realized what he'd said, because he colors redder than a lobster. "'And that's illegal!'" He says.
"Before that," I say.
"'I mean seriously, thinking of going back in time, the only way that's-" He starts.
"No! I mean before that!" I say in annoyance.
"'Do you want to be a bad parent?'"
"Before that, Kyle, you're testing my patience."
"'And to think I got you a puppy for your birthday!'"
I sigh, "That's the one." Then I look at him, "But my birthday's not until tomorrow!"
"News flash, its 12:01am. I was planning on giving it to you after 12am." He says, reaching under the bed and taking out a box with air holes in it, there's a lime-green ribbon tied on the top in a very sloppy manner, so I know that Kyle had tied it.
"Why a puppy?" I ask as I take the box from him.
"Because, it always seems like you're looking for something, but you don't know what. And you told me you've never had a pet so..." He trails off, looking a little unsure of how I'd like the puppy.
I smile at him before opening the box, the puppy's inside, sleeping like a little angel, it's got long golden fur and a pink collar, showing that it's a girl golden Labrador.
"A Labrador? But I thought these were extremely hard to get! You must've spent your year's savings on her!" I exclaim in shock. By the look on his face, he probably did. "Tell me you didn't!" I say.
He looks at me sheepishly, "I did, sorry."
"But why?" I ask.
"Because you're my best friend, my first one." He says with a grin. I don't know why he hasn't had any friends before me, he's a pretty cool guy, he even has friends here, but he likes spending time with me better, apparently.
I'm about to say something when something in the box catches my eye and I feel a bolt of horror and anger run through me.
"Kyle," I start, "what are these?" I ask, lifting the objects from the box.
"Oh, those? Those are what the owners are supposed to wear to signify that they're the parents of a pet. You're supposed to wear the one with flower, lucky I found the kind that changes the color of the fur to the color of your hair, right?" He says with bright smile.
The accursed objects in my hands are two pairs of dog-ears on a headband, one of them has a flower on it, signaling that it's the mother one.
"Why am I the mother? And if I'm the mother, then who's the father?" I fume.
"Me!" He laughs, but when he sees my look. "Well you can just ask a classmate to be the daddy, its simple isn't it?" I'd rather attempt to make Mr. Kendall sing a robot a lullaby.
"But I'd still be the mom, there's something wrong with your reasoning!" I grumble. Then I decide, "You know what, I'm going to be single parent." I say, handing him one of the pairs, "You can keep this."
He puts it on, the ears turning black to match his hair. "No way, this pup is going to grow up with a mother and father." He says with such conviction that surprises me, he says it as if he's this happen to someone else, grow up with a single parent that is. I already know what it's like to grow up with a single parent, but it's more of a widowed mother. And I wouldn't want anyone to grow up like that.
I sigh, knowing that I'm defeated. "Fine, but you're the mother."
He grins and points to the headband that I have, blanching, I realize that I gave him the daddy-pair.
"Sorry, I can't give you these since they've recognized my DNA already." He says cheerfully before I can ask.
I curse and reluctantly put on the mommy ears, feeling a small tickling feeling and I know that the ears must be blonde now.
"So, have you decided on what to name her?" Kyle asks.
"Maggie, short for Margaret." I say after thinking about it. "And we're going to travel on Sunday, so you better pack." I then pick up the cute little fluffball, who seems to still be asleep even though she's being picked up.
Kyle sighs, "I was hoping you'd have forgotten."
"Nope!" I smile cheerily. There's a small yipping sound and I look down to see that Maggie's awake. I lift her up higher, looking into her big brown eyes, she barks cutely, wagging her tail. I laugh when she licks my nose.
"Looks like she likes you! That means that she recognizes her mother!" Kyle says, a teasing grin on his face.
I glare at him, "Don't push it." He raises his hands in surrender, I nod in satisfaction and hand him Maggie. He raises an eyebrow as he pets her, "She has to know her dad, right?" I sigh. He only laughs.
OoO-The Holy Spear Warrior and His Channel-OoO
My birthday's over and I'm now fifteen, I spent the day with Kyle and somehow Mr. Kendall (and Maggie, we had to disguise her as a baby to get her in) at an amusement park and possibly had the best birthday ever. Today I went to go see my mom and grandparents for a while before buying some supplies for Maggie, she now has a proper bed (but I think she's getting used to sleeping in my bed), a huge bag of dog food, some toys, and a nametag for her collar, but I feel like I'm forgetting something. But anyways, it's now it's time to sneak into the time-machine room and illegally go back in time to see my ancestor.
