Age of the Orc - 09

Then
8 Jan 2014, Fourth Age
13:45:09

"So, if I go to the breeding pits in the past, could I become my own grandfather?"

Morgrir's question came with a smile. The slim, muscled Orc was dressed only in a pair of shorts, being weighed as the final calibrations were made. Zoch glanced at the temporal chamber. They had experimented with rats, rabbits, cats, dogs, and worgs. All of them had survived the transition. Even the cybernetically augmented specimens, the ones sent further back...the ones which, subsequently, had been found and provided the basis for Mordor Cybernetic's technological progress...had survived the experiment.

The basic idea was simple. The transition was purely temporal, not geographic, so they had built the temporal chamber directly in the old lava chamber, which dated back thousands of years, to before the last major eruption of Mt. Doom, and had been sealed off by the explosive end of the War of the Ring. Sent back a day or a week, and the subject would find themselves in the temporal chamber, the door to the undisturbed lava tube open. Sent back further than a hundred years, when the tunnel had been found and opened...well, the rats and cats had asphyxiated. There was no escape.

"Theoretically. Maybe," Zoch said, finally answering the creche-brother's question. "The information-structure of the universe isn't strictly linear; everything that was and is has already been written, so to speak. But the fundamental code of the universe seems to be self-correcting. If something changes in the past, then the information flow changes to accommodate. The original timeline is like a...discarded draft."

Morgrir shook his head. He could tear Man or Orc apart with his bare augmented hands, or build an Umbar Mark IV machine pistol from scratch with basic blacksmith's tools, but temporal physics were a lot to wrap his head around.

"But if this test works, then I'm already in the lave tube right now, aren't I?" Morgrir said. "We could just look in and check. Shake hands."

"We could," Zoch said. "But we've been trying to avoid violating causality. And if you actually touch your time-displaced self, the results would be...fatal."

Zoch shuddered. They had tried the causality experiment exactly once. Sent a lab rat an hour into the past and then introduced it to the version that hadn't made the trip yet. The Orc had never seen a rat implode before. It's information imprint reduced to a single messy convulsion. They had updated the experiment protocols after that to make sure it never happened again...but the worst part was that Zoch had still had to send the surviving rat into the past, knowing that Zoch's past self would continue the experiment and the rat would die.

"Take off your underwear. I need to decontaminate you."

Morgrir slipped his thumbs down the waistband of his underwear...and then he glanced at Eevin, who was checking readings on some coolant lines. The larger Orc's face twisted into a scowl.

"Does that need to be here?" he hissed.

Eevin flinched. Zoch's shoulders tensed.

"Not for this part. Eevin, would you please go run a diagnostic on the tertiary power conduits? We were getting some flux yesterday."

"Of course, doctor," Eevin said coolly, and stomped her little bare Hobbit feet to her lab station, pulling the curtain closed behind her.

"How much does she know?" Morgrir asked, voice barely a whisper as he peeled off his pants. For the first time since they were adults, Zoch was faced with an undressed creche-brother—and it was a stark reminder of how different their bodies had become.

The uncircumcised Orc prick was longer, thicker than Zoch's, and framed by faint silvery lines of mithril that hinted at the upgrades to Morgrir's nervous system. The taller Orc was a statuesque model of lean, wiry muscle, with the deep, broad chest of a professional swimmer and marathon runner. A combination of strength, stamina, and reach that had brought Morgrir to victory after bloody victory in the ring. Zoch's own hairless chest was far softer, and only the binder Eevin had bought as a birthday present kept the smaller Orc from awkward questions.

"Enough to do her job," Zoch said as the sanitization pad ran over Morgrir's chest and shoulders. Down the long arms and legs. The smaller Orc tried not to think about it as they gently decontaminated the warm, soft mass of Morgrir's cock and balls, then moved behind him to do his back. "She doesn't know about...the big jump."

"Good," Morgrir said, as Zoch carefully pulled the plug from the other Orc's neural port and blew some canned air in the socket. "When the new age begins, my boy. Our age. Their kind shall serve us or be exterminated."

Zoch said nothing. Just tapped a control, so that the door to the eerie white chamber opened. The twin metal plates were so highly polished that they looked like mirrors.

