had<\/em> to take a look.<\/p>\nThe device was humming deeply, and the readings on the displays were over the scales. I\u2019m just a bio-geneticist, but I can tell that \u201ctachyon flux exceeded\u201d is not a good sign. I know what radiation can do, after all! To be fair, I did not so much as lay a finger on it\u2026 but I still felt something in my stomach and became really dizzy. Next thing I knew I was kneeling in an open, barren, field. The sudden feeling of panic at being at this strange place had to subside, since I found myself standing in the middle of a battle of sorts. I had landed in the crossfire of weapons unknown to me. Two factions, I realized, in fierce combat. Confusion, noises, screams, and\u2026 a few meters from me, the little plate-shaped device that was the culprit of me being here. I instinctively reached for it, thinking of levitating it towards me, when these really bad looking men started surrounding me. Large men, with cold glares, twisted smiles and those strange weapons, so I concentrated in pushing them back instead. That surprised them momentarily, but more men were coming in my direction. I stood my ground, hoping I could repel them all. One of them pointed his weapon at me. I extended my hand hoping I could repel the shot, but it never came. Someone shot from behind me. I stood there as some men in armor came from behind me, and engaged my would-be attackers. The armored people soon had the other men on the run\u2026 and quickly surrounded me. Large men, a different kind of cold glare. Back to square one, Claudia. I prepared for repelling them, but then I noticed one of them had my precious plate-shaped device. I surrendered. The man who had shot my attacker came forward: an older man, probably in his forties, robust. \u201cThis is no place for a girl\u201d, he said. \u201cWhat is this place? Where am I?\u201d I asked. The man looked tiredly and said \u201cEarth, of course, what\u2019s left of it\u201d.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
I was not a prisoner, but I felt like one, pacing around my assigned quarters. The man came back, with no armor this time. He was still energetic, but there was an air of tiredness in his demeanor. And he didn’t like talking much. He thought I was a scared villager, and I asked what this place was again. He relented and told me he was Sifo Kubek, they were from Minerva, they were trying to make things better after the war. He asked me about my village. I asked about the year. 2089. My heart sank. He asked me about the device. \u201cHere goes nothing\u201d, I thought. And I told him I was not actually from here. Not from this Earth, and surely not from this time. He looked squarely into my eyes, ordered to get me food and medication, and left. Well, that was only to be expected, obviously. Still…Boy, I hate him!<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Note to myself: never be a single girl stranded in a barren future. They might be the only hope of this world, but these guys were pricks! And this particular guard would simply not leave the \u201ccrazy chick\u201d alone. Damn, I didn’t want to expose my powers over something like this. Luckily, the Sifo guy appeared at that moment and intervened, although he had to get a little bit physical with his subordinate. I was impressed. For a guy his age, he did easily subdue the younger jerk.<\/p>\n
Sifo \u00a0took me to his quarters. He was different, calm and educated. He apologized for his men\u2019s treatment. But he was still a soldier on a mission to find out about me. \u201cThe truth!\u201d, he demanded.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told you! I don\u2019t belong here. I must go back to my time!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAssuming I believe you, how can you do that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe disk. The one you found when you encounter me. Where is it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would be at Professor Bellam\u00ed\u2019s lab.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you take me there?\u201d And I gave my most compelling smile. Hey, being a single girl stranded in a barren future must count for something!<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, boy, this could be bad\u201d, I told Sifo, looking at the screens now connected to the little device.<\/p>\n
\u201cBellami believes it is an artifact of the pre-war era. Useless now, but potentially dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, it keeps leaking these tachyon particles, and they really got excited in my presence, so my being here might be part of the problem!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything seems to get excited in your presence\u201d he commented, smiling for the first time since I meet him. I took offense immediately. \u201cHey, don\u2019t snap at me\u201d, he added, \u201cyou\u2019re so full of energy that I start believing you actually don\u2019t belong in this wasted world.\u201d<\/p>\n
That is when he, at least, pretended to believe me. I realized the tachyon device was low on power now, since touching it was causing no reaction at all. Well, some subatomic particles would do the trick. I just needed a subatomic particle generator. Except that Sifo told me that we could not get anything nuclear-related in his post-war world. I sat in silence, potty-mouthed, depressed. I was stuck in this horrible place. Sifo cursed under his breath. He didn’t like the idea he just had.<\/p>\n
He told me.<\/p>\n
You could not believe how cheerful a girl can get at the prospect of visiting an abandoned nuclear plant.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
