The Wounded World, a story of Mantra, Chapter 10

By Aladdin

Edited by Christopher Leeson

The Wounded World

Originally written 2006

Posted June 22, 2019 

THE CHAOS FACTOR

I see the Past, Present and Future,

Existing all at once Before me;

O Divine Spirit sustain me on thy wings!

William Blake 

CHAPTER TEN

What was going to happen now?~

As the 'copter continued its descent in, I realized that this would be Mantra's first meeting with Dr. Sarn following the Night of Terror.  That meant that I would have to be careful about what I said.  My information would be more informed than hers, but she wouldn't know it.  To have my supervisor thinking that my experience had made me delusional would not be helpful.

I was thinking hard and fast about my situation.  As far as I could see, there was nothing that that I'd done or experienced that should have triggered another dislocation in time.  Had I become like a floating bottle in a storm? Would this temporal shifting never stop, like what happened to that guy on Quantum Leap?  If I'd really become unstuck in time, how long would it be before I landed into a situation that would kill me? I pressed my hands together on my lap, hoping to keep the pilot from seeing them shake.

But he was a sharp one.  "Lots of people get jumpy riding in a 'copter," he was saying. "You'll be yourself once you get your feet back on solid ground." 

Yeah, and you'll be happy enough to be rid of a flaky passenger, too, I thought.

As the helicopter settled into the Alcatraz hanger, I saw Dr. Sarn waiting on the tarmac, this time garbed in a lab coat and brown slacks. The fashion she affected helped me to remember that she was a scientist, not just a Gestapo-style thug.

Of course, Mengele had been a doctor, too. 

Seeing her change of clothing reminded me of my own.  I had on a powder blue blouse and a brown dress suit. It was the fashion choice of the other Mantra. Was I changing history just by intruding into the lives of these versions of myself? And what had happened to the body that I'd left behind in the future? Had the displaced soul of the missing Eden automatically returned to it, or had it simply slumped dead across the keyboard?

Then a ghastly thought occurred to me. What would happen to me next Wednesday morning? Would I be kicked out of this shell by another incoming version of myself, the one who had been kidnapped on Thursday the 14th from the world of my origin?

The hatch door opened; I dragged myself out of the cockpit and descended to the pavement, via a short metal ladder. Sarn strode closer, her Teutonic features hard-set and serious.

"Hello, Blake. Thank you for coming on such short notice."

"How can I help?" I asked, not wanted to let her know how much and how little I knew.

She motioned for me to follow.

"Does Aladdin understand what's going on?" I asked.

“About last night?”

“Yes!”

"We know some things, and our people will be working through the night to find out more.”

“What about Gus?”

She glanced back at me.  “Try not to worry.  Your son is in the best possible hands."

I nodded as if I agreed.  But was anyone safe in the  hands of Aladdin?  Hah!  This wasn't my first rodeo.

We soon reached the bars to Gus's holding cell. There was no troop of medics on duty this time, only two muscular guards. They were standing sentry, armed with electronic rifles. The encapsulated boy that they were guarding looked catatonic.

"Can anyone explain what's made him this way?" I asked.

“He's sedated.”

“I realize that.  But how did he acquire sorcery?”

"We're still trying to find out."

"Have – Have you learned anything at all so far?"

“Nothing definite.  Our Skywatch station recorded extremely powerful energy waves roiling through near space from a pinpoint source.  They seem to have appeared there spontaneously with nothing to account for them.”  I continued to stare through the bars at my son.  “He won't be waking up too soon,” Sarn informed me.  “There's no point in you going inside while he's like this.”

I looked at her incredulously.  “Then why did you summon me here?”

“Because we have good use for your talents.  Wouldn't you like to get back at the people who caused all this harm?”

“Who caused this harm?

"It's those damn ultras," she said.

I suppressed a bitter smile. To the FBI, it's always the Russians who are to blame.  To Aladdin, it has to be the ultras.  I wondered whether they took their own words seriously or if they were just bad liars.  As usual, I played along.

