Free Crap Monday-Ellie Danger, Girl Daredevil
And here's a longer piece, hopefully hidden behind a cut. Multiple variants of this and the other one in the series have been produced and none have sold so it's benched for now.
Type your cut contentEllie Danger, Girl Daredevil
Ellie Danger watched the priest race the storm and tried once again to keep her temper in check. The storm clouds had been building above Elysian Island for the last ten minutes and the priest had got steadily faster as Ellie had hunkered lower in her flight jacket, glowering at him. Every one of the committee members had made their apologies, whether in person or in writing but they’d all, somehow, found a reason to not turn up to the funeral. They’d ignored Professor Niles Quantum whilst he was alive so it only made sense they’d ignore him now he was dead. It didn’t help, it didn’t bring her any comfort at all or make her any more sympathetic towards the priest, but she could understand it.
He stumbled over the final few lines and she almost snapped, almost went for him. The only thing stopping her was the image of Niles Quantum, precise, fox-like nose twitching slightly, his head shaking in a small but definitive ‘no.’ She swore under her breath, shoved her hands up into the over-sized flight jacket he had given her and tried very hard to think about something other than punching a priest in the face.
Finally, he stopped talking, sagged with relief and the coffin was lowered into the ground. It was cardboard, just like Quantum had wanted. He’d always insisted on keeping his experiments as ecologically friendly as possible and had drawn up strict instructions in his will that his body was to be placed in a bio-degradable container. He’d made a joke about compost and she’d laughed politely and then they’d had tea.
And then he’d died.
The priest finished the last rites, muttered hurried, awkward condolences to her and set off back towards the chapel. To his credit, he waited until he was out of Ellie’s line of sight before breaking into a jog.
Ellie closed her eyes, bit the inside of her cheek as hard as she could and refused to cry. She took a deep breath, looked up at the storm clouds, then turned and headed back towards the air field. If she was lucky, she could get airborne and be out of the area before the storm really hit.
As she turned to go, the storm clouds began to accelerate, roiling and turning over one another until, suddenly, the rain broke and washed over the northern end of the island, a great curtain of water that obscured everything behind it. Everything except a tall woman in her late-30s, her long red hair tied back in a loose ponytail. She was dry, despite the rain and she moved cautiously but definitively, picking her way through the tombs until she found the grave Ellie had just left. She stood for a moment, arms folded, the rain sparking into steam as it bounced off her and watched the steady, golden stream of nano patiently replace every grain of soil in its original position. Then, without looking up, she spoke.
‘You must be soaked.’
Ellie swore under her breath and stepped out from her hiding place, behind a nearby crypt. The woman looked up and smiled. ‘It was the weather wasn’t it?’
Ellie, still unsure of herself and refusing to show it, nodded. ‘Professor Quantum may have royally pissed off most of the committee in his day but none of them would ever set up a rain storm for his funeral. Good cover though, for someone wanting to come in unobserved. Time traveller?’
The woman smiled broadly. ‘Well done. I’m Professor Tachyon. You can call me Lucy.’
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘Yes, I’m a time traveller. Call me Lucy.’
Ellie folded her arms, part of her revelling in the way that the bulky flight jacket made her look bigger than she was. ‘I was always told not to speak to strange time travellers.’
Lucy laughed, drawing a leg up under herself. ‘Good girl. Niles taught you never to take anything at face value.’
‘He was called Professor Quantum. Now what do you want? A quick gawp at the last hero of Edinburgh’s funeral?’
Lucy smiled. ‘Oh he’s not the last. No, I came to take a look at this place actually.’ She looked around at the island, at the rows of graves and tombs extending for miles in every direction. The rain had passed over them and Ellie could see it working its way down the island. She hoped it caught the priest before he could get inside.
‘Did you know the Dee Institute bought it from the crown? Dee himself said that science demanded sacrifice and that those who were sacrificed should have somewhere of their own. An Elysium of geniuses. A necropolis of the New Renaissance.’
Lucy gestured to an empty hill in the middle distance. ‘In my time, the entire Wyngard section, over there? Covered in genetically engineered hallucinogenic flowers. The old bugger turned his entire family into seed beds for a gentle psychotropic high. Ninety nine percent of the people who experience it say that they meet their loved ones on a small hilltop overlooking countryside like nowhere on Earth. They think it might be heaven.’
