This story is a cross-over between the worlds of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda and Forever Knight. It represents a stole few minutes from an episode of each show. For Forever Knight, it takes place during the episode Last Knight as Tracy Vetter is going through the back halls of the station to reach the locker-room where the escaped prisoner Dawkins is holed up with a gun. For Andromeda, it takes place during Ouroboros just after Beka Valentine warns the "new improved old" Trance Gemini not to lie to her and both women step through the doorway that Harper and the "chin head" step through coming the other way. Total elapsed "real time" is probably about 5 minutes. Just enough to shake both universes really hard :-) Comments to timp@dec.anr.state.vt.us Permission to archive this story anywhere (FTP site, FanFiction Page, websites, whatever future technology you can invent) is freely given. An Intersection Of Space and Time (01/01) Tracy Vetter crept down the hallway with her shoulder brushing the wall. Dawkins was somewhere in the back part of the precinct house. Armed and dangerous. Tracy was concentrating too much to be afraid, eyes and ears straining to give her that critical moment's advantage if Dawkins stepped out to shoot at her. Dawkins hadn't killed anybody yet, but Tracy didn't want to be his first victim. Her Beretta was up and her finger was on the trigger, ready to go when needed. It spoke something for Tracy's concentration that she had a mental moment to react to the blue-white flash-bulb of light ahead of her. She didn't fire by reflex into the two figures who walked out of the doorway into the hall; she recognized that this wasn't Dawkins and that was enough to hold her trigger-finger. Then, Tracy eased the pistol down in disbelief. One of the two women, looked like she had come from Goth Night at the Raven. She wore a black leather tunic that showed a lot of cleavage. Leather skirt. Elaborately teased hair held back off her forehead with a hair-band that looked like it was wove from ivory. She appeared young, but there was something old in her eyes. The other woman was more startling; for Tracy thought she looked into a mirror. The hair was cut shorter, but the other woman was her twin. The same build. The same perky flash to the eyes. The most significant difference was a style in clothing that looked drawn from a sci-fix epic. "Who are you?" Tracy asked her double. Beka Valentine shook her head and asked with exasperation; "Exactly how many versions of myself am I going to met today, Trance?" The young Gothic woman corrected her friend, "This isn't you actually you, Beka. This is your grandmother so many times removed we don't have the time to list them all. We are on Earth itself. Late 20th century." "My who?" Beka asked in disbelief. Tracy noticed that both the other women were armed and stopped lowering her pistol. She didn't bring it up to point that them, but she held it ready again. "I'm not a mother," Tracy said tensely. "The closest thing to a steady boyfriend I have can't even give me children." Trance's gaze was gentle. "Vachon is still alive then?" Tracy was instantly suspicious. "How do you know Vachon?" she demanded. Who where these women and how did they know about her vampire friend? Trance didn't step closer, but her voice was an attempt at intimacy. "Tracy, please. Answer a couple of innocent questions, more depends upon it than you could possibly know. Is Vachon still alive?" Tracy thought a moment and went with the oddity of the moment. "Yes." "There was no plague amidst the Toronto vampires?" Trance questioned. Tracy shook her head. "A plague? No. There is no plague." "Good, she succeeded," Trance said with satisfaction to herself. She spoke urgently and with emotion. "Tracy, in a couple of minutes you will have to make a decision that will literally affect the future of the universe. What you must do is simple and difficult. You must trust in the fact that your partner does not need your protection. He can handle Dawkins. Do not step into the locker room. If you do, the probability is that you will die." "What happens to me if she goes into the locker room?" Beka asked. "She said knowing the answer," the Andromeda's Executive Officer whispered to herself. There was another blue-white flash and a third Tracy/Beka joined the women in the hall. Tracy regarded the latest incarnation of herself. This woman definitely wasn't perky. If anything, she was dark. She looked like a refugee from The Road Warrior. Black leather clothing that verged on armor. A massive pistol on the right hip. Her body had been badly damaged at some point; right eye covered by a high-tech black plastic patch, left arm replaced by a metallic prosthetic like a medieval gauntlet. The only thing that lightened the darkness was her shortly cropped bright red hair and the expressiveness of her lone eye. When she spoke, Tracy heard her own voice. "If she goes into that locker room, we will cease to exist," the latest version of Tracy said. "I am you and we are her grand- daughter many times removed. If she dies, we die." "This is getting too weird," Tracy said. "What is going on here!" she demanded to know. Trance attempted to sooth her. "Tracy, this is confusing. We are from deep in the future. A future reflecting a past that you will create tonight. Trust me that if you go into the locker room, more lives will be affected than yours." "What will happen to Nick?" Tracy demanded. "Nothing," Trance said. "He will be OK." "How do you know?" Tracy said. "Who are you?" A few minutes earlier - by her own relative time-line - Beka Valentine the Younger would have risen to defend and support Trance. That had been when her friend was a purple-skinned thief of considerable talent who never explained but generally didn't lie. Now, Trance was a gold-skinned voyager from Beka's own future who obviously was playing games with the time-continuum. Beka Valentine the