"Ultras? How?"

She shook her head. "Everywhere they show up, crazy things happen. But we're finally mobilizing in the right way."

"What are your plans?"

“For a starter, we've brought you in.”

“Me?  I'm nobody.”
 

"We think you can help us get Mantra," she said.

I looked askance. “But you've already got Mantra.”

“There's more to the Mantra problem than meets the eye...”

"Blake!? Blake, is that you –?" came a unsteady shout from behind us.  I glanced down the aisle at the rows of barred cells.

I knew from the sound of the voice that it had come from Blythe Ashwin.  She was wearing prison garb and clutching at the bars of her lockup. I stepped tentatively toward the woman, only to lurch back when her hand shot out to throttle me.

I glanced at Sarn, who stood there, expressionless, as if she were observing an experiment. I returned my attention to the prisoner.  Ashwin had every reason to hate me. I had inputted false information into her PDA, her personal data assistant, to make it appear that she was Mantra.  I'd done it for merely selfish reasons; I had wanted to take the heat off myself. Blthye had already run up a long string of espionage offenses and I didn't think that adding my felonies in on top of hers would make much difference.

Blythe Ashwin, as I've said, is the physical double of Eden Blake, except that that she's a natural blonde. As far as we could tell, she had been a double agent from the start of her Aladdin career. Her true loyalty laid with a secret tribe of ultra-humans called the Herrenvolk, an ancient bloodline that lived apart from mankind and considered itself a nation of their own.

By my read, it had been tribal loyalty that had induced Blythe Ashwin to do what she'd done.  Her people were suffering from a creeping sterility that threatened their extinction; they'd been desperately seeking for cures, including magical ones. I had encountered a group of them a year earlier as Mantra, while they were robbing a museum. We'd fought and when the guards saw us battling, they assumed they assumed that I was one of the gang.  Since that night, I'd had been wanted for breaking and entering and burglary.

Any time that they wanted, the feds could have put out an all-points bulletin for Mantra's arrest. If they had, it would have caused me a  great deal of inconvenience.  But to my surprise, no such thing had happened.  The Company had declined the option of enlisting public assistance against me, but why?

My theory was this: they didn't want me going underground.  Instead, Aladdin chose to bide its time, hoping that I would get careless and, someplace, some time, fall into their power. Knowing that the hounds were waiting to pounce, I had doctored Ashwin's computerized field monitor.  I made it seem like it had recorded a scene of Blythe in the act of switching into the guise of Mantra. When she returned to Aladdin headquarters, she was arrested.

But this had created a new problem for me, one as great as the problem that it had solved.  I had to start lying low. If "the Golden Sorceress" were seen roaming about free while Ashwin was locked up, it would have cleared her and Mantra would have become a wanted woman again. I'd been thinking about helping Ashwin will a jail break.  That would prompt Aladdin's man-hunters to go out looking for her, while I could again operate openly as Mantra.  But having lost my Mantra powers, I couldn't imagine any way to free. 

"You framed me, you slime!" Blythe was yelling. "You made them think I'm Mantra. You trapped me here, ruined my career!"

Before I could say a word, Sarn flashed a hand-held object, exclaiming, "Don't worry, Blake, she's not hurting anyone except herself!"

Ashwin screamed and I heard the crackle of electricity – a horror-movie sound that seemed all too appropriate inside this terrible place. The prisoner fell to the floor, moaning with agony. I now understood that the captive ultra had been implanted with a pain goad, one that her keepers could turn on remotely.

I didn't feel good about this. Blythe was a thief and enemy operative, but on some level I respected her ethnic loyalty.  What made the situation especially poignant was that her suffering would have been my suffering had Mantra been captured.
    
"I take it she's still denying that she's Mantra?" I remarked. 

"Yes," said Sarn. "But in one way, at least, she's been telling the truth – she's not Mantra."

“She's not?”

