Chronocide 0: Snowblind

August, 1995

Time, they say, is relative. And Hazel  felt like she had relatively little time left before the next phase of  her life came down around her. College loomed on the horizon, only a  single week away.

In one week, Hazel Kovalenko’s life would be  different. ROTC , college courses, new friends and at least one old, a  dorm away from home…all for her future in the military, exactly as she  planned.

Even positive change brings anxiety…or rather,  anticipation. And nothing quite flushed the system like some exercise.  Hazel traced the familiar paths of her quiet suburban town, the hot  Virginian summer hanging humid around her as she kept a steady pace past  verdant bushes and well-maintained gardens. 

Hazel put  her body through its paces like a well oiled machine, enjoying the  serenity of the quiet streets in the early morning, accompanied by the  sound of her footfalls, and the music from her walkman. She kept the  narrow band of the headphones secure with bobby pins in her tightly  braided hair, and the machine itself clipped to her belt.

Long,  deep breaths, music, and the peace of the run. It was supposed to keep  her focused, but her thoughts kept returning to the future, even as she  looped back near her house again.

She saw neighbors, a few of  them already out watering their lawns or shuffling out for the paper. A  few waved, others were too wrapped up in their own thoughts to notice as  she passed.
The future , while she knew what she wanted to do, was  far from certain. Any number of things could happen and divert or sever  plans made in favor of adapting to whatever was coming her way. Nobody  can ever plan for everything,’the goddess of time tends to play tricks  on those who try’ her mother had told her once. Hazel could remember the  pained look in her eyes even now. 

‘The Goddess of  Time,’ Hazel thought, with a soft smile. Another one of her mother’s  many quirks. She’d been hearing about her since she was a little girl.  Her mother’s private goddess. Hazel wasn’t sure if she believed in gods–  she tended to take a more broadly spiritual approach to the cosmos– but  her mother’s stories had, if nothing else, instilled in her a deep  respect for the ineffable march of time.

Time–and her own  footfalls–eventually brought her back to her house. Through the branches  of her neighbor’s old apple tree, she could see the tastefully neutral  pale blue paint of her childhood home. As she rounded the bend, it came  into view. Nicely clipped grass thanks to her own efforts, a worn old  fence, a small deck with her mother’s expensive telescope propped up and  staring at some random spot in the cosmos…

It was home, at least for another week.

A  small figure sat huddled on the steps, their bright ginger hair fallen  across their face as they bobbed their head gently in time to music that  must have been playing through the banged up old headphones they wore. A  familiar figure, to Hazel, who hadn’t seemed to notice her yet. 

Hazel  waved, and then quickly realized it wasn’t going to do anything to  catch the figure’s attention. Instead, she carefully slowed, and  unpinned her own headphones, peeling them down to around her neck.

“Hey!” she called out with a smile.

He  flailed, a sharp yelp of surprise passing their lips as their hand  caught the cord of the radio’s headphones. There was a click, as it tore  free, and music played from the inbuilt speaker. It was the  Cranberries, the strains of ‘Zombie’ blasting tinnily from the worn old  device cradled in his hands.

Simon Erikson looked up at her with a sheepish smile.

“Hey Hazel.” he said warmly, as he rolled his finger on the knob to lower the volume. “Welcome back.”

Simon  was her best friend, and had been since middle school. A small,  androgynous boy with thick and wavy red hair that he’d grown to his mid  back and no intentions on cutting it to fit in, Hazel lost count of how  many times she’d intervened on his behalf against the wannabe bullies of  their high school.

It wasn’t a surprise to see him there; Simon  had practically been adopted by her mother the moment he first arrived,  and it was a clear fact that he spent much more time with them than he  ever did at his foster home.

He adjusted his glasses, thick and  round lenses that settled over long lashed emerald eyes, and smiled.  “Can you believe it’s almost time to go? We’re still packing up today,  right?” 

Hazel squatted on the stairs next to him, and  nodded. “Yeah, I want to go through my clothes today. I figure it’s time  to leave just a couple outfits in circulation. Take everything else.”

Simon.  Hazel didn’t quite know how to describe her relationship to him.  Brother? Best friend? Partner in crime? Maybe it didn’t need a name.  Whatever you called it, he was the person outside of her mom that she  was the closest to.

