Banished

April 22nd, 2019.

Location: Earth.

One week prior to the disappearance of Nathan Van Dyke.

"Nate, can we talk?"

Julie poked her head into my room, and a knot formed in my stomach as I noted the anxious look on her face.

"Uh, sure. Come in. I was just trying to decide which shirts to pack," I explained, as I cleared a spot on the clothing strewn bed for her.

She spotted my long-sleeved, maroon satin shirt in the pile; of all of my dress-shirts, this one was her favorite, and she quickly snatched it up.

"Don't you even think about it," she said angrily, and I snickered, as she held the item protectively to her chest.

She sighed.

"Don't go," she said, and I studied her.

"Then give me a reason not to," I countered, and she began to squirm uncomfortably.

"I'll never speak to you again!" she declared, and I rubbed the back of my head, as I tried to process the childish request.

"Julie, it's not gonna be that long."

She let out a frustrated groan, then moved to the window.

"That's what you think," she said, as she stared wistfully off into the distance.

"Let's run away, then," she offered, and I sighed.

The last time she'd made that offer, I'd happily accepted, and we spent a week in Kauai, before she panicked and left me there without notice.

"Just tell me what you're trying to run from, and I'll help you fix it Julie, as usual."

She shook her head.

"This one is unfixable. I mean it this time. Let's disappear forever... just the two of us?"

There was a flicker in Julie's eyes, as if she meant it sincerely, but I knew better than to believe her.

Nonetheless, I stood up, and moved across the room to the window.

I reached out, and tried to place a hand on her hip and she slapped me away without flinching.

Thought so

...

"If you want to make me stay, you know my conditions."

"We

cannot

get married, Nathan," she said.

"We can't run away either," I countered.

"We can. You just refuse to leave."

"Dad would find us; you know that," I replied, and she shook her head bitterly in response.

"You can be such a fucking idiot sometimes," she shot back, as she stormed past me, and out of the room.

//

Too bad I didn't know that that would be the last proper conversation we'd have on earth...

***

My eyes shot open as I lurched forward with a start.

What was that?

I turned my head, when a warm pair of hands suddenly moved to my face, a finger pressed to my lips, and as my eyes adjusted, I caught sight of Cameron with that sparkly look in her eyes.

She nodded to something, and as I followed her gaze, I saw a little bundle curled up at my side.

What was that?

I thought, but as the blood began to return to my hand, I felt a small set of fingers wrapped around it.

Lucia

?

I shot Cameron a little smile as I now understood her reaction.

I lay back down, and Cameron crept over to my side, resting her head on my chest as she studied the little girl.

"She's really taking to you," she whispered, and I sighed.

"Probably because she lost the only family she had," I suggested, and Cameron shook her head.

"You offered her the lifeline that people don't ever get. A chance to earn her peace, and get over the kind of thing that most people never recover from."

Losing a parent, huh?

Maybe if I was normal, I would have felt that way when my mother died.

I mean, sure, I used her smile as a gauge for most of my motivations, but after her death, Julie and Mark spent a long time in that state of sadness... while I just sort of, got on with my life.

I remembered her.

Missed her even.

But I didn't sit for hours and cry.

Julie said I was monstrous back then... hell, she'd probably say it now, if someone brought up our mother. But wasn't I the one who'd done so much more good things for the sake of my mother's smile than either of them had?

Sentiment without action was meaningless.

I brushed Lucia's hair out of her face, and she made a soft cooing sound, momentarily grasping onto my finger, before letting go, and letting out a soft exhalation.

My mind went back to that feeling of danger I'd experienced as I woke up, but now that I was fully awake, nothing seemed to register.

Maybe it was just a nightmare?

"Why are you up?" I asked, and Cameron blushed a little.

"I dunno," she said, but as I probed her with my eyes, she finally continued, a little shyly.

"I woke up, and saw you sleeping, with Lucia there with you... and it was just kind of nice, watching the two of you," she admitted, and I pulled her in for a little kiss.

"If Francesca knew you could be this cute, she would probably be angry," I said, and Cameron broke into a grin.

"Man, if someone told me a year ago that I'd be blushing and grinning like a schoolgirl just because some guy said I was cute, I would probably laugh in their face and call them a lunatic."

