Event Horizon

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

12/13/99:

I stood in the viewing room of the old Council chambers
watching as on the floor below the Consortium Member Worlds
came to the agonizingly slow close of their last session on
Prid. When the next session opened it would be in Capitol
City on Della Prime.

There was a strange silence about the chambers as the
gathered Members listened to Rachel's speech. It was long,
elegant, and a lot windier than she would have written a few
years ago. It was a sad fact that being a politician had
changed her in many ways, most of them not very good.

"Enjoying the show?" a new voice asked from beside me.

I turned my head to see who the owner of the voice was and
was a bit surprised to find Bastion standing at my side. The
red and blue feathers on his body contrasted with the plain
brown suit that he wore, tailored for his evolved wings. His
beak was bent into a strangely stiff smile.

His presence at my side was a surprise. The last time I had
seen the bird he had been down with the other's trying not
to fall asleep from the speech.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, turning my attention
back to the chamber floor.

I saw his reflection shrug as he watched me watch the
Members. "Trying to stay awake. I do like the Presider, but
this speech of hers just doesn't wish to end."

"I noticed," I replied, folding my arms behind my back.

Basiton tapped his beak together as he looked back out the
window. "So why are you here?" he asked, moving a bit closer
to me.

"Watching," I replied as I flexed my fingers, feeling my
claws slide free from the tips. The last time I had been it
this room I had the pleasure to witness Jenner's attempted
coup of the Council. I didn't like the memories it brought
back.

Bastion nodded and glanced back down to the floor. "And why
weren't you down there? Swearing in the first Special Agents
for the Security Council was half the point of this session.
As you were the first of those Agents I was disappointed
that you where not there."

I shrugged and turned to look at him, "I took the job
because it gives me a level of control over any Earths, and
puts me in a position to try and get the forbidden status
removed from my world. Frankly it would have also taken
attention away from the other agents who earned this."

"How magnanimous of you," he replied dryly. "Not that you're
around that often yourself. In fact if I didn't know better
I would say you were avoiding us."

"I am," I replied. "At least for now. I'm waiting for a
couple of changes to the Governing Documents. Once that's
taking care of I'll be more than willing to play my part in
this government, what little of it there thankfully is."

His feathers rose slightly. "What changes?"

I gave him a smile. "The order of succession. These people
originally wanted me to be the Presider, not Rachel. I
always worried that if anything happened to her they would
vote me in to the job before I had a chance to object. Once
the changes go through I will be safely out of the running."

"You don't want to be the leader of the largest government
in the Multi-Verse?" he asked with a hint of surprise, his
crest rising even higher.

"Nope. Never have, never will," I said with a laugh. "I'll
run and hide before I take over as Presider. Rachel can keep
the job."

He nodded again and ran his fingers through his feathers,
pressing them back down flat. "We can't always get what we
want, but I understand why you feel that way. Being a leader
isn't all that it's cracked up to be, but if it's a job you
find yourself in, you should do your best with it."

I snorted, "You sound like a bad door-to-door bible
salesman," I commented turning away from him, and noticed
that Rachel had finished her speech. "I do want to speak
with you some time soon, involving Prid's laws."

Bastion nodded and folded his wing hands behind his head. "I
just represent Prid in the Consortium, I'm not the one who
makes the laws. Not that anyone here does, the local
government is still immature."

"You still have some influence, and it's important. It
concerns someone close to me," I said. I was more worried
about Rhea than ever of late. Apparently there had been a
few complaints about her when she was out. If the powers
that be decided that she was dangerous they could put her
down, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Rhea, Oriana and I had discussed it, and decided that if
things started to look bad Rhea would have to stay morphic,
or take up residence in the zoo. Strangely my sometimes
sister seemed to prefer living in a cage to being bipedal.

Bastion nodded again and turned away from the glass. "Make
an appointment and I'll see what I can do, but I won't
promise you anything. There will be very little I can do,
but I can talk to some people."

"Thanks," I said turning away from him and walking to the
door of the room.

"Be seeing you," he said to my retreating back as I walked
through the door.