She didn’t think of herself as a  standoffish person, but maybe she was, just the same. She didn’t tend to  have a lot of relationships, besides superficial social ones. She never  felt the need. Somehow, she never felt the attachment to anyone outside  that small circle.

Simon adjusted his glasses with a nod of his  head. “Yeah. I’ve already got my clothes packed, and I don’t have too  much else, really. Maybe that salvaged radio set you helped me fix up  last year.”

They were going to the same college, having been  lucky enough to both get accepted. Simon had talked excitedly about his  dream of going into psychology and communications for the last three  months, and now it looked like it was actually going to happen. 

“Well  if we don’t take it, we have to bring it over here and leave it in my  room, alright?” Hazel said thoughtfully. “We can just move anything  you’re not taking with you into my room for now.”

After  all, though Hazel didn’t want to say it, there was a strong chance that  Simon would never be allowed to set foot in the place he’d been fostered  again, once he hit 18 in a month or so.

Simon  nodded firmly. The look in his eyes suggested that he suspected the very  same. “Yeah? Thanks Hazel, you know it means a lot to me.”

He stood, stretching his lithe body out with a quiet yawn. “I know your mom’ll take care of it for us.”

“Absolutely.  Though, admittedly, the house might get a bit dusty without me around.”  She stood, and offered Simon a hand to help him up. “Wanna go get that  stuff now, while we’ve got the daylight?”

Simon took her hand and  used it to steady himself with a half smile. “Yeah, that sounds good to  me. I know your mom’s probably arms deep in another one of her projects  by now, huh?” 

Hazel nodded, firmly. “Since before dawn  this morning. She’s really been in it for the last week or so. We  should check on her when we get back and make sure she’s eaten  something.”

As Hazel thought about it, her soft mouth  formed a hard line.Of course her mother was an adult and could take care  of herself, but Hazel was so used to checking on her, and making sure  that she was remembering to eat or sleep– she worried about leaving her  alone when she went off to school.

Dr. Stella Kovalenko was a  brilliant scientist, currently working with the United States Government  on a contract basis. But like all brilliant minds, she had her…quirks.  Quirks that manifested sometimes as an overinvestment in her work,  skipped meals and fits of exhaustion.

When one of her projects gripped her, she was like a woman possessed. And soon she’d be on her own again. 

Hazel couldn’t help but worry.

Simon nodded in sympathy. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Maybe we can pick up something nice for her on the way back?”

She nodded. “Good call. We’ll pass the corner store on our way, anyway. What would I do without you?”

“Probably  fall apart,” Simon grinned, giving her a wink as he gestured for her to  follow. “We all know you need your intrepid sidekick, supergirl. You’re  lucky we’re going to the same college.”

“Very lucky,” she said, punching him gently in the shoulder. “If we hadn’t been, I’d have had to do something about it.”

The  two of them made their way towards the driveway, “I’d have to see if I  could transfer…or something. I’m gonna be honest, Hazel, I don’t know  what I’d do without you.”

He rubbed his neck. “It's not like I’ve ever been good at making friends, and you’re like family to me.” 

“Pssh,  you? You’d be fine,” Hazel said with a smile, walking close next to  him. “You’re way more self sufficient than I am. But I hope it never  comes to that. I’m attached at the hip.”

Simon chuckled. “I dunno about that.”

He brushed his hair over his ear, glancing over at her with a smile. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, soldier.”

WIth  a wry look, he bumped his shoulder to hers. “Looks like that makes two  of us. Hey, think your mom’ll mind us taking her car? It’ll cut down on  transport time.” 

“Huh, you don’t want to run there?” Hazel teased. “No, we can take the car.”

---

It  was probably a good idea they took the car , because by the time they  were heading back it was packed full of boxes holding Simon’s things.  Most of them were pre-packed, except the communications unit he’d been  trying to keep safe until the last moment.

He fretted of course  on if he really should bring everything and take up space in Hazel’s  house…but they both knew what would happen to anything he left behind.  So now they were driving home, hot bundle of take-out chinese food on  Simon’s lap as they pulled their way into the familiar driveway.

“Thanks again, Haze.” Simon said softly “I really appreciate it, you know?” 

“I  know,” Hazel said with a smile as she drove. “Don’t worry about it,  okay? Seriously. You know me and mom would do anything for you.”

