The Anomaly

TJ-504Z3 had no control of her banged-up body when she saw a masculine form in black silhouette blocking the sun, and she let go of the rungs keeping her where she was. It was her hooked knee, and the attached thigh that immediately tensed with a hard clench of her abs and a margin of pain from bruised ribs, which caught her fall a moment before she would have slipped or cracked her knee cap. 

It was a narrow escape of her butt bouncing on the rungs below, and Maji took advantage of her adrenaline to move her other leg down the side-rail like she half-meant to drop down. Really, the red-head just needed to get that foot under her so she could re-orient herself despite everything hurting to some degree or another.

TJ El’yot had been in more time-streams than most Inhabs could imagine even existed, and she was only four swims short of setting a new record. In all that experience, she wasn’t just startled that a person had gotten to the pod in the time after her last sinute effect and before she could free herself of the pod, but also that it was a man.

Instinctively, she expected that to mean he was there to kill her. 

At the same time, the less rational part of herself, the purely primal female part, simply reacted to being aroused a moment ago, and now looking up at a masculine shadow that hadn’t yet emptied a projectile or pulse weapon into her. Her instinct didn’t want to let go of the possibility the man meant harm, but her body seemed to contradict the notion in a flush of heat that had nothing to do with the hostile air deceiving the beautiful afternoon sky.

Catching a rung in her hands, her other foot seemed to find some solid ground under her, taking some of the pressure off her hooked knee. Maji only had a sense of how ridiculous she must look because of the rumbling masculine chuckle that descended in the shadow as he watched her get her barring back. 

There was no hiding the way her heavy breasts swayed unbound beneath her clothing, even as she stilled herself and corrected her backward fall to a sit-up worthy vertical orientation; nor the way her hips shimmied as she worked her knee from around the rung she’d been braced on to open the hatch, and that made the Time Jokey acutely aware of it.

The man peering in had a view, and there was nothing Maji could do about it but be grateful it made him chuckle and not shoot. If he was going to laugh at her, he was less likely to kill her. Endorphins. It’s simply a science thing. Thin, as far as hope for a good natured human in the 21st century of any time-stream in her quadrant, but enough to hold on to.

With all the light shining around him, Maji’s eyes took a moment longer than she liked to adjust to the high contrast in order to decipher his expression. An Inhab wouldn’t have been able to see through the blinding light to separate man from shadow, but her eyes were well equipped. It was her libido that wasn’t prepared for what she saw. 

Sure, most of his head and face seemed obscured by a dark beard and moppy hair that had gone tones of silver, but the crystal clear blue of his eyes and the fullness of his hidden lips (albeit bruised with dried blood) were unmistakably calling to her.

Handsome Devil came to mind, but she didn’t say it, and tried to keep it off her battered face with little success by the way those lips of his peeled into a pleased grin. The expression drew her amber, opal-flecked gaze to what looked like scars across his cheeks. Closer inspection revealed they were impressions, probably skin impressions from a tightly fitting oxygen mask. A pilot. A pilot with a bloody left brow and a busted lower lip…

While she tried to look beyond the thrill of his broad shoulders tucked in a thin flight suit, looking for insignia to determine if he was from the Station or not, she realized the bastard was letting her ogle him while he watched and said not a word. His suit looked more authentic than hers did, but there was still something off about it. Try as she might to figure that out, Maji was distracted by how his suit did have the cinched waist that pulled it taught over his chest, and how it made the distinct narrowing of his waist pronounced before his lower half disappeared from her vision.

His patient silence made him all the more alluring.

She felt her thighs tingle in a desire to kiss the flesh around his waist and-what? Stop it Maji! Her gaze darted up to his grinning face, and was surprised to see he’d reached an arm down in the moment it took her to chastise herself. He offered one bare hand slightly scarred from battles done and forgotten, but is voice kept her eyes looking beyond it to the curve of his lips as he moistened them to form smooth words of taunt and rational logic.

"There's plenty more eye candy, ange, but we should get you out and somewhere less... in the open, no?" He wasn’t shaking at the pecs in his laughter anymore, but his tone still carried the sound he was suppressing.

