Evolutionary Liberator

"You are going to have to start at the beginning," said his mother, sitting down with a huge bowl of noodles.

Olivia was busy slurping her own noodles, and Dustin was blowing on his, to cool them. They were one of his mom's best dishes, from when he was little, and she had just happened to be making herself some of them, to eat over the coming week.

"Good, because I still need to know a few things," he said. "I was sentenced to a year on a death planet, only there was a problem of a time dilation, that ended up lasting twenty years instead."

"What?!" exclaimed his mom and Olivia together.

"I overheard the orderlies talking about it," he said, looking over at Olivia guiltily.

"Those jerks!" she fumed, taking another bite of her noodles.

"You spent twenty years on that horrible place?" his mom said, anger and outrage on her face.

"No, actually. That's what I need to talk to you about. Do you have any experience with Gooblens?"

"What?! How have you heard about them?" asked his mom.

Olivia had paused in eating her noodles to listen.

"Do you?" he asked again, ignoring her question.

"Actually, when I was very young, a Gooblen came along and took care of me. Your father found me, because of her, and she left me with him. I'm not sure whatever happened to her…" his mom said, trailing off as she remembered her past.

Dustin nodded thoughtfully.

"What did you call her?" he asked.

She looked embarrassed before answered. "Granny."

"Are you aware of any Uz'En having an ability to access other Uz'En memories? Past or future?"

"There are stories…" his mom said, obviously struggling to remember any of them.

"I've heard of an ability like that. It was called chrono skimming. There was a lot of interest in it, in the military, and everyone was tested heavily for it. What do you know about it?" Olivia asked, forgetting her noodles until he took a bite of his own.

"Okay, look. I think I have that ability," he said, watching the looks of surprise on their faces. "While I was under, I met Olivia, escaped from the death world, killed the Josagn," he said, starting to tick things off on his fingers as their looks of surprise climbed and climbed.

"I found a new homeworld for the Uz'En, moved it to a safe place, developed nanobots, perfected the PED that Olivia is wearing now, we married, had a child, found my dad hiding, met up with Granny, collected the Uz'En from all over the galaxy, fought several alien races and one rogue AI before… before I was woken up," he ended, not sure he wanted to add that everyone died in the end.

"I'm not sure I believe all of that," said Olivia, looking dubious.

"I know how to prove it," said his mom, setting her empty bowl down. "What is your real father's name?"

"Kitteral," he said, without hesitating.

While his mom's eyes immediately began to tear, Olivia jumped in.

"Sorry to break your bubble, but I can't have kids. They sterilize us before we can…"

Dustin jumped in before she could finish.

"They always sterilize you, but you can regrow your missing bits with that PED."

She glanced down at it thoughtfully as his mother gave a massive sob.

"We have to find him! Please!"

"Calm down, he went into hiding to keep the AI from finding you and killing you, but I've already dealt with the AI."

"How?" asked Olivia.

"A simple reprogram and it believed that it was a threat that needed to be dealt with before anything else. I also sent a little care package to every alien race that ever tried to eradicate us, that can't be traced back to the humans."

"Are you sure?" asked Olivia with a worried look on her face.

"Relax. The worst that can happen, is everyone thinks the Josagn sent them, and then they will be wiped out."

"That's harsh," said his mother, still wiping her eyes and blowing her nose.

"No, it's brilliant!" exclaimed Olivia. "I hate those disgusting bird creeps!"

"So, what are we doing now?" asked his mom, sitting forward in her seat to hear his answer.

Dustin thought about that. "I can hack into the network and get us tickets off the planet, so we can start looking for dad and Granny. Do you guys want me to check on the planet I made our home? I named it Haven, by the way."

They discussed their options over the next thirty minutes, and finally decided to get his dad and Granny first, before heading for the planet Haven. He explained to them that his time in the virtual world had been dated two hundred years into the future, so things were bound to be interesting for them.

When they heard of the time difference, he had to explain the bits about learning how to stop aging, and being frozen in the cryo-units. Olivia drilled him on what he knew about her, and ended up being rather impressed. He was just glad he remembered as much as he did, though, he did leave out the bit on her being a clone. He wanted to wait and see if Granny thought she was one, before worrying about that.

Building a second PED for his mom, who couldn't change her facial features to save her soul, he then gave both of them quick lessons on using them. Finally, three hours after they arrived, they were climbing into the back of a taxi, on their way to the space port. They all appeared to be businessmen, safe from the scrutiny of the unmarked car at the gates.

Pausing at the ticket kiosk, they acquired tickets to be allowed onto one of the newest and fastest sh.i.p.s currently docked at the port. The funny thing was, as they arrived at the boarding desk, their tickets were the only ones that worked. Even the pilot and flight attendants were denied access by the robot guard.

Dustin couldn't help giving them all a grin as the doors shut on the angry group of people.