⚡️THUNDERFANG S3 #20

Tick’s presence meant two things, at least to me. 

First, it meant that the return of Malice was even closer than we’d originally thought. Tick was a prime example of just how strange Brandings could be. The sooner I could accept that fact, the sooner I could remove the power it could have over me.  

It was one thing to know that Ira’s Branding was unique and different, an early warning sign. And then practically in the same breath, Jane’s Branding—and that had floored me. Walking through walls was something out of a science-fiction story. 

I suppressed the worry that Tick’s presence meant we were possibly too late: he was twenty-three, meaning we were twenty-three years too late. There was a chance there was someone out there with Branding even stranger, and the coming of Malice was already in motion.

But, with the pessimism out of the way, Tick’s presence meant something else, something much more important.

It meant victory—or, at least, a better chance at it.

Standing before us, drinking an alarming amount of caffeinated sugar water, was a Branded who could warn us of any danger before it came. So much of our future was his past. He could literally point us in the right direction and save us valuable time. 

What exactly had I done to deserve an ally like Tick?

After letting Diogenes go, we gathered in the portion of the common area not immediately commandeered by our time traveler. The smell of popcorn and coffee permeated the entire ship—two things Tick seemed to loved—as well as his hums of some unfamiliar tune. With speed and familiarity that still made me uncomfortable in a way I’d never felt before, he built a fort of pillows, blankets, and chairs. How many times had he had to rebuild this? What did he know about us already?

“Oh, is Michael around?” Tick put the final touches on the fort and stood proud, hands on his hips. His smile never faltered. “MICHAEL! IF YOU’RE LISTENING, HI!”

Michael was indeed present, sitting on the floor against the wall opposite us. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled, which made me smile.

“Boss, you making your curry—Kaisa! No, no, no!” Tick snatched a flask away from her. His face conveyed that he thought she was stupid—and her face conveyed that she wanted to kill him. “You can’t have that!”

“And why the fuck not? It’s mine!” She reached out to snatch it back, but Tick was faster. Or perhaps he simply knew she would react that way…?

“You—The—Wait, wait.” He did a bit of mental math, a finger in the air carrying imaginary numbers this way and that, then looked at Fletcher. “You two are dating in this timeline, right?”

Fletcher recoiled. “There’s a timeline where we don’t get together?!”

“Ah, okay, so, yeah, I was right.” Tick nodded confidently to himself and shifted the flask further out of her reach. “No flask for you, Kaisa. Sorry, sorry. Doctor’s orders.” Only after he emptied what little remained into his cup did he hand the flask back to her.

“What you need to be worried about is telling us how we can stop Jack, not my consumption!” Kaisa marched away, out of sight. Fletcher smiled awkwardly and followed her.

“Dunno how,” he said to no one in particular. “I haven’t gotten that far yet, yet.” He shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth and plopped down into a mountain of pillows. He went to take a sip of his drink but suddenly remembered it was not full of his normal sugar-coffee. He poured it out into a cup Jane held out for him.

“Is it safe for you to tell us anything? I’ve seen a few time travel movies. There’s always rules.” I leaned back against the wall, brow raised, unsure of what answer to expect. Ira sat next to me, our arms pressed against each other. His touch kept me calm as we got to know our new chaotic friend.

“Perfectly safe. Besides, it’s always, always changing.”

“So, then, you could sit through a year and then loop back and let us know what happens?” Blackstone asked. She was sitting next to Irēn and Jane on the sofa, while Yelena tinkered with some mechanical device off to the side on the floor. John and Lestrade stood nearby, watching. They’d been going through some of the details on the crime board before getting drawn into the conversation.

“I like to make save points more often, like, every other week, at worst. The closer the save point is to my present, the more reliable it is. Also, I try not to loop too, too often,” he said, refilling his cup for the third time with entirely too much sugar.

“How come?” John reached out and stuffed a few popcorn kernels in his mouth.

“So, like, sometimes, when I do it,” Tick jabbered, pausing to take a swig of his drink, “things don’t end up the same. Like, most of it is, yeah, but the timeline can get corrupted, and then that becomes the new default. No idea how that happens, though. It’s why I try to always get a really, really good save point.”