Ellie swallowed hard, trying and failing not to think about Quantum, about asking for some of the drug. ‘If your time’s so great then why are you here?’
Lucy didn’t answer her, instead walking forward and brushing a hand over Quantum’s gravestone, also made of cardboard. There was a small blue spark as she did so. When she looked at Ellie again, her face was completely serious and utterly composed. Her voice, when she spoke, was cracked and hoarse. ‘Because in my time this cemetery is bigger. So much bigger. They had to move the heliport out to sea to make-‘ Her voice caught and she put a hand to her mouth
. Ellie, walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder, ignoring the electric charge. After a moment, Lucy composed herself and smiled. ‘That was very dangerous, you know.’
Ellie forced herself to smile. ‘Ellie Danger, Girl Daredevil.’ She paused. ‘Which reminds me, why exactly do I change my name?’
Lucy frowned. ‘I’m sorry.’
Ellie clapped her hands and laughed, the sound harsh and brittle. ‘You choose this day and this spot and this time to visit a grave that’s still there in your time? I don’t think so. You’re roughly my build, you’re nearly twice my height but everyone in my family was a late developer. You favour your left knee very slightly which is the same knee I injured last year diving out of Doctor Nadir’s blimp and…’She grinned humourlessly. ‘You’re wearing the boots I’ve wanted for the last year but aren’t quite big enough to own yet. So come on, spill. What do you want?’
Lucy thought for a moment, folding her arms and tucking her hands, unconsciously, into her sleeves just as Ellie had done. Finally, she looked up at her younger self.
‘You understand there are things I can’t tell you.’
‘I’ll just guess them.’
‘You’ll guess wrong.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You honestly think I’ll tell you?’
Ellie conceded the point and Lucy smiled. ‘I’d forgotten how awkward I was. You’re going to carry on his research and what you’ll find…wow…’ She looked out to sea and beyond it. ‘We’re entering a new age, Ellie. One which is filled with wonders that eclipse everything you and I have been taught. A new wave of exploration and understanding is sweeping out across the world and it starts here, and now, with you. You’re going to hold every key and open every door and be magnificent and terrible and wonderful and it’s all ahead of you.’
Ellie folded her arms again. ‘Bollocks.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘No you’re bloody not! You knew I was going to say that and you knew I wouldn’t buy that. You came here, now, to see me, here, now so once again, but slightly louder, what do you _want_?!’
Lucy opened her mouth, closed it again, and turned to the sea, her toe kicking at the ground. Ellie found herself doing the same thing and stopped herself before Lucy could see.
‘I want you to do something else.’
‘What?!’
Lucy swept an arm across the cemetery. ‘_Two hundred_ extra bodies! Two _hundred_ Ellie! Almost everyone you meet will die and none of them will be easy and none of them will be quick and some of them…some of them will be because of you. You’re still young you can still make a different choice.’ There was something plaintive, desperate in her voice. ‘I’ve seen things Ellie, things that no one should have to see. I watched my best friend turn into glass, I saw St Paul’s burn, and I was there when…’ She blinked and set her jaw, a motion Ellie had seen a thousand times in the mirror.
‘Don’t be in Moscow next year. Just don’t.’
Ellie blinked. ‘You could warn them, you could stop it.’
‘It’s not my job.’
‘And this is?’
‘NO!’ Her right arm swept upwards, taking in the span of the island behind them. ‘Right now I’m supposed to be helping seal Moscow, visit the Comet Oracle, consult on an excavation in the Pacific Abyss and somehow find a way to rescue my girlfriend! None of which I would have to do if you _just turned away_!’
Ellie stood her ground, holding her older self’s gaze. She watched the tears roll down the older woman’s face, noticed with interest the star shaped scar on her temple, the slight discolouration around her eyes. She said nothing, and finally, Lucy spoke, her voice hollow and cracked.
‘My girlfriend is trapped in a loop of time that intersects with reality once a _year_. Please, Ellie, _please_. Do something else, _anything_ else. I can’t do-’ Her voice broke again and she rubbed a hand fiercely over her eyes, turning away as she did so.
Ellie folded her arms and rested her head against the thick, deep red leather of the jacket.
