Blind Future

Karen sat in silence at her terminal. Her eyes remained fixed on the screen and not even her fingers moved, making it clear that she was weighing the decision in her hand. The small passion from Yumi gave her enough of a pause that she began to reconsider her position.

Crossing her arms, Yumi waited for Karen to figure out what side that she was taking. ‘Good, got her back to thinking straight. I can’t get her to be behind me if she’s making rash choices that she’ll end up regretting later. I have to balance things carefully…’ This wasn’t the way that she normally proceeded with the route. Adapting to the situation was the only thing she could do now.

After a troublingly long wait, Karen finally spoke to Yumi. “She’s in the containment room currently.”

“Thanks, Karen!”

“That doesn’t mean you’ll be able to help. You’re going to have to convince her still.”

“I know, that’s fine!” Yumi turned away and hurried off to the hallway with Yuki following up behind her. “We’ll convince her too! Don’t worry, Sumiko always says that you can’t give up on what you believe in, no matter what’s against you!”

Chapter 489 – Blind Future

Halfway up the lift to Sumiko’s position, Yuki broke the silence of Yumi’s planning. “You could have hacked and found her location, right?” She looked over at him with a slightly questioning look, not quite certain what it was that he was truly asking.

“Yes, though I already knew her location without even that. I’ve done this enough to know where she is. Things haven’t deviated that much. But you already know that much.”

He waved his hands in front of him to dismiss her suspicions of his actions. “Guessed as much, at least. I’m not thinking anything. Just trying to understand your approach.”

“Oh,” noted Yumi, seeing what it was that he was doing. A bit of a nod accepted his answer. “You can trust me.”

“I do. Just keeping up your pace is a little challenging, if I’m going to be adlibbing I want to understand how you were thinking.”

“And you do now?”

“More or less.”

“You’re adapting quickly for being new to everything.”

“I have had about a day or so to adjust.”

The doors slid open for them as Yumi stepped out first. ‘So serious, yet so carefree and easy going…’ Having Yuki being so flexible certainly meant that she didn’t have to worry about him in a situation. He could handle himself. It was just she didn’t know how he managed to keep it up all the time. No matter the strangeness of the world, he just accepted it.

But she couldn’t think too much of Yuki's adaptability as they arrived at their destination and next trial. ‘I’ve normally already won her trust before this…’ She at least knew that Sumiko was generally not a distrusting sort of person. Her unusual level of optimism and openness never really made a lot of sense to Yumi. The history that she read about the woman, should have made her a bitter and cold person, but she remained the same. It wasn’t something that Yumi could understand.

Sumiko broke from her work staring at the screen that monitored the output of the engine in the adjoining room. She seemed to have noticed their arrival, finding time to pause. “So you’re the two giving my Karen a hard time.” A wide grin came over her face like she was excited about something that she hadn’t revealed.

Yuki peaked out from around Yumi giving a sheepish grin back. “You heard about us already huh?”

“I heard a little from her. Saying that you wanted to help.” A glow of enthusiasm continued to wash over her. There had been many different expressions that Yumi witnessed from the woman, but this was unlike any of those. It had a more child-like wonder to it, one that threw off concerns or worries. The weight of the world didn’t exist in her eyes anymore, something that she always had seen before no matter how optimistic she had been, something still pressed on her keeping her grounded. All of that was missing.

It was unsettling seeing her in this state. Yumi didn’t know what would happen now. This wasn’t the sort of Sumiko had become accustomed to working with all this time. ‘Can I trust anything that I predict? I thought I knew how this would play out…’

She started to go blank thinking about what to do.

“What do you have to offer?”

Yuki waited for an answer from Yumi, but noticed that she wasn’t answering. He leaned in looking up at her to see what was happening. “Yumi?”

“Seems your friend is a little locked up.”

Beep.

“…yes…”

“Well if you’ve got nothing to say, I do have a lot I need to be doing.”

Beep.

‘Damnit, what’s bothering me so much about her? Why is she throwing me off so much?!’ Yumi knew everything that should have happened. And when she didn’t, she had enough experience to make a good guess at how things were supposed to turn out. She knew them all too well. It should have been easy for her.

Beep.

None of it should have mattered for her. It shouldn’t have been getting to her. Beep. She needed focus like she had before. Beep. ‘This isn’t how—‘ Beep. ‘What’s that sound I keep hearing?’ Yumi quickly looked around, knowing it well enough once she focused her mind on it. ‘It’s the energy intake! The ratio is wrong!’

