Metastasis, Part 22: Mental Gymnastics
Part 1: Quarantine
Part 2: Odd Jobs
Part 3: Shuck
Part 4: The Old North
Part 5: Dirty Dave
Part 6: Multipliers
Part 7: Kilogold
Part 8: Analysis
Part 9: Reversal
Part 10: Miss Meta
Part 11: The Fourth Consortium
Part 12: Young Ghost
Part 13: Dungeon Diving
Part 14: Puzzles
Part 15: Calm Before the Storm
Part 16: Eventual
Part 17: Changing History
Part 18: The Gaze
Part 19: Panic
Part 20: Panic
Part 21: All Good Things
Synopsis(spoilers ahead if you want to read the story from the beginning)
Victor Meta is a time traveler who lived with his wife Janet and his young daughter Mira in a quaint timeline on the edge of obscurity. However, one day he was ambushed by soldiers of the Legion, and was forced to ally with a con artist named Shuck to save them from certain doom. By carefully manipulating time, he was barely successful, thanks to additional help surprisingly provided by his own daughter, now an adult time traveler.
But all of that pales in comparison to the revelation that Mira brings. They were not alone in being targeted. The time traveling family of Meta has been attacked throughout history. Ghost, another Gatekeeper who helped Dante Meta escape the coordinated assault, has joined the effort alongside that same Meta to find the masterminds behind the attack. And now, they all are working together to unravel the mystery of the Legion's ability to coordinate throughout time.
They now find themselves in the middle of a veritable warzone, facing contorted monsters called Vorpals. With few options left and other lives at stake, they throw in with a group of survivors to try holding back the encroaching horde. But it proved too much, and with their backs against the wall, Shuck played his trump card, ironically in the form of a summoning card.
With the overwhelming power of Panic, the group is now safe. For the moment. However, there suspicions have finally turned their attention to apprehending Shuck. And in the process, they made a grave mistake in where they turned their investigation.
Victor stood in front of his daughter’s grave, speechless. It was not something he ever expected to see, given she had been the one who witnessed his own death. Such a sight brought up so many questions.
How did she die?
When did she die?
Why was she buried in this particular time period?
And of most concern, where did she run off to?
Victor rubbed his eyes before they got too teary. It was too soon to get emotional when so many questions remained unanswered. Shuck could wait, finding out what had happened here was far more important. By the very rules of time travel, he couldn’t prevent whatever led to her dying here, but he could still gain some amount of closure.
He walked aimlessly around Colossus, unable to decide where to go or who to speak to. He got many odd looks, less because of his uniform marking him as a Meta and more because he looked like he was not fully in control of his faculties. Time flew by as he struggled to form any rationale plan, and he found himself brought to his senses by someone speaking directly to him.
The voice was from behind. “Victor? Is that you?”
He turned around, not recognizing the voice. However, once he saw the man, he knew who it was immediately.
A man in his mid to late twenties, dressed all in black combat armor, with a blindfold. The blindfold specifically had a silver figure eight design, marking it as one of the unique pieces of Infinity. He also had a staff strapped to his back, and a much less serious expression on his face than what Victor remembered. Clearly, from both his adult voice and relaxed demeanor, he had matured a lot. “Ghost… I didn’t expect to see you here…”
Ghost crossed his arms, cracking a slight smile. “Likewise. But what brings you to Colossus? Pardon the pun, but you look like you’ve seen a ghost…”
“It’s… complicated.”
Ghost shrugged. “Well, I don’t really care to press you on whatever it is. I’ve got something to tell you myself. Do you have a moment to spare?”
“I… suppose.”
Ghost led the way through Colossus and eventually into an underground hall followed by several corridors. Victor hadn’t realized that the entirety of Colossus extended so deep underground, but it made a certain sense. After all, the city was of rather average size above ground, so the name wouldn’t really apply otherwise.
Ghost pulled out a key and opened a door, lights flickering on before he took a step inside. Chairs with brain scanning devices were symmetrically setup all throughout the room, with a plethora of related equipment always nearby to facilitate their operation. Shuck looked at them critically. “What year is it, again? You Gatekeepers shouldn’t have access to this kind of technology…”
Ghost started opening containers and looking for something specific, answering as he mainly focused on whatever he was looking for. “I understand you Metas think you have a pulse on everything… despite the fact that you deliberately avoid certain time periods so you can better steer important events.”
Victor looked at Ghost with shock. “What do you know about all that?”
Ghost pulled out a disk shaped object, blowing dust off of it as he walked over to one of the chair setups. “Please… anyone with half a brain knows that is what you do. If you have solid evidence of an event, the facts around that event can’t be changed. There is a single, continuous timeline that you can jump around, but you can’t change the past in a way that would break causation. You can only do what every single other human can do; try to prepare, and pick up the pieces afterwards. But all of that is rather irrelevant for the moment… come take a look at this.”
Ghost inserted the disk into a machine’s slot, causing the respective device to whir to life. A screen blinked on, with various back lit meters jumping around as amorphous shapes and colors appeared on the screen. Victor looked on in a baffled stupor. “And… what is all this supposed to be? Some primitive diversion of yours?”
“This is hardly primitive. This is brain scan data, though the display method and metric analysis still needs a lot of work. I believe Shock has a newer version in the works, but it’s not fully functional yet, so this is all we got. Care to guess who’s scan this is?”
“...am I supposed to know?”
