Aberrant: Infinite Earth - Fiction - Mission 2: Detoured [Mature] [FIN]

[The Traveler]

Things were quiet in engineering. Rebecca was studying the functions of the D-Drive that Yomiko's mother, Sakurako constructed. It's designs seemed similar to what she was seeing in early D-Drive prototypes her father was developing, but no prototype schematic looked like this.

She made sure not to upset the zero-point generator's fragile equalibrium. The D-Drive and the reactor fed off of what would best be described as a paradox of existance. Somehow a stable, safe singularity forms when the D-Drive interacts with the dimensional tuners...

Rebecca was shocked she could figure this out. The technology was way more advanced than she dreamed. It was a good choice to ask to come along. Rebecca wasn't a combat pilot at heart, she was a test pilot. An Engineer.

"This ship just keeps in giving us suprises, right Tetsuko?"

The android Tetsuko was still getting used to life at human scale. She happily cleaned the floors in Engineering, they sorely needed it.

"It is a fine ship... odd someone with this technology just left it to their daughter."

"There'll be time for questions once we get to..."

A slamming lurch shakes the ship and Rebecca and Tetsuko slam into one of the bulkheads. Luckily the impact cushions activated before collision.

"Damn... airbags too..."

Warning klaxons start ripping through the halls as Rebecca looks at the console to the main drive.

"Shit... crap..."

She hits a com-link icon on the console. "Uh... guys... The computer just registered a... uh... "Class Omega Anomaly" and it is advising all crew abandon ship..."

= The Bridge =

Yomiko decided to watch the calming effect of the eddies of time and space surge past the hull of her ship. She was eating lunch with Daniel when the ship shuttered.

"What... what do you mean abandon ship?!?"

Yomiko looked at her bridge display and the same warning was coming up.

"Shit... no that's not good. A Class Omega Anomaly puts off a fatal amount of temporal flux. This ship is about to jump through a crack in time and space and it'll kill us in the process if we're on board."

"Rebecca... this ship has automated homing system. Once it jumps into time, it'll search out the first escape pod signal it can find. Get to the escape pod deck with Tetsuko."

She adjusts her coat. "Damnit... there goes our vacation."

Yomiko was strangely calm for the imminent disaster bearing down on them.

[Hotstreak]

Daniel was on the bridge and looking at Yomiko. "Okay, so this is bad. Let's all get in the same pod then, so we can stay together." He held out his hand to Yomiko. "Grab the ship's memory matrix and let's meet the others at the pod."

[The Traveler]

"The ship itself isn't in no danger... we are. We're biological. Imagine yourself aging ad a hyper-advanced rate... not like into an old man, more like to your atomic death... or worse, breaking down into primordial quantum energy like things were just after the big bang... biological organisms because of their ability to observe their surroundings cause little imperceptible changes to their reality. How you think us novas do what we do?"

She guides Daniel to her pod. "Rebecca and Tetsuko must have went to the port side pods... no worries, as long as this ship exists I can open a comlink to them and they in return. can to us."

After organizing the pod that had become her bedroom, she starts the process of disembarking. "Okay... this is the easy part..."

The pod detaches and it tumbles into the inter-dimensional void for a moment before becoming engulfed by the space-time membrane of another universe.

"Now comes the hard part!" Yomiko says as the pod shakes and slams, Yomiko doing all she can to guide the pod to the Stonehenge beacon she got a lock onto. She pulls a red lever and the jarring shaking turns into a gentle sway.

"There... we're under canope... the good news, is there is a Stonehenge gate here. We'll have all the power we'll need to make a jump once the ship returns. Bad news... the gate isn't in Great Britain..."

Yomiko opens a side window cover and the view of a tropical island comes into view.

"I guess even fate wants us to have a vacation, no?"

[Hotstreak]

Daniel sat quietly through the jump. When they could see the island he nodded. "And me without a bathing suit. I guess nudity it is." He shrugged and gave her a mischeivous grin. "A Vacation where we don't have to save the world or smite it..."

[The Traveler]

Yomiko smiled. "Well, I think there is random stuff in this pod if you want more modesty... although... the thought of enjoying things naturally is... intriguing."

She blushed as her eyes met his. "I... never realized..."

She wiped her nose as the pod gently landed in the water next to the beach. Something about Daniel... calmed her rattled nerves. "Let's just do what we will... who knows how long it could take for the Hikari Maru to return."

She sighed, her face getting close to Daniel's.