Simon nodded, “you guys really make me feel at home whenever I come by.”

Once  the car pulled to a stop, he unbuckled and glanced over at her with a  teasing grin. “Let's go make sure your mom hasn’t built a death laser  out of her telescope or something.” 

“You know she tried  to do that already, right?” Hazel said, getting out of the car and  grabbing one of the boxes. “She was teaching me about Archimedes when I  was seven, and we started trying to figure out the death ray.”

“Hazel,  if anyone on this earth could qualify as a comic book mad scientist,  it’s your mom.” He said, shaking his head with a tut of his tongue and  an affectionate grin.

He grabbed a box , hefting it up with a quiet ‘oof’ “Did you guys manage it?”

“We started a fire with it,” she nodded. “That counts, right?”

Simon  nodded sagely as he hefted the box to the porch. “Oh yeah, absolutely.  Fire’s widely known to cause death. It’s a death laser by  technicality.” 

Hazel grinned, and marched up the porch  steps. She rested the box on her hip as she opened the door for Simon.  “If it works, it works.”

Simon nodded thankfully and slipped  inside. There was no sign of her mother in the hall, or in the attached  living room, which had been mostly decorated according to Hazel’s taste  ,due to her mother’s tendency towards distraction.

However, as Hazel could see when Simon lowered the box to the ground in the living room, the basement door was open.

From deep inside, somewhere in the low light of her mother’s workroom, they could hear a softly repeating voice.

“The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over The Lazy Dog.” The synthetic sounding voice had repeated.

Hazel could hear her mother murmur something, to which the synthetic voice responded

“Response: It was a snowblind, the truth is buried. There are no answers to find.”

The sound of her mother’s disappointed growl was clear even up the stairs.

“Geeze.” Simon murmured in concern. “She's really deep in it today, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Hazel sighed. “She’s been like this for days.”

She  put down the box in the living room, and took the chinese food from  Simon. “C’mon, let’s go see if we can shake her out of it for a little  bit.”

She headed through the hall, toward the door to her mother’s lab.

Simon nodded, “once we do, I’ll grab the chinese from the car. She’s probably gotta eat something, right?”

The two of them descended the stairs.

The  lab was dim, but that wasn’t unusual…Hazel’s mother had a sensitivity  to light that bordered on painful after all, so her workspace was kept  dark to allow her comfort while she worked.

As they stepped into  the lab, squeezing past the various devices jammed into the small  basement room, it took a minute for their eyes to adjust.

Stella’s  lab was a room packed with computer banks, and strange looking  measurement devices. In one corner…there was something Hazel had never  quite understood the function of, a large pod like device with a pulsing  light attached to it , like a watching eye.

Connected to it, a  smaller device the size of a mac computer, with a green screen  flickering text in time with the voice in the speakers.

And it  was opposite that device, that they could see her mother when their eyes  adjusted, head in her hands as she stared at the screen with an  expression somewhere between frustration and elation.

“At the very least,” she muttered, “at the very least I’ve cracked the code on the primary project.”

Hazel paused in her approach a little way away from her mother. “Hey– mom?”

She spoke softly. The last thing she wanted to do was startle her.

Dr. Kovalenko jolted just the slightest, and looked up.

She  was a thin, spectral woman. With her incredibly pale skin, short white  hair, and striking red eyes, her albinism was apparent at a glance. Her  mother often avoided going out during the day, due to the pain of her  photosensitivity and the ease her skin burned.

She gave Hazel a thin smile, nodding her head once. “Ah, Hazel. I expected you would be packing for college right about now…”

She waved her hand “but no matter. Actually, I was hoping you could stay inside tonight.” 

“Sure,”  Hazel nodded. “Is it okay if Simon stays? We just finished packing up  the rest of his stuff. We brought chinese food for everybody.”

Hazel  leaned on a machine she knew hadn’t been used in a while, and watched  her mother. She seemed even more keyed up today than usual.

Dr.  Kovalenko glanced at Simon with another thin smile and a nod of her  head. She’d never been the most emotional woman, but over the years,  Hazel learned to pick up the little signs here and there.

Her mother was happy to see her and Simon both there, and she was excited about…something.

“Of course. I’ll be right up, I’m just working on a few more calibrations with Joy, you see…”

“The food’ll get cold, Doctor.” Simon said with a warm grin.

