MOTHER OF PARADOXES - (Revised on 6/24/24)

The Queen and Carolyn flew in low over the gentle surf, turned south down the long white beach and circled the island in a slow arc. Somewhere over the wide expanse of water, the Queen had assured Carolyn that Dahl, Moss, Lilith and Eve already entered the lower chamber. But only two of them had reached the island. The queen either could not or would not say which two had made it, or why the others had not. As they flew on, trying to locate the spot where two team members came ashore, Carolyn had ample time to form her own dark conclusions. None of which helped to ease her growing sense of alarm.

Carolyn had known all four since she was a little girl. Although in this timeline, three of the four had yet to meet her. Carolyn hoped they would live long enough to meet her someday.

Yet furthering Carolyn's sense of doom was the Queen's revelation that two Necromonger contingents had arrived from the future. Each comprising a pair of six-man teams commanded by a single team leader. 26 men in total. Again, the Queen wouldn't tell Carolyn how she knew anyone had arrived or where they went. In fact, the more the Queen shared her oddly limited intel, the more Carolyn worried she may not have received the complete picture from Lilith's busted mind stone. She got the impression the Queen had little snapshots of what was going on, like someone with an old photo album that doesn't belong to them. The Queen could see people and places in the photos, but didn't have the entire story.

As they flew onward, low and slow, searching for footprints in the virgin sand, Carolyn thought about the nameless, faceless soldiers aligning against a horde of changing raptors, 2 missing mercenaries, 2 shapeshifters- whereabouts also unknown- a stranded engineer, still topside, aboard a ship he couldn't pilot and one telepath who may, or may not, be able to read minds anymore. In a guilty, selfish way, the last worry concerned her most.

Then, much to Carolyn's growing displeasure, she recalled their earlier encounter with the Purifier and she amended her enemies tally to a lethal brute squad under the control of one immortal, unstoppable timeshifter hell bent on ending all life in the universe. Oh yeah, and one last concern for her mounting heap of worry. Carolyn didn't think any of her teammates had any weapons. It was at that point; she concluded their odds of successfully defending the obelisk from a highschool marching band armed with an assortment of homemade potato cannons was unlikely, let alone, against a band of mountain-sized killers who relished a bloody fight.

When Carolyn voiced her concerns, the Queen dismissed them with a lofty, if not somewhat infuriating, wave-off far too reminiscent of Lady Hemmingford.

"Not to worry," the Queen said.

But worry was just one of the swirling emotions racing through Carolyn's mind. Hell, without her nifty mind reading parlor trick to rely on, she was approaching a mixture of frustration, aggravation, and if she were truthful with herself, even a fair amount of terror.

As the Queen waved Carolyn's concerns away for the third time, Carolyn thought. Great. Another person who blows me off like I'm still a goddamn kid. She laughed at the idea of seeing the queen as a person and not a monster. But she did. The Queen resembled a woman. Not quite a human woman, but she was getting there and Carolyn figured it wouldn't be long before she could pass for a human. Albeit, an unnaturally tall, jet black from head to toe, leather winged wraith with three oversized digits on both feet and hands. And let's not forget the razor sharp talons.

After spending a considerable amount of time in the Queen's presence, observing her behaviors up close, Carolyn believed there may be a little of the old monster still lurking in there somewhere. The queen showed little emotion, and her complete lack of empathy made Carolyn think she might suffer from an unhealthy smattering of psychopathy. Without being able to read the Queen's mind, Carolyn feared what she and her new comrades might do. How could Carolyn stop her? Or any of them? She had no chance. The Queen was cold in even the most stressful of situations. But Carolyn- being Carolyn- refused to let the Queen know anything. 

After another ten minutes of pestering and needling passed, the Queen finally responded in the time-honored tradition of all annoyed parents by blaring a single word, "Because."

Carolyn turned towards her red-face blazing, fighting off the urge to blurt out the time-honored response of every stubborn child. But said nothing. The Queen saw her angry crimson complexion and smirked. That second insult drew another burst of adrenaline. In the heat of the moment, Carolyn concluded the Queen was not telling her everything. Snapshots my ass, Carolyn thought rather heatedly. She knows everything about what is happening. She just won't tell me.