Hearing the man call her “Angel” in a slightly weird but quite "American" accent that battled between Southern and Cajun, didn’t immediately flatter her. Instead, felt the hot blush of embarrassment that plastered itself along the tops of her breasts and climbed into view along her throat and cheeks in a rosey tint to her naturally dark skin as she realized she was just staring, and hadn’t actually taken his offered hand yet.

He called her out on drinking in the man-candy and she still couldn't stop herself.

Some Angel.

Maji hadn’t just lose track of her mission in her mind, she lost all common sense in her startled, largely female motivated reaction to him. The idea of touching him without introducing herself first was almost alien to her mind, but she found herself letting go of the warm rung and reaching her right hand for his. It was a moment before she saw his hand tilt and reveal the glaring “reject” brand on the backside.

The TJ didn’t have time to snap her hand away from his before he reached further in and closed his scarred palm around her bare hand. The Reject jolted her arm with the force of his grip and pull, suddenly hauling her out of the pod without ceremony. Rushing thrill of being not a small woman and being pulled up and out like she was only a soft pillow aside, Maji was reeling with the mental symphony going off in her mind about his Reject Status.

He's slightly off because he's time-swimming!

Worse, he's a Reject so, he shouldn’t be in Time Swim at all!

Before she could stop herself from going there, her mind iced her veins with fear that spread lightening fast under the notion he might be the source of the Imbalance. A couple seconds, the time it took him to pull her up and out of the pod, and she was thinking he’d murdered thousands.

Rage has nothing on a sensual woman with neglected needs though, and she felt it whoosh right out of her like a puff of smoke the second she realized it wasn’t the sun warming her body, but his pressed against her. If felt as if he had every intent of both making sure Maji didn't send them both into the water, but also of making her feel the body she'd been so mindlessly admiring from her precarious position, and how quickly she'd excited him in return.

Like a clumsy Space-Dame, she didn’t seem to have real Terra Gravity* under control, and her legs felt uncooperative, leaving her leaning into the Reject for support, which made it impossible not to feel the engorgement trapped between them.

TJ El’yot was staring at his chest, his abs taking breaths against her body, making her feel his hard musculature beneath the soft fabric of his decidedly warn suit in contrast to her crisp, new flight-suit. Maji’s body wanted his so bad she leaned into him more, but she told herself it was because her legs felt unsure of the ground (escape pod) under her. She wasn't breathing, but she couldn't help being aware of everything, including the fact the Reject was still observing her processing the situation.

Most of the TJ’s focus was on how comfortable he felt against her body, how welcomed and how solid. She knew he was in a Time-Swim now, though from what other-stream she had no idea. Nor of his purpose. Time-Jocky Maji El’yot simply didn't feel threatened by him, which made being attracted to him so easy, especially as he embraced her lean with a grind of his erection into her fluttering lower abs, stirring a shallow gasp from her lips before she held it in the shiver that followed. Arching her body beneath the movement of his free hand up her back, that shiver left a tingle at the nape of her neck and in the core of her body.

It was as if they were long lost lovers in an intimate embrace of feeling one another still alive, if only for a moment.

Time-Swimming, or especially waking, could be very lonely. The mission is life, infinite balance is most of what gets thought about, but sometimes, like this moment, it slips away in the seconds of present human contact.

To further Maji’s unexpected embarrassment, which threatened her delicious desire to sink into the comfort of his safety-hug, she belatedly realized her legs felt weird because her boots were calibrated for the G’s she was pulling in the tumbling pod. Her boots were not registering the change upon the pod floating… in a retention pond?

The Reject was hot against Maji’s body, his heart was racing but his breathing was a steady assault on her senses that wouldn't let her follow the thought with; where am I?

The red-head was rippling inside, her boxers wetting without her control, slickening between her thighs as she couldn't help but feel how his engorged shaft pulsed against her like it was communicating in morse code. I. Want. You. The TJ couldn't seem to pry herself away from him, or him from her, so she had to look up at him again because she wasn't used to being yanked into wanting to fuck someone so quickly.