Ghost sighed. “You aren’t very good at this stuff, are you? It’s been many years since I first met you during that whole Eventual business, but it looks like it’s hardly been a week for you.”
“It’s been a day, actually. Give or take some hours…”
Though Victor expected Ghost to be surprised, he instead laughed incredulously. “Are you serious? And you still don’t get it?”
Victor grew slightly angry. “Should I? All this… brains scan information, I guess… it means nothing to me. It’s just abstract gibberish. I doubt you would be able to read it without your infinity power!”
Ghost shook his head. “You don’t need to read it to guess who it was taken from. This brain scan is mine… from ten years ago. When Shuck was briefly arrested by your little time police, only to be immediately released!”
Victor frowned. “There was no time police…”
“Give me a break, it was one event ten years ago. I don’t have perfect memory, and that’s why I routinely make brain scan records, just in case. But another reason is to detect mental changes and reset my pscyhe patterns if necessary.”
Victor was now looking at Ghost incredulously. “So… you had a brain scan taken before, and another after, Shuck had messed with our heads?”
“Yes, and I can confirm some changes were made. But that’s not the most interesting part. He didn’t try to make us think him innocent, he deliberately made us highly suspicious of him.”
“What? Why? For what purpose would he want to be arrested over little to no evidence?”
Ghost laughed only slightly maniacally. “That’s the question, isn’t it? I believe it was to get away from you without you understanding his real intentions. Interesting to think about, as a simple request to be dropped back in his own time would have functioned just as well. But unfortunately, I’ve never been able to ask him for an explanation.”
Victor scratched his head. None of this was making sense. “Why can’t you ask him? I thought you knew him. Is he not in this time period?”
“Yes… I actually know him currently. He lives not too far from here.”
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go talk to him!”
As Victor began walking, Shuck grabbed him by the shoulder and held him in place. Victor was surprised at the strength of his grip, given Ghost wasn’t a terribly muscular individual. “Vic… the version I know here in my own time is much younger. I met him about seven years ago, which was quite an… interesting experience, given we now both met each other before the other. But the one who deliberately messed with my head is the Shuck at least a couple decades in the future. And I doubt he would go through all this trouble to ditch you only to answer questions about why if we went to that time period to ask. You might not even be able to track him down.”
Victor pulled Ghost’s hand off his shoulder. “In the name of… by the rift! You Gatekeepers are all insane!”
Ghost clearly found the comment humorous, but restrained from openly laughing as he began to see it irritated Victor. “Don’t overgeneralize… I would say only some of us are.”
“Well, at least you are self aware… but I’m not sure where this leaves us. The investigation into the time hostages has all but stalled out, with us barely escaping with our lives. Now I’m looking for Mira, and-”
The name perked Ghost’s interest. “Mira? What happened to Mira?”
“You should know! Her tombstone was in the Colossus cemetery! She saw it herself, and she ran off to who knows what time!”
Ghost was silent for several moments. “Victor, perhaps I shouldn’t tell you this… I know where she is.”
“What? Where? Tell me!”
Ghost shook his head. “I don’t think she wants to see you. It’s a rather delicate situation, I warn you to-”
Victor picked up Ghost by his collar and pinned him against the wall. “You monster, tell me where my daughter is!”
Ghost slowly used one hand to pull up one side of his blindfold, revealing one of his crimson red eyes. It was filled with a murderous rage. “Victor… back off before you do something you regret.”
A chill ran up his spine. Somehow, in his mind, he had never quite connected the man in front of him with the child he had watched slay hordes of Vorpals single handed. And Shuck had suggested in an offhand comment that he only grew more powerful as he grew older. The man he was trying to intimidate was likely more than capable of murdering him with little effort. Slowly, he put Ghost down, and backed away.
Ghost brushed off his sleeves, having gathered dust from the wall behind him. Victor could still see the anger smoldering in Ghost’s eyes, and decided he needed to apologize. “Sorry… I’m just concerned for my daughter, she must be in a very dark place.”
Ghost cleared his throat. “Victor… do you realize what a dangerous idiot you are?”
The insult caught Victor completely off guard. “What?”
“Your emotions, tactics, abilities… all of it is misguided. Unrefined. Insufficient for the forces you are playing with.”
“Look, Ghost, I apologize for getting a bit angry there, but-”
Ghost was at Victor’s throat with a sword of burning light in a single instant. Victor didn’t even have time to slow down time or jump out of the timeline. He knew if he made any sort of move, Ghost could easily cut his head off. Ghost spoke plainly, both red eyes now uncovered as he stared Victor down with hatred. “I could kill you. Let there be no mistake, Victor. If I needed to, I could track you down through time itself. There is no escaping someone like me… and you just tried to use physical intimidation against me. I’ve killed people for doing less. Don’t you dare forget that.”
Victor was frozen in place by mortal terror. Then, as suddenly as Ghost had shifted to such a serious tone, he let out a breath as he stepped back. The room, which Victor now realized had grown suddenly dark, regained its normal lighting. The glowing sword vanished from Ghost’s hand as he regained his previously casual demeanor. Something that Victor now recognized as a facade used by a cold, calculating murderer.
Ghost began to say something, but with the sword no longer held up against his neck, Victor immediately jumped out of that time period.
Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying the story, you might also enjoy some of my other published work on Amazon! It’s set in the same fictional universe, but follows different characters.
Gatekeepers, Book One: Unquestionable Truth
Gatekeepers, Book Two: Order of Gravitas
Same post on Minds