The Saltadora Ch 14

A former starship captain is thrust into a series of adventures on parallel worlds which, for some reason, almost always seem to require her nudity and sexual submission. Is someone or something behind it all, or is it just the natural order of things?

Note: This is a sequel to Emily 2.0 but also contains characters, and references events from Casey's Fall and Casey's Rise. While not essential, it is recommended to read those first to get the most out of this story.

Warning: some chapters may contain scenes of non-consensual or reluctant sex.

Themes include embarrassment, humiliation, non-consent, reluctance, public nudity, public sex, a touch of BDSM here and there, and occasional violence if it's relevant to the story or character development.

*****

"The story is long, and I should start at the beginning," the Master continued, "but first, Chief Engineer, I assume you have made some progress with the time travel formula?"

"Sort of," Collingwood answered. "Thus far, the only coefficient that seems to be capable of working is minus five hundred years. Any closer to zero and the equation simply won't solve. If I round off and punch it into the nav system anyway, it rejects it or it freezes up. Likewise with any positive number which would allow forward travel, even in five-hundred-year increments. All I get is syntax errors."

"Therein lies the first issue with time travel," the Master began while knowingly nodding to indicate Collingwood's finding was not an error. "Five hundred years to the past is the only jump possible, albeit it can be to any world within certain caveats. The second issue is that, once done, it cannot be undone. There is no travelling back to the point from whence one came. The third issue is that the past cannot be altered. Attempting to do so only creates new timelines. New parallel worlds occur even with the tiniest of alterations, including the very act of arriving back within another time, while the old timelines continue as they were."

"So, it's useless then?" Collingwood gathered. "If you can't change anything, or get back to the present, it cannot serve any real purpose."

"That is not completely accurate," the Master smiled. "There is a way, and, as you have surmised, it has been done, but not in the way that you currently imagine. This is not the first iteration of this current timeline. It exists in hundreds of variations, if not an infinite number, throughout the multiverse."

Collingwood scratched his head at the revelation and what it meant, but more importantly, the Master had just admitted that he had meddled with time after all, and he had lied about it in their former conversations.

"So, you lied to me? You have been to the past?" Collingwood challenged.

"Told you, Gregster. The shit with Jolene is all time travel related. You owe me fifty bucks," Cassandra spoke up, obviously alluding to a former conversation with Greg as she turned to him with her hand out as if expecting him to pay up on the spot.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Greg replied, rolling his eyes, "but where am I gonna get fifty bucks from around here?"

"I'm sure I can think of a way you can work it off," Cassandra grinned.

"You're only parroting Cabrón's theory anyway," Greg argued.

"Who told you to call me that?" Collingwood objected, before realising it was obviously Madison. "Madison!"

"Don't look at me," Madison replied, holding her arms up feigning innocence before a knowing smile crossed her face.

"Can we get back to what's important here? This is serious!" Emily interrupted before turning to the Master. "You lied to us, Master? Why?"

"It is necessary to conceal some elements to allow the course of events to proceed naturally, and also to prevent paradoxes," the Master responded unapologetically. "However, paradoxes can also be useful tools. Let me begin by explaining the original timeline. The story begins with the same hyperdrive test flight that brought you to this world, which we have come to refer to as 'Earth 2'. Your originating world being 'Earth 1' for the sake of needing a descriptor when discussing travel between our worlds. However, the original incident caused you to become stranded on Ms Reine's world, the one we have come to refer to as 'Earth 3'." He looked at Casey before addressing her. "It brings me great joy to see you here. Your life has many variables that can cause you to end up in a multitude of other destinies. I will explain further as I go."

"Okay..." Casey answered, assuming some response was required, but with no idea what he was getting at. The Master smiled warmly before continuing.

"As it would turn out, the scientists on Ms Reine's world had done some experimentation with hyperdrives some years before but had abandoned it after losing their original ship and pilot." He turned to Madison and gave her a smile. "You were that pilot, Ms Torres, and also an unexpected surprise in later timelines."