Being as still as she could for a moment, adjusting to the fact she was reeling like a ...lady-dog in heat, and couldn't even make herself look him straight in his eyes without first lingering wantonly on those lips, Maji was almost certain he wanted to lower his hand to grab a full palming grip of her ass. She wanted to let him.

The Red-Head cursed herself, and he seemed to know it by the time his bright blue eyes met Maji’s, and she saw in his, a tiger-eye shine. It only excited her more, she felt her hips ride up to slide her dancing abs against his trapped manhood while her fingertips bit into his body as if she might float away on her high otherwise.

He broke the silence first.

"Your wake-buddy abandoned ship, I see. Don't worry, petit ange, I know where we can go." He was suddenly saying, and startling Maji because he was still holding her tightly against him where his words thundered through her body, even as they soothed her ears, in their rumble-gruff low tone that wasn't really a whisper.

He was the first person TJ El’yot ever met that could tell when someone was waking with a Time-Swimmer who was present. She was beside herself trying to think how he knew that, and if he'd known it was Sara specifically. If he knew who she was! He hadn't called Maji by name yet, only angel, and little angel, but he didn't let the Time Jockey think for long.

His expression twitched into a slide-show of emotional masks somehow partially overlapping one another, like he couldn’t decide on one, or felt them all at the same time. His body trembled a moment, complete with finger twitches that were pronounced against her hand and back. Maji only had enough time for her mind to switch gears into a sense of genuine concern as she thought; did he just have a seizure?

Whether it was her expression, or the way their bodies were aligned, his hand at her back as hers was at his shoulder, and the others held in communion to a union of dance they didn’t intend, he laughed.

The TJ jolted under her skin and gasped, startled by the sensation of his body bubbling against hers in his amusement, in waves of pleased euphoria she surfed subconsciously. Just as soon, her eyes danced between his for answers and she choked on her gasp.

Without warning, Maji El’yot shoved the Reject so hard he let go, flailed for a moment above the water before… he disappeared.

Maji was panting, not because it’d been hard to push a laughing man off an escape pod rolling in the water, but because she realized she already missed the feel of him against her body and didn’t really know why she’d done that. That he hadn’t hit the water was secondary, knowing he was a branded Reject in a Time-Swim, it was almost expected.

Assuming he jumped out of the Time Stream rather than hit the water, she made a mental note to reign in her impulses and bent over at the waist to readjust her grav-boots before she’d make the swim to the highways the pond sat beside. Leaned over as she was, her peripheral was all askew, but she was almost certain she saw the Reject-Pilot sitting on the empty road she was going to make for when done with her boots. Turning her head while her fingers worked on memory, her brows danced in confusion and curiosity that made her face hurt, alarmed he hadn’t abandoned this time-stream, and once again warning herself he might be her suspect.

It's easy to think of him as a potential suspect when he isn't pressed against you, isn't it Maji? 

TJ El'yot didn’t know his motives or how he knew she’d had a Waking TJ with her before landing; even if he isn’t the suspect, as a Reject in Time Swim, you know he is in violation and it’s your responsibility to bring him in.

No sooner did she make up her mind on that, and finish re-calibrating her boots, he was gone. Only, he wasn’t gone, he just… jumped in the Time Swim. The nuances of the experience didn’t seem to bother him, as he went from one place to the next in the same second; from standing on the road to once more standing in front of her.

Maji wasn’t happy to see him this time, but she had to remind her body of that when he smiled at her like she’d done something cute. Adjusting to the slight rock of his weight added to the pod once again still wasn’t enough to distract her from the rush of seeing him smile at her like that, even if it also pissed her off.

“Soft on the outside, hard on the inside, I like that, ange. A full flavor experience you linger on after the first rush.” He dared to waggle his brows at her, making the blood crack in the fine hairs.

The way he said it though, sounded like dark chocolate, and she was late in remembering to speak at all; “You can call me TJ El’yot, or TJ El’yot, you cannot keep calling me ange anything, and I am not… whatever you just said; I'm the one who’s going to haul you into TC for violat-“

“You mean because of this?” His tone was no longer full of amusement, and he held up both hands, palms toward his chest to show Maji his brands. Old brands. 