Younger didn't trust Trance very far herself; she couldn't advocate that Tracy believe her. It fell to Beka Valentine the Elder, whose single eye had seen more than it should have, to support Trance. "Trance knows," Beka said, "because she is from you future. As am I. I know who you are, also. And I know how important it is that you survive. Most people's lives have no effect on the cosmos. The ripples of their lives are very localized and never noticed outside the small corner that they inhabit. I am unique in that I have a single decision in my life that literally shakes the universe. You are truly more unique in that you have two. One of them is the decision to not follow your partner into the locker room tonight. Live, and your second decision can become possible. That decision will lead to me. Without you, my decision can never be made." Tracy looked at Beka the Elder. Saw herself reflected in the lone eye of the battered woman who stood proudly and defiantly before her. "Why should I believe you?" Tracy asked. "Why not?" Beka the Elder said. "Explain how else we arrived here. How we look like this? Do you think this is some elaborate prank being played at your expense?" Tracy looked at the younger/future version of herself. That Beka shrugged. "Temporal mechanics gives me head- aches. I know who I am." She looked at Beka The Elder. "I know that you are my future self and - no offense - I don't think I want what happened to you to happen to me." Beka the Elder smiled faintly at that. "If I am saying to trust Trance, I would have good reason," Beka the Younger said. "Don't go into the locker room." Trance tugged on Beka the Younger's sleeve. "Beka, we have to leave in a moment. Whatever Tracy decides to do, is what she does. We can not impose upon her free will to act as she sees fit. I can sense a probability window that will allow us to return to the Maru." Trance looked at Beka the Elder. "If you leave just before us, I think you'll arrive where you want to be." Beka the Elder nodded. Her right hand slipped behind her back and brought something forward before Tracy thought to be scared. It was a wrought gold double-helix arm-band big enough to fit a circus strong-man. Beka the Younger saw the arm-band and her eyes got round. "You've got to be kidding," she breathed. Her older self smiled and kissed the band with a moment of longing and then handed it to Tracy. "Offer this to every man who catches your fancy. The man who puts it on his arm without hesitation is the father of your child. Savor the time you have with him for it will not last long." Tracy managed a wry smile. "Does he have a distinguishing tattoo or something so I don't hit on every last man I see?" Beka the Elder's face crinkled with a smile that looked rusty >from lack of practice. "He has a tattoo, but you'll only find it once you give him the arm-band. Look for a very self-assured man in dreadlocks. He will be irritatingly direct, but he is literally your future. Enjoy his company while you can. I will need him back." Beka the Younger rubbed her temples with her hands. "I am getting a serious head-ache. Come on, Trance. I want to get out of here before I learn that you are also part of Tyr's harem." Trance Gemini walked over to the doorway that the three women from the future had entered by and stared into what Tracy knew to be an empty office. Beka the Elder stepped to Trance's side and whispered something into the woman's elfish ear that caused Trance to giggle - an amazingly innocent sound in a hallway filled with such potents of the future. Trance slipped an arm around Beka and the two woman stood in a friendly embrace until Trance said. "Now, Beka." Without a moment's hesitation, Beka the Elder stepped through a brilliant blue-white flash and disappeared into thin air. Trance nodded with satisfaction and then turned to Tracy. "One last thing?" Trance said. "Tonight, don't allow Nick and Natalie to be alone together. Crash the Loft with Vachon and drag them out into the Night. If you leave them alone, they will literally self-destruct." Tracy tried to absorb another glimpse of the future. "Are they important to the future of the cosmos also?" She demanded with wry cynicism that she immediately regretted upon hearing Trance's answer. "No, they are not. But, they are very important to you. Good friends are one of the few things you can rely upon, Tracy. Treasure them and protect them. They are very hard to replace even if you have infinity to contemplate." Trance favored Beka with a very fond smile that Beka the Younger found she couldn't return. Then, Trance looked into the doorway. "Beka, we have to go now. Please." Beka and Tracy exchanged a final look and Beka moved to stand with Trance. Trance Gemini slipped her arm around Beka's waist as she had the older version of Beka Valentine. Beka didn't return the embrace, but neither did she shug it off. And, Beka stepped forward confidentially with Trance, both women disappearing into the blue-white flash that lead to the future. Tracy Vetter blinked her eyes. The hallway was empty. The only evidence of what had just happened was the heavy gold double-helix arm-band in her left hand. The symbol of life through procreation. And the ability to sway the fate of an entire universe via a single act of love. Tracy realized that the helix was balanced by the pistol in her right hand. A symbol of the immediate obligation to her partner and friend. The commitment of the professional law officer to protect their partner even with deadly force if necessary. Hadn't Trance said that a good friend was something to treasure and protect? She balanced the obligation of the immediate present against what she now believed to be her obligation of the future. Tracy literally shifted the pistol and the helix up and down in her hands, weighing their respective merits as she tried to decide what to do. In the end...she did what was right. The End. Tim Phillips timp@dec.anr.state.vt.us