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I'll post the entire story here, chapter by chapter twice weekly, absolutely free!

If you prefer you can read all four books right now. The series is complete!:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/byseries/146449

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Chapter 23: Crisis Management

“I can’t do this!” shouted Doctor Karl. “I can’t fucking do this!” The harried scientist kicked at the hour-glass shaped device on the warehouse floor. Several engineers and technicians drew back, aware of the lethal radioactive isotopes contained in the ceramic casing. The trash-can sized generator resembled his power system from two years ago, but larger and with a new array of components and tubes clamped around the junction of the conjoined halves. “The physics doesn’t make sense and even if it did it couldn’t scale.” The prototype device was significantly less efficient than his old generator and prone to leaking neutrons. He sat on the floor, buried his face in his hands and began crying uncontrollably. “Gods, it’s too hard – I can’t do this. I’m so fucking tired. What if I fail – everyone dies in eight days.” His words dissolved into heaving sobs.

Ikon placed the giant metal lathe he’d been carrying on the concrete floor with a thump that rattled the walls of the workshop area. The imposing bull hybrid sat next to the sobbing scientist and gently hugged him. Ikon held the man in his arms until Leon’s breathing settled and he wiped his eyes with the heels of his palms.

“I’m sorry,” he sniffled. “It’s a lot to deal with.” He looked imploringly at the carbon-black face of the strange, horned creature. “Can’t you intervene? Really? You’d let everyone die?” The bull looked down at the doctor with compassion, but didn’t speak.

A tiger hybrid entered the shielded enclosure hefting a crate over his shoulder. “Got a new batch of… woah, what’s happening here?” He dropped his crate next to the haphazardly positioned lathe when he saw the distraught pair sitting on the floor.

“Doc thinks he’s not up to the task,” rumbled the bull. “I think he needs a nap, a walk in sunshine, and some thinking away from the box.” He patted the human gently on the shoulders then helped Doctor Karl to his feet.

The scientist wiped his nose on the sleeve of his lab-coat, and nodded wearily. “A nap. Yeah.” He stumbled against the muscled torso of Ikon, paused to gather his strength then staggered toward the conference room.

Engineers and technicians looked around awkwardly, disconcerted at the emotional display. “You lot, take a coffee break,” growled the bull. “Let’s clear the deck for a re-think.” The support team shuffled out of the enclosure.

“Hey tiger, what’s up?” Willow arrived and affectionately rubbed Fate’s striped back fur. “I just saw all the engineers looking morose and heading to the café.”

“Bit of a crisis,” said Fate to the deer. “Latest prototype is worse than the previous, Leon is on the verge of a mental breakdown, world ends in eight days. No biggie.” He returned the affectionate caress of his lover.

“What has Chase said about it?” asked Willow.

“Last I saw of him he was wrestling with his event-tree and panicking,” rumbled the bull. “Lots of purple tendrils snaking toward the nexus and a big ol’ explosion looking imminent. He muttered something about ‘digression window closing’. He looked busy so I left him to it.”

“Well… shit,” said Willow. He closed his eyes for a second.

Braid appeared out of thin air. The horse staggered and caught his balance. Moisture glistened along his half-erect penis and a drip of semen splatted to the floor. He looked at the animal hybrids staring at him. “Why all the long faces? Ha! That joke never gets old… wait, you are looking glum. Why the phone call?”

“Looks like we’re not going to get a resolution before critical nexus,” said Fate. His striped tail flicked in consternation.

“Well… shit,” said Braid, adjusting his wet penis as it retreated to his equine sheath. “I was quite enjoying this life.” He pondered for a moment. “The question we’re all afraid to ask. ‘Do we intervene directly?’”

“You know, I really miss sharing minds with you all,” lamented the bull. “I miss the connection and shared knowledge. I miss being a functional part of some greater whole.” He sighed heavily. “Braid, you already know the answer to the question, which is why no-one is asking it.”

The horse shook his mane. “Yeah. Break the taboo, suffer the consequences.”

“Which in this place would be dissolution – death,” said Chase as he walked down the staircase to join the troupe. “Direct intervention by us would be paramount to coercion. Force. You would lose mental cohesion and your structure would shatter.” He flourished his hand and sketched a golden web of pearls in the air. Darkness seeped in from the edges. “And if we die now, what we’ve set in motion for the second crisis fails.” Purple bruising engulfed the entire golden structure.

“Fuck it. So, death of a trillion minds in eight days, or same death a few years later.” Braid stomped a hoof on the floor.

A giant shaggy grizzly bear popped into existence. His shook his coat and particles of snow rained around group. “Sorry I’m late. Was on mission in Alaska,” growled Zaru. “Silas is still on mission so can’t attend. What’s the urgency?”

Chase explained the likely failure to meet their keystone target event. The power generator construction was behind schedule which meant the Geneva experiment would proceed with cataclysmic results.