Six Fingers on each hand, how did I miss that?

“Yes...” Maji replied, meaning to sound like he’d asked a stupid question, but she heard it come out like a statement that’s also in question. She quickly went on to explain, “You are a Rejected TJ, and that mea-“

“Nothing to me but some texturing.” He finished for her, despite or because he knew she wasn’t going to say anything like that. “The only reason it means anything to TC is because they can’t track me. What are you? 500 model I’m guessing? Generati-“

"Don't.” Maji was suspicious of his knowing so much about her, her Waking friend, or her breeding, and didn’t want to know if he could guess she was a Zesna Generation, a Z-Gen. Was it that obvious? If he's a Reject so long his brands ashed out, how does he know so much about TJs?

The Reject intrupted Maji's thoughts but did not persue his previous line of questioning, and instead said, “It means nothing, what they branded us. I’m here. You’re here. I’m guess’n we’re here for the same reason.”

He sounded so reasonable, and reminded her of the ultimate Mission, why she was here, so Maji blurted; “The Imbalance.”

“Is that what you call it? Someone ripped a slice in space-time and shoved a whole new stream into the pipes that’ll create infinitely more streams in the pipes and you call it ‘The Imbalace’?!”

“Well! ... What do you call it?” Maji asked a little defensively, not ruling him out as the suspect just because she was hot for him and he said ‘someone.’ However, she was less sure she was going to pause her mission to turn him in as a RiV*.

“Mass Murder? Catastrophic Failure in the zenith degree? I don’t have a name for it," he shrugged, "but I do have an idea who caused it.” He said that last part rather confidently, and just like that, put his hand on Maji's wrist and they were somewhere else.

This is no Time Swim! What the... there is no elsewhere, nowhere, there's nothing here... wait, energy, definitely energy, but... nothing. How can I feel nothing and... his hand, I can feel his pulse. I can hear my heart, time has to exist here, right? Is there air? I need to breathe. He's not breathing either...

Maji saw her imagined version of what the time-steams looked like all together, a droplet of segmented water with only a thought-thinness between the segments, where she simply went from one time-stream to another, no between. Maji hadn't ever jumped from one place in the time of a stream, to another place in the same time of the same stream. At least, not in a Swim, only when Waking, it was more efficient, but she wasn't actually present. This... Maji was totally present for this...

Maji was still trying to wrap her mind around what he did, if she was dead, or... when they were standing on the road The Reject had earlier stood on. She had a Time Swimmer's notion they hadn’t missed a wink of the experience; well, except the getting wet part. Gasping for air and tingling with overflowing energy that kept her trembling, disoriented, troubled, and suddenly unsure of her perception of reality, Maji didn't notice he still had her wrist. Then, she did.

TJ El’yot snapped her hand out of his grip, ignoring the way his grin melted into an uncomfortable expression, and looked back to where she’d been on the pod, and how it swayed only with the water, and not any lift-off force. He’d … what did he do to us?

"You ... can't just... do... ... THAT. to someone!" The Time Jockey gasped in outrage, more so because she didn't have words for what had just happened to her, how he'd gotten her from the pod to the road without Time-Swimming.

Time Swimming is like teleporting; it is actually here to there, no in-between. De-manifest the conscious body, manifest it elsewhere-when. Maji felt the similar rush of Time Swimming, but couldn’t unknow what it was like to pass in the space or place between here and there. It was surreal, and disorienting, like she couldn’t be sure she was here, or that anything was real, because she’d felt what it was like to feel Nothing, and how Nothing wanted so very badly to expel her everything.

Just the notion of that… what-or-whereever it had been… being between here and there every time she swims through steams sent a shiver through the TJ’s body.

Those unusually big eyes of hers leveled on the Reject, and were once more uncertain whether to classify him as a friendly or the enemy. For the moment, it was more important to understand what just happened, than to make him confess the name of who he believed to be behind the Imbalance, and how he knew about them.

Even as she watched his lips part, and his chest expand into the flight-suit he wore that looked as aged as he was, she gave him GOS and shook her head to silence him. It was an effort, but she squeezed her voice out in slow, calm, carefully enunciated words while staring up at him from barely an arm’s length in distance. “What did you just do to us? To me?”