Ravindar was waiting for me on the other side, looking
strangely relaxed. He fell into his usual place behind me as
I started to walk down the hallway. Civilian life, or
whatever one would call it, seemed to agree with him. Since
leaving the Guild, which generated a lot of protest, some of
his coldness had melted away. Not that he had became an
outgoing person, but he seemed less uptight than before. Of
course that could have been because of his relationship with
Santhara.

"Have any plans for the night?" I asked him as we left the
Marble Hall. I wanted to get out and walk a bit before I
hopped a fold back to the house.

He shook his head, "Nothing important. Elena has some sort
of training sie wants me to sit through, but I would rather
skip it if I could."

I nodded, "That's good. I would like to chat with you if I
can. We have some planning that we need to do."

"All right," he said as we walked. "What is it about?"

"Those little trips we have been taking," I replied with a
smirk.

He flicked his ears back, looking a bit confused. I was
referring to some of the side trips he and I had been going
on, exploring the woods around the fold and keeping an eye
on the village in the distance. He had no idea why I was so
interested in the spot, but I had good reasons, and they
could be summed up in one word.

Graison.

* * *

It wasn't until well after dinner that I could get everyone
together, and that was because Adric was being fussy and
didn't want to go to bed. Once he was down I collected
Oriana, Santhara, Ravindar and Samantha in my office.

Samantha was annoyed to be there. She had just gotten back
from a snow-boarding trip up in the mountains only an hour
before, and looked the worse for wear. I suppose I could
have waited for her to recover, but I wanted to get things
moving as soon as I could.

My fellow human (if I could count myself as that anymore)
looked like she needed a cigarette, her cloth tail flicking
in annoyance as she asked, "So what is all this about?"

I smiled and pushed some papers around on my desk, clearing
a spot near the edge so I could sit. I looked at my friends
and family, and smiled at them all. "I have a little
adventure that I'm going to need your help with."

Oria shook her head, but smiled as she came over to me, her
long skirt billowing about her legs as she settled down next
to me on the desk, her tail curling up around my rear. "Why
am I not surprised? You just can't resist them, can you?"

She knew me too well. I just smiled at her and nodded my
head. "True, but this time it's not my call," I said as I
turned around, picking up a data PADD from the desktop.
"This is an assignment, and there is only one item left that
I need to go collect."

Everyone but Samantha nodded, familiar with the list of
items Graison hid that I was meant to retrieve. "Why isn't
Kalie here?" Ravindar asked. "She was quite keen on
collecting these before."

I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly using it to
hold back my original reply. "She is no longer interested,"
I said, trying to be diplomatic as my wife put her paw on my
hand. Kalie had changed in the last few months; it was a
change for the better, but she felt she had found herself by
finding Thryn. Doing adventures like mine no longer
interested her, at least for the moment. That opinion would
probably swing back some day, but I honestly didn't know
when.

"So why am I here?" Samantha asked, pulling a pen from her
pocket and chewing on the end.

I smiled, "Because I'm going to need your help. The task
should be easy, but long, and I'm sorry to say that the
local population would kill my wife on sight, so I'm going
to need some backup. It's a human world so you are the
obvious choice."

"I'm flattered," she said in a tone that made it clear she
was anything but.

"You should be," I said, shifting slightly, "it's going to
be a long trip, three weeks out, three weeks back. We're
going to have to be careful not to be noticed by the
natives."

"Couldn't Oriana use one of the Matrix Chips?" Santhara
suggested as she sat down in one of the chairs.

"She could," I replied looking at my wife, "but it's not a
risk I would be willing to take, not on this world. If it
gets damaged or stolen it would mean her death. That's a
little less likely for Ravindar, being that he is male."

The white tiger rose his eyebrows at this, as his ears
lifted high into the air, "Am I to assume that I am coming
with you?" he asked, sounding somewhat pleased by that.

I nodded in response, "Yes, you are, I'm going to need the
backup, which goes double if things go the way I'm expecting
them to."

"You mean 'all wrong'," Oria asked with a smile.

"You better believe it," I replied with a smirk.

Samantha shifted and bit down hard on the end of her pen,
"I'm not sure I want to tag along for this," she said.