“So we’ve fucked up royally and can’t do a thing about it,” Zaru finished. “C’mon, there must be other things we can do. We’re already skirting so close to outright meddling in this universe. What’s the harm in a slightly bigger tweak somewhere?”

“It’s because we’re so close to breaking taboo already that we can’t risk more direct intervention,” said Chase. “Cataclysm is the immediate crisis but the entire planet was already in a prolonged death spiral. I can’t produce an event tree that doesn’t end in extinction. If we intervene more directly now we’re merely delaying the end by a couple of decades – we actually hasten the human extinction.”

“Bullshit!” exclaimed Zaru. “Sorry, Ikon. But you’re a bunch of useless tossers. Chase get your shit together and come up with a path through your web. Buggered if I’m letting all my new friends die.”

The bear stormed angrily out of the enclosure then vanished in a puff of ice-crystals.

The Great Dane hybrid’s ears sagged and his tail curled between his legs. “There aren’t enough dimensions here. I don’t have enough minds,” he lamented. “I can’t calculate sufficient consequences – anything we do that deviates from the original tree ends in dissolution and destruction.”

Ikon embraced his kin, raising the canine’s muzzle with his thick-fingered hands. “What about risking indirect intervention? Doctor Ash is senior scientist here. Surely he can phone his counterpart in Geneva and warn them about the energy runaway issue?”

“I don’t know!” howled Chase. “It could backfire – the chance of success on that tree was very limited.”

“Limited, but non-zero,” said Ikon.

“I guess. It was the second-best event traversal option,” sighed the dog, resigned. “I’ll talk to Doctor Ash and see if he can convince the Geneva project lead to delay.”

“There ya go ya big drongo,” smiled Ikon. “Nothing sadder-looking than a depressed Great Dane.”

“Want me to chat to Officer Laidlaw?” asked the tiger. “Maybe he can convince his generals to make a security issue out of it,” said Fate.

“No!” exclaimed the canine. “That path always leads to backlash. And it’s too coercive. Same with approaching government ministers. Doesn’t work – too much self-interest.” He sighed heavily. “I’ll work on the plan overnight. If I can’t find a safer path Doctor Ash can phone Geneva in the morning.” He trudged back up the staircase to the conference room.

Ikon looked at Braid and Willow. “Chase’ll solve it.” His tail dropped and he lowered his head. “He has to.”

* * *

Officer Wright rubbed the shoulders of his partner. Doctor Karl was bent over his generator whacking a bolt with a pair of vice-grips. The young officer gently asked, “Leon, hun, can I get you anything? A wrench, for example?”

“Huh? Oh, I guess,” said the scientist. His voice sounded distracted and he sat back on his heels and rubbed his eyes. “I can’t do it, Rob. Even if by some miracle I fixed it right now we’re past a critical keystone failure point. At least, that’s what I overheard Chase say. We’re out of time to get the scientific press publicizing our generator.”

“C’mon, Leon. Not everyone has given up on ya.” Rob retrieved his phone from his pocket and showed his partner a picture. “Daniel from the Montana Bear sanctuary sent me this.” Between Daniel and his partner James stood Zaru with his huge paws draped over their shoulders. “The bear guys said they spent a quality evening fucking your shaggy friend. Daniel said Zaru asked him to pass along a message: ‘Spend your time wisely’ before he vanished.”

“Huh. What’s he saying – I should give up and spend my last week fucking my friends?” asked the scientist.

Rob shrugged. “Short term, good plan. Long term, not so good. Chase and Doctor Ash were in a heated discussion this morning – I think Chase still has something up his sleeve.”

“He doesn’t have sleeves. Or pants,” observed the scientist.

Ikon and Willow were repositioning a milling machine at the rear of the enclosure. They paused and joined the two men near the generator. “Don’t understand why you people are so obsessed with pants,” rumbled the black bull. “You don’t seem to care that I’m showing off my horns or ears. Why is a scrotum any worse?” He wiggled his hips and his dangling black scrotum swung majestically.

The young officer reluctantly drew his gaze away from the hypnotic swaying and cleared his throat, trying not to lose his composure. He swiped his phone screen. “Here’s another picture to motivate you. Doctor Yondal in Queensland sent it to me on their private app.” Onscreen was the biologist laying back, naked on the belly of the orca hybrid. The doctor’s feet were rubbing the base of the orca’s giant penis and his mouth was open trying to catch a literal fountain of semen. “This scene is not going into their weekly podcast, unfortunately.”

“Heh. At least the aliens are having a good time.” Doctor Karl poised the vice grips to take another swing at the recalcitrant bolt. Rob grabbed his raised hand and pointed him toward the set of wrenches in a vinyl pouch just to the side.

Doctor Ash rushed into the enclosure, white lab-coat billowing behind. “Leon! Just the man!” he shouted enthusiastically. “I’ve been on the phone to Doctor Girard in Switzerland. They don’t take our claims of risk seriously – said the math doesn’t pan out.”