Maji didn’t like the way he expression changed. He had a light in his bright eyes that deceived the silver of his hair and worry-lines weathering his face. Somehow, she knew he wasn’t about to actually answer her question, the left corner of his lips drew into his beard in a partially hidden crooked smile that immediately made the TJ deliciously uncomfortable in her flight suit. Her nipples seemed to be reaching for him like a silent signal for him to close the gap, and it was made more apparent to the hyper-sensitive Time Jocky with every breath that raped them against the inside of her tank top, against the flight suit sans bra-buffer.

Doesn't matter, Maji...

Shifting her weight in her boots with a futile attempt to wiggle her toes so he wouldn’t see the nervous movement, the red-head had no intention of breaking the silence and repeating her question. Her eyes dared him to see what happens when he avoided them. I don’t have time for this, don’t toy with me!

“I’d love to answer your question, ang- …ahem… T.J. El’yot, but we need to get o-“ He cut himself off with a flick of his eyes over Maji’s head, a moment before his own whipped around with a flutter of grey hair around his shoulders that preceded the turn of his body that followed.

She didn’t have to be a combat unit to know he was tense as a rattler ready to strike, and TJ El’yot looked passed him to the direction of his chin’s incline to peer up at the overpass they stood beside.

Maji didn’t really notice until then, just how in the open they were. There was nothing but highways, sure. The grass though, looked like it had been dead long before she got here and it made her wonder if it was a side-effect of the Imbalance, or if the grass in stream AE2020-XXI42801 was also dead. It was easy to image three similar retention ponds slightly out of view between the different on ramps and off ramps at this particular junction of crossing highways with all their signs shot full of holes or fallen like seasons dead leaves, but it was strikingly nowhere near any parking Garage and devoid of any automobiles. Maji wasn’t even sure if she was still in Cincinnati, or somewhere further in any direction. 

All of it taken in within the split second it took her eyes to travel off of the Reject and up to the overpass, and all of it became suddenly dangerous when another dark silhouette of masculine proportions leaned against the guard rail above, looking down at them. 

Relative silence seemed to stretch, with only her racing heart and the lapping waters in the pond beating against the pod still floating like a fucking beacon to any lookerby Inhab, marking the passage of time. That the Reject seemed to think the man above was Hostile; Maji couldn’t seem to help being predisposed to believe it was true even while her rational mind argued she didn’t even know the Reject’s name, and if the man above wanted to kill them, he could have done it already.

Her less- rational mind took over her mouth and Maji surprised herself by shouting, “Is it a good view from up there?”

The Reject looked over his shoulder at her with such an expression, some part of her burst into laughter, well hidden inside for she didn’t take her eyes off the man above. 

There was something very striking about his eyes, bright as the Reject’s, but a brilliant shade of green- and he was smiling. His hair was jet black and strangely cut in a mohawk she sensed braided long down his back- strange because his long, angular face looked as weathered as the Reject’s, but so white it was a wonder he wasn’t burning red under the sun while she watched. 

Unlike the two of them on the road below, the man above was dressed in a well ironed dress shirt of a royal purple, overlapped by a black vest buttoned up the front with shiny black buttons glinting at her even in the indirect light. He did not wear a tie and she had no idea if he was armed because she couldn’t see more than his torso. There was something cruel about him, and Maji didn’t like the way he was looking at her.

The man with inky hair was still looking at her, but clearly spoke to the man slightly in front of her, “I’ve never known you to Pisces Up, who’s the skirt?”

The Reject surprised her by answering almost before the other man got the word “skirt” out, shouting up at him in an angry tone that shot straight through Maji’s bones to boil her blood for no reason at all- except the Reject was just that red-hot-fucking-mad: “What do you want, Gunter? Why did you bail when you saw me? Is it because we were face to face this time? YOU did this! Do you know how man-“

Maji’s hand on his arm stopped the Reject from taking another step toward the man he called Gunter, who was so far above them the raging man was almost looking straight up at him now, but her hand also halted the drawing of his weapon. 