Everything around Yumi disappeared and she jumped forward with her body acting without thought to anything. ‘It’s all going to blow up in less than a minute at this rate!’ She almost crashed in the terminal with the speed that she pushed herself at to get over to it. ‘I’m not repeating this again!’ Her fingers quickly ran over the panel changing the pressure and rerouting the excess. ‘It’s not enough yet…’

She looked up and to the right. “Hey Peter! Line 3 needs to be dropped by 54% right now!” Yumi turned over to her left and barked out another order, “Getting trans space coil down from point four to point three!” Her voice delivered the commands with such direct confidence that they did not question the stranger issuing orders in place of Sumiko. “Damnit! How the hell did it get this far off?!”

Another ten seconds things finally stabilized again with all of the readings back in the green, not that it would create a stable wormhole like this yet. Yumi let out a heavy sigh and recovered herself to turn back to Sumiko, who only looked more eager than the moment before. “What the hell were you doing making an elementary mistake like that?! That’s not like you at all! You wouldn’t make a..mistake like that…”

The woman grinned even wider as if she was completely transfixed in pure joy and pleasure. “You did that purposely to test me. Damn you!”

“But you passed with flying colors,” Yuki tried to point out cheerfully.

“Quiet, you don’t understand. If she was wrong she would have killed everyone on the Ark!”

Yuki’s face went a little blue at that thought. “That’s a little extreme…”

“I knew exactly what you could do from your solution you gave me for the equation to stabilize the micro-wormhole. You’re fingerprints were all over it.”

‘Playing me since the start… I never knew she could be so dangerous…’

Sumiko stretched out her hand for Yumi. “We’ve got a lot of work to do!” There was no room for disagreements with the way she stated it. It was just going to happen as if that was the way it was going to be the whole time. Even the test seemed more formality than necessary with her confidence.

From then on, Yuki could only watch from a distance as the two worked. He understood pretty much nothing of what they said or talked about. Unlike some sort of movie where he could have grasped what they were implying because they made it intentionally basic for an audience to understand, everything that they said was purely scientific and a higher level of math than he could ever hope to understand. It continued to impress him how far Yumi had come.

It was clearly not something impossible to learn even with being in some science fiction setting. Though the whole setting did him a little concerned. ‘Once we get out of here, what happens to Yumi. Do we keep all of these experiences? Is she going to remember all of this knowledge, is this even real science?’ Seeing what Yumi had gained from this world and what she might from the next only lacked him with more concerns. ‘She’s already experienced five years before and who knows how many here…is she going to be able to keep her sanity in the end?’

He kept finding new questions, but Yumi was already taken. All he could offer was support and to help when she needed him. For now, she stabilized from how he found her. A new fire lit within her heart allowing her to keep moving forward again. Sumiko seemed to be a positive influence on her, more than he expected after what he saw from her before.

Alarms began to ring out through the Ark alerting Yuki to the coming danger. The metal plates rumbled from some external force, likely an explosion dampened from the distance that they were away from space. Yuki jumped up to get to Yumi’s side quickly. “Is it happening?”

She continued to run her fingers over the terminal trying to complete Sumiko’s life’s work in time. “Yes, they’ve returned. Though delayed a little longer, it's still not enough. We need more time to complete the engine!”

“How much time do you need?”

“More than I can ask for…” Another rumble ran through the flooring as Yuki grabbed onto the terminal for balance. Yumi adjusted her legs, keeping her fixed to the panel unwilling to stop for a moment. “It’s not going to work…I want to see the end…”

“Then we will!” declared Sumiko with confidence.

“But the wormhole isn’t stable! We might have managed to make micro-wormholes, but it won’t be enough to fit the Ark!”

“It’ll work! I haven’t been wrong yet!”

“We haven’t had a successful test yet!”

“Doesn’t matter! It’s now or never, Yumi! Believe in yourself, we’ve succeeded!”

“But—“

Sumiko suddenly pushed Yumi aside to command the main panel. “Attention everyone! Brace for sudden acceleration! Monitor the structural integrity! Give me constant read outs!” A deep hum started to build from a distant location that Yumi immediately recognized.

“You can’t be serious! Everyone’s going to die!”

She grinned with the same bold and unwavering confidence as always. “When you’re dead either way, you bet on yourself! I’m going to save everyone! Help me Yumi!” A hand extended out once more to Yumi for her aid. It had to be the two of them.

“Detecting formation of wormhole!” sounded off Peter.

“You’re all in, Yumi. You wanted to see this as much as me. I could see it in your eyes the first day I met you. You want this!”

Yumi grumbled as another shake went through the Ark from the battle outside. “Damn you’re so much more impossible when you get excited!” She returned back to the computer sharing the right side with Sumiko.

“How can you not be?!”

Yuki leaned over to whisper to Yumi. “How close are we to the reset?”

“We’re already past it. I have no idea what’s going to happen anymore. We’re flying blind into the future now, Yuki.”