4.7

Time: Relative.

Location: Low Earth Orbit.

I can fly again… there is nothing sweeter. Lying back and floating outside the atmosphere is comforting.

As I watch the Earth rotate I'm reminded that regardless of humanity, it will keep on spinning long after we're gone. Also, I can attest it is not flat. Slightly egg shaped, but not flat.

Another plus, there is absolutely no rush as I sit here, lost in time. What's gonna happen is already certain. I can't affect anyone out here… well almost. If I stray too far out into space the Martians might notice me. They can sense Earth as a cluster of thoughts on a good day, after all.

Sitting here eating lunch is marvellous. I'm tempted to take a visit to the moon and claim it for my own over-inflated ego… nah. Some other time.

Of course my future has a mass of complications, I have to find a man named Xuanzang and find a way to communicate with him, because ancient Chinese dialects weren't part of my regular studies at school. Or tracking. Which I will be needing badly, since I don't have a clue where in China to begin looking.

But gods being gods aren't straight forward unless it's vital. It seems Odin wanted me to search, but Frigg being helpful has left me instructions in English, hidden under her delicious food. Seriously, how does a queen cook so well, even if she is a goddess?

She also lists five places to visit within the next day… Um… okay?

The first a point on the Nile, just off the first branch. Okay… I descend and carefully assess the area and note a pile of corpses being picked over by vultures. Gruesome stuff, they seem to have been killed by swords. In the hands of one is a scroll. Really old, papyrus and written in ancient Egyptian… or whatever they call it here. Kahndaq, that's it!

Well, I don't know the contents, so score?

The next is an abandoned cottage. In Germany. Exploring the tiny place, I step on a rotten board and find myself almost doing the splits as it collapses under me. But I also find a bundle of cloth, which is covering a slightly dusty sheet of bronze with Latin inscription.

At the third stop, near Pompeii. I begin to sense a pattern as yet again, no humans, but writing aplenty. An entire book of fired clay tablets. Latin again. Hidden inside a broken, hollow tree.

The fourth is just a bag in the middle of the road in Spain, did it fall off a cart? Bundled with vellum scrolls.

The final stop is less obvious. A grassy knoll. Beneath it however, I sense metal in massive amounts. Someone buried like a viking. Most of the metal is rust and iron, useless. Or golden treasure, equally useless because I'd need to carry it. But a single item flashes as odd. It hasn't rusted. No, more than that, it quivers as it feels me test it. A ring.

I can't even identify its material, beyond metal. Magic, obviously and maybe even sapient?

With a tug it burrows through the soil to emerge and float into my hands. Solid, plain iron. From all appearances. But it is too responsive, almost eager as I move it to slip onto my finger. After all, a treasure that a benevolent god sends me to must be helpful. Or necessary.

I don't feel any different. No obvious desire to rule the world, that I didn't possess before, anyway. I don't feel like collecting the other nine, so it isn't a set item. Not an obvious Lantern ring either.

Honestly, I have no clue what it does. Where is my D&D wizard with Identify scrolls? Oh right. France, circa 1989 AD. Named Louise.

Back into the sky I go, to float among the stars. I have some thoughts about taking advantage of my situation… hmm. Black Adam, revenge plans. Kinetic impact from orbit, destroying Teth Adom's tomb.

If I knew where it was…

Dammit.

Can't think of anyone who would know.

Hmm. Visit the Amazons? They should remain isolated until World War Two.

Ras Al Ghul is out there somewhere too. And probably a bunch of other guys I've never heard about. Oh, Fate's Helmet is around somewhere in another tomb… perhaps right next to Teth Adom? The Egyptians did like to build the important tombs in one place to make guarding them from grave robbers easier. Valley of the Kings.

I'll pass on that, Anubis hates grave robbers and I've already borrowed one too many items from the dead today.

As I float here, pondering my next move a glowing portal opens up and out shoots a longboat covered in clocks. Um… time travelling vessel found? Convenient.

"You there!" A figure in rather dramatic gold and red costume gestures. "Come over here."

He feels odd, not mentioning how he is talking to me in space. Where no sound travels, because there are no molecules to carry the vibration.

Still, this is my opportunity. I float closer.

"You? You appear to be Magnus." He states.

I nod.

"Where is Epoch?!" He demands.

Who?

He looks at me sharply, waiting for a response.

I shrug.

The man? seems to deflate.

"I tracked his Time Cube to these coordinates. Where is he? Did you see him?" The probable hero asks.

I shake my head. No.

"How did you get to this time… you are younger than I remember from our first encounter." He remarks.

I shrug.

"Come aboard. I will take you back home." He declares. He pauses. "I detect the Time Cube. It is concealed in your baggage."

What? Wait, the orange, glowing crystal I took off Savage? That's a cube.

I pull it out and show it to the time traveller. Who displays relief.

"How did it come into your possession?" He asks.

I shrug.

"You may speak, you are within the air barrier surrounding my Timeship." He offers.

"Oh, thank goodness. Before that, who the heck are you?" I ask.

"I am Hourman, a robotic creation of Tyler Chemorobotics of the year 85,271 AD. Patterned after the DNA of Rex Tyler the first Hourman." He elaborated. "Now, please explain how Epoch's Time Cube is in your possession and why you are here, in the year 622 AD."

"I woke up in this time and found the cube in the hands of Vandal Savage." I explained.

"Please hand me the cube, I will extract it's data files. This may explain the situation. A time traveller and a time travel device in the same location is highly likely to be linked." He explained.

Wait, that's a time machine?! I was going to use it as a paper weight!

I remove the cube and the android takes it and in an instant begins to spit out the answers.

"Yes, the correlation is obvious. In the year 2032 after an intense battle with myself, Epoch attempted an emergency time jump and landed in 1989 on a direct collision course with an intense magnetic field… yourself. The machine's computer was damaged by the sudden electromagnetic spike and the impact caused a random time jump. Epoch abandoned ship, to his Timepoint hideout. Which left you and the cube to arrive, violently." He looks up thoughtfully. "You shouldn't be alive, that kind of impact would be fatal."

"A god saved me on arrival. Must have healed me too. Perhaps because I didn't know about the cube it wasn't found by me but bandits… or maybe it was packed in my bag by the deity and I never noticed." I shrug.

"The latter." Hourman responded. I'll take his word for it, he is reading the logs after all.

Still…

"An accident? Seriously? No grand design, no malice? Just a slip when pressing a button." I groaned.

Hourman nodded. "It is difficult to factor Metahumans and Mutants like yourself into time travel, care has to be taken or collisions are inevitable. My Timeship is programmed with all plane flight courses and satellite trajectories where possible over the next 85 thousand years." He paused. "Paragliders have occasionally given me troubles. And Da Vinci that one time."