The Reject was armed with a pistol on his hip, and she hadn’t noticed because he made her all fuddle-brained in female wantonness, but the reach of his fingers and the tension in his body and voice bespoke of violence. Maji didn’t know why, but she stopped him. The look he gave her was full of both relief and rage, neither of which she knew what to do with, and didn’t have to think on long because Gunter was chuckling. Bastard.

“I was h o p i n g they’d kill you for me, Yondakar.” Exaggerated, calm, sincere, and coldly spoken with a strange affection from the man above, who went on after a pointed sigh. “I k n e w they wouldn’t, and expected you would follow me; b u t… you didn’t, you came here, and now I see why.”

Now it was the Reject, Yondakar, who stopped Maji from pulling her pistol free of one of her pockets. It only seemed to make the other man laugh, and that made her want to shoot him more. But if he WAS responsible for the Imbalance, he had to answer for what he did, and he had to tell them how he did it so she could fix it. Dead men don’t talk; at least, not to Maji. “Did you split the stream?” She asked to the man above, seeking his confession since he’d been so honest about wanting the Reject dead. Add that to the list of questions she had for the Pilot.

“Mmm. I d i d. Do tell, Princess, what are you going to do about it?” He taunted.

“When I’m reading you the rights you no longer have, you’ll know all about it.” Maji returned with full sincerity and a chilling determination that made Yondakar look at her for a moment like he’d not seen her before. Maji pressed on. “Why did you do it?”

“Have you ever been hiking on a trail in the woods?” Gunter countered, like it was relevant to the woman’s question.

“What?” Maji and Yondakar said together, in the same confused tone. Glancing at one another, it was Maji who looked away first, and back to Gunter leaning over the guard rail of the overpass to peer down on them. He seemed so gangly up there, like a well dressed praying mantis. Maji growled, “Yes, I’ve been hiking, what doe-“

“Have you ever come to a s p o t on the trail,” Gunter interrupted, as if reflecting on just such a moment, “and … without explanation or question, you just ... deviate from the path and go right into the u n k n o w n?” He looked away from his memory and down at the two of them, it didn't seem like he expected an answer from their confused expressions when he grinned to himself and concluded in his next breath. “When you can h i k e through the trails of t i m e, in their infinite variations, w h a t is the next logical step but to step off the trails and make your own?”

Gunter looked over his shoulder, and then down at them with a pearly white grin before he gave them the smallest of vague warnings. “This is my c u e to get back to work.” Then, he turned away and disappeared from view.

Maji and Yondakar were still looking up at the guardrail in confusion when three men approached it and looked over the edge. 

She didn’t have to be familiar with the particulars of their guns to realize they were shifting them over the rail with obvious intent to start shooting at her and the Reject. Unlike the two of them, the three men with guns were wearing vests, and Maji was betting they weren’t the silk kind Gunter was wearing. Yondakar must have noticed it too, because when she looked down, he’d grabbed her by the shoulders and blinked them into that strange place of nothingness.

Her shiver seemed to bring his arms around her, hugging her against his chest as they… she didn’t know if it was floating or being pushed, because they were in air of sorts that had intangible substance, something like being shocked by an exposed live wire as the current pushes into your body; except they were now inside the current of energy and that sensation was all over, her mind totally disoriented.

Outside a stream, outside time, but my heart still beats, I am whole and aware, but nowhere. Is this what it's like to be dead? Is this the veil itself? Reje- I mean... Yondakar...can you hear my thoughts here?

There was no answer.

There was no up or down, no north, south, east or west, no right or left.. no TC... no Sinnet Effect...it's... nothing… everywhere. Everywhere, except where they were. He was the only anchor to her experience of it, the only thing that told her she was as real as her racing heart beat; as real as the need to breathe she was denying when her senses told her they were out of the nothingness of the between place and somewhere else in the split time stream. 

The trip seemed to take longer that time.

She was still buzzing, leaning into him and letting him hold her if only because it didn’t seem to bother him the way it did her. Maji was panting again, this time against his chest, catching up on the breaths she hadn’t taken for fear there was no air there, and each breath was full of masculine scents she didn’t realized she enjoyed. Gunter was her self-confessed suspect, she could give in to her enjoyment just a little bit, right?