“Corrupted?” The word scared me. It felt so similar to “infected.” I didn’t want to assume what he meant, though. His past was multiple versions of our futures. Perhaps his definition of corrupted meant something else.

“Like, take you two, for instance,” he said, pointing to John and I. “Before I accidentally corrupted the timeline, I don’t think, think you ever went to Shiningstar. I don’t think either of you knew about it, actually.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Well, you were infamous. Pretty much everyone recognized the name Locke Holmes.”

“Let me guess,” Jane interrupted, “did he convince a thousand people to lay down their weapons and turn themselves in?” She threw a playful smirk my way.

Tick giggled and shook his head in negation. “Rumor has it, Locke, that you let Amari Wade escape.”

My blood chilled. That certainly did not happen in this timeline.

“E-escape?” Ira placed a comforting hand on my thigh and John’s eyes narrowed. They knew exactly what happened with Amari Wade in our past. Even Michael looked worried.

“Yeah. You all—the Bohemian Express—arrived on New Bohemia and suddenly, suddenly, ‘Oh no! Amari Wade has somehow gotten free! What ever will I do?’” Tick giggled, seemingly blissfully unaware of what happened in this timeline. “You didn’t stay on New Bohemia long, though. And I lose track of you after that. I was too, too busy looking for Jane.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why me?”

“Diogenes wanted to meet with the rumored ‘ghost.’ Everyone here was talking about it. So, so, I agreed to help her find you.“

“When did you even meet Diogenes anyway?” Jane asked. “I don’t remember meeting you, or her telling me you were looking for me. As far as I know, she just…found me…” Her gaze drifted towards the ceiling. “But you being there would explain how she knew practically everything about me.”

“I’ve messed up the timeline so, so much since then, but when I was little—even though Diogenes won’t remember—I met her. She told me how to get in contact with her if I ever needed her. She saw my potential. I eventually reached out, even though she didn’t know who I was anymore. It’s okay, okay. I filled her in. 

“Anyways, took me forever to find you, but when I did, you, you’d…um…” His voice trailed off, finally slowing down. A somber expression flashed across his face. But only for a moment. It was slight, barely noticeable, and then his smile was back like nothing was wrong.

What had happened?

“I didn’t know what to do, I panicked,” he continued, his voice ramping up its normal hard-to-understand pace. “And I didn’t think you’d trust me, so, so…I looped back. When I did, I found you sooner and got Diogenes to meet with you directly instead of me. But something was off—I didn’t realize it until it was too, too late. Amari Wade died and never made it off the ship? And then Jane ran away! Diogenes was kinda mad, but she told me not to loop for that. 

“And then, months later—felt like forever, really—um…Shiningstar crashed into Saffron.”

“Crashed?” I sat up. All of our faces twisted in horror.

“Yeah, yeah. Tragic. Diogenes asked me if I had a save point—I did, from like 2 weeks prior. So I looped back. When I did, I think I corrupted something else. Jack never rose to power in the timeline when Shiningstar crashed. And now, for some, some reason, Shiningstar never crashed and Jack is the one in charge. But, I didn’t know Jack was evil then, so I kind of let things play out.”

Michael stood from his seat on the floor, worry still on his face at Tick’s words. But before I could ask him anything, he vanished.

“Then…I saw you. For the first, first time, in person, I saw you,” Tick said, drawing my focus back to him. “The infamous Locke Holmes. You were looking for Lestrade. You never found her, though. When you went to confront Jack, he exposed you and hurt John. Lots of bad, bad stuff happened,” he said, his voice slowing once again and the smile beginning to droop. “I met you and John for the first time then. It wasn’t pretty. You were so, so…sad. I couldn’t let that happen, so I looped. I told Diogenes everything that was happening and that I was determined to help you if I could.

“Took me another five—seven? Or was it six?—loops, but you eventually went to Shiningstar and saved Lestrade. I thought my work was done, so, so I saved. I could always meet you again later. But then you were exposed, and you ran off before I could meet you all again.