"Not anymore. There's a new Mantra, one who's possibly just as dangerous! One of our men took a field video of her early this morning."

She led me into a meeting room where there was an audio-video console. At the punch of a button, a slide flashed upon a screen. I had expected to see a picture of Lauren, but instead I found myself looking at an image of Necromantra!

"And does this half-dressed person have something to do with why you called me into San Francisco, Dr. Sarn?"  I asked.

"It's got everything to do with it, Blake.  This new version of Mantra emerged at the same time that that energy effect swept the world. There may be a possible connection. I want you assign you to a team of specialists being dispatched to corral the new Mantra!"

“Why do you call her Mantra?” I asked.  “A lot of female ultras dress sparingly.  This one looks like a sex-bomb cosplayer to me.  Whoever she is, Mantra might not even know her.”

“If something looks like a Mantra, flies like a Mantra, and casts spells like a Mantra, it's a Mantra.  Mantra may have been part of a cult.  This redhead might have been sent out to replace Blythe Ashwin.”

“Maybe so,” I said, always willing to allow Aladdin to go sniffing down the wrong rabbit hole.  “Do you have a plan for her apprehension?”

The scientist nodded.  “You're going to be the team's headquarters contact.  Monitor them, evaluate them, advise them.  You won't be exactly in charge, but you'll be my representative on the scene.”

“Do I know any of the crew?”

"No, but you soon will." Dr. Sarn hit another button and a sliding door revealed a hidden room with two ill-matched occupants.

"The new Wrath and –" Sarn began.

"NM-E?" I broke in. "That thing murdered the Squad!" My startled tone wasn't altogether a put-on. There was hardly any enemy on Earth more dangerous to ultras than NM-E, and here he was, standing only fifteen feet away.

The woman in white shrugged. "You know what they say, agent.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

I shook my head. "That thing will kill anything that gets in its path. It's been around for centuries; no one knows who built it, and it has no present-day loyalties!"

"It does now, Mrs. Blake," Wrath chimed in – though the word chime doesn't properly describe his kind of resonating baritone.

The tinny voice of NM-E clicked on also. "Hello, Mrs. Blake...I'm glad that we will be colleagues."

I stared incredulously. Was this chilling and mechanical recitation actually supposed to reassure me?

"We have to move swiftly," Sarn said, "before the new Mantra moves out of the area. If she's a novice, it'll be easier to catch her before she has time to get seasoned. We have transports waiting to take you and the A-team to L.A."

I supposed that the A-Team was the group that Wrath headed.  I already knew about Wrath's plan from Lauren.  "Unless I miss my guess, our mission will be to use a false attack by NM-E to bring Mantra – the new Mantra – out of the shadows to combat it."

"Your instincts are impressive, Blake," replied the doctor. "I'm glad you decided to stop wasting yourself behind an analyst's desk."

I ignored the compliment and asked: "Does Ashwin know anything about this red-headed babe?" I was trying to sound less informed than I actually was. "Are they sisters or something?"

Sarn frowned. "We interrogated the prisoner intensively as soon as the picture arrived. She claimed ignorance, of course, but we didn't see any reason to believe her, so we took her pain levels to the limit.  Unfortunately, all she did was scream; there's a fair chance that her denials might be honest. We have to take the new Mantra into custody and put her to the question herself."

They had actually tortured Ashwin? This was getting worse and worse.

"Wrath, escort Mrs. Blake back to helicopter,” my supervisor said.  “She's going to L.A.  with your group and will act as your operations coordinator.  You can fill her in on the details before A-Team shuts down for the night.  We want to have the new Mantra captured by this time tomorrow evening."

#

After a short trip by helicopter, Wrath and myself were dropped off on the mainland at the local airstrip that Aladdin was using.   Along with a few others, who were already on the scene, we were subsequently instructed to get into a small plane with only a dozen seats.   Aladdin's disaster-waiting-to-happen, NM-E, was with us, too, battened down up front. The heavy equipment, along with the bulk of the A-Team, would be traveling on a different and larger transport.

