Shades Of Forever

"Hand me the three-sixteenths spanner, lad."

The sweating young man reaches into his tool pouch and pulls out a thin metal tool, placing it into the waiting hand. He looks around nervously, still unused to navigating the bowels of the ship's engines even after a month.

The spanner comes spinning back and clocks him in the ear, eliciting a muffled swear and clasped fingers in front of his mouth. Distant shapes, barely visible through the sauna-like mist, stir their bulbous fronds irritably.

"What'dya go and do that for?" he whines softly.

"I said a three-sixteenths, you useless little shite. That's a one-quarter, and unless you want to watch your brain turn into your nostrils when the whole ship inverts into a paradox cascade, you'll learn to tell the difference!"

The gnarled hand covered in a multitude of scars beckons impatiently for the proper tool, the rest of the owner's body buried in a seething mass of protoplasm stretching in every direction. It pulses rhythmically, flashes of bruised-lung purple flickering across the ochre expanse, then a bolt of negative light discharges overhead, splitting the mist and briefly revealing similar titanic forms.

"Quickly now, lad," the muffled voice says with more urgency. "reality's squeezing us into some choices I really don't want to be a part of. The three-sixteenths."

The young man scrambles through his pouch with a metallic clatter.

"It'd be a lot easier if you used metric," he whines again, holding another tool up to his eyes, squinting in the dim light, then throws it back in the bag. "Making up numbers based off the length of someone's stride thousands of years ago is no basis for proper measurement." He peers at another tool, then flings it forward.

The spanner hits the palm with a meaty slap and weathered fingers close around the metal shaft, thumb moving briefly along its length.

"About fucking time, lad." The hand disappears into the protoplasm with a disturbingly organic slurp.

Some time passes without further conversation, the young man looking around in increasing panic. The air vibrates to a barely audible heartbeat thrum, each beat thumping a different tempo than the last, and shapes crawl along the misting eddies with ephemeral claws, vanishing whenever he tries to catch them with his eyes.

"...MacWillie?"

Whoever he's quietly calling to doesn't answer, and the crackling blasts of tainted light overhead seem to press down slightly closer. Shadows gather a little too quickly in the afterimages of their glare, shifting back and forth like the lip of a glassful of water right before it overflows.

"Lo- lo- look," he stutters, fingers clenching around the toolbag, "this isn't fu-fu-funny, Chief..."

More silent branches of screaming illumination twisting all around, the mist pressing with a physical weight. Sibilant whispers strain the edges of hearing before blasting in impossibly loud, so quickly that the momentary deafness fades seamlessly into the same indecipherable hiss. The young man crouches down, feeling behind himself for support.

A greasy hand, flesh melting off the fingers sliding wetly into his own, greets his appeal. He gags, twitches his head, then forces himself not to look back.

"...any fu-fu-fucking time now would be good, MacWillie," he fervently mutters, digging into the toolbag with his other hand as if he's going to find a weapon. Another clammy grip clasps up through the metal objects in an inevitable prison, and his face suddenly droops like he's about to cry. The young man turns into a boy.

"C'mon, MacWillie," he whimpers, feeling the implacable hands of hell slowly pull him towards a floor that's now covered in howling eyeless faces. Tiny worms wriggle upwards expectantly from their gaping nostrils. "C'mon... please..."

Just as the gnashing mouths are about to close on his thin-pressed lips, a quick ripple distorts the world in every direction.

splort

"And this is what a one-quarter is for, young master Huckens," the broad-shouldered form that lands beside him bellows, scooping a metal object up off the floor of screaming mouths as shimmering folds of something steam away from her. "You use a three-sixteenth for adjusting reality fields, but the one-quarter's for puttin' 'em back in their place!"

Huckens gasps at the sudden spasm of violence that distorts everything around him. Silvery flashes of countless spanners locking up gnashing fingerteeth bend his mind in strange directions, his entire perspective diving into a pustule-covered gum-line before being dragged back out by a hand that's more scar tissue than flesh. His mind creaks like a tree on the verge of snapping in hurricane winds.

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, LAD?" a voice roars all around him, abruptly the only thing that exists. "THERE'S ANOTHER ONE-QUARTER IN THE BAG!"

The welcome grip of cold metal fills Huckens' thoughts, his fingers shakily clenching around the solid weight in a reality gone mad. His thumbs involuntarily trace the gaps between three raised parts.

"One... and... four..."

The young man's eyes snap back into focus and he pulls himself up from the glutinous floor, fire roaring along his veins, one hand pulling free from the howling muck, hard iron gleaming in his grasp. His other hand follows like an avalanche, squeezed tight around a mirror pair of the innocuous tool that now blazes like an inferno in both fists. He smashes a jagged-edge mistcrawler into fleeting shards with an uppercut right, left hand hooking around to catch another across its midsection and sending it squalling back into immateriality. A third swoops in on dirty blossoms of broken dreams, and the young man scowls at it before delivering a vicious headbutt, dissolving the violation into a splatter of disbelieving chaos.