[Hotstreak]

he smiled. "Indeed." He leaned in a teasingly kissed her, before opening the hatch as they came to rest on the sandy beach. "Come on Yomiko. Show me you know how to have some fun."

[The Traveler]

She blinked. Her older brothers and sisters were the more... social types. Even her mother and father. All she knew was what she saw of fictional characters in books. Now here she was... stuck on some uncharted earth... with the one man she agreed to share her journey with.

"I... um..." The kiss was all it took as she tackled Daniel into the sand. She was grinning. "I try to have fun... most of the time."

"So... got some spare snacks, some firestarting stuff... Yeah, I think I got the proper ingredients... yes... the greatest snack in all of creation."

She gets up and rears her arms to the sky. "WE GOT SMORES!!!"

[Hotstreak]

he smiled. "And all the fire we could ever need." he chuckled as she straddled him in the sand. He got her off of him, so he could pull the pod up on the beach to safety. "This thing have a tent, or some shade we can extend? sitting in a metal tube isn't my first option." He smiled.

"Smores sound great, by the way."

[The Traveler]

"Well we got options... the spare rain ponchos I got could be used as lean-to shelters, although I think we might want to keep the option of using them as designed if it rains. I got a spare life raft, but that is just silly even though it has perfect shade. Wait... the parachute!"

Yomiko grabs a life vest from inside the pod and swims out to where the parachute fell into the water. "This material is perfect! Mom, Dad, and I did a whole week of survival training, using material we had on hand. I made a pretty decent tent out of the parachute canopy we had. Also, Daniel, there is a first aid kit and some spare survival supplies. We should centralize our gear."

She smiled as she swam over with the waterlogged chute. With the very warm and humid air, the cold water helped at least for a short time make the parachute cool as well. The breeze helped move the cooled air as Yomiko made some strategic knots to get it hanging proper. "Okay..."

Yomiko flopped back on the beach. "Sort of awkward. That escape pod is my bedroom... so weird seeing my favorite things lying about. on the floor with all this island..."

She adjusted her glasses. "Well this time it served it's original purpose..."

She looks about the encampment.

"I wonder if we are the only people on this earth..."

[Hotstreak]

"Would that be so bad?" He smiled as he began setting up a shelter from the sun for them with the parachute. Once he finished he chuckled. "Not the way I wanted to see your bedroom I admit."

He nodded, then took off his shirt, the 5'10 Asian male revealing a physique that would make any woman melt with lust, and any male plot horrible things for him born of endless envy. He laid it on the sun-warmed metal to dry and smiled. "Well, Shelter estabilshed. Is there anything else I need to worry about right away?"

He noted how her water soaked clothing clung to her. She was no superhuman beauty, still she was attractive. Her major asset was her mind of course, and he was willing to bet she wasn't even aware of what level of attraciveness she possessed.

[The Traveler]

She blinked. "I..."

She traced his muscles with her hands. "You must work out... to extremis..."

He was a fine specimen indeed. His form was statuesque, almost to the Greek ideal. There was an echo of what she knew of her Father and Mother in this moment.

"No... to be honest all of this is just formality." She says, taking off the blouse and skirt she had on, taking a rain poncho she wrapped it around her in a way to cover her lower half, her upper chest covered by what would count for a sports bra. "We'll have all the time we want. To be honest I'd like to stay for a few weeks here."

"Yes a few weeks with Adonis here..." She thought.

[Hotstreak]

He smiled as she removed some of her clothing, and then wrapped herself in a pncho. "You don't need that, Yomiko. You've nothing to hide from me, I should think." He took her wet clothes to hang them up, letting her watch him again.

He returned and nodded. "Though if modesty compels you, by all means. I just don't imagine that's gonna feel good against your skin as the day heats up."

[The Traveler]

"You're looking at the girl that wore a biohazard suit for 5 days non-stop on a desert Earth trying to find a cure to a disease plaguing another Earth. This is nothing."

She did start feeling hot... but it wasn't from the waterproofed fabric or the brilliant sun. She even started to sweat a little bit. She started to slink back over to the water and sat at the shoreline. She was quite the awkward one. Feeling the sand was hot, Yomiko took the poncho off to use like a beach-blanket.

She was torn. She had her sense of modesty... but she knew there was no one for potentially thousands of kilometers.

"I... I bore you, don't I?"

[Hotstreak]

"Not at All." he removed his pants, leaving only his boxers on, since she was concerned with modesty, and let them dry too. He smiled and sat next to her. "You're unlike anyone I know Yomiko, or have met."