Hazel nodded. “Yeah. It can wait a little, right?”

She  softly urged her mother to come up with them. If Hazel was right about  her mood, and she usually was, she worried she’d completely lose track  of the time once they left the room.

Dr. Kovalenko sighed,  pushing her sunglasses down over her bright eyes. “Well, alright. But I  simply cannot be delayed. Once we’re finished, you two, I need to put my  hypothesis into action. Urgently. I don’t have a wide window.”
 
“Whatcha working on, Doc?” Simon asked as he started heading up the stairs. 

Hazel  nodded, waiting for her mother to head up the stairs before she  followed her. This was new. Her mother had a lot of urgent projects but  something about the way she was talking seemed different.

Stella walked reluctantly up the stairs, using the banister to balance herself.

“It’s  a bit much to explain, Simon. Especially to a layperson. But Joy and I  have found a way to breach a barrier that’s been hampering my research  for a long, long time. “

“A barrier?” Simon murmured curiously “is this related to your military research?” 

Hazel  followed her mother slowly up. Every now and then she’d heard her  mother talk about something like this, but only in vague terms, and  she’d never gotten an answer she was fully satisfied with. Her  curiosity, and her worry, mounted.

“Not quite.” Stella glanced to  the side, as if worrying someone would catch her speaking. “My  superiors don’t know anything about it. This is my personal passion  project, a way to fix things.”

Simon cast a worried look at  Hazel, as he headed to the door. “I’m bringing in the chinese food, you  get things set up in the kitchen, huh?”

“Got it.” Hazel  nodded to him, and guided her mother into the kitchen, flicking the  lights on. “Must have been a while since you ate last, right mom?”

Stella  rubbed her eyes under her glasses, before she settled in one of the  seats. “it’s been…” her brow furrowed “Damn and blast, what? 15 hours? I  had a freezer meal yesterday morning, and then…” 

“Sounds  more like 30 hours, mom,” Hazel said gently. She put her hand on her  mother’s back. “Must be pretty interesting work, huh?”

“I lost track of time,” her mother said.

She nestled her head in her hands, clearly exhausted, though the thin and barely perceptible smile still tugged at her lips.

“It’s the most important project of our life, Hazel. I can’t afford to stop now when we finally have our course set.”

Simon  poked his head into the room with a smile, holding up a few bags of  chinese food, with a big grin “Hey, Doc, Hazel. Who’s ready to chow  down?”

“We are,” Hazel said. She squeezed her mom’s shoulder before she scrambled to get the silverware out.

Whatever her mom had on her mind, it should wait until after they’d eaten.

---

After  they’d eaten however, Dr. Kovalenko dismissed herself and hurried back  down to the lab. Any attempts to get an answer from her as she hurried  down the stairs were met with an assertion that she would explain later.

Time was of the essence, she said, and it wouldn’t wait even for her.

So  Hazel and Simon found themselves in her bedroom, settled on her bed  amid piles of sorted clothes and items to be packed away.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her like that, Haze.” Simon said after a moment. 

Hazel shook her head, “No, you’re right. It’s different tonight.”

She  sighed and poured a few drops of water from a glass by her bed into the  pot of the bonsai tree she kept in her room. She called it Steve, and  in her opinion, Steve was better than any pet. She’d be taking him with  her to school. If nothing else, taking care of him was always soothing.

Simon  watched her out of the corner of his eye with a small smile, smoothing  his shorts out with the palm of his hands. “You don’t know why, right?  She hasn’t told you anything?”

“Steve’s coming along well,” he commented.

Hazel  nodded, carefully checking the leaves of the bonsai. “Thanks. He’s  nervous about moving,” she gave him a smile. “Mom hasn’t told me  anything… not specifically…”

“You and me both, Steve.” Simon chuckled to himself, before shifting onto his stomach. “Not specifically huh?”

She  shook her head and moved to sit on the bed near Simon. “The way she’s  talking, it reminds me of some things she used to say when I was a kid.”

Simon  rested his head on her side, looking up at her with a curious frown  “huh. Yeah? Like what kinda things? That Goddess of Time stuff?” 

