fandomhigh | Library, Sunday 12/04

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Library, Sunday 12/04

Raven was at the library early today, anxious to begin looking through the books for any mention of the "Auditors" Zoe had spoken of on the radio. She clung to what little optimism she had left that they would find a way to stop whatever it was devouring worlds and people, and reverse it for their safe returns. But if a place as powerful with magic as Kaeleer had fallen, she wasn't sure how long Fandom could stand. And the Netherverse was almost gone.

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"I'm so glad I didn't know that before. Knowledge is great for my paranoia." Parker's voice sounded like she'd taken up smoking again.

Shut up, she was entitled.

"Gods and avatars, and completely useless summoning rituals, since half of them require either true belief, places of power that don't exist any more, or ingredients I don't see us ordering from Amazon."

"It's the ingredients you can order off Craigslist that you should worry about," Jen mumbled, only half seriously due to sleep deprivation. "And it's the part where reality is being altered without altering the timestream that . . . would have had everyone at Time Force scratching their heads if anyone noticed but me."

"Heh." Parker only had energy for a tired snort at that. "Time Force? You're a time cop?" She paused. "You don't know a Jack Harkness, do you?"

Way to remember long lost friends now.

"I recognize the name vaguely from old school records, but that's it." Jen took a gulp of coffee and poked at her screen, frowning at another useless result. "Not a colleague of mine, if that's what you're wondering."

"Too bad," Parker said quietly, wondering where Jack was. If Jack was. Or if that should be past tense now. "So, the thing that's bugging you about this is-- things disappearing without effecting other things?"

"One of the things," Jen conceded. She idly ran the fingertips of her right hand over her Chronomorpher; without Wes to help them unlock the Chronomorphers in the first place, she'd never have been a Ranger, and without every team of Rangers who'd come before -- hell, without the work she was doing at SPD now -- she wouldn't be one at all, but here she was, powers intact. "I mean, the scope of that -- it's not just changing one thing about the world. It's changing everything."

"How so?" Parker asked, curious. "I'm already overwhelmed by how many world's this thing has hit, how is what you're talking about bigger and badder?"

Jen took a breath and waved her hands in a vague -- thing that might have been intended as an illustrative gesture, but turned out as a helpless flail.

"I've changed the past before," she began. "I know what kind of effects it can have on the timeline. When this hit my world, it started slowly, but once people who were key to huge events in history started disappearing, and nothing in my part of the timeline really changed? Technology wasn't suddenly different, the balance of power hadn't changed . . . nothing."

She shrugged. "See what I mean?"

Parker frowned, tapping a fingernail on the table. "Effect is not following cause, you're saying. The present is -- frozen, except for the parts that are missing? Like taking out blocks from a building, and leaving the third story in place?"

Put like that, it was bizarre. Did Time Gravity just not work any more?

"Exactly." And really, that made so little sense to Jen that it was annoying, so she rapped her knuckles on the table harder than she meant to. "Then, factor in how it's doing this across multiple dimensions, timelines, worlds with or without high tech or magic . . . that's a lot of power."

"So someone is playing Jenga with time and space, without rhyme or reason... So." Parker wasn't even sure she knew the right questions to ask here. "With a lot of power and nothing a human would recognize as logic." She paused, considering that. "This may be harder to figure out if they really aren't human, or human-like. Or if they're using some higher physics that we just can't perceive at all."

Jen snorted and leaned back in her chair. "Strange as this may sound, I'd feel a lot better if we knew for sure that whatever's doing this isn't . . . well, mortal." She couldn't really say 'human' in good conscience.

Parker looked at her askance. "How would that be a good thing in any way?"

Sometimes, Jen's world was a lot less complicated than other people's could be.

"I don't want to think about what kind of mortal, sentient beings would put that much time, effort, and resources into doing something like this."

"Ones we could shoot?" Parker waved a hand, grimacing. "No, no. I understand what you mean. Someone mortal or intelligent, who could do this... I wouldn't want to know how their head works."

"Right." Jen rolled her eyes. "On the other hand, it'd be nice if I could cryo-freeze our perp."

"You're one of Bridge's co-workers," Parker realized. "I saw you at their wedding, didn't I? Jen?" It'd been ages ago, and current circumstances weren't great for reminding her of past acquaintance.

"That's me," Jen confirmed. "And you're . . ."

She shook her head. "I'm sorry. It's not coming to mind right now."

Not nearly enough caffeine in the world.

"Parker," she confirmed, rubbing at her eyes. "I went to school with them, here." She dropped her hand away from her eyes, and said quietly, "Feels like a long time ago."

"Bridge and Z were still students when I got here, but Xander was working in town," Jen answered, filing Parker's name away in memory and hoping she wasn't too tired to remember it later. "You heard about them by now . . ."

"Yeah," Parker said quietly. "Yeah, I did." She closed her eyes, biting down hard on her tongue, just to feel it.

"I'm so kicking their asses for missing this one when it's over."

"They wouldn't have left," Jen said, and wondered after she'd said it why she was bothering to rationalize after the fact. "Which is not to say that I don't want to help you with that."

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Library, Sunday 12/04

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