"I feel lucky to know you."

"I worry that with your intellect, you find me boring, and simple."

[The Traveler]

"No... you've lived a normal life up to when we first met... hell I literally dropped out of the sky. Walked out of my ship in a space suit and you had the courage to strike a conversation over just erasing me like you did that Hive drone." She said with a smile. "I find no one boring, Daniel. Every person is a puzzle to solve, a treasure to find, or a mystery to discover."

"You're fantastic!" Yomiko said. "I lived my life so different from others."

She stood up. "I talk about my childhood like I had a life of adventure."

"It had to be that way. I matured to adulthood in one year. Do you know how that is? To live a childhood in the span of a solar cycle? I've lived the rest of my life as an adult... 19 years more in fact. I am 20.5 years of age. And I never really had a childhood."

"I wonder... am I just..."

[Hotstreak]

"Not really, I didn't."

The revelation of her life and age intrigued him. "Well I grew up normally, until puberty, where my powers developed. :Then I attended a private academy for people like me. It was coming back from a mission when we got separated, and Sonja and I were sent to the world where you found me."

"We couldn't leave, and remained there, adapting to our new world."

He smiled. "You are anything but Normal Yomiko. You're very special." He massaged her shoulder, and she could feel a pleasant warmth from him.

"The question I ask, is simply this. We can go anywhere, together. Right now we're here, just the two of us, for the foreseeable future. What is you want to do? Nobody's expecting you to save them, no one is grading your performance, or depending on advice."

He looked at her. "Right now, it's all about you, and what you want."

[The Traveler]

Yomiko looked down at the sand. "I am an echo... aren't I?"

"There is a long shadow cast over this continuum and now others by my mother and father... You may have read Greek mythology where the demigods were the sons of gods and goddesses... Me... I call that my life."

She knelt, keeping him at her level. "Every day... every waking moment... my brain knows that somewhere beyond any person's understanding my parents travel paths not even gods have tread. My father wiped out an entire race and in it's death throes ressurected a universe. My mother created a vehicle that can travel the roads and byways of our continuum... and potentially others at some point."

"All I have is my books... and you."

"Daniel... whatever happened... whatever brought your destiny and mine to crossing... I've begun to understand there are no coincidences."

[Hotstreak]

"Of course there are." He smiled.

He rubbed her shoulder. "What your parents did, who they were, that really doesn't matter. Not to say you shouldn't honor their acheivments, but that's it. They aren't yours. You are young, you have plenty of time to leave your mark. Consider though, I'm willing to bet that your mother considers the ship as the second greatest thing to ever come from her, and she entrusted it to the first, one of her own beloved children, You."

"As powerful as they are, they left, and did so feeling you and your siblings could handle things without them. That speaks volumes really."

You are not an echo. You are Yomiko Hideyoshi, a wonderful young woman with great potential."

"Someone I'm glad to be close to, and with right now."

[The Traveler]

Yomiko smiled. "Then..."

She kissed him gently. The eyes he saw weren't ones of a troubled girl, but of a kind, well traveled woman, wise beyond her years yet still seemingly innocent in ways. She wanted to roam. To just go and now Daniel has in front of him the most interesting of dilemmas staring at him and his bare chest. Then again... she still had some features of her own to give to the table. She did have a healthy figure.

"...let's just enjoy the day."

[Hotstreak]

He smiled, kissing her back, enjoying the view as well. "Yes, I believe that's exactly what we need to do." With that he broke from her embrace and head into the water, smiling. "Catch me if you can."

[The Traveler]

Daniel's reckless dive into the water annoyed Yomiko for a moment, after all who knows if there is any rescuers she can contact if there was a medical emergency. Then she remembered she was the more apt medic... Then she remembered that she could handle most emergencies on her own. And she loosens up.

"I would... but why be in a hurry, hot-shot?" She says, grinning. She grabs her life jacket and hops into the water like a happy schoolgirl. The feel of the warm tropical water around her as she floated was... relaxing.

"Here we are, ending up here out of a crisis... and I can't be any happier, Daniel. To be honest... let's just take this for what it is. The funnest emergency I've ever gotten into, bar-none."

She drifted out, her eyes closed and a wide smile on her face. "Hell... forget that... this is just a vacation..."

Her thoughts paused and she righted herself in the water. "Crap... Rebecca and Tetsuko..."

She sighed. "Meh... I don't hear a distress signal beeping from the pod..." Yomiko says, almost sounding like she brushed them off. "Nothing we can really do until the jump drive recharges in a week, anyways."

