Circa Tempore: The Artificial Organic
Copyright© 2026 by E. B. Redfield
Chapter 42 - Race Against Time
“Syahos, please tell me you have the ITSTU in Vancouver now!” Kayla pleaded.
Syahos stared guiltily at the image of her sitting awkwardly on a hoverbike that they couldn’t see.
“I’m trying!” they explained, “it’s so much more complicated without my normal programming! You’re at least out of the casino now, I take it?”
“Yeah! We had to steal a hover bike! The cops blocked access to the red cars in that area! It’s pandemonium; everyone’s running for their lives!”
Syahos frowned, “I should have anticipated that,” they replied, “Can you get to a different depot?”
“The neural band is supposed to be guiding me to the nearest one that isn’t closed, but we’re leading the damn thing behind us like a tugboat! Anytime we get close to a depot, it shuts down! We might have to drive this thing all the way back to the lot at this rate!”
“OK, keep moving, and whatever you do, don’t stop! I’ll meet you, I promise!” they terminated the call and turned their focus back to the matter of moving the ITSTU. The connection to Mercy’s backdoor to the PTICA Network glared like a beacon. Their stomach twisted. They’d officially run out of options. With a growing sense of dread, they accessed the backdoor protocol.
It felt like spider legs began creeping through their QPU, filling up some of the empty space that had been carved out when the identity matrix took hold. As the new program filled the void it started to feel familiar. A progress bar appeared in the HUD, and it wasn’t moving nearly fast enough.
“Fuck!” they yowled, pacing the floor. There wasn’t time for this! As they paced, another thought occurred to them.
Where was PTICA? Where was a Paradox Prevention Unit? How could the response time for this be so slow? They scanned the communications frequencies. Every major news outlet on Earth was covering the grafted at the casino now, so where was PTICA or the IUSS?
And what would happen once PTICA did arrive on the scene? Kayla and Craig were the targets of the grafted. PTICA would likely find them, and then of course, find Syahos. Who knows what the company would do to all of them if that were to happen?
In a panic, they set their QPU to work on searching Zas Sirrk’s files for paradox handling. There had been some recorded incidents of minor paradoxes during the training process. Security logs of the PPU Glyph handling a grafting even. It could give them insight. While their QPU filtered through the data, they received a notification that the backdoor protocol had finished.
They stood up, took a deep breath, pictured the parking space waiting for them in Vancouver, and blinked. Their ioyuxos seared and they cried in pain, collapsing to the floor. They opened their eyes only to see the Madrid skyline blinking and twinkling in the night beyond the lot. In a panic they stood up, and fear gripped them. Had they overdone it attempting to displace blindly? So much so, that even with the guardrails back in place they were too weak? They tried again, but their body protested the action again like a hot knife in their abdomen. Tears dripped through the fur on their cheeks.
“Come ON!” they screamed in frustration.
Kayla rounded a corner into a crowded street, Craig’s arms wrapped tightly around her waist. The street wasn’t meant for hurried bike traffic, and the vehicle path in the center was almost jammed as the people fled the monstrous form eating its way through commerce section.
“Take that alley!” Craig said in her ear, pointing to her right. She almost protested this, as the neural band advised sticking to the road. But then again, the band was probably giving directions based on ideal conditions, and of course wouldn’t suggest anything that broke the law. She steered into the alley, immediately proving to be the smart call as the grafted was simply too big at this point to follow them into it, and could only reach in with a massive tendril made of limbs, arms, and talons. Kayla felt the bike swerve as the distortion field threatened to pull them in.
“So ... when you learn to drive a hoverbike?” Craig asked as they raced down the alley.
“It’s a long story,” Kayla replied, “We survive this, I’ll tell you the whole thing.”
“Yeah, so in case we don’t survive this,” Craig said loudly as they emerged from the opposite end of the alley, “I ... I need to say some things.”
Kayla grimaced as she peered down the street. She turned left and followed the redirection from her neural band. Really? Now?!
“Like what? You remember some way I fucked up that you forgot to tell me?” she asked, “You know what, I know I haven’t been the greatest friend. And you’re right, I’m impulsive and I suck at thinking about others. I never let anyone get close and then get mad at them for leaving me! But you’re not any better!”
“I know, but that’s not what...”
“I mean, you wanna talk about impulsive?!” she continued, “What the fuck, dude? How many times have I told you, ‘Don’t pick fights over me?’ I can fight my own battles!” They sped down the street and passed by a stream of red and black squad vehicles going in the opposite direction.
“PLEASE REMAIN INDOORS!” a booming voice emitted from the police vehicles between siren blasts, “PARADOX CURFEW PROTOCOL HAS BEEN INITIATED. WE REPEAT, REMAIN INDOORS.”
“I mean, you’re afraid to go home because you might face assault charges but the first thing you do here is give yourself more?” Kayla continued after the cops had passed by, “What were you thinking?!”
“Kayla I wasn’t going to...” Craig started but was cut off as one of the cop cars that had just passed by flew over top of them, having flipped end over end. It landed on its top and skidded to a top, sparks flying from the street while the siren warbled with the damage. Kayla gasped and slammed the brake, turning sideways and sliding.
“LEAN WITH ME!” she yelled at Craig. They leaned into the slide, doing everything she could to keep the bike from flipping over. They managed to stop just in time and Kayla looked back to see the grafted tearing down the street towards them. It moved in a floppy, horrible rolling motion like a grounded starfish as tendril after tendril made up of fifteen or more entire people slammed into the ground, propelling it forward with their own individual little hands, claws, and branches. The field around it was pulling in things from as high up as the rooftops. She hit the throttle and sped around the fallen cop car and into another alley. Upon spitting out of it, they managed to cross a narrow walkway bridge over the river. She glanced back and saw the grafted falter. Maybe it somehow knew the bridge wouldn’t support it, or maybe it was scared of the water. Whatever the reason, she was relieved to put distance between them.