"What about if they told you you'd be carrying said guy's baby?" I asked, and she stifled a scoff.

"I would have probably had nightmares," she said.

As she leaned in to steal another kiss, I brushed her hair aside, caressing her face as I did.

"Nightmares, huh?" I asked.

She bit her lip.

"Kind of feels like a dream, instead."

Nate! Are you up?

I twitched in response to Casey's call, and Cameron shot me an incredulous look.

"If that's Casey, I'm gonna be angry," she said.

"It's Casey," I answered, and she shot me a glum look.

"Why is another woman calling you in the middle of the night?" Cameron asked, in a tone of mock accusation, and as I snickered in response, Lucia stirred, making a little grunt of disapproval.

"As much as I would like to think it's because she needs some dick, if Casey is signaling to me right now, this place might actually be on fire."

Cameron let out a sigh, then moved to my side, and as I slipped away from Lucia, she quickly took the girl's hand, and held her comfortingly.

"Go," she whispered, shooing me along, and I quickly stole from our little private sleeping area to find not only Casey, but Gisela as well, waiting for me just outside of Miriam's quarters.

Gisela cast a furtive glance between me and Casey, as we walked over to the supply cart.

Or carts, rather, as there were now three carts loaded with our supplies.

"Did something happen?" I asked, and Casey quickly shook her head, as Gisela moved to speak.

"My deepest apologies, Herr Nathan. Our matter is resolved. You should return to bed at once," Gisela said, and I cast a quick glance at Casey.

Play along

, she said into my mind, and I nodded as she continued.

Grab your weapon.

I quietly armed up, then we headed north from the camp, past the lines of saplings planted in honor of the fallen Kobalt, to the felled tree where we'd made our stand during the monster's assault.

"This distance is sufficient," Gisela said, and I took a seat on a nearby rock, as Casey and Gisela seated themselves on the nearby branches of the fallen tree.

"We received message from Palancar this night-cycle," Gisela explained, and I nodded.

"They contacted us?" I asked, and she shook her head.

"One sympathetic to the princess," she explained, and I nodded. "But the news is troubling. Rumor within Palancar tells of a special guest being housed within Danebe's grove."

Vanessa

, I thought, and Casey sent me a thought message to the same effect.

"What of Palancar's motives?" I asked, and Gisela frowned.

"Three branches of the council side with Danebe, and our Matron refuses to oppose for fear that the rift will worsen."

I frowned.

"Wouldn't exiling the princess have caused its own rift?"

Gisela shook her head.

"The princess acted rashly; against the custom. In the eyes of the Kobalt, the exiling, while received with great sadness, was just. Danebe however, obeys the custom; at least, to the open eye of Palancar."

"Could we spread word of his actions, though? Let people know that he harbors a goddess?" I asked.

"It would only worsen the rift," Gisela noted.

"Within Palancar, maybe... but if we spread this word amongst the groves, then maybe we might be able to paint the princess in a much more sympathetic light."

"Hmm. Interesting. The princess should not be party to such tactics, but maybe this word may be better received from our 'wenig Gunter'," she offered, and she cracked a little smile as something occurred to her.

"Herr Nathan; maybe we should rethink our course. Our arms are sufficient to repel Palancar's incursions, and we possess stock for trade. Taking our journey to the groves on Palancar's fringe may now benefit greatly."

I nodded in agreement as I cast a quick glance at Casey, who I noted seemed to be a bit out of sorts with the conversation.

Maybe politics isn't really her forte,

I thought.

"Is there anything else we need to discuss?" I asked, and Gisela shook her head. "Then, how soon can we resume our journey."

"Preparations will be complete within the current day-cycle. The caravan should be ready to move by the following day-cycle's first light."

Gisela bowed, and as we returned to the camp, I gestured to Casey, pulling her aside.

"How is your shoulder?"

She winced a little as she poked around the spot, then shrugged.

"Fine... it might have been more of a nuisance if I had use for this hand," she said, and I frowned, as I regarded the little stump just below where her left wrist should be.

There was so much advanced technology available to us, it made me wonder if maybe some kind of advanced prosthetic replacement might be possible.