Yondakar seemed to notice the difference when she paused her panting long enough to force her lungs into a deep breath with her diaphragm, her body softly giving in to the feel of his warming back up to the possibility Maji would let him in. She breathed him in on purpose, and his hands tightened around her body, pushing her into his and forcing her hands to slide up along his suit. Maji circled his shoulders so she could feel the full brunt of his upper abs and chest against the aching want of her breasts.

As outraged as she should be he did that… thing… again, she was too grateful not to be shot full of holes, and too indulgent not to ignore it for a moment to soak up the experience while she had the excuse. Her trembling discharge of excess energy was a convenient crutch. 

When his body trembled against hers, she first though it a reactive response to feeling her shivering, but then his fingers twitched, one slid to her hip and jolted against her without actually letting go.

She looked up at his bearded face, his expressions were dancing again, but this time the red-head looked past it to his eyes-which were far away for only a moment. Maji took it as a good sign, that his eyes weren’t rolling or dancing in his head. 

With a blink, his body stilled and his eyes focused on her like nothing happened, and once more, the TJ was thinking seizure. “Are you okay?” While she wasn’t surprised she asked, she was surprised her right hand climbed his neck and stroked his bearded jaw like she knew him.

Almost immediately, she stopped and attempted to withdrawal from him completely, but she halted that decision just as quickly. He didn’t immediately answer her, and it was clear that at first, he didn’t know why she was asking. 

When he realized why, he didn’t seem to want to say, and that puzzled the woman who wasn’t sure if she was still holding on to him because she wanted to, or because she was afraid he was sick or something. Her heart was racing, her body full of neediness, excess energy from whatever he'd done to get them here, and overdosed on the adrenaline of facing imminent threat and the source of the Imbalance before she'd figured out how it happened.

“I believe, you call them ICIM or NICIM Episodes.” He finally answered in a near whisper.

“Why do they make you… twitch like that?” Maji asked, seriously wanting to know because she’d never seen that happen before. It was a mental connection, not a physical one. Consciousness on the level of energy shared and synchronized, but his whole body moved like a multi-personality tuning fork.

“Risidual overflow? I don’t know.” He shrugged under her touch.

Maji wasn’t going to accept that as an answer, but she became acutely aware of not being alone with him anymore. A flicker of her eyes to his left showed Sara looking up at the Reject like she’d never seen a man before.

“Housa Zitchs!” Sara blurted before she blipped out of the wake.

It was obvious Yondakar heard her because he let go of Maji and pulled his pistol with a dead-aim where Sara would have been if she wasn’t already gone. 

That’s when Maji realized they were inside a gas-n-go, she had no idea where, that had been out of business so long the entire inside was already gutted and pristine with a layer of dust thick enough there’d be prints where they re-entered the stream. There was some semblance of a counter where the register might once have been, and gaping holes in the walls on one side, leading deeper into the building where the freezers once were. 

It was a quiet place no one had ventured into for a long time, but Maji had no idea why they were here except that the men who would have shot them, weren’t.

Sara came back, this time between Maji and Yondakar, waking in this single stream it seemed, which made TJ El’yot uncomfortable.

Yondakar sensed her, turned around, but didn’t shoot if only because he seemed to know she wasn’t physically there and he’d be shooting Maji instead. 

Sara and Yondakar looked at one another, and Maji heard the other woman say “Holy Shit! Yep, it’s him alright; Maji’s with that Anomaly guy!” Then, she was gone again, and Maji was left looking at the Reject while he looked at her just as confused.

“Anomaly guy?” The TJ questioned as she reached forward to palm the top of his pistol and ease it down just to be safe.

“I have no idea.” He replied, genuinely seeming to not have a clue what Sara was talking about, or how she knew him. Before he could ask Maji though, the other woman came back.

Sara had only one echo, presumably her self at TC talking to TC about what was happening in the split-steam. When her echo was talking, Sara could talk, but she didn’t for a long moment. When she seemed confident she knew what she was going to say, both Maji and the man were looking expectantly at her. 