“Oh damn,” said the deer hybrid. “That’s not good – Chase was rather hoping they’d see reason.” Willow looked dejected.

“No, no! I’m not finished!” The excited senior scientist gesticulated grandly. “They’ve had an equipment failure. Liquid nitrogen feed line ruptured, main ring accelerator channel was crushed. They had to do an emergency shut-down, will replace the parts and recommission. We’ve got more than two months before they’re back online!”

The deer and bull looked at each other dubiously. “That’s… quite the stroke of luck,” said Willow cautiously.

“Even better,” continued the scientist, “Doctor Girard sent me an esoteric white-paper on lepton decay which proves what we’re doing here is impossible. Hence his scepticism about my claims. But they’ve got it backward! They’re not seeing lepton decay because they’re looking in the wrong frequency domain. What he’s sent me has the data-set you need for narrow-band baryon harvesting.”

“It is a stroke of luck!” exclaimed the suddenly animated Doctor Karl. “I can do this in a month. There’s… I wanted to roll back to an older prototype because we’ve been heading into a technological cul-de-sac. With another month I can re-tool…” his speech drifted off as he wandered absently toward the whiteboard to scribble notes.

“Does Chase know?” asked Willow. “We should take the opportunity to ramp up the social media campaign.”

“Chase sent Fate off to a dramatic Everest rescue,” said Doctor Ash. “Lots of media coverage of the tiger in the snow, he thinks. So, yeah, he’s already on it.”

Willow closed his eyes for several moment. “Silas is with the Queenslanders doing another pod-cast. Braid is wowing the Carlsberg beer people. Zaru is supposed be in Canada filming a tinned salmon advert today. He’ll be pleased to hear about the delay.” He frowned. “Ikon, I can’t reach Zaru.”

The bull rumbled, eyes closed in concentration. “He’s offline. Well that’s fucking weird…”

Hooves clattered on the concrete floor as Braid stumbled into the warehouse. In his arms he carried a bundle of pure white fluff. “It’s Zaru! Something has happened to Zaru!” cried the horse.

The white shaggy bundle raised its head and turned milky blind eyes toward the horrified group. It raised a disfigured paw and yowled pathetically into the echoing space.

* * *

“Fucking bullshit,” growled the grizzly bear in a low voice. He gestured and a diminutive web of gold and pearls hovered in front of his face. He traced a thread with his claw then looked left and right trying to get his bearings in the long corridor. Dim fluorescent tubes illuminated pale, curved concrete walls. A blue pipe wider than the bear’s thick body dominated the centre of the tunnel. Innumerable smaller pipes, hoses and cables were draped along the walls and occasionally snaked over the blue pipe. Every few metres a ring of equipment encircled the central channel. As far as he could see down the gently curving tunnel the pattern was repeated. A barely perceptible hum pervaded the environment – more felt than heard.

“What kind of creature would stand by and let a trillion minds end?” he muttered and his words bounced back as though reinforcing his resolve. He plodded down the tunnel, occasionally ducking under a thicket of pipes. The bear scanned the walls to ensure he hadn’t been observed by myriad discrete cameras dotting the corridor. Consulting his golden event blueprint he identified a thick pipe bolted to the walls as it passed behind a control module. Zaru raised a two inch claw and drew it along the pipe, etching the stainless surface.

“Equipment fails. Everybody knows. Nothing wrong with helping entropy along.” But his voice became strained, forced. Oily bands of rainbow colour flitted through his pelt. “What’s more taboo – standing idle while a trillion minds die, or give destiny an encouraging thump in the right direction?” His claw peeled swarf in curling tendrils from the pipe. A shock of pain wracked his body and he gasped, bracing against the concrete with his other paw. With the outer sheath pierced his claw easily sliced through the neoprene insulating layer. Bone-jarring spasms shook the bear’s limbs and he struggled to stay upright. Pus-coloured yellow bands followed waves of bruised purple through his pelt. “Stupid rule anyway. No force… No direct intervention… Fuckin’ bullshit.” But he was growing weaker, barely able to stand upright. He pressed his claw against the inner conduit sensing the cryogenic liquid flowing a few millimetres deeper in. Colour bled out of his coat – the mottled browns leeched away, paling, withering. Agony flared in Zaru’s joints as his structure began to bleed energy along his extra-dimensional molecules. The bear paused, knowing he was on the verge of committing the worst sin abhorred by his species. Forcing his will on another, coercion through violence – working against the will of his community. He closed his eyes and drew a shaking breath.

“Braid, buddy. I love ya all.” He couldn’t think of anything more to say – and even if he could he was losing the ability to say it.

Zaru bunched one paw into a fist and hammered it against his other, driving his claw through the tough conduit. Vapour exploded from the breached pipe, engulfing the delicate control module. He turned and pounded his fists against the blue central conduit until the tube buckled and collapsed. Searing agony exploded through Zaru as swathes of his essence dissipated across dimensions.

He doubled over already diminishing in size, and winked out of existence.