Ellie blinked. ‘You’ve given me a lot to think about.’
Lucy sagged with relief. ‘I know it’s a lot to take in.’
Ellie nodded. ‘You’re damn right it is, I mean, I didn’t even know I was gay.’
Lucy blinked. ‘Pardon me?’
‘I mean I suspected, I thought I might be bisexual, are we bisexual? Do we have boyfriends too?’
Lucy scowled. ‘I should have known you wouldn’t take this seriously.’
And that was it. All the pent up rage, grief and frustration bubbled over and she was moving, stalking towards her older self until she was an inch away, eyes blazing and fists bunched. ‘_I watched him die_! For you that was God knows how many years ago but for me, it was last week so don’t you _dare_ say I’m not taking this seriously! You say our girlfriend’s trapped in a time loop? Then get her out! You do the job, whether it takes a day or a year but you do the _damn_ job! Whatever it takes! And from where I’m standing, that doesn’t involve moping around on a graveyard ten miles wide!’
‘Then what are you doing here?’ Lucy had barely spoken before Ellie slapped her, once. It was the blow meant for the priest and it knocked Lucy off her feet. She was up again in a second.
‘You little bitch!’
Ellie smiled savagely, arms wide. ‘Decades younger _and_ faster, take your best shot.’
Lucy scowled and they stared at one another, Ellie begging her older self to try something. Finally, Lucy crumpled to the ground. After a second, she began to cry. Ellie stared at her, and finally sat down too. She was surprised to hear her own voice crack when she spoke.
‘The Institute’s motto hasn’t changed has it?’
‘No.’ Lucy’s voice was hollow.
‘Then what is it?’
‘Per ardua ad astra.’
‘Per ardua ad astra. I wanted to get a tattoo of that you know.’
Lucy sniffed and then rolled her right sleeve up. The words were written across her shoulder and Ellie tried very hard to focus on them and not the scars that ran beneath them. She forced a smile.
‘What’s her name?’
‘Who?’
‘Our girlfriend?’
Lucy looked up and smiled. ‘Her name is Moira.’
‘Is she pretty?’
Lucy’s smile widened. ‘She’s beautiful.’
Ellie clapped her hands together and stood. ‘Then that’s what you focus on, that’s what gets you to the end of the day. You focus on Moira, and her smile, and her laugh and what she does for you and makes you feel. You do that, and you’ll get her back. Now, how long have you got left? Until your tachyon charge runs out?’
Lucy stood, wiping her coat down as she did. ‘It doesn’t work that way anymore. We can, um, we can stay as long as we like.’
Ellie looked around at the graves and the rolling countryside beneath them. On a hill at the far end of the island, the largest Van Der Graaf generator on the planet crackled, it’s sparks brushing against the lowest of the clouds.
‘The tea shop’s pretty good.’
‘Better in my day.’
‘You’re paying then.’
And with that, Ellie Danger, girl daredevil ran off, a streak of red leather and energy dancing through the gravestones. Lucy Tachyon, Queen of Time, watched her go, remembered what it had felt like to hear everything she’d said, remembered forcing the smile when she’d seen the scars on her older self’s arm and remembered the immensely embarrassing conversation about her future sex life that she’d looked forward to having.
She turned and looked at Niles Quantum’s grave, remembering the time, decades past for her, years past for Ellie when Quantum had found them. The flattened ruins of Edinburgh had been abandoned by everyone but the last few, desperate rescue teams and Quantum had been amongst them. He’d found her, huddled around the body of her father for warmth. He’d sat and talked with her, quietly explained what death meant and why it was not to be feared, told her the things that she’d needed to hear and finally, carried her back to his tent. He was a giant angel, kind and funny and honest and brilliant and she’d told him, that first night that she wished she could be just like him.
He’d looked at her for a long time and then told her to be careful what she wished for, because wishes had power, especially those of little girls. Then he’d pulled a coin out of her right ear, a chocolate bar out of her left and let her sleep.
She thought about what she knew was coming, and what she knew had passed. She thought about the leather flight jacket and the plane that went with it, that in two days, Ellie would find out had been willed to her. She thought about Moira, beautiful, lost Moira and for the first time, had an inkling of how she could be saved.
