Normandy Hedgerow, June 8, 1944
The ditch smelled of wet earth, blood, and Hank Rigby's latest contribution:
"The Rumbling Fault Line."
"A seismic event in G minor," Hank declared, adjusting his rifle. "Inspired by yesterday's rations. Truly, the culinary arts suffer in wartime."
Juni's nose wrinkled.
ANALYSIS: METHANE, HYDROGEN SULFIDE, UNDIGESTED BEANS. LETHALITY: NON BALLISTIC BUT PSYCHOLOGICALLY DEVASTATING.
She poked her Chronitron. It displayed a wobbly hologram of a kitten batting at Hank's head.
ERROR: HOLO PROJECTOR CORRUPTED.
"Fascinating!" Hank beamed. "A spectral feline! Does it foretell good fortune, M'lady Flux?"
"It foretell glitches," Juni hissed. "My pod's wreckage scattered its temporal matrix across five square kilometers. My sensors are picking up sentient yogurt somewhere near Caen!"
CRACK!
Hank's rifle spoke. A distant Nazi scout crumpled.
"Sentient yogurt? How delightfully absurd! Does it recite verse? Prefer Romantic or Modernist?"
Before Juni could purge him into the stratosphere, gravelly voices cut through the hedgerow:
"Rigby! You windbag, report! And what in God's name is that smell? Did you explode a sewage truck?"
Three figures emerged:
1. Sarge "Stonewall" McGrath: Built like a brick privy, face like thunder. Chewed a cigar stub to pulp.
2. Doc "Patch" Henderson: Gangly, spectacled, eyes alight with scientific hunger. Stared at Juni like she was the Rosetta Stone.
3. Private Benny "Jenkins" Jenkins: Baby faced, gap toothed, perpetually wide eyed. Carried a radio like a holy relic.
"Ah, the Misfit Marauders!" Hank swept a bow. "Meet Dr. Juniper Flux, temporal traveler and connoisseur of airborne toxins. She's joining our crusade!"
Sarge's cigar dropped.
"Time traveler? Rigby, if this is another one of your—"
"—utterly verifiable, Sarge!" Hank gestured to Juni's neon pink tunic. "Observe her raiment! Clearly not of this dreary decade!"
Doc Henderson lunged forward, poking Juni's Chronitron.
"Temporal mechanics? My God! Can it manipulate entropy? Cure trench foot?"
PURGE MODE THREAT: 87%.
Juni snatched Doc's finger.
"Touch it again, and I'll demonstrate entropy on your skeletal structure."
Jenkins gasped.
"She's like a Valkyrie! A scary Valkyrie! Can she radio Command?"
"Negative," Juni snapped. "My comms array is currently impersonating a paperweight."
Sarge rubbed his temples.
"Flux, huh? Fitting. Rigby, you're responsible for her. If she gets shot, you write the letter to her ma. Now move out—Jerry's sniffing this hedgerow."
The Road to Chaos
Progress was slow. Hank alternated between:
Sniping Germans ("A sonnet for your funeral, Fritz! 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's BLAM!... Ah, too late.'")
Reciting fart haikus ("Silent mist ascends / Behind the oak, doom awaits / Beware the SBD")
Trying to gift Juni "romantic" battlefield souvenirs: a surprisingly clean spoon, a parachute silk "scarf," a live grenade ("For our enemies, M'lady! A shared hobby!").
Juni's Chronitron worsened:
Her translator made Sarge sound like a Shakespearean villain ("THOU ART A WART UPON THE FACE OF THIS FAIR EARTH, RIGBY!")
Her personal shield deflected rain but amplified Hank's flatulence into surround sound.
The hologram kitten now wore a tiny Nazi helmet.
Doc Henderson peppered her with questions:
"Does future medicine conquer the common cold? Is spam still a culinary abomination?"
"We synthesize nutrition paste," Juni said, handing him a silver tube. "Molecularly optimized for morale."
