Jake Squared

Posted on Fri Jan 5th, 2024 @ 1:47am by Executive Officer Jake Ford

Mission: Fractures
Location: SS Mary Rose
1251 words - 2.5 OF Standard Post Measure

The dim corridor flickered with temporary light, shadows dancing as time and space warped around the ship.

Jake stopped and came face-to-face with a familiar face; a female Romulan he didn't have much time for. "Liha?"

‘Liha's’ eyes wandered downwards. She raised her hands to her face in shock, trying to process what her senses were telling her. She looked down at her hands, they had long, elegant fingers. Her hands were... female hands. She held his own face, touching every feature, her smooth skin, the feminine curves, trying to convince herself that what she was seeing and feeling was true.

"Oh...my...god..." Liha’s form flinched, turning to face ‘Future’ Jake. "What the hell am I...? Is this real? Am I... am I in Liha's body?"

"Wait - this is that time we body-swapped..." Future Jake murmured, realising when and where he was. "Not exactly my most favourite memory..."

"Oh no, you mean to tell me this has happened before...?" Jake-as-Liha's face grew from confusion to panic. "What happened? Where is Liha?"

"Okay," Future Jake said, raising his hands to calm him. "I'm you...from the future. You've been swapped with Liha, but don't worry, we'll eventually figure out a way to get you back to yourself. I realise that makes very little sense, but you're currently a Romulan woman, so..."

"A Romulan woman...? Future me, I don't think you realise how much you have to explain, how the hell did this even happen in the first place? I mean, I just woke up and saw-" Jake held up his hands, taking in the sight of long elegant fingers for another moment or two. "Why, out of all bodies, did it have to be Liha's?" Jake's face betrayed his true feelings on the matter.

"Oh, trust me, I know," Future Jake sympathised. "And I'm sure she'll play holy hell too. But for now I have a different problem; I'm slipping between time periods - past, present, future..."

"Slipping between time periods...?" Jake's confusion was beginning to boil over into a panic attack. "You tell me I'm in Liha's body, which has somehow swapped bodies with me in the past? And now there's two 'current' Jakes, and you're somehow slipping through TIME? What in the seven hells has happened..."

Future Jake scratched his beard, noticing his past counterpart mimic the same habitual reaction. "Long story. Not one I think we can unpick right now. I need to figure out where the time fractures are coming from, and it seems like the closer to the middle of the ship I get, the more things seem to be out-of-whack."

Jake was becoming increasingly more frantic, his heart was racing. "Okay, okay, time fractures. Okay, so we work out where those are. That doesn't change the fact this is a nightmare of unbelievable proportions. How can I be in Liha's body? Can she see, hear, and feel everything just like me?"

"For goodness sake, Jake - stop worrying about Liha and help me for a minute..."

"I'm just trying to get my damn head around all this. I'll help once I understand what in the hell is going on." Jake paused for a moment and tried a different approach. "Okay, how do we figure out where the time fractures are and why the hell I'm stuck in her... in this body?"

Future Jake shook his head. "There's not a lot of sense to it; some whole decks are stuck as one time period, others it seems to be scattering all over the place at random."

Jake was at a loss for ideas. He was trying to piece everything together, and so far he'd got nothing. "So... is there a way to reverse this? Can we put everything back the way it should be? Surely there's something we can do. Can we at least try to get me out of this body and back to normal?"

"Honestly, if we can work out the time-fractures the whole body swapping thing won't be an issue. Trust me - I'm you from the future, it gets resolved." Future Jake sighed. Talking to 'himself' was starting to get strange.

Jake took a deep breath, trying to collect himself and keep it together.

"Okay, okay, let's work out the fractures. How do we do that?" He desperately wanted to get back to normal, but if fixing the fractures helped him, it was the only choice he had for the moment.

"Right now, I think only people from my 'present' are shifting between fractures. So the time periods themselves aren't crossing over...I wonder if that helps?" Future Jake pondered.

Jake's eyes widened with realisation. "You said you're from my future. Future Jake, if I know you and I know you're from the future of this time period, then the reason you and I are both here, and Liha isn't... you and I must be from the same timeline? Are there other people from the future here too?" Jake held his head, trying to work through everything in his mind. "Okay, so if I'm and you're from the future of our current timeline, then how come we're both here at the same time?"

There was a long pause as both of them tried to unpick the complexity of the statement Jake had just made. "Time travel sucks..." They said in unison. Future Jake rolled his eyes. "If I were a betting man, I'd say there's some artifact in the grotto that's the cause. But getting there through all these fractures feels like it might be impossible..."

Jake nodded slowly. Things were starting to fall into place in his mind, although it was still far from a clear picture.

"Okay, right, the answer is in the grotto. So we must be able to navigate the time fractures to get there." Jake paused, his mind whirring with potential solutions. "I mean, if the time period I'm from is the same as the time period you're from, then there might be some... patterns in when the fractures are happening...right?"

"Patterns? I wonder if there's a way of 'seeing' them..." Future Jake pondered. "Good thinking, Jake."

Jake smiled with a little pride at Future Jake's praise. It felt nice to hear his own name again, after what felt like forever spent in Liha's body with her name and face. "Okay, we're getting somewhere. Let's see if we can spot any patterns as you... we... I... walk around the ship?"

"Well, you're not able to shift between them, but I am," Future Jake explained. "So that limits how helpful you're actually going to be..."

Jake was about to protest, when it dawned on him. "Wait, so I can't go with you through the fractures? I have to just... sit... here? For however long it takes for everything to be fixed...?" Jake's expression dropped. "Oh come on, this can't be how I spend the next few hours."

Future Jake shrugged with a grimace. "If it helps, you don't end up staying in that body for more than a few days..."

Jake let out a tired sigh. "Okay, whatever. Just get going, I'll be... here." Jake watched as Future Jake went down the corridor before beginning to pace around.

Future Jake looked back over his shoulder, remembering some of the feelings his past counterpart would be feeling. He felt a twinge of pity, before pressing on to see if he could work out a way through these fractures to the grotto.

 

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