Somewhere, in a place far beyond the senses or imagination, there was a realm outside of and at the same time bound by space and time. Beings lived there, observing the shifting dimension timescapes as shapes that moved and transformed.

If you could have been in this space, could have survived the trip, your mind would have translated the pure information energy into shapes and sounds by mere virtue of your observation. To you, it would likely appear as though you were in a dark space with balls of light in varying shades that chimed when they spoke. That they referred to themselves by one name or another, and talked in concrete, conversative terms.

However, there were no words or speech. Only the individualized units of a shifting thought mechanism. A society that had been without borders save one. The one between it and it's eternal enemy. That was changing. Currently, a purple ball of light spoke to it's brethren.

"Brothers, see what we have been driven to? The Blue Dwellers interfere with causality, breaking our paradigm of free paradigm non-interference."

Throughout the darkened space, countless lights chimed in a high tone in accent or in a low tone equivalent to a boo-ing opposition. Another light, this one blue, echoed it's thought-words out to the endless crowd.

"The Paradigm War is a conflict over dominance, the paradigm of The Oppressor, or free-paradigm evolution, our own. It requires sacrifice and flexibility, the latter being our main advantage over The Oppressor, our eternal enemy."

Another blue light chimed to life.

"Our interference is limited and contained. We do so only as necessarily and only at one space-time particle within the Whole."

"Yes," said a light with a purple-red tinge, "the entity known as Vance, first called Victor. A futile last hope and wasted effort. How many of his timelines have been destroyed by our enemy? He has few left. If anything, our interference should be more bold, before it is too late!"

There was a ruckus in response to this, chimes for and against as the Dream-Dweller mind struggled with what it should do next, each 'neuron' chiming for or against one method or another. A pink dweller spoke up.

"Sisters," it said, intentionally using a different pronoun from earlier but still referring to the group in its limitless entirety, "we have interfered and are inclined to follow through with that decision. Perhaps we should have done nothing: it is impossible, even for The Oppressor, to dominate forever in the shifting Whole that is the universe. But the matter is settled: it is done. Let us not argue, but sleep now and let our thought settle. See now: the timescape shifts again. Our time to once again interfere draws near."

The chiming all fell silent as the darkness between the disparate lights softly filled into a shifting kaleidoscope of colors that blended into one another in flowing whirls and eddies. The Dream Dwellers were one. Their dream: one of things far and strange, secrets yet undiscovered, beings far and wide - the denizens of the universe. And, of course, of a strange little station in the deep of space and a boy who resided on that station. Vance, first called Victor, along with one of his parallels. The enemy, for some unknown reason, wanted to destroy him utterly and in all timelines.

Uneasy was the Dream-Dwellers dream. For, one by one, different versions and parallels of Victor were blinking out of existence as they were eradicated by The Oppressor, the Speluncam. Few tendrils remained in the time-object entity that was Victor Vance.

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Victor ran along an Auroran beach, looking up at the gaseous lights and wishing for the first time in a long time that he could see them in person. The holodeck simulation was near perfect. Everything looked and felt real enough, but his mind knew. Knew it wasn't real.

He continued to jog along the shore, anyway, trying to convince himself that he was back on Aurora jogging along the beach. His father preferred that he used the pools in the towers, but he just couldn't understand how anyone could compare the contrived, synthetic looking, sterile design of an upper tower pool to the natural serenity of a beach. The sand on the beach was red from the oxidized iron in the sand. The air was clear and the lights of several sea towers twinkled underneath the sheets and clouds of dancing light, their upper portions belying the floors reaching deeply underneath the waves.

A beeping sound told him that his allotted time was almost done. Victor did not look forward to returning to Nexus proper. There he was constantly aware of the boy who was now calling himself Slash. A boy that had all but vowed revenge on him for making the opposite choice from him.

He had thought many times, over the past couple of days, about approaching the other Victor and attempting to give a 'us Vics gotta sick together speech'. But every time he tried he was shut down with a cold stare before he could even open his mouth. Victor had no idea how he was going to convince someone who knew his thoughts more intimately than anyone. Eventually he decided that he only stood to make the situation worse, and had relegated himself to avoiding Slash whenever possible and working assiduously to find the other boy a way back to the parallel future Nexus. At least he hoped that it was a parallel future. The other Eve had assured him that preventing the green alien from landing would stop subsequent events, but Victor wasn't so sure. After all, it wasn't as though the Speluncam would just throw their hands up and leave them alone.

"Simulation: Shutdown. Authorization Victor Vance," Victor said. The Simulation faded away, revealing a blank black room with blue lines crisscrossing each other in a grid. He walked toward the door and opened it, exiting. There were a mixed bag of students, a few boys and a couple of girls, waiting in the hall.

"Finally," one of them breathed under his breath. They were all dressed to play some sport or another.

Victor left them without comment, not bothering to apologize. The holodeck rooms were fair game: first come first serve. Always had been.

He headed toward the Horticulture Club to see how things went there. It was possible for them to create many different food staples in the newly discovered replicator - if they could get it to work safely. Until that time they would be dependent on the food grown themselves. Considering how complicated the replicator was turning out to be, it might be some years until they got it working. What had he expected? That you would just press a button and, 'presto', whatever you wanted popped up out of nothing?

Unlikely.

He bumped into another student, nearly sending them both to the ground. It was Roger. There was a time when Roger would have tried to cream him for this. Now, Victor didn't feel threatened in the least by the boy. He had no power. No one trusted him. Probably, he would die an outcast onboard the ship unless Victor himself decided to change that fact. But Victor took no pleasure in this: he actually felt a bit sorry for the boy despite everything. He walked around Roger without another word.

Behind Roger, there was a chiming blue light in the center of the hall. Victor looked around for witnesses, to see if anyone could see what he saw, but everyone in the hall was frozen still.

"Vance, first called Victor," the chiming came. It was full of random noise and hard to hear, like the noise-filled and foggy ansibles had been. It was if the Dream Dweller were far away. "We have intercepted your timeline for what can be our only time within the mouth, the wormhole. Causality is different here. We are vulnerable, exposed."

Victor was left no time to speak. The Dream Dwellers did not talk in its usual measured chimes, but quickly. As if afraid.

"You must prepare. The Speluncam come for Nexus. They will use another form. Victor, you must be sure that --"

There was a loud screech, a discodant ringing that Victor realized came from the Dream Dweller. It's form shifted, shrank to a point, and blipped out of existence. Vaguely, behind it, Victor thought he saw the form of an amorphous blob rippling in the air like a liquid. It too faded away, and movement in the hall resumed where it had left off.

Victor rushed to the bridge, forgoing the visit to the Club Hall. He had a sinking feeling that this conflict would be far different from the last one.