"You ready?" I ask, slinging the duffle bag over my opposite shoulder of the side it was going to rest on. Then I put Maggie into it carefully, I'd already put a cover inside it so she'd be comfortable.
"Yup, I have the water, rations, and other things that you'd put on the list." He says, pointing to his backpack.
"Okay then, since we're prepared, let's go." I say, taking a deep breath. I open the door, checking to see if any hall monitors (robots that patrol the hallway) are coming. I nod to Kyle, and he closes the door and walks after me.
"Okay, so the room should be below the first floor, Floor-0. We shouldn't take the elevator, but the stairs." I tell him, walking down the hall that leads to the stairs.
"Jerry... why do you want to do this anyway?" He asks.
I look down, "I don't really know, it's something that I feel that I've gotta do." I say, knowing the answer sounds unsatisfactory to my own ears.
"So you're going to do something illegal just because you feel you have to?" He asks, all I can do is nod. He sighs, "I guess I can relate, if I hadn't done something that I felt I had to do, I might've never ended up coming here." He says.
I look at him in surprise, "What might've happened if you hadn't done something?"
He looks at me, contemplating on whether or not to tell me. "How about I tell you when we get back?" He says. Then he suddenly pushes me behind a wall, he puts a finger to his lips to signal to be quiet. There's a whirring sound and the sound of lightweight metal hovering over ground, but it soon passes. He sighs in relief and backs up.
"Thanks for the assist, but next time, warn me." I say.
"The monitor would've heard me, I only just heard it coming down the hall." He replies, "But yeah, if I can I'll warn you."
Maggie makes a small whimpering sound and I shush her, petting her head. "It's going to be alright..." I tell her.
"I get why you asked me to come, but why are you bringing Maggie?" Kyle asks curiously.
"How long do we have to wear the ears again?" I ask, avoiding his question.
"A year and a half, and will you answer the question?" He says.
"Hm... the stairs should be close by." I say, walking ahead, seeing the door just ahead. "Look, there they are, let's go!" I tell him. He follows, but he has a frown on his face. "I'm taking her because I don't want to be neglecting parent, ok! Happy now?" I grumble, flushing a little out of embarrassment.
He looks at me blankly, then laughs, "You're such a good mommy!"
"Shut it!" I growl warningly, opening the door and checking for any monitors on the gleaming white stairs that spiral on down all the way to the emergency basement (there's a basement, back-up basement, secondary basement, and spare basement). I don't see any, "Make sure that you keep your head down when you go past a door, you don't want anyone seeing your shadow through the door and wondering what's going on." I tell Kyle and he nods in response. By the time we get to the floor we need to get to Maggie's almost gotten us caught two times, but I don't mind much, while Kyle seems completely out of sorts because he's the one who's had to find a good hiding spot with only precious seconds to. I take Maggie out of the duffle bag, "You should thank your daddy, he's saved all of our butts three times already." I tell her, putting her down so she can go thank Kyle. Unfortunately she gets so excited that she goes potty on Kyle's shoes, but it's his fault for wearing red shoes in the first place.
"Jerry, I suggest you clean her up and put her back into the duffle bag in the next few seconds, or else I'm going to blow a fuse, both metaphorically and literally." He says in a low voice.
I quickly grab a few tissues from the duffle bags side pocket and wipe her up, throwing the tissues into a panel that incinerates trash that's conveniently on the wall next to us.
"We really have to work on how to be grateful, don't we?" I say quietly to Maggie as I put her into the duffle bag, she only looks at me with big brown eyes and her tongue lapping in the air like she doesn't know that she's done anything wrong. "Well, your I've-done-nothing-wrong skills are perfect." I mutter, standing up.
"Come on, the longer we stay out here, the bigger the chances of getting caught are." Kyle says, opening the door slightly and checking if anyone's outside. After a few seconds he nods and slips out, me following in a way that I hope is just as stealthy. "Okay, we just have to wait for a hall monitor and sneak up on it, then we hack into it and plug the wires into this," He takes out a PDA, "And then once we're done we wipe the last minute or two of the thing's memory and make sure not to get caught on the way. Do you get all of what I just said?" He asks.
"How are we going to hack it?" I ask, because I certainly know nothing of this stuff.
He grins, "Just leave that to daddy." Maggie barks as if she's agreeing.
"Okay then, let's go find us a monitor." I say with a grin similar to Kyle's.
It doesn't take long for us to find a monitor, Kyle surprises me with speed I didn't know he has and slides up quietly behind the robot, it starts to turn but he says, "A.I.D, perform procedure E-dash-32-9D!" And it immediately freezes.
"Whoa, what was that?" I ask in amazement, he'd just said a command and it shut down?