I made a mental note to look into it.

"Can you walk?" I asked.

"With the Caravan? Sure. But we're not leaving until-"

"No, no; I mean- can you travel with me into the forest?"

She eyed me.

"For what?"

"To discuss something in a much safer place," I replied.

"I dunno. It hurts a bit when I move around a lot..."

"What if I carried you?"

"Carried me?"

She raised an eyebrow at this, and I turned around, and offered her my back.

"Do I look like a teenage girl?" she asked, and I snickered a little.

"You're pretty small, and I've got strength boosting armor," I replied.

She rolled her eyes, but as I persisted, tapping my back expectantly, she finally relented, and placing her arms around my neck, she climbed onto my back.

I offered her some support at the legs, and she nodded, letting me know that she was comfortable enough, and as I took a quick jog around the area surrounding the camp, Casey let me know that she could cope with the journey.

"Is this pace fine?" I asked, and she nodded.

"Doesn't hurt at least," she offered, so I picked up the pace a little, and made a little excursion to the little stream just beyond our camp.

"It hurts a little when you run," she said. "Where do you wanna go, anyway?"

"Somewhere loud," I replied, and she eyed me a little, then nodded.

We returned to the camp, and I swapped my halberd for the more practical hunting knife, and retrieved my satchel along with the waterskin and the gourd-like fruit filled with the smoked meat.

"Do you have anything to handle before we leave?" I asked, and she thought about it for a while, before shaking her head.

"Not that I can think of," she said, and I nodded.

I gestured to Gisela to let her know that we would be away for a while, and she watched with interest as Casey climbed onto my back, and we took off at a slow jog.

I kept an eye on the little stream that ran near to our camp, following it while trying to keep our heading northwards in an attempt to find the river that Bianca and I had discovered yesterday.

I caught Casey's gaze on me as I tracked the river.

"Can you really see right now?" she asked finally, and I snickered in response.

"I guess?"

"I can just barely make out the tree trunks as we pass them," she replied.

We were quiet for a while, but as we moved clear of the area closer to Palancar's fringe, I figured we could start discussing some of the less sensitive matters.

"Did Raul tell you about Danica?" I asked, and she nodded.

"Yeah. By the way, fucking retarded decision you made, going off with her," she chided, and I shrugged.

"For two thousand credits?"

She shook her head.

"As a kid, did you ever get snatched by a shady-looking man offering candy from the back of his mini-van? Because I feel as if you might have," she replied, and I snickered a little.

"If Danica wanted to do something to me, there was literally nothing I could do to stop her," I reasoned. "By the way, did Raul also tell you that she was over five hundred years old?"

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, and get this; she was banished back in two thousand and four..."

"Hnn~."

I stopped, then turned my head to study Casey a little.

"You don't sound particularly surprised," I noted, and she shrugged.

"I've got a pretty good idea of why that would happen," she replied, and I resumed moving.

"Do tell."

"It has to do with how space functions," she began.

"Okay, before you even start, let me just request the layman explanation," I said, and she let out a tired sigh.

"Fine; let's take our migration as an example. We started out in Palancar, and our destination is on the other side of the Forest of Eltari, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"So, the distance between those two points is, in our estimation, eight thousand kilometers. You find out how fast we're moving, and you end up with the time we'll take to get there."

"Basic physics, right? Distance, speed, time," I replied, and she nodded.

"Exactly. So, if we were to go by the laws of physics, any object that moves through space also moves through time, and the relationship between those two things is the speed. Now, in our case, there are ways that we can increase how fast we get there; less stops, better transportation equipment but even if we were to fly there, we'd still inevitably come to a mechanical limitation on how fast we can get there."

"So, the transportation procedure overcame that mechanical limitations?" I asked, and Casey shook her head.

"Even if you overcome the mechanical limit, there's still an absolute limit on how fast you can move."

"And that is?"

"The speed of light," she replied. "As far as we know, nothing is faster."

"Okay, so what does that to do with the time discrepancies?" I asked.

"Because, we were transported here instantaneously. One second we were on earth, and before that second was over, we were here."

"And you have a theory about how that is accomplished?"

