I could hear nothing. I could see nothing. Even the Artificer connection, the in-between space Artificers and Ghosts used to communicate across interstellar distances, was quiet.

I sensed only motion, and that it was downward.

It may have lasted only moments, but it felt longer. I checked my suit's CDPS (Cross-Dimensional Positioning System) stats and found nothing. Zeros showed in every box where it didn't instead say, "Error!"

It solidified my suspicion that Govan had found me and was reeling me in. At least I hoped that was the case. The alternative possibility was that he'd reeled me in to keep me here forever or until I starved.

Could I open a portal of my own and leave? Kee had told me the basics so that I understood what I was working toward. Right now, between what I'd grabbed from myself and the process of time travel, I had more to work with than ever before. I might be able to manage it, but I remembered that future me had told me to let it happen.

If I could trust anyone, I'd hope I could trust a future version of myself that could only exist if I succeeded.

Of course, for all I knew, that might be a future version of myself that depended on my death to exist, a possibility I was less excited about.

Given the world I lived in, it wasn't impossible, but when push came to shove, that seemed more paranoid than likely.

I let myself fall.

Whether that had been the right choice or not, the scene changed again. I hit the ground. It wasn't painful. The suit took all of it.

I stood up to find myself in a desert—though desert might not have been the right word. Ruin might be closer. I stood on a ruined world where nothing grew, and no birds flew in the sky. Sand had fused into glassy chunks. Burned buildings lay on the ground.

In the distance, buildings with jagged edges rose toward the sky, some of them toppled and lying across nearby buildings. In the dark sky, not all stars appeared as pinpricks of light. With some, the size didn't seem right. They either had to be burning galaxies or stars that had come uncomfortably close.

In other spots, bursts of light extended outward from some middle point that was no longer visible. Was that a supernova? Some other kind of explosion?

Not all of the explosions had circular shapes. Some were half-circles, as if they'd been hit on one side. Others appeared to be cone-shaped. Would that happen if you shot something through a star?

Stolen story; please report.

Beyond that, blotches of energy glowed as if whatever had happened, happened far enough in the past that it had spread across light-years of space by now.

A voice began to speak from behind me. "This is what I've seen in my visions of the future. None of us can see past a certain point, and this is it. I see my friends, my family dying, and sometimes I'm the one killing them. Sometimes it's others. Sometimes it's you. I need to know who you are to understand what all of that means and if I need to destroy you before it starts."

Though I could have viewed him through my helmet's cameras, I turned around. Govan, if this were Govan, stood a head taller than I did, even in the Rocket suit, so around eight feet.

His black beard hung down to his chest while curly hair ran to his shoulders. His clothes struck me as formal, but I couldn't name the style to save my life. He wore a red and black shirt of material so thick it might have been a jacket, and black pants.

Whatever it was, it emphasized the muscles under the jacket.

If he'd chosen this form to intimidate me, he'd done a good job. It shouldn't have, because if he reminded me of anything other than a Dungeons and Dragons barbarian in a suit, he reminded me of Vengeance. Vengeance was kind of an idiot.

Even if Vengeance was a weird alternate world reflection of this guy, the way he stood made me think more of tigers than Vengeance did—massive and ready to rip your arm off.

"Are you Govan by any chance? I was told Govan was looking for me. If that's you, you're stopping me from freeing Nataw from some kind of prison."

I checked my CDPS. It still showed "nowhere" in time or alternate universes. Whoever this was, he'd created his own pocket universe for this conversation.

His eyes narrowed, "I've used the name Govan with friends. I don't know you. Who of my friends do you know?"

I hesitated. It wasn't a hard question to answer. I only knew two artificers personally. The problem was that Kee had specifically told me that he might have an issue with both Kee and Lee.

On the other hand, he was an artificer; he'd probably know if I was lying. I'd grown up hearing that it was always best to be honest, even though I'd learned that wasn't always true. For example, if your girlfriend asked you if her outfit looked good, she was probably asking for reassurance and not an honest critique.

In that situation, it was best to tell her she looked great, even if you suspected that the color combination she'd used worked better if your vision extended past normal human limits.

I know this is an oddly specific example, but it mirrored the situation almost exactly because my girlfriend could tell based on increased heart rate and subtle olfactory cues that I didn't mean it.

Plus, she might have caught it from the tone of voice.

In this case, that wouldn't mean a frustrated, "Okay, what's wrong?" Instead, it might mean death, or, given time, the triumph of the Artificers' Destroy faction, which meant the death of almost all thinking life.

"I know two," I said, watching him for movement and out of the corner of my eye, watching to see if the universe around me was about to dissolve. "I know Lee because he taught me how to fight, and Kee because she's been teaching me the basics of what Artificers can do as well as a bit about technology."

"I knew it," he said, his grin too wide. "I'm glad to see you're honest. It won't necessarily save you, but it bought you some time. That's a good start."

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