Come and Watch How The Children Play

A time-traveling couple but heads when faced with a moral Delmar which they ave struggled with before.

Lo sat reclined in a stained La-Z-Boy which rested in the middle of the bridge where the bland and professional looking captain’s chair was once bolted. With an audible sigh, he pushed the headrest back allowing, himself to become fully engulfed in the splendors of his ancestor’s engineering. After a moment, he became very bored with the metallic ceiling and sat up to gaze at the television screen in front of him.

“I’m telling you K8,” Lo said as he rested his chin on his fists. “This chair’s going to make our job a whole lot easier.” A long and awkward silence fell save for the occasional sizzle of liquified metal. Lo glanced to his right to see his wife very intently soldering a joint together. “You know those wires aren’t connected to anything, right?” He shifted a bit in his chair as he recalled why he was getting the silent treatment: The chair. The chair had been a gift from a people who will live much further in the future than he and K8 were to observe today. It was about a month ago when Lo finally accepted the gift after years of restraint. They had been offered gifts like this for years through the weekly offerings upon the sacred trash day, but had always declined due to the Anti Deity Laws which kept time travelers like K8 and Lo from making gods of themselves using their superior technologies. Lo had spotted it while lining up for their time jump and “accidentally” gave the hand gesture which caused the ship to transport the object onboard. K8, being a stickler for the rules and a ruthless workaholic, felt Lo’s actions were quite brash and that they inconvenienced their mission heavily. After a great deal of deliberation with his blue skinned spouse, he convinced her that both giving the chair back and ejecting it out the airlock could lead to much greater damages than keeping it. Lo shuddered as he recalled a similar experience he and his wife went through a few years earlier when he decided he wanted to make friends with some of the local wildlife and accidentally kidnapped a dog. Lo’s attention left his thoughts as the scene upon the screen began to change.

Upon the screen laid a lovely grassy hill upon which sat a forest where a few dozen knights began to emerge into a clearing from either side. Once clear of any foliage, they began to charge at each other and clashed in the middle of the clearing in a ferocious battle. The gleam of the sun could be seen reflecting off of the ant sized warriors, giving their gruesome battle a rather lovely shimmer from afar. Seizing his opportunity to win back his wife’s favor with a bit of philosophy, Lo awkwardly attempted to gain his wife’s attention.

“Look at them,” Lo chuckled gesturing with a lazily thrown hand, “their battles are so feeble.” Lo turned towards K8. “They do all this fighting over whose god is real when it’s just us, their descendants, getting a little superiority high on occasional visit with some sort of battery powered toaster.”

“Don’t be so hypocritical,” replied K8 without looking up from her work.

Lo cocked his as innocently as he could possibly muster and inquired with a delicate, “oh,” as a small puff of smoke rose the newly formed joint.

“Don’t act like you haven’t realized it yet,” she continued.

“What do you mean?”

“Your comment is just as feeble as their battle,” she said as she flicked off the power and set down the still smoking iron. She walked around the counter she had been working at and placed herself between Lo and the screen. “In fact, your thoughts are just as meaningless as your comment,” she rudely declared. K8 placed her hands on either arm of the chair and leaned in making sure Lo knew the fire behind her amber eyes was still burning bright as ever.

Lo attempted to lean back in order to escape the heat of her gaze but the foot rest, which leaned in tandem with the back of the chair, ended his retreat as it gently collided with K8’s rooted legs. “Are you saying the evil of meaningless death is equal to the evil of my observation of their death’s meaninglessness?” he asked in a shrewd tone as if he was obviously in the right.

K8 cocked her head and smugly replied. “Yep.” She stayed there staring at her shifty eyed husband for a moment before standing up and taking a step back to view the screen. She gave him a moment to relax as they both watched the battle in silence.

At this point, the battle’s ferocity was beginning to die down due to the exhaustion of the participants, and the fact that there were less of them. After a couple more minutes of observation, a group of horsemen emerged from the west side of the clearing and began to indiscriminately slaughter the exhausted footmen. In the front of this group was a rather fat man in glittering armour which was bedazzled with extremely congenial looking golds and silvers. After the group circled around the battlefield a couple times hacking and slashing maliciously, they began to become more selective about their prey.

“And, like usual, the king has valiantly charged in to save the day,” Lo sighed as he watched the lucky remaining footmen stagger off weakly behind their gilded masters who now appeared to be heroically retreating into the woods.

“Huh… that’s strange,” K8 murmured as she walked over to the control panel next to the screen. “Let's see what’s scared off our courageous crusaders.” She changed the view settings from normal to infrared. After a moment of calibration, a large splotch of red became apparent a few meters behind the eastern edge of the treeline.

“Well, s**t,” Lo spouted as he began to watch the screen more inquisitively, “you may have been right about those embellished books after all.”

“Of course I was right. I’m the best there is,” K8 said as she returned the screen to it’s original settings and walked back to her husband’s side. She sat on the arm of his chair as she smugly recalled their roles and how good they were at their jobs. While Lo was in charge of piloting and maintaining the ship, K8’s job was the important one. She was what was known as a Chrono. Chronos are members of an organization of historians who travel back in time and observe the events of history from vessels which were satirically called saucers. The satire came form the vast amounts of excitement their vehicles caused whenever they were spotted by the people of old. Lo’s job was to make sure that happened as infrequently as possible. He did this through regular maintenance on the camouflage equipment and by avoiding populated areas whenever things went wrong which happened more often than most would think. This was due to the relative newness and unreliability of their camouflage technology.