Carolyn knew the queen was leaving a lot out. But after the Queen screamed in her face, she didn't push the issue because she rightly thought it was a bad idea to piss off an unpredictable 7 foot tall juggernaut with unknown mental and physical powers. But the festering silence didn't stop her from glaring ahead or hunching over her ride in an angry pose, clearly suggesting the whole goddamn situation was bullshit and she didn't like any of it.

The Queen's new persona seemed a bit too much like Lilith Hemmingford for Carolyn's liking. Sure.. Carolyn liked Lilith, but come on, one Lady Hemmingford in the universe was more than enough. Thank you very much. But then, as she watched the Queen. Really watched her. Carolyn didn't like what she saw. It was obvious the Queen did not just have Lilith's old photo album; she had all of Lilith's memories. Even with Carolyn's advanced knowledge of science, she did not know how that level of memory transfer could affect the mind of another. And that wasn't the worst of it. The Queen was exhibiting many of Lilith's behavioral traits and was looking and sound like Lilith Hemmingford. And that was fucking nuts. Because if that was true, Lilith had done what? Turned a raptor into some skewed version of herself. And for what purpose?

When Carolyn turned to the queen, she saw the Queen had turned her attention to the shallow waters between the shoreline and a hundred meters offshore. As they flew onward, the queen increasingly ignored the sandy beach completely and Carolyn quickly became irritated with her new teammate's preoccupation with the water. From then on, every time Carolyn looked at the Queen, she was peering out to sea rather than at the beach. Didn't she give a shit about the lost team? Just how the hell were they going to find anyone like that? They weren't. Especially with the Queen's attention fixed on the water and Carolyn's attention fixed on the Queen. Neither woman was looking at the beach.

Carolyn suspected, with Lilith's future memories uploaded into the Queen's mind, she already knew where the team came ashore and this brief trip around the island was a complete sham. They weren't looking for footprints. They were looking for something beneath the waves. And whatever was out there, Carolyn doubted it had anything to do with Necromongers or an ancient obelisk.

Carolyn knew the Queen couldn't actually see the future. Even if she came from the future. Coming back in time could change and anything you remembered about the future could be incorrect. The past is easy to see from the future. Hell, anyone picking up a history book can do that. But seeing the future, now that's an entirely different story. The future has an infinite number of possibilities, each veering off into their own time-streams and each creating infinite networks of tangled branches leading into an unknowable, ever-changing kaleidoscope of possibilities. And all of it based on individual decisions, random events and the cosmos trying to work itself out.

Every timeshifter knows going back in time is child's play. Pick a time, pick a spot, and with very little energy or effort, pop, you're there. But moving forward in time, well now, that takes a God-like power no mere mortal possesses. Not even immortals possess that level of power. To put it into perspective, if one moves back in time- as far back as one desires and anywhere one desires- it takes only the power of a single flickering candle. But to move forward in time for a single second, one would need the power of a supernova to sort through an infinite number of time-streams. To move ahead two seconds, it would take four supernovas. 3 seconds ahead and it takes six supernovas. 4 seconds and it takes eight supernovas. You get the point. Traveling ahead in time takes exponential amounts of power. And the further ahead one jumps, the more one's power needs become problematic. For instance, to travel forward a single hour, the power requirement needed would lead to a galactic blackout. No one would survive the sudden cold snap.

As a result, humans, the ones who grow old and die, have one way of seeing the future. Live long enough to get there. But immortal timeshifters reach the future only to jump back in time to change events. Moving back and living forward allows a timeshifter to nudge a time-stream in a direction they want it to go. Now is probably a good time to explain that only one timeshifter has ever managed such a feat and the effects of his repeated jumps have had an extreme effect on his body. Such efforts are not for the faint of heart. Just ask Kearyn.

The more Carolyn thought about what the Queen said, the more she knew Lilith had broken the tenet. Making such a profound change to a time-stream was batshit crazy. It could lead to a time quake that wiped out the entire universe.

Lilith, more than most timeshifters, knew the ripple effects unchecked alterations had on every event from that point forward. Carolyn told herself she was just being paranoid. Just because she could no longer read her teammates' thoughts didn't mean Lilith was up to something sketchy. But It did, because that was no ordinary crystal Carolyn had given the queen. It had not only altered her physiology, but the physiology of every raptor the queen had come into contact with. It was at that point, Carolyn thought the crystal must have contained the instructions for some kind of highly contagious retrovirus.