By six in the evening, our flight was ready for take-off.  Leaning back in my cushioned seat, I had a lot to think about. First and foremost, I was smoldering internally.  I had come to San Francisco hoping to visit Gus, but that wasn't possible. Sarn had used my family concerns as a means to manipulate me. 

Then, too, I couldn't help but be suspicious of this new version of Wrath. Over the course of several encounters, I had gotten to know his predecessor, Thomas Hunter. Despite his Aladdin associations, I had come to trust the original Wrath. He had displayed a stubborn sense of right and wrong and didn't do everything by the book. But holding firmly to a noble code was what soon gotten him into trouble with his higher-ups.  He was kicked out of the Company and was lucky to get away in one piece. I glanced across the aisle, taking the measure of his namesake.  Why would Aladdin's brass have decided to make him an ultra?  I guessed at the answer.  Wouldn't they have been looking for a Myrmidon who would willingly perform any hatchet job that they came up with, no matter who got hurt?

But, then again, Lauren had told me that this same man had intervened – would intervene – into her fight with NM-E, and for no apparent reason except to help her.  It wasn't natural for a top Aladdin agent to be helping an ultra.  That could possibly mean that, under the spit and polish, he wasn't a total bastard. Still, I had to be on my guard.

With the flight underway, I closed my eyes; the weight of it all these disasters and conspiracies were almost too much to bear. It wasn't fair that Aladdin should have thrust yet another new bit of skulduggery across my weary shoulders – especially not now, not when my life and my family were in such heartrending disarray.  I didn't want to be playing Aladdin's games; I wanted to go home, I wanted to be working on my plan to give back to Gus the life of a normal boy. 

I gazed out the window, into the dimming sky.  So much had happened to me since I had popped into this world.  For instance, there was Pinnacle. My latest time-slip would mean that Penny would have gone back to being what she had been when I'd arrived – an inebriated borderline suicide. I would have to buck her up all over again. Fortunately, this time around, I knew what her secret misery was.  I'd be able to give her an even more effective pep talk. Unfortunately, that was something that I had to get done before Wednesday, for the simple reason that Wednesday might be the day that I die.

But there was so much more!  I couldn't stop thinking about the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who had been reported killed on Sunday the seventeenth.  From my perspective, they would be alive again in this time-frame. But what could I possibly do to keep them that way, powerless as I was? I still didn't know the cause of the disaster, much less how to prevent it.  Simply telling the authorities that "the sky is falling" would not accomplish much. The whole planet must have been put half out of its mind due to the Friday night horrors.  There must now be millions of traumatized hysterics, most of them spouting wild ideas that no one was listening to.

Still, even if I could do nothing to fix the whole ghastly situation, I could at least warn my ally Brandon Tark to stay clear of the Big Apple. I didn't want him blamed for blowing the place up.  True, I didn't know this version of Warstrike, but I wanted to. I needed to put our relationship onto a firm footing.  I need financial backing if I was to carry out the plans that I had been concocting with Pinnacle. Also, he might already be a friend of Mantra.

But for now, my main concern had to be Lauren.  Around midday tomorrow, she would encounter NM-E. Even if the teen was “fated” to survive her battle at the mall, it would be a far, far better thing if she and NM-E never met at all. If they fought, the match might turn out differently this time – and to Lauren's detriment.

But how to warn off the impulsive girl?  Due to the lack of privacy on-board the plane, I didn't dare to make a private call. Instead, I settled down and tried to discipline my thoughts.  I needed to connect the teen directly, through telepathy, as I had earlier contacted Pinnacle.

Lauren, can you hear me? You're in danger –!"

The meditative expression on my face must have resembled worry.  Wrath suddenly crossed over to reassure me, holding a cup of steaming coffee.

"Nervous about flying, Mrs. Blake? Me, too."