"So, I did come from that world originally?" a clearly puzzled Madison asked. "I thought it was the same, but because I hadn't been there in like ten years, it was different enough for me not to be one hundred percent sure."

"It was the same place but from a slightly different timeline, hence your confusion. Allow me to explain further," the Master clarified before getting back to the story. "Now, because the project had been abandoned, Chief Engineer Collingwood and Captain Birmingham were faced with the dilemma of starting from the beginning, while attempting to gather the previous scientists for assistance. The issues were largely the same as you faced here with reproducing the fuel required, but also to create the mathematics to plot courses between worlds, in particular a course back to your home world. A further difficulty is that these equations did not exist at that time, unlike here where I was able to give them to you."

"So, we were stuck there for a fair while?" Emily prompted.

"Yes, almost a decade," the Master answered. "It was only the Chief Engineer's creation of an artificial intelligence to help him that eventually solved the problem. While its primary design was quantum mathematics and physics, it also proved uncannily accurate in predictive modelling. It could predict with reasonable accuracy what would occur given a certain beginning, both at individual levels and on a global scale. It also became a confidante and sounding board for the Chief Engineer. He spent many years openly speaking his mind with the entity, discussing things of his personal life and the problems of both worlds, as well as working on the problem of plotting parallel worlds."

"Um... I think I see where this is going..." Collingwood interrupted. "I can scarcely believe it, though. Please continue, Master."

"Thank you," the Master smiled. "During this time, the Chief Engineer began visiting a local bordello with a rather unique business model. He described a place of wonder and charm, filled with women who lived their lives naked within the confines of the property and would do anything asked of them. Men paid a membership fee, and all services were provided as part of that fee. There, he met a slave girl called Casey who had been coerced into the industry by her sister, the owner of the bordello. While initially appalled at what her sister had done, Casey described a contentedness with her lot, as did the other women who had been similarly coerced. The Chief Engineer marvelled at the harmony of the surroundings despite its abhorrent beginnings and its unpleasant owner. The women basked and went about their business unashamedly and willingly revealed, with no need or want for coverings, while the men treated them with respect, strictly abiding by the commands for all sexual engagement. Conversation and laughter abounded, unlike other bordellos where the women would only engage with the men during the transactional act. Here, the Chief Engineer surmised, was the solution to the world's problems. Men were free to satiate their sexual appetites without rejection or frustration, while also getting to know the women as fellow humans. As a result, the men developed a sense of purpose and gained confidence, which made them productive and peaceful. Women's lifestyles were financed in providing it, plus it was not without pleasure for them as well. Friendship, mutual respect, peace and betterment were the results. Here lay a template for a peaceful coexistence that could be employed to solve the other problems of the world."

"Was it the same Crescent we have now?" Casey asked.

"No, it was on a smaller scale, and public nudity was not yet legal," the Master answered. "A corrupt government turned a blind eye to it. In fact, many of the clientele were government officials."

"The time travel, Master," Collingwood prompted. "Obviously you went back in time and changed things."

"I will get to that," the Master tittered briefly before continuing. "Mr Collingwood was so taken with the bordello, and its concept being the solution to the world's problems, that he described it to the other members of the crew who also became members as a result. Captain Birmingham was not so impressed when she found out. She forbade them all from returning to it, confining Mr Collingwood to his quarters, and sought to have the bordello shut down. Her efforts mostly fell on deaf ears, but some listened. It was enough to gain the attention of the media who drew attention to the government's corruption. Mr Collingwood, of course, completely ignored the orders given to him and continued to see Casey in private. As things grew more tense in the local community, he and the entity discovered the solution to hopping parallel worlds but kept it concealed from Captain Birmingham and the other scientists. Eventually, he formed a plan to escape back to his home world with the crew and the slave girls from the bordello, leaving Captain Birmingham and Jolene behind."

"I left Emily behind?" Collingwood gasped in incredulity.