"And tell yer' fucking pa my name is Huckens!"

Breathing hard, he looks around for the next violation to tear apart, but suddenly he's back in the engine room, the steady erratic thump of polyp-converters billowing misting waves in their normal screeching howls. He looks at his hands. Empty, except for a fine tracery of scars that weren't there before, so faint as to almost be invisible. They almost look like... numbers...

"And that's how we do it, lad," MacWillie chortles, smacking him across the back with a hand heavy enough to make him cough. "You've the makings of a proper space dog now."

Huckens stares up into her almond-slanted dark eyes, his own widening at the notification popping up in a reality only he can see.

"I... my integrator is... five points..."

"Aye, and good for you," MacWillie cuts him off, suddenly serious, "but now it's time to pay the piper."

A face appears in the air in front of them, draped in command-deck finery and seemingly chiseled out of ice. MacWillie throws a surprisingly sharp salute, her elbow in Huckens' side prompting him to do the same.

"Chief Engineer MacWillie reporting, Captain Sprick, sir," she barks, ignoring the trickles of blood seeping from her close-cropped wiry black hair and joining the thick streams pooling down her cheeks. "Ensign Huckens and I have effectuated repairs to the aforementioned approaching non-viability energy-generating non-causal devices, sir, diverting only the barest minimum for life-support purposes, yer Captain sir!"

"Yes, Chief Engineer," the floating face snaps impatiently, "I saw the engine maintenance updates. Why are we showing a one-point-nine percent lack of efficiency in Thirty Two Alpha? Energy siphoning during an active operation is grounds for summary execution, as I'm sure you know."

"As I said, sir, taking the newbie through his paces, yer Captain sir," MacWillie replies stolidly. "Energy demands dropped us into a spot of trouble, sir, and I decided to take a chance on the lad. Won't you believe it, sir," she beams at the floating face, "but didn't the youngster himself headbutt a Class Three right back into oblivion, he surely did. Saved us a four-point-twelve percent efficiency drop on calibrating Fifteen Beta when you tell us we're still orbiting this dirtball two days from now, all the while asking us to work even worse miracles. Yer Captain sir."

Captain Sprick's eyes narrow dangerously.

"And how do you know what we're doing two days from now, Chief Engineer?"

MacWillie stares at him, then turns to Huckens.

"Lad. Hand me the toolbag."

Dumbfounded, the young man passes the thin pouch over, and watches in astonishment as Chief Engineer MacWillie hauls a full two-litre bottle of Bumsnirphle's Finest Voidhooch from a container that couldn't possibly contain it. MacWillie yanks the cork free with her teeth, spits it at the face, then gulps down a hefty swig, her eyes blazing.

"You leave the fucking engines and everything that goes with 'em to me, yer Captain sir, and we'll keep this bloated bitch roaring into the jaws of reality itself. That's my promise and here's me telling the truth."

She takes another mouthful, then sprays it at the floating face, not bothering to wipe the residue from where it's mixing with the congealing fans of blood on her lower chin.

"On my ancestors in every world, but if you want to space me, yer Captain sir, you just go right on ahead and do it. I'm sure yer engines'll be fine."

Captain Sprick regards her impassively, then switches his attention to Huckens.

"You headbutted a violation?"

"Yes, uh, yes sir, yer Captain sir!"

"In your estimation, did Chief Engineer MacWillie's actions save lives?"

"Oh absolutely, sir," Huckens nods fervently. "That whole section was ready to flip somewhere else. The backwash almost caught me up, but the engines are running smooth now, and my integrator expanded capabilities five times." He thinks about the newfound scars on his hands. "Chief Engineer MacWillie staked my life on it. You just leave everything to us. Sir."

"...well done."

The floating face disappears and Chief Engineer MacWillie slaps her thigh in laughter before taking another chug from the bottle of spacehooch.

"Well done, lad. Well done. Now you're a proper space dog, and quicker than most."

"...I what now?"

"Two things make a space dog, lad," MacWillie chortles, passing him the bottle while she kicks the quivering protoplasm in measured blows. The bruised purple traceries flicker once more, then the massive structure expels a hissing vent of glittering sparks high overhead with a sound of relief. "You take a tool to reality and come out the other side, and you tell the Old Man to fuck himself when it comes to your engines."

Huckens hesitantly tastes the spacehooch, then tries not to gag. Next to him, MacWillie gives the pulsating engine one last kick, this one almost affectionate, before snatching the bottle away.

"You don't drink Bumsnirphle's Finest for the taste, you little shite," she growls, upending another slug into her mouth. "This is for those who survive, and those who don't."