Lucy Tachyon, Queen of Time dusted herself off, took one last look around the past and smiled. Then she turned and with a crackle of blue energy, stepped back into tomorrow.
.
Type your cut contentEllie Danger, Girl Daredevil
Ellie Danger watched the priest race the storm and tried once again to keep her temper in check. The storm clouds had been building above Elysian Island for the last ten minutes and the priest had got steadily faster as Ellie had hunkered lower in her flight jacket, glowering at him. Every one of the committee members had made their apologies, whether in person or in writing but they’d all, somehow, found a reason to not turn up to the funeral. They’d ignored Professor Niles Quantum whilst he was alive so it only made sense they’d ignore him now he was dead. It didn’t help, it didn’t bring her any comfort at all or make her any more sympathetic towards the priest, but she could understand it.
He stumbled over the final few lines and she almost snapped, almost went for him. The only thing stopping her was the image of Niles Quantum, precise, fox-like nose twitching slightly, his head shaking in a small but definitive ‘no.’ She swore under her breath, shoved her hands up into the over-sized flight jacket he had given her and tried very hard to think about something other than punching a priest in the face.
Finally, he stopped talking, sagged with relief and the coffin was lowered into the ground. It was cardboard, just like Quantum had wanted. He’d always insisted on keeping his experiments as ecologically friendly as possible and had drawn up strict instructions in his will that his body was to be placed in a bio-degradable container. He’d made a joke about compost and she’d laughed politely and then they’d had tea.
And then he’d died.
The priest finished the last rites, muttered hurried, awkward condolences to her and set off back towards the chapel. To his credit, he waited until he was out of Ellie’s line of sight before breaking into a jog.
Ellie closed her eyes, bit the inside of her cheek as hard as she could and refused to cry. She took a deep breath, looked up at the storm clouds, then turned and headed back towards the air field. If she was lucky, she could get airborne and be out of the area before the storm really hit.
As she turned to go, the storm clouds began to accelerate, roiling and turning over one another until, suddenly, the rain broke and washed over the northern end of the island, a great curtain of water that obscured everything behind it. Everything except a tall woman in her late-30s, her long red hair tied back in a loose ponytail. She was dry, despite the rain and she moved cautiously but definitively, picking her way through the tombs until she found the grave Ellie had just left. She stood for a moment, arms folded, the rain sparking into steam as it bounced off her and watched the steady, golden stream of nano patiently replace every grain of soil in its original position. Then, without looking up, she spoke.
‘You must be soaked.’
Ellie swore under her breath and stepped out from her hiding place, behind a nearby crypt. The woman looked up and smiled. ‘It was the weather wasn’t it?’
Ellie, still unsure of herself and refusing to show it, nodded. ‘Professor Quantum may have royally pissed off most of the committee in his day but none of them would ever set up a rain storm for his funeral. Good cover though, for someone wanting to come in unobserved. Time traveller?’
The woman smiled broadly. ‘Well done. I’m Professor Tachyon. You can call me Lucy.’
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘Yes, I’m a time traveller. Call me Lucy.’
Ellie folded her arms, part of her revelling in the way that the bulky flight jacket made her look bigger than she was. ‘I was always told not to speak to strange time travellers.’
Lucy laughed, drawing a leg up under herself. ‘Good girl. Niles taught you never to take anything at face value.’
‘He was called Professor Quantum. Now what do you want? A quick gawp at the last hero of Edinburgh’s funeral?’
Lucy smiled. ‘Oh he’s not the last. No, I came to take a look at this place actually.’ She looked around at the island, at the rows of graves and tombs extending for miles in every direction. The rain had passed over them and Ellie could see it working its way down the island. She hoped it caught the priest before he could get inside.
‘Did you know the Dee Institute bought it from the crown? Dee himself said that science demanded sacrifice and that those who were sacrificed should have somewhere of their own. An Elysium of geniuses. A necropolis of the New Renaissance.’
Lucy gestured to an empty hill in the middle distance. ‘In my time, the entire Wyngard section, over there? Covered in genetically engineered hallucinogenic flowers. The old bugger turned his entire family into seed beds for a gentle psychotropic high. Ninety nine percent of the people who experience it say that they meet their loved ones on a small hilltop overlooking countryside like nowhere on Earth. They think it might be heaven.’