A small movement caught Lo’s eye and he zoomed in onto the spot by placing his fist over it and spreading his fingers slowly. Several crimson corpses which were in the area Lo zoomed in on laid motionless until something moved once again in the corner. Placing his finger in the middle of his view, he moved his hand to the side which resulted the view to move likewise. A man could now be seen rocking back and forth clutching what must have been a newly “modified” leg. “Looks like we’ve got a roller,” he said in a more pitiful tone than his words suggested.

K8 placed her arm around his shoulder and laid her head on top of his as she spoke in a soft, but firm voice. “Honey, he chose to be there, look at his armor.”

“Look at his leg. Wealthy or not, there’s little chance he’ll make it off of the field.”

“You better not be thinking what I think you're thinking,” she said as she straightened and moved his face so his gaze would meet hers.

He held her gaze for a moment until he slowly nodded and turned his head back to the solemn scene where the man could now be seen desperately searching the battlefield for some sort of help. The man’s eyes widened and he began to search around frantically. Seemingly realizing no help was to be found, his eyes narrowed as he paused staring somewhere east of the screen.

Lo placed his open hand over the middle of the screen, and closed his fingers, causing the view to zoom out enough to see the entire bloodstained clearing. Around 30 pikemen walked cautiously out of the part of the forest the infrared revealed contained heat, and began to survey the battlefield. A knight carrying a sword who was standing in the middle of the group began yelling out orders and pointing his blade in different directions across the battlefield. The pikemen quickly peeled off having about five go in each of the directions their apparent commander was pointing. They slowly stepped over bodies as they checked for signs of life. One of the soldiers which was headed to the southern corner of the clearing began yelling and pointing at a body near his feet. The body suddenly came to life as it began crawling away frantically. The commander shouted some orders and all five of the pikemen in the area quickly sprang on the desperate retreating soldier stabbing him repeatedly. Lo cringed and quickly closed his hand zooming back into the soldier who was clenching his leg only to find we was now laying on his back stealthily watching the pikemen nearest to his position.

“Clever lad,” Lo approvingly claimed in a fake english accent.

“He’ll be a dead lad soon enough” replied K8 as she gestured to the severed leg which was currently gushing unhealthy amounts of blood.

“You’re right,” said Lo disappointedly, “he’s turning pale already.” Lo began inspecting the velcro which held his boots closed. Apparently he forgot to do the bottom strap this morning. After an extended second of depressed thought, a sly grin spread across his his face as he chuckled, “And eventually he’ll be turning blue just like you.”

“What are you going on about?” K8 said as she crossed her arms and leaned away with raised eyebrows. “It’s not my fault my grandmother thought it would be a good idea to modify our DNA so she would have the first blue children with fiery eyes on earth.”

“I know, but it bothers the hell out of you and honestly it’s hilarious.”

She shook her head and continued watching the screen impatiently.

Lo looked back up at the screen and noticed that the man’s eyes now were closed and one of the pikemen was prodding at the body just below him.

K8 shot him a dangerous look as he placed his finger on the screen just above the wounded soldier. “Don’t you dare,” she said through gently gritted teeth.

“Fine” Lo sighed in an exuberant tone as he lowered his hand. He did his best to look defeated in order to avoid raising suspicion about his next action. With a sudden move he called out,  “whoops” and lunged forward placing his palm on the screen over the wounded soldier. The screen grew blindingly bright as Lo began laughing maniacally.

K8 began pacing around the cabin pulling at her hair. Mumbling something about “every time” while shaking her head.

The cabin grew dark as the light of the screen diminished. Lo blinked for a minute as his eyes adjusted to the once again normally lit room. Turning back to the screen, there was a scorched circle in the earth where the wounded soldier had once lay. The bodies around him were missing parts which sat where the circle had hit, and one very surprised pikeman laid on his back staring at the spot in astonishment.

“Whelp,” Lo said with a smug grin, “Time to greet our new guest.”

K8 now leaning on the island she was once soldering at with her face in her hand shaking her head slowly groaned, “it’s moments like these that make me doubt our partnership.”

“Ah hush, you know you love the way I do things” he said as he walked towards a flushed doorway. “Besides,” Lo stopped at the door, “It’s been too long since we’ve played god.”

“Not this time Lo” said K8 as she stood up and walked towards the door “this one needs help, and I'd like to study how he reacts to learning that all the truths he once clung to are false. It’ll give me something to think about while we’re in prison.”

“We’re not going to get caught as long as you let me do the talking.” Lo looked into K8’s eyes until he was sure his words had sunk in. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out as he cracked the door just a bit. As he completed saying, “time to make a good first impression,” Lo flung the door open allowing him and K8 to walk in just before the door slammed shut behind them.

An empty La-Z-Boy bathed in the light of a television screen in the middle of the bridge where the bland and professional looking captain’s chair was once bolted. Upon the screen laid a red and muddy clearing where a few dozen knights lay motionless. The muffled sound of multiple shouting voices could be heard in an adjacent room as the forest surrounding the clearing swayed gently and peacefully in the breeze.

Author's Note

Not sure what's up with the spacing. Please shred this to pieces. I't evolved so much already, but I'm still not quite happy with it.