She pours a splash next to the engine, then pushes the bottle back into Huckens' chest. This time he takes a proper gulp. Seconds later, he's spraying distilled engine coolant everywhere, hands on his knees and trying not to throw up. MacWillie cackles.

"Better put some of those points into reality poisoning, you wet-nosed snot. You're no space dog until you can keep your Bumsnirphle's down."

The young man glares at her around hacking coughs.

"Why're you pushing me so hard, MacWillie? My integrator's pointing out this ain't normal. I was a bit overconfident, yeah, but the trainings don't have Class Threes present until a year from now, and Bumsnirphle's is part of the graduation test. What's going on?"

The Chief Engineer reclaims her bottle, draining a quarter of it with an explosive sigh.

"That's why you're here, lad. You're on the fast-track to success; my very own replacement in Wutan-Weylan's finest dirty work cruiser." She starts walking towards the next chthonic engine housing brooding in the steamy cavern. "Captain Sprick's a complete pissant, but he runs a tight ship, and I'm getting close to my expiration date. If you're not on top of everything, he'll space you, but you, lad," she bends down towards Huckens, "you've got the fire. Not many who'll headbutt a violation and make it stick."

"You're... leaving, Chief?" Huckens asks, stomach sinking from more than the residual spacehooch.

"Not my choice," MacWillie says gruffly, stomping up to the next engine casing, another nightmarish protoplasm tower covered in seeping fissures and bruised traceries of purple light. "Only so much reality any one person can handle, even with an integrator, and I've been doing this for too long. Pretty soon I'll be one of these poor saps." She pours out several splashes at the foot of the engine, then takes another drink. "At least the me that's me won't be around to care. Just my integrator running the meat."

"Then why do you keep doing it?" Huckens asks, examining a set of dials that waver in and out of existence. "Why not ask for your walking papers, go retire somewhere nice?"

"I am somewhere nice, lad." MacWillie pats the side of the engine gently. "I get to see my old mates every day, make sure they're looked after proper-like, and eventually I'll join 'em. Chief Engineers stick with their ships."

"Well, that won't be me," Huckens says defiantly, standing up from the dials. "I'm gonna finish my service and get de-integrated, find someone nice to start a family with. Maybe raise moonhounds." He motions to the engine. "Levels're fine on this one."

MacWillie laughs in his face, then walks away towards a gap in the mist.

"Ahh, the passion of youth. Good luck with that, lad, if that's what you truly want, but my money's on someone who'll headbutt a violation ending up down here with the rest of us mutts. It'll set its hooks deep, reality will, and there ain't much you can do once yer in its gaze. You live long enough, express your infinities enough, and you'll see what I'm talking about."

Huckens follows the Chief Engineer's hulking form, face twisted into a petulant pout, and she laughs again.

"Besides, it ain't all doom and gloom. The Old Man may be crawled up the entire inside of his own arse, but he understands it's not an easy life amongst the engines. There're plenty pleasurable parts of reality out there too, and a good engineer knows when an engine needs 'adjusting.' Never if it'll endanger the ship, mind," she says harshly, abruptly spinning and poking a broad finger into the young man's sternum, "but there's plenty of empty space between the stars that doesn't need every last bit of energy we coax out. Aye," she continues wistfully, turning forward and heading for an absurdly normal-looking steel hatch that materializes out of the ever-present mist, "there's been many a voyage I've spent being what might have been."

"We can do that?" Huckens asks wonderingly, watching her spin the wheel holding the hatch closed.

"Keep learning and you might find out," MacWillie winks, yanking the heavy door inward. An antiseptic room covered in spotless white tiles is visible through the opening. "Out there, you only see that type of energy available to corpo VIPs and cultists, but we're a warship, and as long as we do our jobs properly, the engines normally have plenty to spare."

The two walk out of the mists and into the sterile room, Huckens pulling the hatch closed behind him. A heavy gas jets up from the floor, stinging his nose with acrid chemicals, and he coughs. Beside him, Chief Engineer MacWillie stands unmoving, arms folded across her chest. When the gas dies down, a door opens in the wall opposite the hatch, letting in the bustle of people shouting and moving around rapidly, red light periodically strobing across the spotless white walls. Huckens takes a step forward, but stops when MacWillie holds out an arm. He looks up questioningly.

"You expressed your infinities yet, lad?" she asks quietly, and Huckens shakes his head. "Good. Your integrator's going to complain, but put them in disaster management. All of 'em."

"Chief?"

"Got a bad feeling about this one, lad. Never seen the Old Man push the engines this hard on an operation, and he ain't done pushing yet. Sometimes when reality looks at you, you get a chance to peek back."

She drops her arm, eyes staring distantly from behind a veil of dried blood and splattered engine residue.

"I don't like what little I saw. Get what sleep you can, lad. We'll be busy soon enough."