Doc squeezed it. A glob of shimmering goo plopped onto Jenkins' boot.
"Hey! It's… tickling me?" Jenkins giggled. The goo rippled, forming a smiley face.
"Fascinating!" Doc breathed. "It's sentient!"
"It's spoiled*,"* Juni groaned. "It's supposed to taste like 'nostalgic contentment,' not achieve consciousness!"
The sentient yogurt blob ("Yoggy") became Jenkins' pet. It ate mud, hummed show tunes, and emitted a faint odor of optimism. Hank composed an ode:
"O Yoggy! Creamy harbinger of glee! / Though born of paste and temporal decree, / You shine a light upon our—"
PURGE MODE ACTIVATED.
Juni snatched Hank's cherished spoon and hurled it into a cow pasture.
"CEASE SONNETS OR THE FORK IS NEXT!"
Hank looked wounded.
"But M'lady! That spoon stirred the last decent coffee in France!"
The Foxhole & The Flicker
That night, huddled in a rain lashed foxhole, Hank offered Juni his "scarf" (parachute silk). She shoved it back.
"Your chivalry is statistically likely to get us killed."
"Nonsense! Romance is the ultimate shield." BRRMPH. "...Supplemental shielding."
Rain dripped through the tarp. Juni shivered. Hank's non stop chatter had paused. In the quiet, the war felt heavier.
"Why do you do it?" she asked suddenly. "The poetry? The… theatrics?"
Hank polished his rifle, his face unreadable in the gloom.
"War's a beast, M'lady. It eats silence. Fill the void with noise—pretty noise, loud noise, ridiculous noise—and sometimes… you forget the beast is chewing on your soul."
He glanced at her.
"Your 'purges'? Same coin, different side. Noise against the silence."
Juni stared. Beneath the bravado, he saw her. Understood. Her chest tightened strangely.
He pulled something from his pocket: a small, dented vial.
"For science. Sample: 'The Sarge's Surprise' (High Pressure). Collected during briefing."
He winked, but his eyes held a vulnerability.
"Proof I take your work seriously, Dr. Flux."
As their fingers brushed passing the vial, her Chronitron flickered violently. Not kittens or error codes—a string of numbers: 19440612.
Hank's dog tags gleamed in the weak light.
KIA: 06 12 1944.
"Juni?" Hank's voice was soft. "You alright? You've got that 'pre purge' glint."
She forced a smile, pocketing the vial like a grenade.
"Fine. Just… temporal static."
The date burned in her mind. Five days.
Sequel Foreshadowing & Hope's Glimmer
Later, Jenkins found Juni studying the Chronitron.
"Doc says time's like a river," he whispered. "Can you… swim upstream? Save people?"
Juni thought of Hank's doomed date.
"It's… complicated. Changing time creates ripples. Dangerous ones."
"Oh." Jenkins looked crestfallen. Then he brightened.
"I wrote a story! Wanna hear? 'Sergeant Fartquake and Lady Timetoss vs. the Nazi Yogurt Overlords!' Hank saves everyone with a super burp that blows Hitler into next Tuesday!"
Juni almost smiled.
"That's not how temporal mechanics—"
PURGE MODE: SUPPRESSED.
Instead, she gently took Jenkins' notebook.
"It's… creatively optimistic, Private Jenkins."
As she handed it back, her Chronitron glitched. For a millisecond, Hank's face flickered in the hologram—not present day Hank, but older, wearier, mouthing silent words. Gone.
Jenkins gasped.
"Was that… Sergeant Rigby? From the future*?"*
Juni clutched the device, her heart pounding. Impossible. A corrupted file.
But the vial in her pocket felt suddenly warm.
Hank's voice boomed from the darkness:
"M'lady! Doc needs you! Yoggy just ate his spectacles and is demanding existential answers!"
Chaos called. But in Juniper Flux's mind, a fragile, dangerous hope sparked:
What if Jenkins' stupid story isn't entirely wrong?