[Hotstreak]

He smiled as he swam around her. "Very true. Until then I have you to myself." He splashed a little water towards her playfully, and laughed.

"Never thought you'd be one to really relax."

[The Traveler]

"I try... then again I am just as much a product of my Mother's stories of her adventures and my own... well... mother-hen instincts."

She playfully splashes back. "You... you've started to bring out a different side to me. I thank you for that."

She turns around in the water, letting air out of her vest. "So... feel like a dive?" She says smiling as the water starts to come up to her chin. "I wonder if there's edible fish about..."

[Hotstreak]

"I can certainly cook them if there are." He smiled, and looked at her. "I'll let you lead the way on the dive." He floated next to her, waiting.

[The Traveler]

Yomiko started to tread water on her own, as her vest deflated enough to keep her neutrally buoyant, and she smiled.

"Okay! shouldn't be too difficult." She pulls out a group of papers connected to a string. Oddly it didn't seem to be getting wet. "Ever spear-fish?"

She dives, after grabbing her goggles from a pocket on her vest. "Time to go!"

It was near noon, and the lighting in the shallows was perfect. Yomiko made a spear in her hands and started to look about. There was quite familiar varieties of tropical fish. Many at a decent size.

[Hotstreak]

Daniel followed her, content to let her choose the night's meal, and beheld the beauty of the reef, and of course, of his companion. A large shark cruised the reef and he closed in with her, tapping her shoulder and pointing.

[The Traveler]

Yomiko grinned. A Tiger Shark was a good sign that there were even better quality catches around.

But first there was the danger factor. After all, it was a predator. Also if she took hostile action, if it was injured it's blood would attract others... and that would be quite bad. So... she gets an idea.

Readying her spear she starts to approach the shark. It was just the right size she thought. As the Shark approached she attacked in one cruel stroke. In moments it's struggles were over as spikes appeared along the shaft of the spear until it was not only impaled but perforated.

Daniel could see she didn't like doing that. Then she has a look on her face that signaled danger. She waves Daniel back to shore as she starts swimming herself.

Once back on shore, she explains herself as she sees the shark carcass on the surface. "Okay... best thing to do is to offer that shark. Once the others in the area are satiated, we should be able to dive uninterrupted."

She sighed. "With the bounty of fish here, we have to pay a toll. Honestly... hunting I hate, but... then again all animals, including people, hunt in one form or another..."

As she said that the dead shark jerked and spun as the water around it became turbulent with a feeding frenzy below.

"30 minutes... all that's needed."

[Hotstreak]

He shrugged. "We could have just eaten that one. Tiger shark tastes amazing." He sat on the beach with her and nodded. "Do you really need the floatation? I swim like a fish, and so do you evidently."

He put an arm around her and nodded under the noonday sun. "Gonna work on your tan?"

[The Traveler]

"I don't, actually, need it. It's more of a safety precaution so if something does happen to me you can save me." She says, letting the rest of the air out and reloading a cartridge in a receptacle. "Hey... I know, it was a opportunity that shark, but again, we would have been set upon, as you could see."

She scratched her chin. "Well if the sharks have left the area, any stragglers might be easy pickings if you must have shark..."

She swims out on her back, smiling as she turns over for a moment to look into the water. "Looks like they've bailed for the most part though, now..."

She treads water and tosses another spear. "Nevermind... got one." She says, before getting suddenly dragged foreward. "Fuuuuuuu..."

The shock of being pulled at full throttle by a scared Tiger Shark made her forget to finish her kill. "Danielllll!!!" She shrieks before getting pulled under.

While in no danger of drowning... hitting something could make her lose the catch, or worse...

[Hotstreak]

"Actually I was gonna grab him by the tail and carry him into the air." He was going to elaborate more, then she unpreparedly went spear fishing and started getting drub out. He sprang into motion. Diving in after her. His arms encircled her waist as he helped her hold the line. He took a couple wraps around one of his hands before pulling back, and digging his heels in. This brought them to a stop in waist high surf, as he held both her and the line. "Calm down, and breathe. Cough any water you drank in up or it will make you sick."

He had the fish firmly it wasn't going anywhere save in a radius around them.

[The Traveler]

"Guh... I've drank Salt Water before... I can adapt to it." She said, taking a breath after coughing out the water in her lungs. "Thanks.. that thing is gonna..."

She calls the spikes up and ends the rebellious Shark's escapade. "...pay."

"Okay let's get dinner to shore."

