omnibus?

In the back of the shop, amidst a couple of intellectual thrillers, operations manuals, and books which happen to be on no technology you're familiar with, you end up finding what looks like a manual on introductory category theory. It's printed on an unrecognizable almost plastic-like material and seems to be bound in an unusual, iridescent black metal with an almost waxy texture. Embossed on its cover in large, silvery letters are the words 'don't panic', which seem like... odd things to put on the cover of a category theory book.

In the end, it proves seemingly interesting enough--along with one or two of the technical manuals--to purchase. On the way back via EM lev, something ends up slipping from between two pages in the near back of the book; it resembles a small, two inches at the most, dumbbell-shaped object which appears to be built of the same black metal in which the book is bound. This object appears to be connected with a half-translucent white bookmark ... thing by some sort of fiber-optic fishing line.

As you touch the bookmark-thing, the dumbbell-thing appears to start glowing faintly in a dark bluish color, and begins hovering near your ear. The bookmark blinks slightly and a holographic overlay seems to appear, unfolding into a projector which displays an image of a woman with red, graying hair sitting in front of what looks like a banner with the symbol on it of a dragon biting its own tail. She wears sunglasses and a holographic projection earpiece which seem to conspire to cover much of her face, although you can tell that her eyes are a yellowish-green, and she wears what looks like a red satin coat with a tall band collar and laced cuffs.

"Hello," she says, with a slightly unfamiliar accent.

"Hello...?"

"Oh, you're not who I expected. Hmm. Ah well." She shrugs. "I'm Doctor Julien Trevelyan, before you can ask. And if you're also seeing me, as I assume you are, considering you just looked at me in a puzzled manner, this means that my theory has worked. And they laughed at me at the academy! And I will..." Julien pauses to emit a low, near-menacing chuckle. "...show them all." After a few seconds, she smiles again, and continues as though totally ignoring the entire last two sentences. "Regardless! This is the test of the Eye of Discord Lagrange Station Localization Transmitter. Please state your year after the tone and we will get back to you around..." She consults her watch. "Around 316 XGY, actually."

[A/N:

Uh... I don't know. Wrote this this morning longhand. I don't even like second-person, usually. But I'm still counting it for nanocount because it was written in November.

316 XGY is about ten to fifteen years in the future from Apocynthion, I estimate--most things in the KMV have this habit of not getting actual dates, so everything's in practice a bit vague. Evidently they have time travel then. Ooookay. Just don't go killing grandfathers and everything should work out.

I qualify this as one of the cases of something major coming about for the multiverse by total accident, but it could provide an interesting framework for stories if I can codify a time travel ruleset. I have a couple of ideas, a lot of which are fairly 'meta' and thus, hopefully, at least somewhat unique.

Yes, Julien has a doctorate. So does Sterling. Mikkau probably is about 90% finished with one, as is evidenced by his comment about studying under Colver for about eight years, but I don't get the impression he ever finished--the MRA probably recruited him before he got the chance to finish a thesis paper or anything.

These relatively minor character details come about in somewhat odd ways.

The idea of a category theory book with 'don't panic' embossed on its cover in Big Friendly Letters is a bit of a father-daughter injoke. I had to put it in something...]