“Yeah,”  Hazel nodded, looking thoughtful. “She used to say things about a  ‘barrier’ and ‘getting back’, but she never said more than that. Not  that I can remember. And when I got old enough to ask her to tell me  more, she stopped talking about it.”

Simon looked dubious for a  moment, his legs waving in the air. “That’s…a very strange thing to say.  Maybe she’s talking about moving back east? Coulda been the cold war  barrier, things have been cooling for a while now.” 

“That could be it,” Hazel said. “You know, sometimes when she talks about back east…”

“Yeah, Hazel?” Simon asked with genuine curiosity. 

She  bit her lip. “She starts to call it something different. Some name  she’d say when I was little. She still slips up now and then, but she  swallows the rest of whatever it is.”

Simon’s pretty brow furrowed, and his lips pursed in quiet confusion “...really? What’s she call it?” 

Hazel  shakes her head. “It starts with an el sound. Ul? Maybe ul.I always  thought it was probably some swallowed up little soviet satellite state,  but I remember looking it up when I was in 4th grade, and not finding  anything in the encyclopedia.”

“...that’s wild, Hazel.” Simon said, flopping over onto his back to look up at her. “I wonder what that’s all about.”

He grinned playfully “maybe your mom’s a space alien.” 

Hazel nodded, deadpan. “From the planet Ultron. And she’s finally found a way to contact the mothership.”

“And now you get to go off on an adventure, finding out you’re the long lost…”

There was a knock on the door. “Hazel. Simon? Please come down to the lab with anything you feel attached to.” 

Hazel looked at the door, and then looked at Simon. “Huh.”

Simon stared at Hazel with a raise of his eyebrow “...are you an alien?”

Her mother’s footsteps were already descending the stairs. 

Hazel shrugged, raising her hands in the air. “Your guess is as good as mine. C’mon, we better do it, just in case.”

“Alright.”  Simon rubbed his neck. “take whatever you feel attached to, huh?” he  mused softly “well I’m bringing my walkman. And m-maybe my comm set? My  overnight bag?” 

Hazel nodded.”Can always bring it back  up.” She threw her walkman and tapes into a bag, and her old copy of the  Tao of Pooh. She scooped Steve the bonsai into her other arm.

Simon  always kept a few things with her in her room, given how often he was  over. A few psychology texts and unarmed combat manuals went into his  bag, along with his walkman and a few of the…feminine clothes…he stashed  there. His foster father didn’t like him having them, but Hazel had  allowed him to keep them in her closet instead. And besides that,  anything leftover they’d brought over today.

He pursed his lips thoughtfully, “true enough. Come on, let’s go get that box and bring it down.”

He tossed his bag over his shoulder “Ready, Haze?”

Hazel nodded, and offered Simon a hand.

“Hey,” she said in a low voice. Simon would understand. She looked at him nervously.

Simon took her hand, giving it a firm squeeze “yeah, Hazel?” he said with a gentle smile. 

Hazel didn’t want to think about it, but it needed to be said before they got down there.

“If we need to take mom to the hospital, you’ll back me up, right?”

He  nodded firmly “Of course. I’ve got your back all the way, Hazel.” he  had a sad smile as he gave her hand a squeeze “...I’m …I’m sure she’s  fine though.” 

Hazel nodded. She worried, in the back of  her mind, since she was old enough to understand the concept, that  maybe some day her mother’s… unique thinking… would need medical  attention. She hoped that today wasn’t that day. But it felt like now,  if ever.

She squeezed Simon’s hand.

“Let’s get ready for the mothership.”

By  the time they got down the stairs…it really felt like it could have  been a mothership. Long quiet machines were humming, casting the  cluttered room in pale blue and green light from various computer  screens.

Joy, Dr. Kovalenko’s passion project, sat prominently  on the table with her screen illuminated brightly as numbers crawled  quickly across the screen.

“Response: Calibration set, Stella”  the artificial intelligence was saying, “Path charted from point 1.23954  to point 75.1234. ‘Terra’. WIndow will close in two hours.”

“I  know, I know.” Stella was murmuring, from what took a moment to register  as the strange pod like device she kept in the corner.

It had  doors, doors that for the first time in Hazel’s life were wide open,  revealing a complicated relay of circuitboards and humming electricity.  There was a strange orb-like device in the center, looking like a  generator or conductor from the way it sparked and hummed. Her mother  was working in static resistant gloves, typing something into a small  keyboard with a sigh.

