Afterwards

I woke up flat on my back staring at a slew of blue swirlie-cues, which turned out to be the ceiling. After that revelation sank in, I took a look around before doing anything else. Nope. It wasn’t all just a freakish nightmare. The weird furniture was still there, as well as the high-tech mushroom, and standing next to it was her. The cute Interface.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” I lied. “Why do you look like that?”

“I’m modeled after my designer,” she replied. “But I hardly think that’s relevant.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, sitting up. That was a mistake. My brain immediately began to spin around inside my skull, but at least it was still inside my skull. I shudder to think what might happen if it weren’t. Gripping my head in both hands, just in case the old mind pudding decided to attempt an escape, I soldiered on. “It might matter to some people.”

She showed no sign of having a sense of humor, but to be honest, it was probably only funny to me. Instead, a frown creased her face and she said, “Well, if you must know, the plan was a success. In fact, without your… assistance, it went flawlessly. The precise mass was delivered to the precise target with the precise trajectory, resulting in the initiation of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. Congratulations. You have become part of a static temporal event.”

That felt good. I gave her a nod and immediately felt nauseous. “I knew you two could do it.”

The frown didn’t leave her face. “There is one problem, however.”

I didn’t want to hear it. All I wanted was to bask in the afterglow of a mission accomplished. But her statement bothered me too much. Then, I remembered what I didn’t see when I looked around earlier, and I looked around for it again, but it wasn’t there.

“Where’s Scaley?”

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “If you mean the dinosaurian, he fled via his dimensional fold device when we dived towards the planet.”

I sat up straighter. “And you let him go?”

She cocked her head irritably at me. “We were too preoccupied at the time to concern ourselves with the matter. Besides, I am the Interface. I do not have the ability to restrain prisoners.”

My nose wrinkled in utter disbelief. “What about the sonic?”

“I couldn’t do that and pilot myself, now, could I?” The ship sounded quite petulant about it. It must have been taking lessons from the Interface while I was out.

“My apologies,” I conceded. Then, it hit me. “Wait! Then, he’s gone along with the rest of his timeline.”

“Most likely,” she replied. “Which makes his parting vow of revenge moot.”

I shook my head, suddenly feeling very heavy. “You realize what we did, don’t you?”

“We destroyed countless lives to save countless others,” she immediately replied, telling me that she was always aware of the cost. She didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t need to. I didn’t want to think about it, anyway. At least, not right then. That vow of revenge was starting to trouble me, though.

“Do you think he’s really gone?” I tried not to sound nervous about it.

She rolled her eyes back in thought, then said, “Chronal possibilities were in momentary flux, so there is a chance that he somehow escaped erasure.”

“What kind of chance?” Okay, I sounded a little nervous that time.

She studied me carefully. “Slim, at best.”

I raised a brow. “You don’t want to quote the numerical odds?”

“You wouldn’t understand them, anyway,” she replied.

Touche. “So, what now? We have a potential nemesis on our hands?”

She looked at me dubiously. “Doubtful.”

I was confused. “So, what’s the problem?”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “You are.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay. You’re kicking me out. Fine. I get it. So, just drop me off at the hotel and I’ll be out of your hair.”

Her brows knit together. “You don’t understand. You cannot leave the vessel. At least, not for now.”

My brows lifted into my hairline. “Wow. You two like me that much?”

She frowned. “No, not at all.”

“I like you,” the ship helpfully chimed in.

“Thanks,” I told it.

“You cannot leave because if you do, your head will explode.” She was quite serious about it.

“Explode?” That didn’t sound good.

“Possibly literally,” she added. “Your brain is not meant to access the full scope of the Matrix, and unfortunately, the vessel did not take that into account when it linked itself to you.”

“I didn’t have time to think,” the ship whined.

“You quite literally did not think at all,” she coldly retorted. “You reacted. There is a difference.”

“I’m sorry,” the ship wimpered.

“Hold it!” I needed to regroup after the whole head exploding revelation, but there wasn’t time for it. I had to plunge ahead anyway. “I can’t leave?”

“Not until we stabilize the connection,” she replied. “And implant safeguards to prevent further damage.”

That got my attention. “Further damage??”

“Your mind may have already been damaged by the link,” she replied. “We do not yet know how. But it could get worse.”

I did not like that in the least. “Damaged, how?”

She took a deep breath. “Unknown. We must wait and see.”

“And the safeguards will cure me?” I wanted to be hopeful, but her serious expression didn’t change.

“No.” She had a terrible bedside manner. “The safeguards should prevent further damage or… anything more serious.”

“More serious.” I couldn’t believe she was being so indirect about it. “You mean, death?”

“Perhaps,” she admitted, never losing that serious expression. “Or perhaps worse.”

I couldn’t believe her. “What’s worse than dying?”

“You do not want to know.” If she didn’t look so serious, I might have thought she was kidding.

On second thought, there was no way to tell if she wasn’t, either.

“Right.” I needed to deal with it by talking myself through it. “Well, I’m not dead yet, so what do the safeguards do?”

“They limit your access to the Matrix to a level that your human brain can handle.” Dang, she was still so serious that it was making me nervous.

“Why not just remove the link?” It seemed simple enough to me.

She hesitated briefly. “It cannot be removed. The implementation was flawed, resulting in permanent connection.”

“I’m sorry,” the ship whined.

The instant it said that, I felt its shame. And more, I felt the connection between us, and for the first time in my life, I wasn’t afraid of the consequences of my stupid decisions. Like when I came up with the plan to ram the Earth. And more than that, it felt like the ship was more than a means to return to my time and place. It felt like my kid, and I wanted to be there to watch it grow up.

“It’s okay,” I told it. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“It did, though,” she immediately interjected. “It could have caused irreparable harm or death with its reckless -!”

“Agree to disagree,” I quickly interrupted, feeling the ship sinking into despair. Directing my thoughts to it, I added, “I, for one, do not mind the connection. It feels really nice.”

“It does?” The ship was hopeful.

“Until your head explodes into a million pieces,” she helpfully added.

I turned to her in shock. “Did you really just say that?”

She blinked in astonishment at herself. “Your connection must have corrupted the Matrix and by consequence, my programming. The sooner we establish those safeguards, the better.”

“I agree.” I didn’t want to imagine what a sass-mouth she might become with parts of my mind floating around inside her head. And the ship tittered in agreement.