Page 31 of Time Traveling Space Bastards
The problem with accessing the non-compromised investigation was that most of it was never put online. Someone had started but most of it was redacted. I needed to be creative. I pushed my scan further. What if the officer who was looking into things moved her notes to her home computer after she was demoted?
I wasn’t human. I was just a sentient machine, but I still had a sense of justice. If I’d been demoted for doing the right thing, I would have been angry. I would have kept looking, if not to get my job back, but as a gigantic ‘fuck you’ to all my coworkers.
I was fast, but it wasn’t instantaneous. There were a lot of people on this planet. I’d have to set the scan to find the right female and the right computer. Hopefully, I found what I was looking for in time.
I told everyone what I was trying to do and my chest puffed up a little when Baxter smiled at me. Was this what pride feltlike? It felt good. I hadn’t been given the opportunity to do much I was proud of before Kuka and Torrek found me.
“I still can’t think of who would do that to me. Yeah, I’m an asshole, but I really don’t want anyone looking to closely at me, so I wasn’t a mega asshole, even when I wanted to be. We know for sure your brother has issues with me and no offense, he kind of sounds like a spooge. Why aren’t we looking harder at him?”
“He’s definitely a suspect, but I don’t knowwherehe is. He stole my thesis in college to build his time machine. It was all theoretical and none of it had been refined yet.
“The system I wrote for the console wasn’t sentient like Big Daddy. As soon as we entered your galaxy, he was able to access all your data, past and present because of the black hole matter in his core. Big Daddy was smart enough to figure out thatwewere why the holy texts were written before we did and deposit us in your pool because he’s also an asshole.
“Valtens’s time machine isn’t capable of any of that. If he did manage to time travel with it, he would have to tell itwhento go and he’d have to rely on his Enix to give him that information. His Enix isn’t like ours. He can’t access the past and future, just what is available right that minute. Our Enix can because Big Daddy likes him and lets him access it through him.
“Valtens is shooting in the dark. Even if he managed to connect Baxter Holmes to the author of the holy texts, his Enix might not have had enough time to connect that Baxter Holmes to your birth name and the murder investigation. Once he entered this galaxy, he would have needed to make a split-second decision towhenhe wanted to go or the black hole would have sucked him back in.
“I also can’t guarantee the machine would be able to time travel a second time without the black hole core. He might have ended up decades before you were born with no way to get to you.”
“Yeah, but he’s technically the only person I know of that wants me dead. I mean, Kevin threatens to murder me every shift, but I don’t take him seriously because he’s a ponce and I could take him.”
Torrek’s spine straightened.
“I would like to meet this Kevin.”
“No way. If anyone is assaulting Kevin, it’s me.”
“I’ll hold him down for you.”
“That’s why we’re soulmates.”
“I’m trying to gain access to the home computers of the officer who was demoted for trying to solve Baxter’s murder, but we should have Big Daddy try to find Valtens. Your designs for the first machine were based on things from the holy texts just like Big Daddy. It should blend in like ours does, but it probably didn’t arrive as smoothly and unless it was completely destroyed, Big Daddy should be able to lock in on the cloaking technology.”
“Fuck me. You’re smartandhot. You too, Kuka. The three of you are like the trifecta of all my weaknesses.”
“Gross,” Omi said.
“And we’re going to be besties. You don’t get a say in it because I like you.”
“We’re totally not going to be besties,” Omi said.
Her face fell like she was devastated, but I didn’t think Omi meant it like that. Omi didn’t like a lot of people, but I could tell she liked Baxter a lot.
“You’re my brother’s Zovea, silly. You’re my fucking sister now. We’re going to go drinking when we get home and I’m going to teach you to throw a punch. It’s going to be so much fun!”
“Damned straight!”
We still didn’t know who was going to try to murder her or if we’d succeed in saving her, but at least we had a plan. It was probably the delicious food we ate.
I accessed that database. Fish was good for the brain.
It had been a very long night and Big Daddy refused to take us back to my current time unless I drove and fondled his buttons again. I wasn’t really mad about that. It was cool as fuck flying a time machine and it did a lot for ten-year-old me who got bullied for being crazy and fat that even the time machine was into me.
And then my good mood got totally soured.
“I’m picking up low levels of our technology across town. It’s weak, like the solar batteries were damaged upon entry and can’t charge properly. The cloaking technology also feels degraded, like it’s older than it should be. Valtens’s time machine isn’t capable of another trip back home. Based on the scans, Valtens arrived in this galaxy fifteen years ago and has been unable to return home or move to another time line.”
Well, shit. I kept to myself and tried not to piss anyone off, but I didn’t live my life like a nun because I wasn’t going to let my parents control my life after I ran away and ghosted them. It wasa splurge, but I liked having my hair different colors. I had a few piercings, and I didn’t dress boring. I had four million dollars now and could technically make all my tattoo dreams come true. Being broke had been the only thing holding me back before.
