Q.U.E.E.N.

"I'm sorry, Miss... Monette?" Samantha Steele lowered her sunglasses and looked quizzically up from her beach towel. "Who did you say you were with again?" She concentrated on projecting an attitude of slightly irritated boredom, as though having her daily tanning session interrupted was the worst possible thing that could happen in her oh-so-privileged life. (She didn't actually tan; her venture-hard skin could shrug off more hard radiation than Chernobyl put out in a decade and still stay pale as alabaster. But it was the principle of the thing that counted.)

The black woman in the form-fitting ice-blue jumpsuit smiled politely. "Mon-Elle," she corrected mildly in an accent that even Samantha's venture-hearing couldn't place, as if she knew full well that Samantha's memory lapse was a mere affectation. "Jenee Mon-Elle. And I'm with Q.U.E.E.N.-the Quantum Uberverse Existential Enforcement Nexus. We exist in a higher order of time that surrounds and supports the four-dimensional causality you know, protecting your universe from threats that are difficult for those who can only experience time as a linear phenomenon to perceive and combat. Rogue time travelers, anti-temporal shockwaves... I'm sure you get the picture."

Samantha had dealt with enough strangeness in her identity as Adventure Girl to at least pick up the gist of it, but the beach was just crowded enough to keep her from admitting it. She had a secret identity as an air-headed socialite to maintain, after all. "Aren't you a little worried that the police might pick you up, dressing like that and claiming to be a time traveler and all?" she asked, putting a touch of smug disdain into her voice. She felt a little guilty about it-she could see with her venture-vision that the woman wasn't quite human, at least not the kind of human that lived in the 21st century. Several vestigial organs had completely vanished, and the brain inside Jenee's skull looked like it ought to have racing stripes painted down the sides. Jenee's anatomy backed up her story, to say nothing of the technology in that jumpsuit. But Samantha couldn't break character with all these people around.

Jenee didn't seem bothered, though. She merely smirked, the same kind of smirk that Adventure Girl might give if someone asked her, 'Aren't you worried about being mauled by that flock of baby ducklings?' She looked down at a display screen on her left wrist and tapped a couple of icons on it with her right hand. "You should know that I've initiated a perception filter around us. At this point, barring a threat to their physical safety, nobody will notice anything unusual that happens within a five-foot radius of my location."

Samantha sat up. "Oh thank god," she sighed, pulling her sunglasses off and rooting around in her oversized handbag for her costume. "I take it you're here because there's some sort of threat you need my help with? I'm no expert on time travel, that's more Doc Frontier's gig, but if there's someone you need punched then you've come to the right place." She felt almost giddy with excitement, the same way she always did when she shucked off the itchy and uncomfortable persona of Samantha Steele and assumed the identity of Adventure Girl. It was probably very unhealthy, psychologically speaking, but given the number of therapists who turned out to be supervillains in disguise, Adventure Girl wasn't about to consult a professional about it.

Jenee started to turn away to give Adventure Girl some privacy to change, but venture-speed meant that she'd barely flicked her eyes in a different direction before Samantha had finished donning her costume. Seemingly unbothered, she tapped another icon on her wrist display, and a hologram sprang to life above it of a Chinese man with deep, soulful brown eyes and a crooked grin. "This is Jace Andron, an archaeologist from the year 2933," she said, a further tap causing the hologram to rotate slowly in the air. "He recently-and please understand, I use 'recently' in a sense that doesn't involve linear time as you know it-discovered some historical documents relating to this era."

Jace looked out at them both, his mischievous grin apparently belying the seriousness of Jenee's words. "While I'm not at liberty to discuss the details of these documents or the circumstances of their discovery, they described a sequence of events that seemed to be a turning point in human history. Please understand, the documents were incomplete, and Jace's interpretation of them was speculative at best, but... he became obsessed with them, for lack of a better word. He convinced himself that if this turning point could be altered in some way, events in the sequence prevented or at least forestalled, then some of the consequences that he personally viewed as unfavorable could be negated."