“Thank hell Justine and I programmed the bloody PRC Units as well as we did…thank you for carrying the burden, Joy.”

“Response: Happy to help, Stella.”

Simon  looked around as he stepped into the room with his box, raising his  eyebrow. “...holy shit, it’s seriously sci fi in here.” 

“Sure  is,” Hazel said. She stepped in, in a wonder, eyes wide. She had never  seen inside the pod before. She hadn’t even known it could open.

It  seemed a lot less likely, all of a sudden, that they’d be going to the  hospital, and more likely that they’d be going to Planet Ultron.

“Hey mom, we’re here.”

Stella  looked up, pushing her sunglasses up onto her head again with a nod of  her head “Set your things down, they’re within range.”

“Hey ah, Doctor Kovalenko?” Simon said as he placed the box and bag on the floor. “what…exactly is going on here?” 

Hazel set her things down in the indicated spot on the floor, giving it a closer look. 

“You said you’d explain,” she agreed.

The floor was littered with wires going to different devices around the room,all of them leading back to the pod.

“We’re  going home, Hazel.” Stella said firmly. “We’ve been stuck in this  backwater dimension for too long…but we’ve finally found a path back to  Terra…to the Pax Republic.”

“...” Simon pushed up his glaces “radical.. You guys really are aliens?”

“No.” Stella said firmly, though she didn’t exactly elaborate as she went back to her keyboard. 

Hazel stared at her mother for a long moment, unable to think of anything really useful to say.

“Pax republic,” she repeated. “Huh.”

“I thought you said the place started with an Ul, Hazel!” Simon said, incredulously as he waved his hands.

“Stop that.” Stella looked up “you’ll knock a wire out of place. If you’re not careful you’ll send us to who knows where.”

She  pinched the bridge of her nose, lost in thought, “and you’re thinking  of Uldovia….just give me a minute. It’ll be easier to just show you…” 

Hazel  snapped her fingers.”Uldovia. That was it. Pax Republic's new to me  too.” She shrugged at Simon. “What do you mean when you say it’s home,  mom? Another dimension.”

Stella nodded once. “...it’s where I grew up. Where you were supposed to grow up. We don’t belong here, and never have.”

She  tapped the keyboard with a smile as the generator behind her whirred  into activation. “But thanks to the nature of time and space, I’ve found  our way back.”

Simon glanced at the generator with a nervous smile, before glancing at Hazel “I think that thing’s going to explode..” 

“Uh. I hope not,” Hazel said, frowning. “Mom… whatever this is supposed to do. You’re sure it’s going to work?”

“I  wasn’t one of the head scientists on the Chrononaut experiments for  nothing, Hazel.” Stella chided “with Joy’s help , I’m confident our  chances of failure are only around 10…maybe 18 percent.”

She glanced at the clock. “Do you have everything?”

“I haven’t gambled since the middle school lunchroom.” Simon said with a nervous laugh “this should be…f-fun.”

He nodded though “I do, ma’am.” 

Hazel  nodded. “I don’t have a lot of things I consider irreplaceable. Beyond  you and Simon, mom. If you think this will work, I trust you.”

Simon  nodded. “..yeah. I trust you too.” it was clear he was a bit nervous,  from the way he kept stroking his long hair with his fingers…but he was  making an effort, with a smile.

Stella nodded, and hit the enter key.

“Joy. Initiate the countdown, if you please.”

“10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1, engaging chrono-displacement engine now.” 

The pod vibrated ,shaking the floorboards above them with shocking force, as the core inside sparked in the open air.

Stella  leapt up, and stood back with Simon and Hazel, putting an arm on either  of their shoulders “I’m sorry this is last minute. I made a  breakthrough,” she whispered. “but when you see our home again– I hope  it’ll all be worth it.”

There was a crack. Not of breaking  machinery, but like something crackled through the very air and tore  something untearable asunder. The core flashed, and a void opened up  before them where there was once circuitry and open air.

At first, it seemed like darkness.

And  then Hazel saw there were points of light like stars, infinite stars,  stretching out into an expanse beyond anything she’d seen before.

“Terra, we’re coming home,” Stella said in quiet relief, as a strange pulling sensation tugged at the air around them.