"No," she replied, "I have a theory for what happens

when

it is accomplished. At all times, we are in a constant state of movement through space

and

time; but if you were to push an object forcefully through space, then, at least theoretically, it isn't possible without pushing the object a corresponding degree through time."

"So, you're saying we didn't just teleport. We time-travelled?"

"I'm saying both things are probably the same thing," she explained, and I frowned.

"But, if we're coming to the same planet, then why the time discrepancy?" I asked.

"Because this planet isn't in the same place in

space

. It's in constant orbit around a star, which itself is in constant orbit around a blackhole, and all in its own galaxy which is moving through space."

"So, depending on how far we were from earth at the time of our arrival, our date of arrival here would vary?"

"Yeah."

I slowed my pace, and rubbed my chin as we walked.

"So, the ratio between distance moved and time elapsed is fixed? On what?"

"My best guess? The speed of light. It's more or less the only universal constant that Einstein didn't completely fuck. And it sort of makes sense... like, if you transported a light particle one light year away, then even if it travelled at the speed of light, it would return to where it left no sooner than the moment when it disappeared. So, no time discrepancy is ever possible as long as we operate within the realm of what's physically possible."

I frowned.

"But the transportation mechanism breaks that law, doesn't it? I mean, what if you were transported back to where you left, even if the movement though time is the same degree, you could technically get there in the past, right?"

Casey shrugged.

"That's true... although, no-one who leaves earth ever comes back... so maybe the device only works one way? Or you can only be transported once? Fuck, I don't really know. There are a lot of possibilities and I don't have access to the technology to get all the answers."

"I still don't get how a five-hundred-year discrepancy comes about from a fifteen-year gap between when we left earth," I said. "Does either planet move fast enough to get five hundred light years away from the other in fifteen years earth time?"

"The planets themselves? No. But we're talking about the movement of entire galaxies here, not just the orbital speed of the individual planets."

I bit my lip, as I thought about it.

"And the movement isn't linear, is it?" I asked, and she shook her head.

"Nope. Everything orbits something."

"So, is it possible that one day, someone who left earth after we did might end up here before us?" I asked.

"I guess," she answered. "Although 'one day' sounds a bit off. For all we know, that's already happened."

I sighed, then shook my head.

This was yet another thing that was completely out of my ability to control, and it left me feeling somewhat frustrated.

"What is that?" Casey suddenly asked, and I cast a tentative glance back in her direction.

"What? Did you see something?"

She shook her head.

"No, I felt something... from you. Like... annoyance, or something."

I frowned.

I was feeling somewhat irritated, but why was Casey picking up on it.

Come to think of it, when I'd just killed Emily, didn't she sense my distress as well?

It was curious, but not something I wanted to dwell on.

"Nothing," I said, and she nudged me in annoyance.

"I'm your advisor; I need to know what the fuck is going on to do my job," she shot back, and I sighed.

"Fine; I hate that I can't guarantee the stability of the environment that my child is about to be born into," I explained, and while I couldn't see it clearly, I could feel Casey staring at me, her mouth slightly agape.

"Oh," was all she said in reply, and we trotted on in silence for quite some time afterwards.

The sun had begun to rise by the time we got to where the stream was widening a bit into more of a water course, but as it disappeared underground into a small rocky crag, I heard the roaring sound of the main river course up ahead, and to my surprise, it ended up being much closer than I'd imagined.

As we got there though, Casey really came to life.

"Holy shit. This is just one of the tributaries, isn't it?"

I shrugged, as she slid off my back and moved closer to the edge to examine it.

This was one of the places where the river was inaccessible, and we stood above it on a rocky sort of ledge, while the river rushed away dangerously below.

I studied Casey as she surveyed the river bank, and I suddenly noted that she was smiling in a way I'd almost never seen.

It was curious, and I was still analyzing it when she caught my eyes on her, and she shot me a questioning look.

"What?" she asked, and I shrugged.

"Oh nothing. You just had that smile again," I teased, and she snickered a little.

"Did you bring me here to make me smile?" she asked, a bit sarcastically, and I laughed.

"No, I brought you here to plot murder," I replied, and she raised an eyebrow.

"Murder?"

I snickered a little, and waved away her concern.