I shot my fellow human a wining smile. "Don't worry. This
time I know exactly what kind of hell I'm getting myself
into," I said.

"I think you mean 'getting us into'," Ravindar said,
crossing his arms.

"Of course, of course. You see, the item we are going for is
some sort of super computer. The thing can literally fit in
the palm of your hand. To the untrained eye the case looks
like gold, and is nearly indestructible without a laser. The
shape is of a circle inside of a triangle and it's cold to
the touch. Graison hid it at a church."

Oria let out a low whistle, while probably thinking back to
the last time I needed to retrieve an item from a church. Of
course at the time it was being used as a base for a small
gang. Still we did destroy the building.

"You mean it's a holy relic?" Samantha asked.

I nodded, "The world's tech level is medieval. Getting a
bunch of primitives to worship a computer is just the kind
of joke that SOB loves."

"So no guns?" she asked with a frown.

"Oh no! We are all taking guns, along with some bladed
weapons," I said pleased that I had considered just such a
thing. "We can't be pulling them out willy-nilly, but if the
situation gets bad we'll all have them."

Oria reached out to touch the back of my neck, "So that's
why you have been training with Terminus, just in case you
need it?"

I nodded, "And I hope I don't, but it's always best to be
prepared for the worst. I want to bring along some
explosives as well; you never know when you may have a wall
to get through."

Ravindar sighed and rubbed his forehead. "So we travel for
three weeks, rob a church at gun point, and then spend the
next three weeks running for our lives? That doesn't sound
like a very good plan."

"I'm hoping to pull off something a little more elegant...
sneaking in at night maybe, I'm not sure. We want to steal
it and get out of town before someone finds what we have
done. Obviously we'll have to work out the details when we
get to the church," I said.

With a snort Samantha tucked her pen away. "Why not some
glow paint and an old robe, come in all mystic like and
claim to be the messenger of their god, and just ask for
it?" she said as she walked for the door. "Now if you excuse
me I'm going to have a smoke."

My wife let out a chuckle and nodded her head, "That's a
good idea, add a little magic for show and it could work."
The young woman came to a stop at this, looking back over
her shoulder as she held onto the door.

"It does have a low risk factor," I said, thinking about it
for a few moments, "a nice big show with some thunder and
lighting could be just the trick. I think that should be
plan A."

Samantha turned around, her tail flicking happily behind
herself. "I'm glad you think so," she said, trying to sound
disinterested, but I could see the start of a smile sneaking
onto her face.

I turned my attention to Oria. "Do you think you and
Samantha could work together to come up with something
generic and convincing that can be fine tuned in the field?"

The two women looked at each other, and the younger of the
two shrugged as my wife turned to look at me, "I don't
really know enough about magic to do anything," she said,
her ears lowered a bit.

"Well, it wasn't the magic I was thinking about, it was the
religion aspect," I said as I ran by fingers down her back
to the base of her tail. "You know a lot more about that
than I do, so you're the logical choice."

She frowned for a second and then nodded, "I see," she said.

"And don't forget, Samantha is a mage herself. Maybe she can
teach you a few small spells," I suggested.

Oria nodded, lowering her ears a bit more, "I forgot," she
admitted.

"It's ok," the human replied. "It makes a nice secret
weapon."

I said, "Secret is right, the notes on this world say that
it has magic, but not to what extent. The odds are they may
not take kindly to a woman who can do spells. We'll keep it
low profile at the start, and see how things go from there.
Caution will be our watchword for this little adventure."

Oriana giggled a bit, her ears perked up high as she covered
her muzzle with her paw. "Fox, you have never had an
adventure go as planned. Why do you expect this one will?"

"It has to happen sooner or later," I said with a shrug.

She shook her head and smiled at me, "How long until you
leave?" she asked.

"In about three weeks give or take. Until then, Ravindar,
you and I are going to practice our swordplay. You should as
well, Samantha, assuming you want to come along."

Her mouth opened slightly as her tail started to flick
again, "You're actually asking me?" she said.

I nodded, "Why? Is that uncommon?"

"People usually just tell me what to do; they never ask if I
want to do anything. It's a change," she said casting her
eyes down.