I took the hot beverage from his red-gloved hand.  The uniformed man didn't look like he'd be afraid of very much, least of all a short plane trip between two excellent airports. Obviously, this was a formidable and well-trained fighter.  He had even managed to subdue a super-powered youngster without the loss of a single life, something that I knew I should be grateful for.

"No, I've flown a lot," I replied, pointing up front. "It's that machine we're working with that makes me nervous. How do you control him, Wrath?"

"Wrath is my working handle, Mrs. Blake," my companion responded. "My name's Tunney, Greg Tunney. I feel privileged to be working with you. From all I hear, it was quite a coup that you pulled off in Britain."

I shrugged. "You flatter me...Greg. Before that, I'd only been a data analyst."

“Well, you seem to have brought off your first field assignment real well.”

"Things just fell into place,” I said. “As for the capture of Mantra, her own carelessness did her in. But this new job might not go so smoothly. Success depends on you keeping total control of that automated meat grinder. I assume that R&D gave you some kind of neural-net connection to NM-E – but what happens if you're taken out?"

"The net's terminals are in my helmet," he explained. "If I'm down, NME' s main directive is to take me to the nearest base. He's not authorized to engage in any action on his own."

I knew that there was a fatal weakness in Aladdin's control system, but how could I warn Tunney without making him suspicious? "This won't be a long flight," I said. "We'd better check our written orders again, so we'll be able to do everything in the right way." I was very interested in learning every details of the plot, to make it easier to throw a monkey wrench into it.

"Dr. Sarn's authorized me to give you the full briefing, Ma'am. You've already guessed the gist of it. The doc's having us take NM-E out into public view in Canoga Park.  Everybody who sees him will panic and that should lure Mantra out of hiding.  It could work, since she seems to be so young.”

“The picture makes her look like she's at least of voting age.”

“I should have said, 'green,' not young.  Ultra powers are tricky.  It took me weeks to get a good handle on the ones that Aladdin gave me. Even if this hot redhead is a new ultra, she might still be very inexperienced.”

“You're no old man yourself,” I told him.

That stony, hyper-serious face managed a smile.  “I started preparing for this life right out of high school.  Even my time in the Marines was prep for it.  My dad was an Aladdin agent.  Fighting ultras sort of runs in the family.  I'd be satisfied if I can have a son who'll want to serve someday.”

“I hope this conflict will be behind us by then.  But I want to ask you something.  It's pretty plain that you don't trust ultras, but yet you let them turn you into one,” I said.

“For me, it's a case of fighting fire with fire.  I'm not against the idea of ultras existing; I just want to knock it into their heads that they should be serving their country, not doing their own thing.”

I didn't immediately reply, even thought I strongly disagreed.  To me, it seemed best to leave the ultras independent.  A free man usually does the right thing without being told what to do.  To put all ultras under the control of corrupt government agencies would be the same as turning them into weapons against their own people.  Federal intelligence services had only recently gotten together to try to overturn a national election.  The investigations and incitements were still coming in from that one.  What would they try next?  The more power placed into the hands of secretive bureaucracies, the more freedom is threatened.  If decent people with special powers wanted to keep order on the streets and save kittens, I say let them.  Wrath apparently held a contrary view, and that put us on different sides of the fence.

“There's one other thing that's hard to understand,” I said.  “If the new Mantra is a public menace, why should she be interested in coming out of hiding to protect ordinary people in danger?”

He grimaced.  “A good question.  If an ultra really does help people, I'm not sure why I should dislike him, or her.  But maybe the bad outweighs the good.  From what I've seen, there's a little good in the worst of us, and a little bad in the best. Ours is not to reason why; ours is to do the job we're given.”

Tunney was talking like the ex-soldier that he was.  But he didn't sound like a very deep-thinker.  I knew more about ultras than he did; no two of them were alike.  Necromantra was a psychotic who would never have lifted a finger to defend the helpless, unlike Lauren, who would do so automatically.