Ellie swallowed hard, trying and failing not to think about Quantum, about asking for some of the drug. ‘If your time’s so great then why are you here?’
Lucy didn’t answer her, instead walking forward and brushing a hand over Quantum’s gravestone, also made of cardboard. There was a small blue spark as she did so. When she looked at Ellie again, her face was completely serious and utterly composed. Her voice, when she spoke, was cracked and hoarse. ‘Because in my time this cemetery is bigger. So much bigger. They had to move the heliport out to sea to make-‘ Her voice caught and she put a hand to her mouth
. Ellie, walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder, ignoring the electric charge. After a moment, Lucy composed herself and smiled. ‘That was very dangerous, you know.’
Ellie forced herself to smile. ‘Ellie Danger, Girl Daredevil.’ She paused. ‘Which reminds me, why exactly do I change my name?’
Lucy frowned. ‘I’m sorry.’
Ellie clapped her hands and laughed, the sound harsh and brittle. ‘You choose this day and this spot and this time to visit a grave that’s still there in your time? I don’t think so. You’re roughly my build, you’re nearly twice my height but everyone in my family was a late developer. You favour your left knee very slightly which is the same knee I injured last year diving out of Doctor Nadir’s blimp and…’She grinned humourlessly. ‘You’re wearing the boots I’ve wanted for the last year but aren’t quite big enough to own yet. So come on, spill. What do you want?’
Lucy thought for a moment, folding her arms and tucking her hands, unconsciously, into her sleeves just as Ellie had done. Finally, she looked up at her younger self.
‘You understand there are things I can’t tell you.’
‘I’ll just guess them.’
‘You’ll guess wrong.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You honestly think I’ll tell you?’
Ellie conceded the point and Lucy smiled. ‘I’d forgotten how awkward I was. You’re going to carry on his research and what you’ll find…wow…’ She looked out to sea and beyond it. ‘We’re entering a new age, Ellie. One which is filled with wonders that eclipse everything you and I have been taught. A new wave of exploration and understanding is sweeping out across the world and it starts here, and now, with you. You’re going to hold every key and open every door and be magnificent and terrible and wonderful and it’s all ahead of you.’
Ellie folded her arms again. ‘Bollocks.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘No you’re bloody not! You knew I was going to say that and you knew I wouldn’t buy that. You came here, now, to see me, here, now so once again, but slightly louder, what do you _want_?!’
Lucy opened her mouth, closed it again, and turned to the sea, her toe kicking at the ground. Ellie found herself doing the same thing and stopped herself before Lucy could see.
‘I want you to do something else.’
‘What?!’
Lucy swept an arm across the cemetery. ‘_Two hundred_ extra bodies! Two _hundred_ Ellie! Almost everyone you meet will die and none of them will be easy and none of them will be quick and some of them…some of them will be because of you. You’re still young you can still make a different choice.’ There was something plaintive, desperate in her voice. ‘I’ve seen things Ellie, things that no one should have to see. I watched my best friend turn into glass, I saw St Paul’s burn, and I was there when…’ She blinked and set her jaw, a motion Ellie had seen a thousand times in the mirror.
‘Don’t be in Moscow next year. Just don’t.’
Ellie blinked. ‘You could warn them, you could stop it.’
‘It’s not my job.’
‘And this is?’
‘NO!’ Her right arm swept upwards, taking in the span of the island behind them. ‘Right now I’m supposed to be helping seal Moscow, visit the Comet Oracle, consult on an excavation in the Pacific Abyss and somehow find a way to rescue my girlfriend! None of which I would have to do if you _just turned away_!’
Ellie stood her ground, holding her older self’s gaze. She watched the tears roll down the older woman’s face, noticed with interest the star shaped scar on her temple, the slight discolouration around her eyes. She said nothing, and finally, Lucy spoke, her voice hollow and cracked.
‘My girlfriend is trapped in a loop of time that intersects with reality once a _year_. Please, Ellie, _please_. Do something else, _anything_ else. I can’t do-’ Her voice broke again and she rubbed a hand fiercely over her eyes, turning away as she did so.
Ellie folded her arms and rested her head against the thick, deep red leather of the jacket.
Ellie blinked. ‘You’ve given me a lot to think about.’
Lucy sagged with relief. ‘I know it’s a lot to take in.’