She let out a tiny sigh of exasperation and switched off the hologram. "All of which wouldn't be a problem, if not for the fact that he discovered a lost cache of forbidden time travel technology on one of the moons of Jupiter, left behind by a group of temporal raiders who used the area as a base camp. We thought we'd unhappened it ages ago, but apparently there was a hidden paradox-sealed vault on one of the sub-levels and... well. He is a very good archaeologist."

Jenee smiled ruefully. "At this point, he's on his way back to the subjective present, desperate to unhappen what he sees as a dire future. And unfortunately, I don't think he has the patience to listen to the forty-seven years of lectures on temporal physics it would take to explain to him why his plan is a very bad idea. Stopping him may require a certain degree of force... and as you said, you are very good at punching people."

Jenee didn't sound worried, but Samantha got the distinct feeling that it took a lot to make the other woman sweat. She suspected that just adding 'very' to 'bad idea' was probably the equivalent of screaming and flailing in a wild, gesticulating panic in anyone else. "Anything I can do to help," she said. "What's he trying to do? Kill a baby, shoot a senator, blow up a laboratory...?" Even as she said it, Samantha realized that he could be trying to prevent any of those things from happening, and she quietly winced. She really hoped she wouldn't have to do anything awful to keep the future on track.

But Jenee didn't explain. She merely looked at her wrist display again and said, "If I could explain once we're at our destination? I'm afraid that in a very complex and fifth-dimensional way, we haven't much time." She extended her hand. "My suit has an integrated 5D teleport cascade with full temporal and spatial range; if you'll just hold on, I'll literally have you there and back again before you know it."

Seeing little choice, Adventure Girl took Jenee's hand in her own. "This would have made 'The Hobbit' so much shorter," she murmured, shortly before a rainbow haze enveloped them both and they vanished from existence.

*****

When the shimmer of light faded, Adventure Girl was a little surprised to find herself not in a secret laboratory or antiseptic hospital ward, but in a limestone cavern knee-deep in saltwater. "This is the nexus of a thousand years of future history?" she asked, scanning through the walls with her venture-vision. She didn't see another human being for almost a thousand miles in any direction, or even any geologically significant fault lines or volcanoes. If this place had any significance, it was only as the single dullest and least important spot on the face of the planet.

"In a manner of speaking, yes," Jenee said, scanning the walls with a stream of light that emitted from her wrist computer. "It's easily defensible, impossible to sneak up on, far away from any civilians, and relatively difficult to damage ecologically. More importantly... you're here." She had the good grace to look slightly abashed. "I'm afraid I may have glossed over a few details of Jace's plan. He isn't coming here to change events through personal intervention. His goal is to avert his past-your future-by providing you with the information he's already gleaned from his studies of history. In a very real sense, you're his target."

Adventure Girl's mouth drew into a tight, rueful scowl. "So what you're basically saying is that I'm here as bait. Is that right?" She glared at Jenee, years of discipline preventing her irritation from manifesting as a boiling laser of high-energy X-rays. Some women claimed to have a 'death glare', but Adventure Girl had even the most intimidating of them beat.

Jenee gave a microscopic shrug. "I'm afraid so. If it makes you feel any better, you're far from alone; I'm aware of at least thirteen potential heroes that are capable of disrupting the flow of causality at the particular juncture Jace is returning to." She continued scanning the area, her wrist computer emitting a slow, rolling warble that echoed off the cavern walls. Adventure Girl was tempted to ask what it did, but she didn't want to give Jenee a chance to change the subject. "You're the most likely, certainly, but I can't leave anything to chance. They've all been moved to secure locations for the duration of this lockdown."

"By other agents of Q.U.E.E.N., I presume?" Adventure Girl asked, reflexively sweeping the area with her own venture-vision. A few seagoing birds flew overhead, but unless the technology of a thousand years from now could do a hell of a lot more than Jenee was letting on, they weren't much of a threat.

"By me," Jenee said with a disarming grin. "I've already spent something like two subjective weeks waiting around with one person or another for Jace to arrive, sitting around until it becomes clear that he went looking for someone else and apologizing for wasting their time. It's, um, more than a little embarrassing, to be honest. Madame Macabre was very sarcastic about the whole thing."