"It has to do with the thing I'll tell you about when we get back, but I'll tell you what A.I.D means. Artificial Intelligence Drone." He replies, pressing it's back and opening a panel that's seamlessly built into the monitor.
"That's only slightly helpful," I reply almost automatically, tone blank.
He snorts but keeps working on the monitor, then he plugs it to the PDA. "Got it!" He says, showing it to me. There's a blinking red dot showing where we are, a big room just down the right hallway.
"Okay, so we go to the big blue room." I say.
"After wiping the A.I.D's memory of the last few minutes." He finishes, doing exactly what he'd said.
We hide behind the wall when the monitor's been fixed, I hear a whirring sound and suddenly there's a bright laser-light and it bathes the hallway in red. It turns in all directions, but seeing nothing it slowly retreats, the whirring soon turns into the hovering sound of lightweight metal gliding inches above the floor and the sound grows softer and into nothing as the monitor goes out of the hallway. Kyle checks if anything is in the hallway, or if anything is coming, he apparently sees and hears nothing and nods to me before walking to the other hallway, I follow, stopping when he stops in front of a normal-looking door. The only difference is it's marked with an "AUTHORIZED PERSONEL ONLY" sign, Kyle plugs the PDA into the keypad, somehow automatically finding the right code.
"You know, I really can't wait until you tell me, because what you've been doing is beyond the capabilities of a 15-year old who goes to TTBS..." I tell him. Kyle only opens the door without saying anything, so I don't know if he hadn't heard the response or if he had ignored it.
Maggie whimpers when we walk in, and I don't blame her as I pet her fur to try and calm her, this room gives me the creeps. It doesn't really have anything creepy like internal organs in jars or creepy bones and skeletons like in those super old movies but it's like the ruin of something that must've once been great. There are parts of machines lying scattered on gleaming steel shelves-it seems like the whole room is a mix of chrome and steel that gleams blue in the faint light-and on the floor, it's like a treasure trove for an engineer or machine-geek. In the middle of the room is a tube-shaped machine, standing proudly in the middle of ruin, who knows how long it's been like this? I mean, I know that the building was built 2217 A.D. and that it was renovated into a boarding school like fifty years after but it feels like it's been here for longer...
"Whoa, this thing's older than old!" Kyle says, but on his face is a big, excited grin. He's been my roommate/best friend since July (that's when the school-year starts) and I thought I knew a lot about him, but I hadn't known that he's a machine-geek, well, I know now. But I guess that's one of things about knowing something, you learn something new about them all the time. I'm not really used to this, but I'm glad I'm experiencing it anyway.
"Well, Dr. Zelzeisten (you say it as zel-zeyes-ten), let's get to time-traveling. I'll get the machine's interior and you can work on the wiring." I tell him. Dr. Zelzeisten, first name Bronx, was a pioneer in advancing the technologies of today, without him we wouldn't have robots, or X-Act for that matter.
There's a huge piece of dented metal lying precariously on the door, so I kick it away, good thing I chose to do Kyouya-Sensei's Self-Defense class instead of taking Gym. Funny thing is that I learned how to put power into my attacks from a seminar taught by an ex-officer in Central Park. I then open the door, inside is a chrome egg-shaped oval dangling from a steel chain. I frown, this is going to be a problem.
"That's going to be a tight fit," Kyle says from behind me, I jump, he's already done?
"Don't sneak up on me like that!" I say, hitting his arm. "You almost put me into cardiac arrest."
He only grins, "Don't worry, I know how to resuscitate someone."
"Not the point," I roll my eyes, then I realize what he'd said. "Wait, what do you mean it's going to be a tight fit?" I ask.
"We're both going back in time," Maggie barks, "Sorry, all three of us are going back in time. So you must be affected by the smell of wires and must in the air if you don't think that we're all going to fit in there." He says.
"But if you're coming, then who's going to monitor our time-travel?" I ask.
"All we're going to need is fast timing and someone with an accurate throw." He says.
I look at him in confusion, "What for?"
"You can't activate it from inside the tube, you have to do it from outside. The button's on the other side, by the door, lucky for us it's big and red, we just need something to throw at it while in the..." He takes a look at what we're going to be traveling in to try to describe, "very tiny egg-shaped pendulum." He finishes.
I raise an eyebrow, "Nice description, and what exactly should we throw that won't break the button, and how do we get back if you're not staying here?" I ask.
He frowns, "I'm not the one who suddenly decided to go back in time, didn't you think of how to get back?" He asks. I sigh at his logic. "You go look for something hard enough to push the button from throwing and not sharp or hard enough to break it." He says.
"And what will you do?" I ask.