“In the last timeline, the one right before this one, you contacted Diogenes for help, just like you did earlier today, and she reached out to me. But I was traveling, off world looking for information on the Risen—that was our plan some loops back, investigate the Risen—and knew I wouldn’t get back to you in time—like, Diogenes told me I had to be quick—soooo…I took a shortcut. Before I left, I had a recent enough save point, so I just looped back to it. Only had to wait a couple days. Though, I think I corrupted the timeline again because Jack started the war today—in the last timeline, I mean.  It was bad, really bad. That’s what you call a Miss, right? I think we got a Weak Hit in this timeline, even though it’s still pretty bad. Corruption was a good thing this time, I hope, I hope.”

He even knew Ironsworn vernacular. 

 “Why me, though?” The worlds tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop myself. “Why have you helped me out so much?”

His smile faded. The bliss that consumed every part of him was suddenly gone, replaced with the look of someone who knew more than they wanted to. I recognized the expression. I’d had it—and Michael and Conan.

“I’m closer to being a Hivebranded than the rest of you, and…sometimes, sometimes, I hear things. Voices in my head telling me that I should do something. When they first started, I-I did them—I was young and it seemed harmless. And then I realized what I was doing, what happened because of me…I didn’t like that I hurt people. 

“Even without becoming infamous, I knew your name, Locke—we…we all have, I think. I’ve heard it in my head. I’m supposed to be…doing other things, pushing you in another direction. But I don’t want to hurt people—I don’t want to hurt you. I want to save everyone. I figured that, maybe, if I helped you instead, I could get the voices to stop.”

A thick silence descended upon us, filled with more questions and even more uncertainty. Was that was Michael went through before—and after—he went missing? Was that what Conan struggled with every miserable day as he fought just to stay alive with his husband?

I looked to Jane. Was she going through the same thing?

“You said you were investigating the Risen. How come?” John asked, breaking the silence.

“Jack pretty much said the same thing in both timelines. Also, I remembered when Shiningstar crashed: it was, apparently, full of Risen, which was super, super weird. You all figured Jack was talking about those Risen in the war. But there was no, no way that only the Risen from Shiningstar were going to be used. There had to be more, somewhere, or“—he raised a finger dramatically—”they were creating the Risen, and just transporting whatever was doing that. That was Lestrade’s idea.”

“So…some kind of weapon that turns the dead into Risen?” Jane shuddered at her words. “I hate it.”

“And there’s still the Branded on Avam, too,” I said. “Unwilling participants in this stupid war. We need to rescue them all, no matter how many.”

“All of them?” John said. I knew exactly what he was getting at.

“I know, it took a ton of ships to free us,” I said with a heavy sigh, remembering the experience quite well. Karim and Legacy had dropped a dozen or so ships down on Avam and managed to rescue most, if not all, of the Branded on the planet at the time. “We don’t have anywhere near that amount of ships at our disposal, but maybe Legacy can help pull some strings. They’ve got to have more connects these days.” Ira nodded.

“How would the Moriartys have gotten their hands on that kind of technology, though? A weapon to create Risen…” Irēn trailed off.

“Maybe Dr. Hendrix created it,” John said. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Maybe that’s the result of the Shiningstar experiments.”

“Didn’t you say that robot in the vault only, only affected the Branded and the Risen?” Tick tilted his head. I hadn’t said that to him—at least in this timeline. “I wonder if we could use that to, at least, stop the Risen.”

“Too bad we nuked it on the way out,” Jane said with a huff.

Yelena perked her head up. “Maybe I can fix it?” 

I looked to Tick, seeking confirmation. He shrugged. “I told you: I haven’t lived that far yet. You’re still the boss, Boss.”

I couldn’t stop my face was broadcasting my frustration at his response. “You don’t have anything we can use to help make sure we’re going in the right direction?”

“Nope!” He smiled. “Your future is past tense to me. It did go a certain, certain way. It was going to happen some way. But we can change that—it’s already been changed. Just go with your gut, Boss.”

It still wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but his smile and enthusiasm was infectious, and I couldn’t help but feel better. And a little more motivated.

A much, much better chance at victory lay ahead.

Next week on ⚡️THUNDERFANG:

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