Daze of Future Past

[Bonnie Blue]

Part One: Closure

Timespace: where an infinity of events meet, blend, come apart again; ever-changing, ever-sweeping through the endless centuries. Centuries become millenia, become ages, become aeons. It happens all at once, less than a single instant; and Time renders it all meaningful. The shifting colors of the Timespace Matrix flow around the substance of the Ford Ranchero, while behind the wheel, Bonnie Blue gazes through the windshield at the dazzling display. Her thoughts, however, are turned inward.

How could I have been so fucking stupid? I was right there... so close. All I had to do was reach for -- but then, Gravedigger, laid out on the announce table. Convenient. Practically gift-wrapped. Why did I do it? What crazy notion possessed me when I was literally inches away from -- from what? Goddamn screwjob is what it was. Everyone in that match got fucked over. Every single one of us not named Logan.

Difference is, I'm the only one who got knocked all the way back down the ladder; all my hard work these last three months for ...nothin'. All so Lerch could stroke Logan's ego. And just to rub some salt in the wound, my teammates get title shots; I get... some guy called Scathe. The fuck? I'd take this personally, if I thought Seth Lerch even knew who I was.

After all the nice things I said about this company, too...

Bonnie takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly, allowing the tension to drain away. No point living in the past; what's done is done. There's no changing it. Time travel doesn't work quite that way. Some things are set in stone, and by the Timekeeper's decree -- though none but a few are aware of it -- the happenings of the Wrestling Championship Federation are among those things. By association, then, are events that impact the various employees of the WCF; Bonnie could no more alter the personal history of a sound technician than her own.

Something bright rises up in her path, and Bonnie instinctively hits the brakes. The Timespace Matrix recedes away in a flare of white, and leaves her to drift through empty space, blinking against the sudden brilliance. Correction -- almost empty space. There's a muffled thump as the fender meets a yielding object; Bonnie catches sight of a dark-colored uniform, one gnarled hand extended as if trying to ward off a blow, and then it spirals away into blackness.

The Daughter of Time flips the headlights on. Photons hit solid mass and scatter, revealing, in their wake, the twisted wreck of what had once been a magnificent space station. Around a central shaft, crumpled now as if by some giant's hand, had once revolved a large wheel; administrative offices, classrooms, and living quarters for hundreds of students and dozens of teachers. Now, wrenched from its place by a terrible force, and torn nearly in two, it dangles lifelessly, tears in the hull gaping like open wounds.

She had returned here once before, long ago, in the days of the Timekeeper Wars. Her friends had been with her, then: Don Jesus, and his reincarnated counterpart, known only as "The Visionary"; CyberHank and Brian Setzer, who had once been a stray cat, but who had been altered by the residual effects of the Timekeeper's arcane powers into an intelligent, bipedal felinoid being. That time when Cyborg Hank Brown had risked life and limb to retrieve vital information from the space station's central processing core; and had fallen in love with the school's interface, the Headmistress.

That had been two years ago, relatively speaking. Bonnie kept pushing those feelings aside, ignoring them, allowing them to fester. Now it's guilt that wells up in her breast, making her lungs and heart constrict as she navigates among the dead. Any moment, she expects them ro rise, one by one, to point accusing fingers at her. It had been she for whom the chronovores had come in the first place; nevermind that the creatures, servants of the Dark Timekeeper, would gladly have slaughtered everyone whether she'd been there or not.

Wondering what era it is, Bonnie glances at the dashboard clock. The readout indicates the year 2845, over a hundred years since the incident. Salvagers and pirates had, it soon became evident, long since looted anything valuable. But there was probably one thing they hadn't taken; one thing that might not put things right, yet would give her peace of mind.

Whatever your religious perspective, bodies needed to be disposed of properly. And if the students' families hadn't come to claim them by now, they weren't going to. Bonnie could do one final thing to give closure to the dead -- as well as herself. She may not have been able to save them, but she can put them to rest. A new button underneath the eight-track player, with a little black hole icon on it, beckons. Tesla had left a note detailing the improvements he'd made to the Ranchero, one of which had something to do with a gravity well. Surrounded by corpses, Bonnie hits the button. At once, as if summoned by some necromantic spell, the bodies draw near, hovering just inches from the vehicle.

Carefully, she guides them to a single docking bay left untouched by scavenging spacefarers, where she shuts off the gravity generator. A cadaver drifts by, and she recognizes -- through the expression of terror and the prematurely lined visage -- the face of a boy she'd had a crush on in her freshman year. The pair of them had snuck away once, during a fire drill, and hidden in a maintenance passage, where he had clumsily stolen a kiss. Bonnie's cheeks flushed slightly at the memory. She'd gotten in trouble, afterward; not for the borrowed moment of intimacy, but for having missed a training session.