"Remember," Zoch said. "When you arrive, move directly into the lava tube. There's food, water, a sleeping bag, and a chemical toilet. We put it in there a month ago. There's an emergency exit, but don't use it unless absolutely necessary. If all goes well...I'll see you in one week, your time, a few minutes my time."

Morgrir smiled. That same easy smile that had seen Zoch off to university, fangs bared.

"Wish me safe travels, brother. I'll see you soon."

"Safe travels," Zoch said, still holding the neural port plug in one hand as the door shut.

"Ready?" Eevin said.

"Ready," Zoch replied, and went to the main console. "Energizing...prepare for temporal insertion in five...four...three...two...one..."

The lights flickered. The endless hum of power reached a momentary crescendo, a high pitch that moved out of earshot. Zoch couldn't see the play of forces within. The electromagnetic fields that surrounded Morgrir and moved the information that was him backward, seven days. The Orc shuddered. They hadn't been able to interview the rats and ask what that felt like.

Then the lights steadied. The whine died down. Power readings returned to normal, coolant showed temperatures were lowering. Zoch took a deep breath...and walked over to the door that led to the lava tube. Opened it.

A waft of cool air wafted it. A rank smell, of an unwashed Orc body. It reminded Zoch vividly of the dormitory where they had grown up...and standing there, grinning madly, skull and chin covered with seven days' worth of stubble, was Morgrir.

"It worked," Morgrir said, simply.

Zoch nodded. "I wouldn't have tried it on you if I didn't think it wouldn't."

Morgrir clapped Zoch on the shoulder, then laughed and drew the smaller Orc in for a bear hug. Zoch's face was pressed into the greasy, unwashed chest.

"You need a shower," Zoch said, not impolitely.

"And food, and a trip to the breeding pits!" Morgrir said, voice exultant. "You know what this means, brother? We can win!"

Zoch smiled, because Zoch was supposed to smile.

Dinner that night was rabbit stew. Real rabbit, too. A gift from Baldog for the successful test, delivered by corporate courier. Eevin was on a stool in their kitchen, stirring the pot, when she dropped her own little revelation.

"You're descended from Samwise Gamgee?" Zoch asked.

"He had thirteen kids two thousand years ago," Eevin said. "You do the math. Probably has about two hundred million descendants now. And we all have a genetic predisposition for taters."

"Huh," was all Zoch could manage, as she ladled stew into his bowl.

They ate mostly in silence. The table was short, short enough Zoch's knees were pressed into the Hobbit's chair, so that she could stretch out her legs and touch the Orc's crotch with her toes. A little game they liked to play, when they were both in the mood.

"Was that the first time you've cleaned your brother's cock?" she said. A joke to lighten the heavy mood that had settled on Zoch. "Or is that sort of thing frowned on?"

Zoch sighed. "Sexual antics outside the breeding pits are discouraged. Bad for discipline. Worse, it's a status thing. Getting handsy with someone is normally a show of higher status, when you can get away with it. A lot of the older Orcs in the program can **** the younger and smaller ones that way, which is why the admins crack down on it when we're young. Making someone else touch you, without ****, is a sign of **** dominance. Why you don't see so many Orc massage parlors."

Eevin digested that. Her eyes—her new implants had been Zoch's gift for her birthday—glowed softly.

"So when you were wiping him down—that was you basically submitting to him?" she said, face twisted.

"Yes. None of the other Orcs would do it, even if ordered. And they wouldn't bring in anyone else to do it," Zoch said.

She set down her spoon. "But they know, right? Baldog knows. And he has you doing that anyway?"

"Yes," Zoch said. The Orc's spoon stirred the stew.

"Did—did you—did Morgrir—" Eevin swallowed, not sure how to frame the question. "Did he make you do that for him before?"

Zoch sighed.

"It was a long time ago. Before we met. After Morgrir and I were both old enough to go to the breeding pits. I didn't want to go. Things are—it's not always good to be the smallest, weakest male in a place like that. Morgrir understood. He was always the biggest, the strongest of our cohort. Kept the others in line. Kept them from asserting dominance on me—in that way. If he wanted to, Morgrir could have done almost anything to me. He didn't."

"But did you?" Eevin said, dinner momentarily forgotten.

Zoch met her eyes. "No. It was the one thing I didn't do. And that was the only thing about me that Morgrir ever respected. Until today."

They finished the stew in silence. It was good.