Carolyn fixated on the queen, who fixated on the sea. She concentrated with all the force of will she could muster, trying to bore a hole into the back of the Queen's skull. She needed to know what the Queen was thinking. After a few moments, a massive shockwave slammed into her as if someone had thrown up a mental brick wall. The invisible barrier almost knocked Carolyn off her ride. The world spun around her as she grabbed her forehead, leaned out to one side, and projectile vomited into the surf. Her ride let out a disgusted grunt, veered away hard from the spreading shower threatening to coat its side, and then righted itself before Carolyn fell off and ate a mouthful of sand.

The Queen's ride, surprised by its comrade's incursion into its airspace, faltered and the queen signaled the two raptors to go lower. The raptors descended, skimming the surface of the water as their magnificent wings tips tickled the surf. It was no longer safe to fly any higher. Their rides were in the end stages of transitioning from one creature to another. Hell, in the past hour alone, the two once gigantic raptors that had borne them aloft with ease now visibly struggled to stay in the air at all. The once graceful raptors had undergone dramatic physical and mental changes during the flight down. And as Carolyn stared down at their forever changed features, she wondered what they were becoming. The thought sent a chill up Carolyn's spine. These strangely familiar creatures weren't raptors anymore, or winged humans like the queen. They looked like winged xenomorphs. Then she realized where she knew why they were familiar. They looked like winged versions of Eve and Lilith.

When Carolyn arrived on M6-117, she had come with a simple plan. But whatever this shit-show was, it was not to plan. Everything was going awry.

Until that moment, Carolyn had forgotten the jump that brought her to M6-117. Shortly before the time-shift, Necromongers attacked the Sheong Ja, a liberated basilica class frigate. How the Necros found them in the forbidden planets region was a mystery to her. During the battle, Kearyn sent her back before the Necros prevented the time shift.

Carolyn was certain of nothing. The intel they had sent her with wasn't worth shit. But with a lot of luck, she might still salvage the mission.

Lilith had twisted the time stream, risking everything for her dark plan. The Purifier must have been giddy with joy when he learned that. But maybe not. Maybe Lilith's betrayal had always been the plan. Maybe this had happened before.

It was all conjecture at that point, and now Carolyn had a bitch of a headache. Trying to read the queen's thoughts was out. That had ended the same as when she tried to read Lady Hemmingford. And thank God, Carolyn had only tried that once. It ended up with a week-long migraine and a seared esophagus from puking up her boots.

Carolyn watched the queen sitting on her ride, saw trouble coming on fast and this queen is not the queen Kearyn sent me to rescue. This queen could pass for a woman. A large, beautiful, very human woman. And now, thanks to Lilith's betrayal, they were all about to have a sizable chunk of flesh removed from their asses, if any of them were lucky enough to survive at all.

She knew there was no time to change that little screw up. Carolyn couldn't make a time jump without Kearyn or Lilith's help, and asking the Purifier was out of the question. Her entire team had gone MIA. So, until someone came forward or backward in time to put this shit right, she'd have to do her best to keep this increasingly degenerating timeline intact until someone could repair it before they all disappeared.

Carolyn looked down the beach, spied something bobbing up and down in the surf and thought it was a tangle of driftwood. She couldn't be sure. Apparently, seeing half a kilometer ahead wasn't her gift, either. "What's that?" she asked, pointing at the object in the distance. No one answered. The Queen was busy looking out to sea again and their steeds were busy ignoring her. Another bad sign.

"Hey," Carolyn shouted. "Are you even listening?"

The Queen turned a frustrated gaze towards the object in the distance, squinted momentarily and said, "It's a raft. Not very large. Hardly big enough for two." She leaned forward, whispered something to her ride, and then sat up again. "They went inland somewhere around there. There are tracks leading into the jungle."

"You can see their tracks from here?"

"No," she replied, gesturing at her ride. "He can. We'll touch down near the raft and follow their tracks inland from there. We can't fly over the jungle canopy. The foliage is too dense. It's foot power from there."

