Chapter 18 Once Upon a Pause #2
Only I did wake up. In my own quarters, exactly one day cycle after Dorie 1 appeared.
Both variants came out of their station quarters to greet me.
We all remembered what had happened with Dorie 1 and both variants dying, but we did not understand how we had been returned to exactly one day after the arrival of Dorie 1.
Furthermore, the storage space in my room still contained the small pack and the jewelry you’d worn that day.
Then, only a few pauses later, the klaxon from the fertility matching portal sounded. I barely made it out in time to catch Dorie 2 as she fell from the sky.
Me: Wait, so another me fell through the fertility portal. But one day later?
O: Yes, we would come to call this ‘the broken circle.’ This time the variants and I talked, and we agreed that you would be shared.
^Excuse me?!
O: Therefore, no chaos ensued when Dorie 2 went into heat. But we all fell into the Widower’s Madness when you died early in your gestation a second time.
More biocode revisions were made until the madness became so overwhelming, we had no choice but to take to the lake. But then, within what seemed like only moments of closing our eyes for our final sleep, we opened them to find ourselves back in this epoch.
This time, two days after Dorie 1’s arrival. And after a few pauses, Dorie 3 dropped from the sky.
^Ask about biocode revisions.
O: This cycle of trial and revision continued to the extent that your kind are what you are today.
By cycle 300, we were able to keep the fetus from attempting to expel as an egg at viability.
By cycle 750, we were able to get the Dories up to a full seven months of gestation.
By cycle 900, we were able to achieve a full hominid gestation process, but the birthing process was too hard on your body.
We continued to lose you at every attempt.
^Ask how he feels about that. face = total blank
+Another HUGE UNDERSTATEMENT. These “biocode revisions” included:
—HUGE ONE: She-wolves not shifting after gestation until three months after they’ve given birth
—Wolves having greater superhuman strength
—Our shifts being tied to the moon cycle
—Being able to quick heal while in wolf form
—Being immune to all human ailments, including cancer and infections
These were all biocode revisions that Orpheus made to our original biocode.
O: Eventually, the prophecy was instituted to ensure ideal parameters for your return to us. But even that had to be revised several times. At first, only the wolves were involved, but eventually, the bears were also brought in for their intelligence around executing outcomes.
+Mind was spinning. Did not realize the full implications of what he was saying and how it affected my timeline while he explained his side of this incredibly messed-up story. See Dorie 1000 Journal for my multi-page Prophecy Breakdown.
O: For the most part, we were unsuccessful. We kept losing you. No matter what we did. Which was why I ordered the variants not to catch you this cycle. It is the only way I can see for us all to be free of each other.
Me→started to get pissed off: So you hate me now because I kept dying after you mated me. Did you ever consider not getting me pregnant 999 times?
O: Yes. This is how we discovered that your kind dies if your heat is not successfully met.
^Shifty eyes here. Feel like he’s holding back something.
Me: So now I’m back because of your prophecy. To what? Fall into heat again? Die again?
O: No. I will end you this time before that happens.
^WTPE???!!!
Me: How about if I don’t want to become your domestic violence victim?
O: If any of us were in control of receiving what we wanted in this scenario, we would not be here. For the 1,000th time.
Me: And what happened to Fenrir Zero? Is he cycling, too?
O: He ended our civilization with an extinction weapon when it became clear the new king had no intention of calling off the hunts, effectively stranding the last of our kind here without access to the technology it would require to achieve intersystem flight.
^He did WHAT?! Come back to this. So many questions!!!
+Yes, he destroyed his own species. For us.
O: This is why you have no concept of the Drakkon inhabiting the planet you refer to as Mercury. Currently, he is on our homeworld. However, there is no indication that he knows we are stuck in this broken circle.
Me: I’d call it a time loop.
O: I am aware. We have had this argument before. Dorie 981 was an author of what she referred to as science fiction.
Me: So I had different jobs in different cycles?
O: You started off as the schoolhouse teacher for your village, but you have acquired a new job in every single cycle since the prophecy began. It has become a guessing game among us.
But we find each job relates to an aspect of something that will help you after you fall into this epoch.
In the past, you have been a history professor, a social worker, a chef specializing in exotic meats, and even a physicist who was trying to discover how to use the fertility portals for time travel outside of matching compatible partners.
In cycle 847, you were a field medic, yet you died in your eighth moon cycle of an infection we could not treat.
+See note about wolves being immune to all cancers and infections.
O: Once you were a holo director of a romance show about dragon shifters.
+That Dorie was FUN and READY! Dorie 941’s journal is a terrific read. 5 stars!
Me→trying to process: So every cycle, I go from awkward virgin to just being okay with all of this? Being stuck in a Pleistocene Age time loop? Mating three guys, and then dying in childbirth?
O: We decided early on not to distress you with the burden of your impending death. You have only discovered that you are inside this broken circle six times.
+Technically 8. They told me once, I figured it out this cycle, and six times before this one—mostly in the 900s.
Me: And what about me being totally okay mating three dragons? That’s never an issue for me?
^Crazy long silence here.
O: Only as of the last twelve cycles.
Me: What happened twelve cycles ago?
^O refusing to answer. A & D averting their eyes.
Me: Tell me. That’s an order.
O: Prior to cycle 988, she-wolves, like their bear counterparts, were encoded for heightened levels of arousal and willingness to receive multiple partners. You went into heat often and were eager for partners.
For this reason, the original Dories were between eight and ten rotations younger.
However, there was a version of you that had children you left behind. You were no longer enamored of your mate, but you felt guilty for mating with us and leaving your children without a mother.
+I was 32 when Sadie pushed me into the lake, but later found out Dories of many ages have come through the portal. Most of them opted for heat control for career reasons. But Dorie 988 went into heat at 18, married early, had two little girls, and was only 24 when she fell through the portal.
O: Subsequently, we adjusted your gender’s entire sex drive to become synchronous with your going into heat.
^WTPE! WTPE! WTPE!
Me: Wait, are you trying to tell me that the females in my race don’t feel arousal until they come in contact with someone who’s sexually compatible because you all wanted to make sure I didn’t start a family with someone else?
O: Not us all. I am the Mission Geneticist. I am the only one who decides what revisions are made to your species’s design.
Me: So you’ve been bringing me back, cycle after cycle, lifetime after lifetime, to have your kid and your kid only?
O: Dorie, you misunderstand my intention.
Me: No, I think I understand perfectly. The Irish Shifters used me to fulfill your prophecy, and now you’re using me.
It doesn’t matter how many times you bring me back, you just keep doing it again and again to create the perfect incubator for your race. And now, you’re just going to kill me because you’re tired of your little science experiment never working out.
+Later, I will regret these words.
O: You are being unfair. You have no idea what the Widower’s Madness has wrought within my brain—where are you going?
Dorie! Do not leave! Dorie, come back!
+End Note: I did not come back. This is where the interview finished because I ran out of the room in a rage.
+The rest of my account can be found in the Dorie 1000 Journal.