We had to sneak out during the night. We left the Minerva settlement and escaped on one of those funny vehicles of theirs. The nuclear plant was a few hours away. Sifo was silent, intense in driving. I was holding my precious stupid time-traveling device like it was a little puppy. Everything was empty and wasted outside under the moonlight. Trying to cheer us up, I started talking. About my friends, about school, about the lovely walks under the city lights, about the beautiful mansion where I now spent most of the time. \u201cWhat about you?\u201d I asked Sifo, and got some noncommittal answer. Boy, despite being a leader, this guy sure was a loner! Unabashed, I went back talking about what I would do once I was back home. He sighed. \u201cHere we are\u201d, he said, kind of relieved when we saw the towers of the old nuclear plant.<\/p>\n
\u201cGirl, do you always talk that much?\u201d he said, while checking the perimeter. I walked briskly, holding my device. \u201cWell, someone must do some talking here\u201d, I replied. We found our way into the abandoned control room. Sifo tinkered with some switches and amazingly some of the panels came to life, along with some ancient yellowed light-bulbs. Sifo stayed silent, letting me go about setting my device. I think he was still evaluating whether I was insane or not. I had started missing my friends: it definitely would have been easier to patch up the gadget between the four of us. I missed them, I missed home, and I started crying softly. \u201cHey, hey\u201d he started, and approached me, almost caressing my shoulder\u2026 and stopped, undecided. I was sobbing real hard now and I simply threw myself into his arms. He hugged me the best he could, as if he were alien to human contact. Me, I was relishing the first contact I had since being trapped in this place.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, what happened here, anyway?\u201d I asked, trying to pull my emotions into check. And he told me about the war, about the goal he was trying to achieve with his Minerva comrades, and I could then clearly see the reason he had become so detached. \u201cBad Karma, I guess\u201d he said, finally. My eyes lighted. \u201cKarma? That\u2019s it! Now it\u2019s clear!\u201d He looked at me with puzzled expression. \u201cWe are part of a karmic event, see? I was meant to be here, you were meant to find me.\u201d He raised an eyebrow. \u201cYou think so\u201d, he said \u201cand why would that be?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we could help each other. Some good Karma, you know?\u201d and I reached for his hand. He did not flinch now. I closed my eyes and let the moment fill me, body and soul. For I felt the connection with this man out of my time, I felt the universe conspiring across dimensions, setting up a chain of events that could only culminate in this very moment. I was at peace now. And I knew what I had to do. With my mind calm, I could now figure out the device. I would just need to tap into the secondary power dampener of the nuclear plant. I was just about to tell Sifo when we heard noise outside. A small group of the Minerva people was there. Apparently they had decided I was not to be trusted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWill this work?\u201d asked Sifo, already in a defensive stance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think so\u201d I admitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you going home?\u201d I nodded, looking into his eyes. I like to think he wanted me to stay. But then he was a man of action. \u201cTurn your gadget on, I\u2019ll hold them\u201d. And he left. That was the last I saw of him. I felt a sudden pang of abandonment, but I turned some switches and the reactor came alive. The little disk device was humming loudly now, and I knew it was time. I took the disk firmly in my hands. Nothing happened. \u201cOh, c’mon!\u201d I looked into the reactor panels and saw the warning: Reactor overload. \u201cOh, C’MON!!!\u201d The structure collapsed over my head. I projected a force field that held the debris over me. Some lights appeared on the disk device at last, and again I felt the tachyon forces pulling out at my body.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
I was standing at the laboratory in the research center. The disk-device was silent and dark. Only a few minutes had passed, according to the clock on the wall. I was confused. What had just happened? Did all that actually happen? Later I found the disk has been removed from the research center.<\/p>\n
To this day, I sometimes think of Sifo Kubek, the stranger in the wasteland. I wonder if his future even exists any more, now that the portal is closed. I really hope that I helped him; that I brought a little bit of light into his conflicted world. We had so little time together. But then, things happen for a reason. Yes, I really think I did help.<\/p>\n
Read Sifo’s version<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And it is a date out of her time! This short \u00a0story is inspired by the Crossover Dating Service Diary Game, at the WebComic Underdogs forum. Claudia’s curiosity gets her in trouble. Transported to a strange time, she meets Sifo Kubek, the gruff commander of the Aegis, a group tasked with keeping peace in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","uentry","post-blog","postonpage-1","odd","post-author-raul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/m9girls.com\/webcomic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/m9girls.com\/webcomic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/m9girls.com\/webcomic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/m9girls.com\/webcomic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/m9girls.com\/webcomic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/m9girls.com\/webcomic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":830,"href":"https:\/\/m9girls.com\/webcomic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions\/830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/m9girls.com\/webcomic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/m9girls.com\/webcomic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/m9girls.com\/webcomic\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/m9girls.com\/webcomic\/en\/files\/2013\/08\/SifoKubek-JosephGarcia-150x150.jpg\" "\\"SifoKubek")
<\/a><\/p>\n