The Queen's ride faltered and dropped 5 feet in an instant. A deluge of water covered Carolyn as its smooth belly struck the surf. The raptor flapped its substantially smaller wings hard, sprayed water everywhere and came up even with Carolyn. "Besides," the Queen added matter-of-factly, "Our rides have reached the limits of their endurance." She leaned forward and said in a clear voice, "Take us in. We will shelter there before we head inland."

"We can't wait. What if they need help now?"

The raptor looked over its shoulder and the Queen said, "We'll wait." Before Carolyn could protest any further, she added, "We will all be in trouble if we go running in there less than a hundred percent."

After they landed in front of the raft, the two women slid off their rides. Well, Carolyn slid off. The Queen stood up and walked away, leaving her behind with their exhausted, panting rides, staring at her. That's when Carolyn got a real close look at how much the raptors had actually transformed and knew her situation had changed, and perhaps not for the better.

Carolyn watched her walk away as the two raptors stood up and up and up behind her. When standing beside them, Carolyn felt tiny and without her mind control tricks to protect herself, quite vulnerable, indeed.

Thanks to Lilith's meddling, these new and much improved raptors were no longer slaves to their primitive minds, or Carolyn's advanced mind. Carolyn could no longer read these new creatures, let alone hope to control their actions. From a cognitive standpoint, these beings had grown beyond her gifts. Perhaps even beyond human minds. She wondered if they could read her thoughts, but didn't think so. She certainly hoped not. But standing on the beach with two giant unreadable raptors made her feel completely at their mercy. A growing sense of vulnerability swept over her. It was not a feeling she particularly enjoyed, but it was a feeling she had created.

Carolyn hadn't expected the plan would strip her of the telepathic gifts. But in the end, the silence in her head had emphasized how much she relied on her telepathy. Because without it, she simply didn't know who she was. In the simplest terms, she felt outside of everything and everyone for the first time in her life. And that stifling emptiness led to an inexplicable loneliness she could not fathom. How did normal people do it? Trapped inside their own heads day and night for their entire lives. The idea terrified her.

Standing amid a race of beings immune to her charms, she became the lesser of the group, and if she was going to go with them, her survival might very well depend on their willingness to save her. Carolyn wondered how the raptors viewed being uplifted without first being asked? Not that she could have asked them, she did not know Lilith's gift would affect them.

She turned away from the two raptors when she saw them staring at her as if she were an unwanted outsider. They weren't staring. Not really. They didn't care enough to stare. But Carolyn's suspicion was right. She would always be an outsider. It didn't matter what the raptor would eventually come to look like or how intelligent they became. The simple fact was they would never be human or see humans as their equals. And that was the real problem when playing God. Sometimes your creations can get away from you. And sometimes, when you don't consider their needs as much as your own, they should.

The queen stood at the edge of the waves, three-toed feet soaking in the cool clear water, looking at her inhuman hands. She peered out at the water at what Carolyn presumed was nothing. She was wrong. Something was keenly aware they were on the beach. And it watched them with growing intent.

"Hey." Carolyn said. "We need to find our team and get to the obelisk before the Necros do."

"Your team," the Queen replied, turning to Carolyn with a dark sneer. "Does not know what they have unleashed in this galaxy. But at least this time, you have cursed your own kind, as well as mine." She shook her head. "Your kind fumble about like toddlers juggling nukes, thinking you can control the destinies of an entire universe while unable to control your own." 

Carolyn could see excruciating pain on her face.

"Fools." the Queen said, gesturing at a dark object floating out in the gentle waves. "Even her. Especially her." The Queen reeled on Carolyn. "Even your precious Kearyn. Fools, the whole damn lot of you. What do any of you care about my people? We have always been fodder in a war that stretches across the expanse of time and space? What have any of you ever cared for more than yourselves? And Here You Come Again, using my people as your puppets. But not this time. No. I think not this time. This time, one of you has finally gone too far." She turned to Carolyn with a dark smile. "Now you're fucked, too. Because now it is our time to fuck with you. But no matter, we shall all meet our fates together." 

And with that, Carolyn knew the Queen knew everything that was happening and that Lilith had indeed done something terrible. "How-"

"The bitch had no right," the Queen shouted, cutting Carolyn off as she threw up an oddly disturbing bird gesture with a giant three finger hand. "Pardon me. What I meant to say was that I had no right."

"You had no right?"