Ellie nodded. ‘You’re damn right it is, I mean, I didn’t even know I was gay.’
Lucy blinked. ‘Pardon me?’
‘I mean I suspected, I thought I might be bisexual, are we bisexual? Do we have boyfriends too?’
Lucy scowled. ‘I should have known you wouldn’t take this seriously.’
And that was it. All the pent up rage, grief and frustration bubbled over and she was moving, stalking towards her older self until she was an inch away, eyes blazing and fists bunched. ‘_I watched him die_! For you that was God knows how many years ago but for me, it was last week so don’t you _dare_ say I’m not taking this seriously! You say our girlfriend’s trapped in a time loop? Then get her out! You do the job, whether it takes a day or a year but you do the _damn_ job! Whatever it takes! And from where I’m standing, that doesn’t involve moping around on a graveyard ten miles wide!’
‘Then what are you doing here?’ Lucy had barely spoken before Ellie slapped her, once. It was the blow meant for the priest and it knocked Lucy off her feet. She was up again in a second.
‘You little bitch!’
Ellie smiled savagely, arms wide. ‘Decades younger _and_ faster, take your best shot.’
Lucy scowled and they stared at one another, Ellie begging her older self to try something. Finally, Lucy crumpled to the ground. After a second, she began to cry. Ellie stared at her, and finally sat down too. She was surprised to hear her own voice crack when she spoke.
‘The Institute’s motto hasn’t changed has it?’
‘No.’ Lucy’s voice was hollow.
‘Then what is it?’
‘Per ardua ad astra.’
‘Per ardua ad astra. I wanted to get a tattoo of that you know.’
Lucy sniffed and then rolled her right sleeve up. The words were written across her shoulder and Ellie tried very hard to focus on them and not the scars that ran beneath them. She forced a smile.
‘What’s her name?’
‘Who?’
‘Our girlfriend?’
Lucy looked up and smiled. ‘Her name is Moira.’
‘Is she pretty?’
Lucy’s smile widened. ‘She’s beautiful.’
Ellie clapped her hands together and stood. ‘Then that’s what you focus on, that’s what gets you to the end of the day. You focus on Moira, and her smile, and her laugh and what she does for you and makes you feel. You do that, and you’ll get her back. Now, how long have you got left? Until your tachyon charge runs out?’
Lucy stood, wiping her coat down as she did. ‘It doesn’t work that way anymore. We can, um, we can stay as long as we like.’
Ellie looked around at the graves and the rolling countryside beneath them. On a hill at the far end of the island, the largest Van Der Graaf generator on the planet crackled, it’s sparks brushing against the lowest of the clouds.
‘The tea shop’s pretty good.’
‘Better in my day.’
‘You’re paying then.’
And with that, Ellie Danger, girl daredevil ran off, a streak of red leather and energy dancing through the gravestones. Lucy Tachyon, Queen of Time, watched her go, remembered what it had felt like to hear everything she’d said, remembered forcing the smile when she’d seen the scars on her older self’s arm and remembered the immensely embarrassing conversation about her future sex life that she’d looked forward to having.
She turned and looked at Niles Quantum’s grave, remembering the time, decades past for her, years past for Ellie when Quantum had found them. The flattened ruins of Edinburgh had been abandoned by everyone but the last few, desperate rescue teams and Quantum had been amongst them. He’d found her, huddled around the body of her father for warmth. He’d sat and talked with her, quietly explained what death meant and why it was not to be feared, told her the things that she’d needed to hear and finally, carried her back to his tent. He was a giant angel, kind and funny and honest and brilliant and she’d told him, that first night that she wished she could be just like him.
He’d looked at her for a long time and then told her to be careful what she wished for, because wishes had power, especially those of little girls. Then he’d pulled a coin out of her right ear, a chocolate bar out of her left and let her sleep.
She thought about what she knew was coming, and what she knew had passed. She thought about the leather flight jacket and the plane that went with it, that in two days, Ellie would find out had been willed to her. She thought about Moira, beautiful, lost Moira and for the first time, had an inkling of how she could be saved.
Lucy Tachyon, Queen of Time dusted herself off, took one last look around the past and smiled. Then she turned and with a crackle of blue energy, stepped back into tomorrow.
.