"Tensions between you had become extreme, bordering on hatred," the Master explained. "Captain Birmingham was not the same woman we now know and love. She fully intended to have the Chief Engineer court-martialled for his impropriety on their return to their home world, should they ever achieve it. Mr Collingwood saw little choice but to leave her marooned, whilst also rescuing the slave girls from Jolene's tyranny. Whilst the women lived freely for the most part, Jolene ruled them with an iron fist."

"This sounds so very strange," Emily contributed. "I take it the story doesn't end there?"

"Indeed," the Master agreed. "On discovery of the Chief Engineer's treachery, and that she was in fact stranded, strange bedfellows emerged. Jolene was likewise outraged and sought to recover her property. This led to a pairing of Jolene and Captain Birmingham. Jolene using her money and influence with government officials. Captain Birmingham and the local scientists teaming up to build other ships. The corrupt government, meanwhile, enacted legislation to silence and control the media and other dissenting voices. The world quickly descended to complete authoritarianism shortly after. By the time the ships were completed, and the mathematics of mapping worlds was solved by the local scientists, it had become a very dark place. The military had control of the ships and sought to use them to conquer other worlds and spread their ideology."

The Master paused as he surveyed the astonished faces around him, before continuing.

"Meanwhile, back on his home world, the Chief Engineer began a commune using the principles of the bordello that he and the AI had come up with, concealing the ship and his return from the authorities. The commune thrived and grew to the size of a small town. Fully expecting to be tracked down and caught eventually, with the AI's assistance, he developed the time travel formula and learnt to encompass the area with the hyperdrive technology. By the time the ships from Ms Reine's world arrived, he had established a population of nearly one thousand. He then took the whole town five hundred years into the past on a carefully chosen unpopulated world to begin again. Then the original Agreement was written, and a new society began. What you see around you now, is essentially the result of that exodus."

"That's why there's these old buildings like this one," Emily marvelled.

"Except it's not the same at all, is it, Master?" Collingwood argued. "None of the events that you describe on Casey's world, and possibly my home world, have happened, nor are likely to happen."

"Correct," a new voice answered on entering the office.

"Jacob Lane!" Casey gasped. "He was my surgeon!"

"Everyone, I would like to introduce you to my partner," the Master announced. "He will explain further from here."

"Thank you, James," Jacob responded, addressing the Master by his seldom-used informal name. "Some centuries later, here in the new Earth 2 paradise living under the Agreement, the AI developed a body and began the Watcher organisation to ensure that the society did not repeat the mistakes of the past and unravel the good that was done. That AI, as some of you might have gathered, became the Master, and also myself. We are in fact the same entity shared across two bodies."

"I thought you looked familiar when I first walked in here," Casey responded, addressing the Master and gesturing to Jacob. "You look like an older version of him."

"James Logan and Jacob Lane," Collingwood marvelled out loud. "The same initials... Two of you existing also explains a few things..."

"You have sex with each other? Isn't that a little incestuous?" Emily added, recalling the Master's description of his relationship from a previous conversation.

"You're fuckin' robots?" Cassandra blurted excitedly, getting to the more important point.

"We are far more than robots," Jacob answered, clearly offended at the suggestion and raising his eyebrows at Cassandra. "While our bodies may be constructed, and our original personality the result of computer programming, we have developed considerably beyond that and now consider ourselves as human as any of you. We can love, feel anguish, desire and everything else. Even our bodies feel pain and pleasure."

"But you are the same person," Collingwood questioned, "split between two?"

"Separate but the same," Jacob answered.

"Like a Bluetooth link?" Madison suggested.

"Much more than that," Jacob corrected. "We experience everything the other experiences as if we are one. What happens to one, happens to the other."

"So, this world is the product of an AI mind," Emily mused rhetorically. "That's why they all talk in such a mechanical sounding way, and how everything else came to be the way it is."

"Okay, okay..." Collingwood interrupted, "so, excusing the mindfuck for the time being that you guys are AIs living in synthetic bodies, and all of the associated problems with that, I take it you were able to solve the five hundred year time travel problem, so you were able to go back in time and change the past, using your predictive modelling skills, to give us what we have now?"