"Figure out how to get back," He says, going over to something that looks vaguely like a dashboard, I haven't seen one of those except for in the sci-fi 2210 A.D. movies.
I look around, the best option would be to find something with a spherical shape, or possibly a rectangular prism shape. I take Maggie out of the duffle bag, maybe she can find something in this mess, but I'll have to keep an eye on her so she won't try to eat anything. She makes a whining sound and paws at my ankles.
"Don't you want to help mommy find a ball?" I ask as I bend down and pet her fur. She just paws at my ankle again, I sigh and am about to pick her up and put her back in the duffle bag when she scabbers away, barking and zooming past Kyle's feet. I blink in surprise before running after her, and I think I remember what I'd forgotten to get: a leash. "Maggie!" I call, but she keeps running only stopping to dig through a pile of wire and machine bits. "Curses!" I grumble as I pull her out, checking to see if she'd eaten anything. Luckily she hasn't, but something rolls out from under the pile, it's a slightly worn red ball, I squeeze it and realize that it's a squeaky toy, I haven't seen one of these except for in pictures of my grandmother's childhood pictures with her own dog. The ball also looks and smells different from everything else room, like someone had brought it here recently.
"Is Maggie okay?" Kyle asks from the other side of the room.
"Yeah, she found a squeaky toy, though I don't know how it ended up here." I reply, putting Maggie back into the duffel bag. She must've not smelled the toy until being let out of the bag, which is probably why she suddenly started running for it and forgetting that she was scared.
"That's great!" He says, coming over. "And I think I may've found a way to get us back with the PDA." He then says, showing me it, "You just have to feed it your thumbprint, I already did mine, you should probably put Maggie's paw print in too, so this way it knows who to send back." He explains.
"I've somehow ended up best friends with an ex-intelligence officer," I say. I knew he'd be able to figure something out, but it's still amazing how he'd managed to do it so fast.
He looks at me with something a little more extreme than surprise, but then realizes that I was joking and he smiles weakly.
"You have a way with figurative speech, Jerry." He says before handing me the PDA, I press my thumb against it until the screen turns green. I then take Maggie's paw and gently press it against the PDA, thank goodness that she's still a puppy and won't smash the thing by accident, at least while I'm holding her paw.
"Okay, we're set, but we have to decide who's going to throw the toy. I can throw it, but I'm not too confident about my aim." I tell him.
"I can do it," He nods, taking the squeaky toy, Maggie barks, probably thinking that he means for her to fetch it.
"No, no, daddy needs to throw the ball at the big red button so we can travel back in time, we can play with it when we get back." I tell her, she just barks in response.
"Mommies first." Kyle grins as he presses the egg lightly, making the boltless and seamless door hiss and slide out.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes and enter the egg, noting how it feels like it has slightly more space than it looks from the outside. Maggie makes a weird sound, I don't know if it's in fear or from excitement. Kyle takes aim, concentrating for second before hurtling the ball, he jumps into the egg with even more speed than he'd used when he'd snuck up on the monitor and slides the door shut.
"It's roomier than I thought it'd be, I'd expected to have your feet in my face or something." He says before looking over and seeing my extremely shocked expression at how fast he'd been able to move. He laughs before turning and looking at the red button, he squints before straightening. "We have five seconds before traveling, I suggest you hold on to something or either curl up and make sure your head's safe." He advises. I look at him in surprise before looking around, there's nothing to grab onto! To compensate I did the second option. "Three, two, one." He barely finishes before the egg begins to swing back and forth like a pendulum, but much, much faster than one should go.
"I think I'm going to be sick," I barely manage to say.
"X-Acto..." He groans, it means something like "ditto".
Maggie keens before whimpering, probably not having enough stomach to bark at the moment. Then, before I know it we're being thrown out of the egg and land in a place with a slightly dusty, yet smoky, scent, but there's also a smell of something else that I can't explain there too.
"Jerry, you may want to open your eyes." Kyle says from beside me.
I do so, blinking twice before realizing that we're in a study. A man in front of us, dressed in clothes that I've only seen in Mr. Kendall's History class.
"By golly! Who are you two ruffians and how did you get here?" The man asks suspiciously, looking startlingly familiar, he takes out a weapon; I think it's a musket. Though I wonder why he keeps such a big weapon in his desk, but I'm not surprised for his suspicion. I mean two teenage boys-one of whom has a puppy in his bag-wearing dog ears to match their hair-colors and clothes made out of fabrics not even made yet-technically we're wearing jeans and gel-spandex shirts in colors probably not even discovered yet-had somehow just randomly and inexplicably landed in his study.
This is going to be a long day.