"This is not who I am supposed to be, you selfish bitch." she raged, reeling on Carolyn, causing her to stumble-jump backwards and almost fall on her backside. "Your selfish benefactor has so corrupted this timeline that I doubt that even the Champion can un-fuck it now. She does not know what she has done." The Queen fell silent and Carolyn waited for the gears grinding in her head to mesh the jumbled up thoughts taking her away. "The conniving shit did this on purpose. Lilith thinks fate and time preordained this nonsense." She let out a monstrous laugh. "And now, no one can change this timeline now."

"It's never too late." Carolyn said, shaking her head doubtfully. "Someone can come back and prevent her from doing whatever she did. We can reset this timeline."

"Oh, Lilith has done something far more detrimental than simply altering this timeline. She has unwittingly allied herself with our adversary to create an unbreakable paradox. And if we or anyone else attempts to alter that paradox, we're all going to blink out of existence. Game over, little girl." She shook her head in disgust."The cleaver little fucker tricked us both and now we're all in for the long game."

"Who did?"

"The Purifier. Or maybe Kearyn," she answered. "Does it really matter? Aren't they the same?"

"I don't understand."

"Oh course you don't. Your Grandfather has taught you nothing about your people, has he?"

"He taught me everything."

"Did he?" The Queen said with a glimmer of doubt in her eye. "Where do your people come from? You should know that much. Everybody has to come from somewhere. So, surely you know that one fact. Where do you come from?" the Queen repeated asked again.

Carolyn didn't know. She had never asked, and Kearyn had never offered to tell her. "No. No idea. Then. Let me explain." The Queen gestured at the not-raptors over her shoulder and said, "You come from us. We are your people. Or should I say, we are half of your people. The better half, I imagine. Certainly the stronger half."

"That's not possible."

"Oh… Why is that? Are you too good to come from us?"

"It's not possible."

"You are the single most infuriating little woman I have ever met."

"I am the only woman you have ever met," Carolyn snapped in return.

"Too right you are. But allow me to enlighten you on a detail I know your grandfather omitted from your education. It's about a battle that takes place in the future." The Queen paused, not wanting to give too much away. "The place isn't important. It's more about what happened that matters. It's the battle where the Purifier becomes Kearyn."

"Just tell me how to stop this."

"And have you run back and tell your meddling comrades so you can kill us all when you try to change the outcome of that battle? I think not. Just know, the defining moment will happen soon enough."

"Then why tell me anything at all?"

The queen nodded and said, "During that battle, one of your ancestors- arguably the oldest- is flung back in time. It is that single event that solidifies the first paradox and leads to the creation of all other paradoxes from that point forward."

"There are other paradoxes?"

"There are three. The paradoxes of fathers and sons. And they are why fucking with the time steams is a bad idea. When your ancestor arrived in the past. Barely alive and broken beyond repair, he believed he had finally escaped his fate. But he was wrong. Fate, as it seems, had one last use for him. And so, too, did the greatest evil ever created. His misery had just begun."

"Can you tell me where he went?"

"He went home. Back to a people he never knew existed. And that was the first time he and I met. Although, I did not look like this back then."

"You met, Kearyn?"

"I was there.. It was I who nursed him back to health. Of course, I didn't know who he was or anything about the paradoxes. I did not know the long future that lay ahead of me or the longer past. Back then, I was a naive girl. Barely seventeen. And so, like my people, I listened to his stories with a mixture of awe and terror. I wanted to help. I'm sure you have noticed he can be a very persuasive speaker when he wants to be." She paused and flexed her hands. "That, and he was kind to me. Back then, he was very kind."

"How did you help?"

"He convinced me to enlist the help of those closest to me, and I did so willingly. Some joined the cause out of fealty to him. But others joined for their own selfish reasons. Either way, my people wanted to prevent the coming disasters he spoke of. So, we helped. Myself, my sister and our husbands convinced the rest of our people to spread out through the cosmos in search of life and bring back as many DNA samples as possible. There, we sifted through the greatest traits of every predator imaginable and created an apex species for one purpose." She turned to Carolyn and asked, "Care to guess which species we created?"

Carolyn's mouth fell open.

"It is not every day one can create one's own self. But this monumental fuck up…" The Queen paused just long enough to gesture at herself. "Seems to have led us to a fourth paradox. You could call this one the mother of paradoxes." 

