The Unstoppable Force
Nate, Derek, and Keith cease exploring for a while to settle on the planet Marfin-5, a human colony world on the edge of the galaxy in 3538. They start a mining company that sifts the thick, slime oceans for valuable compounds.
Using his newly acquired wealth, Nate builds a paradimensional engine (PDE) in the company basement. He wants to experiment with it to learn more about time. Unlike ones he has built in the past, this one is limited in scope, tending to preserve history in case of a fifth-dimension shift. This makes it easier to control.
One day, a mysterious woman with wavy black hair and bright blue eyes is stopped by security. She calls herself Mary. She claims to know all about Nate and what he is building. There is no record of her ever having lived anywhere, but she is here now and knows much more about Nate than she could ever have learned by spying. Nate agrees to meet with her and her reaction upon meeting him is strange. She stands, covers her mouth, and starts crying.
Eventually, the whole story comes out. Several days ago, the PDE had already been finished. Mary and Nate had worked on it together. Then the other members of the company, angry that the project was wasting valuable resources, conspired to destroy it. They succeeded only in creating an anomaly that would destroy the planet if it were not fully activated, altering all of history except for the person holding the lever. Nate insisted that Mary be the one to keep her memory, and told her what to tell him later to convince him to help. Still skeptical of why the two of them would ever work together and why he would tell her such personal details, Nate continues to grill her. “Who are you, really?”
Her voice breaking, she replies, “I’m your wife.”
Gradually, the two rekindle their romance. This is a brand-new phenomenon for Nate. He has never experienced anything like it and had always assumed he was asexual. He starts talking about giving up exploring the galaxy and starting a family. “Love is the unstoppable force; it survives even changes in history,” Mary says.
Unfortunately, the conspiracy is also rekindled. Several members of the company break into the basement and attack them, damaging the machinery and killing Mary. Nate activates the PDE and alters history again. This time, he is the only one who remembers the truth and Mary is the one who started a mining company with Keith and Derek. No one remembers him.
Convincing her to love him is considerably more difficult than the job she had convincing him to love her. It takes a long time. Eventually, they start dating and Nate begins to talk about how to prevent the same problem from happening again. They link themselves together so that no matter what happens, they will be together.
In every version of history, the same few actors are prominent. They simply play different roles. Mary remembers Erin as a security guard. Nate had appointed Erin director of the laboratory. In the previous world, Erin was the primary investor. All the love triangles and relationships are different too.
Expecting another attack on the PDE, they do not see something even more dangerous. A rival company headed by Mike (who was a janitor in a previous world) is building a PDE too. They screw up the math, hit a wrong button, and suddenly they are on a version of Marfin-5 that was abandoned long ago. There are metal ruins, but no humans left.
Instead, Nate and Mary are sea creatures living in the opaque slime. They resemble very tiny hairless hominids, featureless except for a feeding polyp extending from the belly. They have no mouth or other openings. They have no eyes or ears. It takes several days to find each other. They communicate by touch to verify identity. Love is truly an unstoppable force.
Soon, history changes again. Even without their influence, somebody always builds a PDE on this planet. It is a fact of the multiverse. Nate, Derek, and Keith are back together, but Mary is now the leader of an organized crime syndicate (run by Erin, Mike, and others) who looks at Nate with disgust. She had actually arrived from the future to ensure that history was changed to bring her group into existence. She now wants to use the PDE to alter the world into one in which she has unlimited power.
Ultimately, Nate has no choice but to use the PDE again in the hope of winning her back, but this time she does not exist. Since the PDE mostly keeps the characters while changing the plot, any further changes are extremely unlikely to bring her back, becoming exponentially less likely with each change. He gives up.
Mary was the only one that Nate could ever love. She was unique. She confronted danger when necessary, but in conversation looked down and avoided eye contact. She was soft-spoken and unemotional. She always brought attention to the outcasts of society and loved everybody. She was neat, precise, and intelligent. She was beautiful and no one else was exactly right. Nate is very sad.
Using his newly acquired wealth, Nate builds a paradimensional engine (PDE) in the company basement. He wants to experiment with it to learn more about time. Unlike ones he has built in the past, this one is limited in scope, tending to preserve history in case of a fifth-dimension shift. This makes it easier to control.
One day, a mysterious woman with wavy black hair and bright blue eyes is stopped by security. She calls herself Mary. She claims to know all about Nate and what he is building. There is no record of her ever having lived anywhere, but she is here now and knows much more about Nate than she could ever have learned by spying. Nate agrees to meet with her and her reaction upon meeting him is strange. She stands, covers her mouth, and starts crying.
Eventually, the whole story comes out. Several days ago, the PDE had already been finished. Mary and Nate had worked on it together. Then the other members of the company, angry that the project was wasting valuable resources, conspired to destroy it. They succeeded only in creating an anomaly that would destroy the planet if it were not fully activated, altering all of history except for the person holding the lever. Nate insisted that Mary be the one to keep her memory, and told her what to tell him later to convince him to help. Still skeptical of why the two of them would ever work together and why he would tell her such personal details, Nate continues to grill her. “Who are you, really?”
Her voice breaking, she replies, “I’m your wife.”
Gradually, the two rekindle their romance. This is a brand-new phenomenon for Nate. He has never experienced anything like it and had always assumed he was asexual. He starts talking about giving up exploring the galaxy and starting a family. “Love is the unstoppable force; it survives even changes in history,” Mary says.
Unfortunately, the conspiracy is also rekindled. Several members of the company break into the basement and attack them, damaging the machinery and killing Mary. Nate activates the PDE and alters history again. This time, he is the only one who remembers the truth and Mary is the one who started a mining company with Keith and Derek. No one remembers him.
Convincing her to love him is considerably more difficult than the job she had convincing him to love her. It takes a long time. Eventually, they start dating and Nate begins to talk about how to prevent the same problem from happening again. They link themselves together so that no matter what happens, they will be together.
In every version of history, the same few actors are prominent. They simply play different roles. Mary remembers Erin as a security guard. Nate had appointed Erin director of the laboratory. In the previous world, Erin was the primary investor. All the love triangles and relationships are different too.
Expecting another attack on the PDE, they do not see something even more dangerous. A rival company headed by Mike (who was a janitor in a previous world) is building a PDE too. They screw up the math, hit a wrong button, and suddenly they are on a version of Marfin-5 that was abandoned long ago. There are metal ruins, but no humans left.
Instead, Nate and Mary are sea creatures living in the opaque slime. They resemble very tiny hairless hominids, featureless except for a feeding polyp extending from the belly. They have no mouth or other openings. They have no eyes or ears. It takes several days to find each other. They communicate by touch to verify identity. Love is truly an unstoppable force.
Soon, history changes again. Even without their influence, somebody always builds a PDE on this planet. It is a fact of the multiverse. Nate, Derek, and Keith are back together, but Mary is now the leader of an organized crime syndicate (run by Erin, Mike, and others) who looks at Nate with disgust. She had actually arrived from the future to ensure that history was changed to bring her group into existence. She now wants to use the PDE to alter the world into one in which she has unlimited power.
Ultimately, Nate has no choice but to use the PDE again in the hope of winning her back, but this time she does not exist. Since the PDE mostly keeps the characters while changing the plot, any further changes are extremely unlikely to bring her back, becoming exponentially less likely with each change. He gives up.
Mary was the only one that Nate could ever love. She was unique. She confronted danger when necessary, but in conversation looked down and avoided eye contact. She was soft-spoken and unemotional. She always brought attention to the outcasts of society and loved everybody. She was neat, precise, and intelligent. She was beautiful and no one else was exactly right. Nate is very sad.