Another thing Bonnie recalls is that the space station is armed with a military-grade self-destruct device; an exception made only for the school she herself attended. Bonnie wonders why, if they'd been prepared for the worst, would other children have been put in the path of such danger. But the answer is readily apparent: camouflage. The enemy couldn't have known, immediately, which of the numerous EduStations would be hers. Any school without the usual number of students would have been suspect. So the unknown party behind her creation had willingly sacrificed her classmates; that thought makes Bonnie's stomach turn.

Clarity, at last. For the first time, Bonnie Blue can see with unclouded vision. Whoever had cloned her is ultimately responsible for this travesty -- the question, however, remains: who? While the Timekeeper had certainly been aware of her presence; had instructed the Brothers of the Temporal Schism to watch over her; he had confided once that he had no idea who had created her. It's not exactly as if there's a paper trail.

Bringing her thoughts back to the present, Bonnie shifts into reverse and pulls away from the freeze-dried bodies twirling around one another in a macabre ballet. The self-destruct is buried deep in the bowels of the space station's central column, set to be activated remotely, provided Bonnie can find the right frequency. Another of Tesla's modifications would help with that. The young blonde woman digs through a box of eight-track tapes until she finds one labeled "cleaner," and feeds it into the slot. The cassette runs as it scans every known type of signal: radio waves, lightwaves, and even varying types of psionic transmissions. At last, it stops, emitting a sound that exceeds the hearing range of most dogs. Engaging the communications array -- which resembles in form a CB radio -- Bonnie sends a tight-beam message to the heart of the space station.

Seconds later, there is an incoming signal of acknowledgment. Bonnie reverses a little further away, but hangs around to watch. At first, nothing happens. Then, slowly, a dark spot appears, blacker than the void of deep space, and begins to expand with increasing rapidity. Soon, everything is engulfed, and just as it seems the edge of the darkness will surely swallow up the Ranchero as well -- it recedes at a speed only fractionally below that of light in a silent implosion that leaves behind nothing but emptiness.

Having put the dead -- and her own past -- finally to rest, Bonnie shifts into gear and heads back in time, to face her future.

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Part Two: Vexation

The week has passed more rapidly than Bonnie wanted it to. Too many things going on. Training, all day, every day. A couple of public appearances; one, a speaking engagement at a fundraiser for a women's shelter. She'd given a speech to the effect that women needed to look out not only for themselves, but for each other, which had gone over very well. Her further thoughts on women taking responsibility by learning self defense -- real self-defense, not the crap they teach at the Y -- had, unfortunately, found the audience less receptive. Bonnie would never understand women who refused to embrace the use of force to protect their virtue. Maybe she'd gotten through to a few of them. On the plus side, the compensation wasn't bad -- not enough to make up for a lost paycheck -- but still generous.

As a bonus, she'd gotten a kickass hotel room out of the deal, the better to pace in frustrated impatience as her phone lies idle on the burled walnut nightstand. On a Friday night, she should be getting ready to go out with her Rebellution brothers -- instead, she's wearing a bathrobe and silently willing the phone to ring. The WCF website is disappointingly light on details about her opponent this week, as is most of the internet. Best she'd come up with had been something on one of those really far-out conspiracy websites; then again, there had also been an article about Doritos being part of a New World Order plot to subjugate the American people.

A loud, insistent buzz startles Bonnie, and she rushes across the room to grab her phone.

Bonnie Blue: Hiya, Sal! Whatcha got? ...Nothin'? But ya didn't have a problem with the other guy.... No, I -- really? Hm. Maybe the Illuminati is involved. ...What? It was just a joke. There's no such -- Ok, fine. So, no identity at all? Well, either he really doesn't exist, or... Yeah, exactly. All right, thanks anyway, Sal. I'll take care of ya soon as I get paid, which should be after I beat this chump. ...You got it. Bye!

She disconnects the call and spends a moment staring into the distance; her frown deepens as she contemplates this new information -- or the lack of it, rather. The same question she's been asking for days forms on her lips yet again.

Bonnie Blue: Who the hell is Scathe?

A decision made in haste; Bonnie pulls on a pair of designer jeans that fit like a second skin, and shrugs out of the robe to don a brand-new fitted t-shirt with the Rebellution barcode logo. Then she grabs her laptop and turns on the video camera. The resolution is a little grainy, lighting less than ideal, and the angle gives her a slightly haughty appearance.

Bonnie Blue: I'm confused. One minute, I'm this close --

She holds her thumb and forefinger a fraction of an inch apart.