She smiled, rustling Daniel's hair. "Good reflexes there." She says, suddenly hypnotized.

[Hotstreak]

He smiled shaking the water off as he drug the shark ashore. He was a picture perfect adonis as he looked at her and flashed a gigawatt smile. "When important people are in trouble you'll find I can act very fast, and decisively."

He knelt down setting to work at skinning and separating out the parts of the shark that would be best to eat. "gather some firewood if you would, Yomiko, and some Stones so I can make a safe firepit." He still had alot left to do on the six foot shark.

He chuckled. "He'll last us a few days, if done right."

[The Traveler]

"G... G... Good... We'll be here for Seven. Add to that our rations and any extra forage and... we'll make quite a living."

She was off of her game. Now suddenly... "I'll... get on the stones." She says, walking over to where she spotted a few potential candidates.

"We will... need to get a proper temperature for the Shark, approximately a minimum of 160 degrees Fahrenheit... or are you familiar with centigrade? Which would be 72 degrees Centigrade."

She's obviously rambling. "Too bad we don't have rice, or wasabi... I could make a killer sushi."

She starts collecting rocks in a makeshift sack made of her rain poncho. In a way seeing her collecting almost made her look like she could be his little sister.

[Hotstreak]

"I can create fire as hot as the core of a Star, we'll manage." He smiled as he got back to work, soon using the skin as a mat, with the fins, the nose, and the liver set out, and the meet cut into strips, and cured with salt water. by the time she returned, he had some resting on the mat of skin in the sun on the ship.

He had already washed the blood away from everything, and fed the rest of the shark back to the reef.

He was working on getting spits prepared so he could roast the meat over the fire.

[The Traveler]

His efficiency was bar-none. The technique he used was beyond a master surgeon or even the best chefs she had seen. And she's been around.

"Alright... good selection."

She couldn't help but stare not at the proper display and care of what would be dinner for the week, but at the man responsible.

"Hot as the core of the sun? So you could... theoretically... cause fusion from the heat you can generate? I never fully explored what your powers entailed."

[Hotstreak]

He smiled. "I've never showed you, or anyone, all of them." He took the stones and built the pit in a hole he'd dug, then picked up the wood and lit a fire in the sticks as he got it nice and big, so he could cook over it. Some of the meat he put on spits to roast by it, and the liver her rotated and roasted.

"I do not know all of yours, and I'm told it's rude to ask a lady to share her secrets. I figured you'd tell me if you felt the need."

He smiled as he sat their cooking for them.

[The Traveler]

"Well, you have seen and now here we profit from my control of paper. And I am a pretty sharp... well that you know."

She sat down on her poncho again. "And I did warn you about what will happen if something manages to kill me."

"Just like my Mother, if I die my body goes into a quantum lock, allowing my body to enter a state of hyper-accelerated healing. In the process, it is like practically being reborn. It's not happened to me yet, but... when I come out of that state I may be completely different from what you remember."

She sighed as she flops back. "Also... could you get something for me since you're next to the pod... there is a black box, to be exact, a box that is a violin case. Could you bring that here?"

[Hotstreak]

He nodded, leaving the fire for a moment, diminishing it greatly, then getting her case, and setting it before her, before returning to the fire, which flared to life again as he continued cooking.

He smiled. "You do strike me as the musical type."

He looked at her over the fire, and she could seed it reflected in his eyes, making him look even more exotic and enticing.

[The Traveler]

Wanted to see how well I play...

Kamiko *rolls* 11d10e7: 8,5,1,10,9,8,2,3,4,5,4. Successes = 4
[Kamiko] 11:06 pm: no megas involved... so... I don't mess up at least...

When Yomiko pulls out her Violin, she displayed a vision of modernistic perfection combined with an engineer's eye. A flawless carbon-fiber masterpiece of craftsmanship. As she played he could tell she wasn't going full throttle, but her skill was indeed there. Perhaps if she hadn't had a shocking surprise earlier today she would be amazing.

"I picked it up after I got fascinated with a character from a book. Actually everything about him fascinated me for the month or two when I could be called a "Teenager"."

"I think we know which detective that is." She says with a wink.

[Hotstreak]

"Sherlock Holmes." He'd sat and listened quietly enjoying watching her enjoy herself.

He chuckled, looking at her. "You finished your playing just in time. "Our late lunch is ready." He nodded to the fish as he extinguished the fire, "Ladies choose first."

"By the by, do we have anything to drink? did you see any streams nearby?"