  

But no issue bothers me more than the subject of Necromantra.  Thanasi had been my friend; he had proved himself to be decent and honorable countless times over, during a span of more than a thousand years.  So why was it that he had suddenly turned into an implacable enemy of society? Becoming female hadn't softened him; it had only made matters worse. Such a radical change could only be put down to an onset of insanity.  As he – she – was, Necromantra was simply too dangerous to live.  I had already tried to bring her back to reason, but she had refused to listen.  Before I had lost my powers, I'd been ready to kill her on sight.

Wrath now settled into the seat ahead of me; he seemed in the mood to chat.  I was all for that.  The more I knew about the man as a potential adversary, the more advantage would be accrued to my side.

Over the course of our conversation, one topic led to another.  Greg Tunney was aware that Gus was my son and he also remembered meeting my daughter, Evie. He was especially avid about picking my mind concerning the events of Friday night.  I had, after all, been standing pretty close to Ground Zero.

I did my best to sound intelligent and aware, though I hadn't actually experienced those events.  It meant that I needed to do a lot of ad-libbing.

#

Our plane set down at a small, federally-operated airbase and we were taken by van to the L.A. Aladdin HQ.  It was full night by then.  Inside an office room, Wrath completed my briefing and then left me free to retire.  I selected one of the small rooms maintained for overnighting agents.  Topmost on my mind was getting into contact with Lauren Sherwood and also with Brandon Tark.  Unfortunately, unauthorized phone calls were impossible.  A very effective dampening field had been built into the building's security system to prevented unmonitored conversations.

But there was still the option of using mind-to-mind contact.  Because of my power loss, I was restricted to trying to reach only those people who had strong strong psychic powers of their own.  I didn't know a lot about Lauren's powers yet, but she seemed to duplicate most of Mantra's capabilities.  My attempt to contact her, though, proved unsuccessful.  Nor could I reach Warstrike.

But it was late in a very difficult day and these efforts had made my mental fatigue wax immensely.  Giving up, I went to the cot. The next thing I knew, I was hearing a tap on my door, along with Wrath's voice.  From the other side of the panel, he was telling me to rise and shine.  “I'm leaving your field outfit right here by the door,” he said.

I found a garment wrapped in plastic beside the jam and took it inside.  It was a uniform like I had seen worn by other agents – intimidating but supple and protective.  This had to be the outfit that Lauren had seen me wearing – or, would see me wearing when the two of us met later today.

After that, I joined Wrath and the “A-team” for breakfast in the cafeteria. When I got there, the squad was already suited-up and looked raring to go. According to the plan, I would be heading out with the detail, but not all the way to the Mall.  My real work was to begin when the fighters had done their job and had withdrawn as inconspicuously as possible.

Lauren had told me that the appearance of NM-E would lure her into the open and there would be a fight.  The robot would go wild and Tunney would be wounded.  Once NM-E and Lauren had disengaged and flown away, I'd be left with the duties of a cleaning lady.  Becoming the voice of authority on the spot, I would try to convince people, and especially the reporters, that the mess in front of them wasn't as bad as it seemed.  The orders had suggested that should cast suspicion on the Russians or right-wingers.  Hopefully, I could come up with a scapegoat that would sound less stupid.  But above all, my main task would be to keep the local authorities in the dark about the fact that the useless and destructive business at the mall would only be the government's newest blunder. 

Just before Tunney's action-group had gone on their way, I had tried to persuade Wrath to let me oversee the operation from much closer in than planned. I wanted line of sight, not a remote linkage. He had only shaken his shaven head. "Can't do that, Ma'am. We've all got to follow the plan. People get hurt and opportunities are lost whenever people try to second-guess the brass."

I didn't argue; I needed him to trust me, though I didn't trust him. To make a long story short, I was left sitting there on a public visitor's bench as the morning hours ticked by.  The passive approach has never been my preferred way of doing things, not even before I'd gained ultra powers.  Being left apart from the action made me feel like an unused piece in a chess game.