Bonnie Blue: -- to a shot at the greatest prize in wrestlin'; the next, I'm scheduled to wipe the floor with some guy no one's ever heard of. Like literally, no one. My P.I. -- who has methods, man -- couldn't find jack shit. All I got is a face to go with the name. Scathe...

The smile that crosses her lips carries a hint of contempt.

Bonnie Blue: From the Old Norse, skatha -- injury; to injure. I reckon that's pretty straightforward. You're here to kick ass, an' chew bubblegum -- an' you're all outta bubblegum, right? Y'know how many people come through here spoutin' that same line? D'ya know where they are six weeks later? Guys like you are a dime a dozen. Only thing sets you apart is that ya got virtually no hist'ry.

No hist'ry... an' the first thing ya do is start harassin' my friend Grayson. Ya say it ain't him ya want, but the other one. That's the past. Gemini Battle is long gone. You're wastin' your time here.

Her sardonic smile fades, to be replaced by a thoughtful expression.

Bonnie Blue: I am, curious, though. How does a man, with apparently no experience to speak of, just show up outta nowhere an' start settin' his own terms? See, I didn't start askin' questions until I heard you'd requested this match, an' that's when it all got weird. Your very presence here whispers of somethin' ... other. Shouldn't be surprised. WCF has become a magnet for all manner of freaks, monsters, aliens, Elder Gods, shadow beings, an' the like. Always room for one more, I reckon.

But what's troublin' me is the nature of your game. What do you think you're playin' at? If you've come to sow chaos an' dissent, you're a day late an' a dollar short. That's kinda what we thrive on here. I suspect, however, ya got a larger overall goal in mind; somethin', perhaps, with multiversal repercussions?

Bonnie shakes her head slowly.

Bonnie Blue: Not on my watch. Whatever scheme ya got cookin', Scathe, ya might as well forget it. Then again... maybe I'm readin' way too much into this. Maybe you're just some guy, an' ain't nobody ever heard of ya 'cause you ain't never done nothin' worth hearin' 'bout. Could it be that I've overstated your intentions... overestimated you, Mr. Scathe? Perhaps it's just that my ego couldn't take bein' booked against a relative nobody.

Right about now, you're thinkin' that I underestimate you. Nothin' could be farther from the truth. Just the size of ya -- you could crush me without hardly tryin'. But I've been in the ring with big men before. Just ask ... well, Oblivion might be dead, so he probably can't tell ya nothin'. Wade Moor, though, he's a big motherfucker, too. He knocked me out one time, but at least it was after the match. Point is, your size don't 'xactly intimidate me. Pretty much everyone on the roster is bigger'n I am.

At the same time, though, I reckon I prob'ly ain't gonna make it through this ...entirely unsca-- unharmed.

A brief shrug emphasizes her chest beneath the tight-fitting t-shirt.

Bonnie Blue: I'm not sure what pisses me off about you more, Scathe -- the fact that ya had the audacity to step to my boy Pierce, tryin' to dredge up a past oughta stay buried; or the idea that you think you can trade on my name to make your own. That ain't how it works. You don't just show up outta the blue an' jump to the front of the line, take a spot someone else has been workin' their ass off for. There are probably a dozen other rookies ahead of ya, by rights; folks toilin' for weeks on the undercard, lookin' for a moment in the limelight with me. So what makes you special? What makes ya diff'rent from them?

This little mystery that surrounds you has my interest piqued, "Darkitect," I'll give ya that. What's that s'posed to mean, anyway? You're the I.M. Pei of supervillain hideouts? Actually, that would be kinda cool. Forget I said that. You're not cool. What y'are is an opportunist. You see what's bein' built here, see these careers about to take off, an' ya reckon you're gonna hitch your wagon to one star or 'nother. Coulda chosen none better. Grayson Pierce will be a tag team champion by the end of Sunday night, and I... Well, I'll be workin' my way back to the top, startin' with you.

I don't make empty threats, Mr. Scathe. Every word I say is a promise. I said I'd rain destruction at Fifteen, an' that I did. Cost me ...well, nothin' in the long run, considerin' how the Final Destination match ended. The highlight reel was totally worth it, though.

She smiles again, full of confidence.

Bonnie Blue: So the promise I make you now is this -- when we step into that ring Sunday night, I will simply eradicate you. My patience is with shenanigans is at an end. Fiend or charlatan; whatever your true intentions are, Scathe, it's all over for you at Slam. I'll make damn sure of that. Tempus vindice.

So saying, Bonnie reaches forward and cuts off the camera... just in time for her phone to signal an incoming message from her Uber. Hastily, she submits the video, checks her reflection and shrugs; then grabs her coat and hurries out the door.