I chuckled and shook my head, "Well, that's why it pays to
work for the good guys."

* * *

I was sitting in bed with the covers pulled into my lap and
my reading glasses perched on my nose, which were all that I
was wearing. I had slipped into my lioness form till the
morning, when I would go to being non-morphic. Until then I
still had a lot of paper work I had to go over before the
shift, leaving me with a dozen PADDs scattered around me on
the bed.

The changes in my form had become comfortable to me. I would
go as far as to say it was normal now that I knew I was a
shape shifter. Even jumping genders no longer bothered me
after all this time.

Oria tisked as she walked out of the bathroom, toweling her
long hair dry. There was a shine of dampness over all of her
fur, but that would pass in a few minutes as the small drops
of water evaporated away. "Are you still working on that?"
she asked with a smile.

I nodded scrolling through the pages, "Someone has to do it,
and it's not all shipyard work. Some of it's for the CSC."

"You weren't suppose to be running that," she scolded as she
came to sit down on the edge of the bed, reaching out with
one paw to touch the fur of my shoulder.

I gave her an uncomfortable smile as I set the PADD down on
the bed. "I'm not, and I shouldn't be at this point, but I
got drafted to help with some of the regs. It's only for a
few weeks, and it will be finished by the time I leave."

"I hope so... I want to come with you, but I can understand
your reasons for leaving me behind. I can't say that I'm
happy about them," she said with a soft sigh as she pulled
herself up to sit next to me.

"Nor I," I said, pulling my glasses off as I looked at my
wife. "I would give anything to have you with me, but the
risk is so large, and leaving the kids alone for that
long..." I shook my head.

Oria nodded, "Out of the question, but I would be happier if
you took Rhea along with you. That way at least one of your
wives will be there."

That struck me as a very good idea, and one so obvious I
wondered why I hadn't seen it myself. "That's an excellent
idea; so long as she doesn't talk with anyone but us she
should be fine," I said, leaning forward to kiss her nose.

She returned the kiss then pulled back slightly, "You
shouldn't be using the female prefix, Hon. It makes you
sound stuffy."

I paused and thought for a few seconds, running through what
I had just said in my mind. She was right about that little
minutia of my use of Ral'lari, and I had done it without
even thinking about it. "You're right," I admitted.

Oria gave me a wide smile, "When was the last time you spoke
English?" she asked.

Tilting my head I put the end of my glasses into my muzzle
and started to chew on the arm, "Outside of the occasional
conversation with Samantha... the last time I went to Earth,
about four months ago."

She nodded and smiled slightly, "And you are always speaking
in Ral'lari, your accent and the occasional slip of the
tongue are the only signs that it's not your native
language."

I chuckled softly and nodded, "It's surprising, isn't it. I
took Spanish in high school and transferred out of the class
because I just didn't get it. It's been the same for most of
the other languages I've tried to learn. Yours is
different... maybe because it is different," I pondered out
loud.

Oria smiled at me, "Maybe because I was making sure you had
to learn it, and use it. I'm pleased to see that it worked
out. It will help the children when we take them to see my
family. It also means that I win our bet."

I flicked my ears up as I returned her smile. I hadn't
forgotten about that, and her victory over me meant that if
we decided to have more children I would be the one getting
pregnant. Of course I knew that it wouldn't happen. Because
of our kids future jumping through time I knew that there
wouldn't be a fourth child.

She pulled herself up to me, wrapping her arms around my
waist. "It won't happen though will it?" she asked softly.

"Hum?"

She rested her head on my chest, her ears lowering softly.
"I won the bet, but we can't do it, can we? You can't stay
in this body for seven months. You'll get soul sick. It
means you can't carry a child to term."

I nodded, running my fingers over the outside edge of her
ears. "I hadn't thought about that, but I guess you're
right. I'll talk to Milgrove. Sie may know about some way
that it can be done safely."

"Sie won't," my wife said, making it sound final.

"Why do you say that, Hon?" I asked, petting her gently as I
pulled her a bit closer to me.

She let out a sigh, "Because we're not going to have any
more children," she said it a soft whisper, "at least not
for twenty-some years."