Adventure Girl looked up to the heavens. "Oh, believe me, I can imagine just how she feels right now. I mean, did you even consider stopping him from finding all this stuff in the first place? If you can time travel, why didn't you just make sure the documents weren't there to light a fire under his ass to begin with, or go back and sabotage the paradox seal so the time machine wasn't there for him to use? Why do all this, this... rigamarole with criss-crossing your own timestream thirteen times and staking out every single superhero and waiting for him to show up instead of just, I don't know, looking for him once he gets here and telling your past self which person to wait with?"

Jenee waited patiently, arms crossed, for Adventure Girl to finish her rant. "Those are excellent questions. I'd be happy to answer them, if you have forty-seven years and a chalkboard handy." She sighed. "Look, I know this is somewhat difficult for you to accept, but there is a structure to the universe. A higher order of existence than what you know. It's very resilient in some ways, but very delicate in others. It's the task of Q.U.E.E.N. to make sure that it doesn't WAAAAUGH!" Her words cut out suddenly as she plunged into the water and out of sight.

Moments later, Jace Andron surfaced. He shook the water out of his short dark hair like a Labrador retriever and pulled a small device out of his mouth that looked something like what a rebreather might look like if Apple designed SCUBA equipment. "You know, for someone who talks so much about thinking five-dimensionally, she should really look down every once in a while," he said with a grim smile. "I knew my portable tunneler would come in handy."

He waded through the swirling water over to Adventure Girl, his face a mask of ugency. "We don't have much time," he said, gripping her forearm with an intensity that would be painful to anyone else. "Jenee's not infallible-I managed to get away from her back in the bazaar on Phobos-but she's resourceful. I need to give you my message quickly." His eyes darted from side to side as he spoke, as if he expected Jenee to teleport back in at any moment.

Adventure Girl looked at him doubtfully. He didn't look quite as obsessed as Jenee had made him out to be-intense, yes, and maybe just a little bit haunted around the eyes, but he didn't look like any kind of madman. Still... "I'm not sure I should listen," she said, her voice wavering with uncertainty. She wasn't frightened, exactly; very few things in this universe made Adventure Girl fear for her physical safety. But Jace Andron had information that could change the shape of a thousand years of history. How could she stop him from telling her a secret? Put her hands over her ears and shout 'LA LA LA, I'M NOT LISTENING'?

"You have to," Jace said urgently, his stare wide and earnest. "So much depends on stopping her, and... this was the farthest I could get the machine to go back, but she's started already. There are so many heroes under her control. Villains, too. Doctor Phobos, Professor Psyche, even the Rescuer... they don't even know it, but their minds aren't their own. She's sending them to do her dirty work, collect the tools she needs to complete her grand design. She can manipulate memories, twist perceptions, she's building an army-"

He froze mid-sentence. Not simply stopped speaking, but froze completely-even the seawater beading its way down his skin halted in its tracks. "I was really hoping I could avoid that," Jenee said, holding out her hand as if in warding. A bright blue, actinic glow emitted from the palm, and Adventure Girl could see a similar glow shimmering over Jace's body, barely visible even to her sharpened senses. "Still, too late to do anything about it now. Going back and stopping him before he could talk would only make the causality violation worse."

She sighed in frustration, squeezing her hand into a fist. As she did, Jace winked out of existence. "Don't worry," she said, before Adventure Girl could do anything more than inhale in shock and dismay, "he's fine. I just set him outside of space and time for a little while so I could retrieve his time machine and fix the damage he's done. Nothing's going to happen to him... literally... and I'll restore him to his proper place and time once I'm done here. With his memory wiped of a few key details, but no worse the wear, I promise."

Adventure Girl tensed, her muscles already preparing for a fight. "And me?" she asked, even though she already knew the answer. Her mind raced as she stalled for time, desperately trying to come up with a way to leave a message for herself before Jenee could wipe the knowledge from her head. Doctor Phobos, the Rescuer, Professor Psyche, who knew how many others, all following the commands of a sinister mind controller who was building an army for some grand scheme. And Adventure Girl was the only one who knew about it and had the power to stop it. And if Jenee was trying to stop Jace from telling her...