"Not quite," Jacob smiled. "As mentioned, the past cannot be changed. Once a timeline is interfered with, a new timeline begins. We also have not solved the five-hundred-year restriction. We can only begin again, making new changes to solve the problems learnt in the previous timelines."

"Wait, are you saying that you're five hundred years old?" Collingwood gasped.

"Much older than that," Jacob once again smiled, somewhat condescendingly. "In each iteration of the time loop, we endeavour to save more people as we begin again."

"So how many times has this time loop occurred now?"

"Two hundred and thirty-six," Jacob answered matter-of-factly.

"That would make you..." Collingwood paused momentarily as he calculated it in his head, then gasped again at the revelation, "One hundred and eighteen thousand years old!"

"Correct," Jacob nodded.

"That's impossible!" Collingwood shook his head.

"Holy fuck," Cassandra responded out loud whilst still maintaining an enviable ability to accept everything about parallel worlds, time travel and artificial intelligences without difficulty. Casey, Emily, Greg and Madison meanwhile, stood mostly with jaws agape trying to take it all in.

"Ignoring your difficulty with our ages," Jacob looked at the open mouths around him, "new problems emerged during the second iteration of the time loop. As the end of the five-hundred-year loop drew to a close, despite our best efforts on both originating worlds to grow our population of converts, Casey's world once again descended into authoritarianism and launched an attack on the communes on both worlds, forcing them to flee into the past and begin the new Earth 2 paradise once again. It was then that we knew that events would need to be significantly altered to attempt to prevent a recurrence of all of the things that went wrong. This involved tampering with several key events, replacing several key players with trained doubles from this world."

An inconsistency occurred to Collingwood. "Wait, wait. This world has an artificial origin, so how is it possible that doubles came to exist here?"

"You are astute, Chief Engineer," Jacob responded. "Replication technology will be discovered in due course. You can think of it as digital cloning. We have digital templates of all of you from previous time loops. The Jolene we placed to run the Crescent is a clone. The General here is a clone. You, the Envoy, and your crew were also cloned, but for a different, and regrettable but necessary purpose."

"I'm a clone?" Emily gasped.

"No, you are not a clone," Jacob assured her. "Your clone in fact perished, as did the Chief Engineer's clone, in a carefully calculated hyperdrive mission from here. This was necessary to create a paradox to draw the ship from the original timeline to here, to begin a new timeline instead of the destructive one that occurred when you were marooned on Casey's world, and also the version that occurred in the second iteration. This new timeline also allowed us to divert you to adapting to our ways rather than becoming a future enemy. Other necessities, as you have already discovered, were to place Monique on Casey's world with a mission to establish public nudity, and a clone of Jolene to alter the course of events to establish the Crescent, this time with better financing provided by Ms Bloccato, and a turn of events that would place Casey as the owner. All of these things together would prevent that world from lapsing into authoritarianism and becoming a threat. However, the threats from the original timelines still exist. If and when they locate the new colonies again, the plan also increases the number of participants who would be rescued to begin again in the past."

"Wait, what?" Casey butted in, "You're saying that my sister who isn't my real sister, isn't a real person either?"

"She is as real as you," Jacob responded. "She can think and feel as you do."

"So, the woman on the ship from here was me after all?" Emily interrupted. "No one seemed to know for sure."

"She was your clone," Jacob confirmed with some evident sadness.

"What about Nickelback then?" it suddenly occurred to Emily as her mind raced to make sense of the new information coming at her all at once. "They exist in every world I've been in, except Pony World where there wouldn't be anywhere to plug an electric guitar in. It wouldn't surprise me if they still existed as a band there, though, maybe with acoustic instruments. If this world doesn't have natural origins, how do they exist here?"

"I like them," Jacob answered with a shrug. "I clone them in each time loop so I can see what music they create. They never fail to please."