The audio check-ins that Tunney frequently called in were all uninteresting and routine, mostly about his group setting up their stations and moving into position.  Not a thing he had to reported was worthy of relaying to HQ – a task that Tunney could, in fact, was allowed to do by himself.  I was beginning to wonder why I had to be here in the first place.  I supposed this was supposed to be my first baby-step in the long process of preparing me to be an action-group leader.  I wasn't sure if that prospect appealed to me or not.  If I had my druthers, I'd have wanted to continue working below the radar as a data analyst.

From time to time, I tried to telepathically link with Lauren.  I wanted so much to keep her out of danger.  But could I?  It was frustrating that the more I tried to change the future, the less traction I was able to gain. Maybe time was something that couldn't be meddled with.  After all, hadn't everything I'd done on Wednesday and Thursday been already been wiped out? 

Being by nature too stubborn to give up, I kept sending Lauren mental signals whenever I wasn't being observed too closely by the  Aladdin tech team that was being held in reserve near me.

 
 "Wha –?!" I heard Lauren's thoughts exclaim.  "Eden, is that you?"

At last!

"Yes," I said, projecting as forcefully as I could. "Didn't you hear me trying to reach you since last night?"

"Sorry.  I was really zonked out.  This morning, I started getting some kind of static in my head. I thought it was from getting knocked around so much by Gus, Coven, and Necromantra."

"Well, I have to warn you: Aladdin is back. If you go to the Mall on Sherman Way, you're going to have another run-in with that guy Wrath.  That must not happen."

"You're taking about the big bald dude in the funky clothes?"

"Yes. He's setting a snare to catch Necromantra, but the whole plan is cockeyed. It won't draw in Necromantra, but it could easily entangle you in instead. If they catch you, they're keep you locked up, and these people could teach the Spanish Inquisition a few things.  You have to stay away from the mall all day. Aladdin plans to turn loose a giant robot, but it's going to be a bluff. The thing has been programmed not to hurt anyone."
 

"Why are they doing that?"

"Like I said, they want to lure the 'new Mantra' into the open and capture her.  You don't dare fight with that monster.  It's too powerful.  Also, it's very unstable and it's bound go berserk if you confront it. You're not experienced enough to face that kind of battle, so just stay home."

"You mean that Aladdin and the robot are going to the mall right now?"

"Yes. Stay home."
 

"But I'm almost there – at the mall, I mean.  Mom's asked me to meet her at the bookstore.  If she sees a giant robot clanking around the place she's going to have a heart attack.  I have to get her out there quick-like, before it arrives!  Maybe I can ghost into the place and spirit her away before the dirty dozen breaks down the door."

"No, Lauren, you can't risk it. You'll be sailing into the middle of a hurricane.  Your mom is a lot tougher than you think and she'll be all right.  There'll only be a danger if NM-E – the robot – goes into its combat mode. The Aladdin people think that they can control the thing, but I know they can't."
 

"I don't dare take any chances with Mom.  I know her better than you do, Eden, and she has a really low melting point.  Look, if the robot shows up, all we have to do is play it cool and head out the back door.  Right?"

"Wrong. You'll be juggling lightning!"
 

"Bye, Eden.  Gotta go!  Every second counts!"

"Lauren, no!"

She was off-line.
 

Teenagers!  They're all idiots!

Too my dismay, it now dawned on me that I had made a royal mess of things.  Because I had told her things she wasn't supposed to know, this would no longer the same battle that Lauren had managed to win "before."  The girl's behavior would now be slightly different from it would have been otherwise.  Maybe that fact would make no difference, but it also might yield up a catastrophe.  Without intending to, I had let the chaos factor loose.

Little changes can have huge consequences. In fact, there was a theory that should a person move even one pebble on a beach, all of future history will be altered, not just here on Earth, but all over the universe.
 

That could be true – if one can believe the opinion of a voice-over narrator on The Outer Limits.

Act in haste and repent at leisure.  It was such an easy lesson.  When would I ever learn it?

TO BE CONTINUED.....