Sara addressed the man first. “You ARE Reject Yondakar, no family name, from stream AE2020-XXI42801 right?”

“Reject isn’t a Title or Rank you know…” He replied bitterly.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Sara rolled her eyes and went quiet for a moment while she looked left with her echo, nodded, and then looked at Maji. “TC is still gathering data, they’re working on a solution and hesitate to say Yondakar is the only one-“

“Just spit it out, Sara!” Maji demanded, impatient.

With a huff, Sara blurted, “RiV aside, Yondakar saw this Imbalance before it happened, in time-streams that don’t actually exist. Variations of this one, to be precise. TC wants you to work with him, and if he helps you catch the culprit, he will be pardoned for his violation.”

“I’m standing right here.” Yondakar said dryly.

“How can anyone see streams that don’t exist?” Maji questioned, confused.

“Why is the Sky Blue?” The Reject countered.

“What?” Sara and Maji asked at the same time.

“We know the answer to that question now, but before we knew the answer, we had to discover the question, did we not? I don’t know why I see what I see, or why it makes me twitch, but I know who the culprit is and I intend on catching him with or without TC’s permission or assistance.” While there was no immediate place to go, Yondakar turned for one of the exits to dismiss the idea of talking to a waking TJ from the very cultish society that rejected him and left him in the cold.

He only got two steps before he turned back around and pointed an accusatory finger at the waking woman. “You tell TC they’d be better off spending their energy on a well orchestrated orgy than coming after me. TC laws mean nothing to me;” and he spat on the ground before the waking woman’s feet, almost as quickly disgusted with himself for doing that in front of two respectable women doing their jobs when he was really just mad at TC.

“... He said the suspect’s name is Gunter, and we already ran into him, he admitted he caused the Imbalance, had the usual reason why so, I’m going with Yon to catch him. Tell TC I’m still on mission; TJ-504Z3 confirmed.” Maji spoke to Sara without commenting one word on how she felt about his rage toward the very people that helped her survive her breeding and make a difference in countless lives with her Time Swimming. 

Relieved to see Sara nod and leave their stream in similar silence, TJ El'yot's eyes turned to the man still standing there. The man she’d just say she was going to partner with.

Before Maji could say another word, Yon interrupted her with a somewhat unfriendly look and almost snarled growling words of rage-filled mocking opinion. “You’re such a petit ange, no? ‘TJ504Z3 confirmed;’ like a will-less ange disant oui à l'ordre de Dieu;” no sooner did he get the last disgusted word out, he also find his lips smashed into his teeth and knocking his head side-ways under the precise fist of the red-headed woman.

“It’s TJ El’yot, remember that; and my orders come from The Collective, not God so, don’t mistake my loyalty for blind faith, or my obedience for lack of will. I’m no angel, and I’m not leaving until I fix the Imbalance so you better button it up and get your head in gear or-” Maji was on a roll, right up until he took a step toward her and she watched his hand drop off of his jaw and reach for her. “Don’t.”

“We can’t stay here,” he argued.

Maji blushed, her mind having assumed he meant to kiss her, and now realized he was going to do that thing again. In either case, the answer was the same; she didn’t want him touching her. Heart racing and body warmed to the idea against her consent, Maji shook her head at him, “You’re right, but we’re not doing that… whatever you do... again.”

“DOTing.”

“What?”

“I call it DOTing; Detached Omni-positional Teleportation. TC never taught me to Time Swim like you do, so I taught myself… and one other.” Yon admitted, looking sheepish again, which seemed odd on his otherwise quick-to-anger rugged and aged features.

“That’s not Teleporting.” Maji said, sounding full of hubris so, she cleared her throat and went on, “what I mean is… Teleporting is more like what Time-Jocky’s do, what you do is… well, it’s like… jumping into a black hole and popping out where ever matter exists that you want to be associated with. I can’t even fathom how you got in there or figured out to get back ou- nevermind.

"We're not DOTing again, you're going to start talking about what it is you see or experience in your episodes and everything you know about Gunter.“