I nodded, that would be one solution to the time travel
issue, but why did she say it? "Why so long?"

She pulled her head back and looked up at me, "Because
that's how long it will be. I wish it could be earlier, but
that's the way it's going to be," she said with some
sadness, her ears falling into her hair.

"What's wrong, Love?" I asked her, lifting her head up so I
could see her eyes.

She shook her head, "Just time, Fox. Just time," she said
with a sigh.

One of the last things that Page told me when she went back
to her proper time was that Oria never knew about the time
travel until we decided to send Becca back to the past. If
she didn't know why was I getting the feeling that she did,
and thought that I didn't?

Of course the future hasn't happened yet, and just because I
was told one thing doesn't mean that it was true, or had to
stay true.

"Because Page only had a brother and a sister?" I asked her.

Oria snapped her head back, looking at me in surprise. "You
know?" she asked.

"I could ask you the same thing," I told by wife. "I figured
it out the day Becca was born, and Page told me you never
knew."

She smiled up at me and nuzzled at my chin. "I knew it when
I met Romana at the Grand Market. It was the first time I
really got to look at her, and I could easily see
Grandmother Violet in her face. It didn't take that much
longer to get the hair sample from Burke looked at again,
and to discover that it was a well-crafted fake."

I laughed softly and smiled down at her, "How interesting. I
wonder why she told me that you didn't know?" I paused, my
mind connecting to something else, "I remember a flash
forward about us having an argument about this. I think it
was about sending Becca back in time, but if you know that
it happens we'll never need to have that fight, will we?"

"I imagine not," she replied sitting up to pull herself to
my side.

"So what did I flash foreword to? Maybe it really was just a
dream." I pondered.

Oria thought for a second, "Didn't you say that when you did
what you last flashed forward to, that the environment was
different?"

I nodded, "Yes, when I had the flash forward I was in my
room at the old house, when I acted it out I was at the new
house."

She let out a soft purr as her ears flicked back, "Maybe the
flash forwards are actually to a different future? One where
I didn't know about the time travel and we moved later than
we really did."

I frowned, "Maybe it's the future that Burke is from, but
not our future? Our future is one where the kids came back
to help, but the future they came from is one where they
didn't. They really aren't coming back in time, but going
sideways in the time line... or maybe creating a tangent of
the time line. I don't know, but it would explain the
changed locations of my flash forward." I said, thinking out
loud.

"If it wasn't for Burke I wouldn't have gotten Brian's help,
and it would have taken a month to set up the communication
line back to Earth. If that had happened, the fold to where
I met Sora would have closed before I could take it, and she
would still be trapped back there. It would mean that we
wouldn't have had to move until Naomi became pregnant, which
would have been after when I flashed forward to," I was
throwing out the explanations as rapidly as I thought them
up.

Oria laughed softly and shook her head. "It sounds crazy,"
she said.

I nodded. "It probably is, but if it's true it means the
future we know about isn't our future. Whatever we were told
was the past of people who are not us, and it is not our
destiny." I let out a soft sigh, realizing that it was a bit
of a relief to me. "As Doc Brown once said, 'The Future is
what you make of it'. Given the choice I wouldn't mind
making it one with another child."

My wife smiled up and kissed me gently. "We just have to
find a way to allow you to be form-locked for the year it
would take."

"A year?" I asked, wondering what happened to the seven
months.

She nodded. "You still have to nurse them, Hon, and even if
I help it will be best for it to be you, and a little extra
time just to be safe."

I poked her gently in her breast. "However long I'm locked
as a female, you get to be a male. Don't forget that."

Oria giggled softly and nodded her head, "I can't say I'm
looking forward to being a man again, but at least this time
it will be my own body."

"Very true... I'll talk to Milgrove and Pope... maybe
together they can figure out something," I said, pulling her
close for a kiss.

"I hope they do," she said with a purr as her lips met mine.

--------

This story is copyright 2004 by Fox Cutter. Hardcopy
reprints limited to one per person, all other rights
reserved. This story may not be distributed for a fee except
by permission of the author, and this copyright notice may
not be removed.