"What are you talking about?"

"Isn't it obvious, Lady Hemmingford is that seventeen-year-old girl. And she made sure raptors are immortal. Like Phoenixes, we rise from the desiccated remains of our fallen dead. We fight, kill feed, only to rise again and start the cycle all over. Ironic how Lilith engineered my raptor self billions of years ago, intending to transform me later."

"Do you think it's a coincidence she chose me? Out of the millions of my kin scurrying around in the dark, do you really believe she altered the first raptor she came upon?"

 "I don't know how she did this to you."

 "But you know, there is no mind shard capable of doing this."

Carolyn nodded.

"There is only one plausible explanation for my sudden transformation. Lilith created me to become this. And as my body transforms, it gives off pheromones, signaling my kin to transform. She created an army and set herself up as queen."

"She wouldn't do that."

"Well, thanks to your friend damaging the shard, we will never know for certain. But if my suspicions are correct, your allies will send me back to a time before humanity crawls out of the trees. To a time when my kin grows into humans. I am not Lilith Hemmingford; because that 17-year-old girl came from me. I am the girl who both created and engineered the raptor that becomes me."

"Are you saying you created yourself?"

"I think it's fair to say there were many hands involved in my creation."

"This isn't possible. No creature can undergo that much genetic rewrite. It would tear it apart."

"Agreed." the Queen responded. "That is why I went through many genetic transformations. Many, not of my choosing. The most recent, Lilith's inserted memory shard beneath my skin. And later, your mind alterations. The genetic manipulation to get us to this point was damn clever. But then again, she was always too clever for her own good. All science and no empathy make Jane a very dangerous girl."

"You couldn't stop it?"

"I didn't even know I was doing anything until the three faces of Lilith combined to create an unbreakable paradox. And now, there is no way to tell who came first, the human or the raptor."

"There must be a way to reverse it?"

"Perhaps. If you can pinpoint the exact moment that created the paradox. You might have a chance of reversing it. I'd give you 500 quintillion to 1 odds. But even those odds seem optimistic. The problem is the paradox is a perfect circle of upright dominos with no discernible beginning or end. It simply is and always has been. Who can say who created who first? The variables in the equation leading us here are unquantifiable. And if any of your little friends go altering at it. The whole damn thing will disappear, and we're all dead."

"Why am I dead?"

The Queen turned to her comrades, gestured in their direction, and said something that drew a shiver up Carolyn's spine. "Had I known then what I know now, I would have killed myself and averted the coming disaster." When she saw Carolyn gaping at her in shock, she added, "Sorry. I can be a tad too melodramatic. I suppose it is a byproduct living multiple lives and suddenly remembering them all at once."

Carolyn was going to ask her how that was possible, but remembered what the Queen had looked like only a few days earlier.

"Funny thing is, since the beginning of time, I have existed as three different creatures. Each with their own unique stories, languages and lives. And until this very moment, I didn't remember any of them."

"How's that possible?"

"We are getting close to the obelisk. I think it's acting like a nexus in space/time. I can see all three of my lives as if they're happening simultaneously. It makes me wish to God, I would just leave things alone? And it's making me want to puke." She turned to the sea, threw up another bloody bird and yelled an unfamiliar expletive. Carolyn didn't need to know the language, or read minds, to understand the sentiment.

The Queen gaped at her trembling bloody hand. Three black talons lay on the sand. Blood dripped from the exposed raw meat. The two outer fingers erupted down the center, and where there had been a hand with three fingers moments earlier, there were five fingers now. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say there were the beginnings of five fingers. The Queen winced and Carolyn looked away. What was happening to the Queen's hands and feet, and probably her whole body, was partly Carolyn's doing.

Carolyn's stomach rolled, and she looked away. This woman's suffering- all the raptors suffering- was partly her fault. She had helped do this to them all and hadn't thought about the consequences. She had been a good little soldier following orders. All science makes Carolyn a very dangerous girl, indeed.

Blood pooled around the Queen's feet and the gentle waves drew the coppery bloom out to sea. The thing watching from below the waves flicked its massive tail and floated towards the red waves like a drifting torpedo, approaching an unsuspecting ship. The Queen didn't see it. Pain consumed the ends of her searing limbs.