"She wins, doesn't she?" Samantha asked, tears pricking the corner of her eyes. She felt a slow paralysis overtaking her as Jenee extended her gloved hand again, this time glowing with a warm purple radiance, and even though she struggled to force her sluggish limbs into action, she could feel her body relaxing into drowsy immobility. "Whoever he was talking about. She wins, and we lose, and... and it's so bad we're still picking up the pieces a thousand years later. That's what you're here to protect. A thousand years of darkness."

Jenee looked at her sorrowfully. "I am sorry," she said, walking slowly forward through the swirling surf, her hand stretching out directly at Adventure Girl's drooping head. "But it's like I told you earlier. There is a higher order than what you know. And the consequences of disrupting that higher order are unimaginable. I can't take any chances, Miss Steele. Not when all existence hangs by the slimmest of threads. If you knew..."

Jenee's hand touched Adventure Girl on the forehead like a benediction, and a feeling of dreamy bliss stole over her thoughts. Samantha wanted to resist, but she didn't even begin to know how-this wasn't like fighting a telepath, struggling against the pressure of an intrusion into her mind. This felt like it was everywhere, warm and welcoming and almost tender in the way it sapped her will, and Adventure Girl sank to her knees with a smile spreading across her face as her fear and sadness melted into quiet pleasure.

"That's it," Jenee cooed, her other hand reaching out to stroke Adventure Girl's cheek as the pulses of sweet purple pleasure subsumed Samantha's mind into drowsy lassitude. "It's okay, sleepy girl. Don't fight, don't struggle, don't think, just listen to my voice and let it guide you deeper and deeper into peace and relaxation. Feel that warmth sweeping across your brain, seeking out all those silly, impossible thoughts and memories and reminding you how absurd they really seem now that you try to think about them. Too absurd to believe. Too absurd to remember. Isn't that right, my good sleepy girl?"

Samantha nodded her head, or possibly it was nodded for her by Jenee. She couldn't tell anymore; her mind felt every bit as bubbly and blank as the air-headed debutante she pretended to be, and only the helpless relaxation that gripped her body kept her from slipping her fingers between her legs and giving in to the pleasure that Jenee's radiance poured into her groggy brain. "Of course it is," Jenee purred, her voice low and hypnotic. "You don't need those thoughts. You don't need those memories. You only need to trust me and listen carefully..."

A tiny sliver of Samantha's mind tried to yammer at her, to warn her that Jenee was anything but trustworthy and everything she'd ever said was a lie. But then that sliver vanished under the pleasure, swallowed up like a stone sinking into a sea of pure ecstasy, and Samantha Steele shuddered in helpless bliss as her mind opened completely to Jenee's inexorable, inevitable control.

*****

"I'm sorry, Miss... Monette, was it?" Samantha felt more than a little sheepish-normally when she forgot a name it was a pretense, part of the socialite persona she adopted to cover her activities as Adventure Girl. But she'd been so relaxed, soaking in the warm summer sun and pretending to get her tanning in, that she genuinely had trouble following the other woman's conversation. Everything seemed gummed up in a sweet, sticky haze of drowsiness, and all Samantha wanted to do was go back to her hotel and take a nap.

The other woman smiled sympathetically. "Something like that, Miss Steele," she said, as though she knew Samantha was having a little trouble with her memory at the moment. "And I'm with Q.U.E.E.N.-Queer Urban Entrepreneurs Energizing Neighborhoods. I wanted to talk to you about an endorsement?" She held out a card, and Samantha took it automatically. She stared at it for a moment, as if uncertain what to do with it.

She settled on tucking it into her handbag. "Um, yes, fine, sure," she mumbled, slumping back onto her towel. "That's great. I'll have someone call you." She knew she sounded like she was on drugs or something, but the other woman seemed satisfied; she walked away, leaving Samantha to fall back into an uneasy sleep. She felt a moment of panicked confusion that she couldn't quite explain as her mind settled back down into hazy exhaustion, but she dismissed it-she was indestructible, after all. A little sleep couldn't hurt her. Nothing could hurt her. And she could forget all her cares, all her confusion, all her memories and relax.

Everything was going to be just fine.

THE END