Do you ever think about threes?
Threes? Is that a card game?
No, I mean things that come in threes. Triplets.
No? Don't tell me you're into numerology.
Only as a bit.
What are you getting at, then?
I think trinities are important, is all. You ever think about how many there are in human cultures?
Maybe a little.
A table with fewer than three legs can't stand, right? I mean, if it's on a single "leg" in the center, that's a post, not a leg. I guess if you make a two-legged table with really wide legs, you could cheat that way, too. But narrow legs? Legs that look... leggy? Gotta have at least three.
Sure. Did you run out of anecdotes or something?
No, I'm going somewhere with this.
Slowly.
One of the basic building blocks of the universe is tritium: one proton and two neutrons. A hydrogen isotope. The heaviest one, actually.
I'd mention the Christian Trinity but come on. You've been to church.
One of the simplest family units is a trio: two parents and a child.
Or two children and one parent.
You said it.
Philosophically, it resolves dualism by offering a third path. If you make a triangle--three points, three sides--you're pretty much showing a peak and a base. Or it's an arrowhead, pointing to an answer.
Are you high?
Yes, but that's not influencing this.
What did you have?
One of my friends brought me some gummies.
You don't have friends. Where'd you really get it?
I bought it with Ethereum on the dark web? Does that work?
You bought it from Tony, didn't you? I knew that fucker was moonlighting.
Slinging coffee doesn't pay enough, he says.
First of all, stop buying drugs from Tony. Second of all, stop doing drugs.
Didn't know you were straight edge. You're no fun.
I just don't think a guy your age should be doing dope.
I'm a big boy, Brynn.
Big and stupid. Now how much did you take?
Um, twenty?
Jesus Christ. How often are you doing this?
Oh, I've been at this a while. You have to understand, my cybernetics filter a lot of the THC out of my blood, so I need a lot to really feel it.
I don't even know what to think of this.
Are you telling me you don't do anything?
I didn't say that.
Yeah, because that would be a lie. How much do you do?
I smoke once in a while.
How often is "once in a while?"
A... couple times...
A day? A week? A year?
A week, OK? Who's the cop now?
That's space cop to you.
What was I saying?
Threes?
Right. Good mobile game, by the way. Did you know everyone basically ripped off the 2048 formula from that?
How do you even know something like that?
I have a lot of free time.
Clearly. What about threes? Other than a mobile game.
June, Mark, and I are a trio, too. A weird one. But you get it.
I'm not sure I do. You haven't told me much about Mark.
He was my friend. He dated June. He did not especially like that June was my best friend, at least not when he was dating her. He got extra jealous when she and I started getting closer, after they broke up.
Not a very friendly trio, if you ask me.
It was, at one time. Kind of fell apart. Then June died.
What happened to Mark?
I lost touch with him during the War. I only found out years later that he'd joined up with the Navy, too. His parents were well off and his dad was Navy brass already, so he moved up the ranks quick.
Nepo baby.
And how. It burned him up that I got a command before him. It probably burned him up more that his first command was the Titus, named after his father.
Ouch. Were they trying to insult him with that?
I'm told the admiralty thought it was a token of honor to let him command the ship named for his father, but he didn't see it that way. More of a reminder that he didn't earn his place. It was just given to him.
Why didn't he turn it down?
You turn down a command, you don't get another one. Plenty of people who want to run a ship, lots more than there are ships. He wasn't going to pass up the opportunity.
Sounds like he resented himself more than he resented you.
Yeah, but that's not how he saw it. He projected all his anger onto me. I was with June when she died, and he wasn't. He got a command, but I had one first, and I did bigger things. The Titus was a nice ship but it wasn't cut out for serious combat operations. It was a frigate and mostly used to patrol the border with the Dor'Tel. They didn't dare send it into real trouble because the last thing they needed was two Tituses dying in service.
What happened to his dad, then?
A casualty of the Cranion War, sadly. There was a skirmish at Arcturus and he bit off more than he could chew. Lost a third of his battle group, but stayed behind with a couple other people on a measly corvette to do a delaying action until the other ships could escape. It was a suicide run, and he knew it. Died a hero.
Damn. That's a lot to live up to.
Yeah. How do you surpass that? I felt sorry for him, but him being such an asshole about it made it hard.
Once I disappeared from the future--his present, mind you--I guess he got obsessed. He knew I wasn't the type to just go missing. Then the Second Koraxian War happened, and word of me showing up and helping my brother eventually got around. It was then that he started to figure I was traveling through time. A huge leap, admittedly. This wasn't something anyone on Earth thought was possible. Nobody knew about the Sikaren timeships or anything.
Given his extremely high clearance, he was allowed to know about the Focus, and he started studying it. Eventually figured out that it was the core of a timeship, a fact I don't think he shared with anyone, but this fully confirmed his suspicions, since he knew I'd operated the Focus at least twice, plus he heard about how my skeleton was found near the site.
You never did tell me about that whole thing.
Another day. Too messy to get into in the middle of this.
Now that he knew time travel was possible, he just had to find a way to do it. He used his family's resources to hire freelancers to shuttle him around and check out leads. What all he did, I'm not completely sure of. It's not like he gave me a blow-by-blow. What I do know is that he went out past Oolian space, pretty much the middle of nowhere, following leads on where he might find Sikaren tech, records, or ships.
There weren't any unaccounted for timeships, but it took him a while to figure that out. He needed another way. Something like the Focus: a fixed facility, maybe with limited capabilities. But he knew he wanted to follow me into the past.
Why?
To fuck with me.
Really? That's all?
You are not understanding how much this guy envied me. I think it all just broke him.
He got his hands on a Sikaren lexicon. I have no idea what he paid for it, but it wasn't cheap. Whoever sold it didn't realize what they had, but he knew enough from the design of the Focus to recognize Sikaren tech on sight. He set to work unlocking and translating it, and there was just about enough info in there to replicate the Focus. Not completely, but it at least made bopping around through the timeline feasible.
Except, in typical Mark fashion, he didn't fully test it or take any precautions. He just got the thing built, turned it on, and poof. He was thrown into the past, arriving a few years before me. 1983 or so.
That gave him time to prepare for you, I take it.
Yeah, by then he had sussed out that my first landing point was 1988, so he wasn't too upset about being there first. He was upset that he had no way back. But imagine you're a guy from the future, and you need money and resources quickly.
Did he play the stock market?
No, he was actually a baseball fan. He knew the Cubs' entire record. So, he just started placing bets.
I'm sorry. He got rich from sports betting?
Didn't you see Back to the Future: Part II? That's where he got the idea.
That sounds insane, but OK. And, what, he used all this to start planning revenge on you?
That's right. I can hardly describe the look on his face when I finally got to tell him that I met a time-jumping June, too, and that she liked me and not him.
You guys are too fixated on one girl you were both into. You know that, right? What is this, like a multi-century grudge about one girl? Some might call it epic, but I call it sad.
Call it what you will, I'm the one she boned.
Ew. Now, wait a second, Mark isn't the Carpathian?
No. Completely different guy.
You have too many enemies, man.
Not anymore!