I awoke suddenly in the Drop. The setting, as I scanned my lofty whereabouts: a giant sphere 50 feet in diameter, where I sat in its epicenter on a bed of grass. A waterfall gently pattered nearby, also in the large, spherical Drop. This place was my personal universe, I remembered after my ascension from the ground below. But I had no memory of my life prior to leaping down to that Earth planet. I had returned to my origin point, sure, but what sort of person was I to descend down to the ground in the first place?

I had to reintegrate into heightened reality. The only memories my mind could access were from the most recent Earth—a 42-year stay on some planetary version from the 1980s.

In December of 2024 on planet, I ascended to the Cheshire spaceship, where my Drop had hinged. I opened my eyes for what seemed like the first time, within the sanctuary of that perfect, pristine Drop. I had to recall my former life.

I stood immediately, rising from the lotus position amidst the tranquil zen garden. To my back sat my workstation, consisting of a nice mahogany L-shaped desk, which held my typewriter, a laptop and some personal files and effects. I whisked over to the desk to find out what to do next.

I fired up the laptop. The first screen both read and said aloud, “Welcome… Please enter the temporal length of your last leap.”

I entered 42 years.

“Oh, quite a long stay. We may have to institute a full memory reboot. Please follow these steps:

“1. Report your full story of the last 42 years on that Earth version.

“2. Recite this series of words in this exact order: surf; zen; leap; navigate; teach; thunderbird.”

The prose flew from my head out my fingertips and onto the typewriter keys. Before long, I had filled seven or so pages that promptly synopsized a comprehensive summary of my last leap.

Then, I recited the key phrase.

Flash!!

Memories from my past life precipitated into my higher brain like the droplets of movierain itself. In an instant, I knew how to summon my helmet, which I did. I quickly donned the crucial headpiece. Its viewfinder would then further facilitate my safe and successful reintegration onto the Cheshire.

I still had one more question for the laptop. I looked down at my brand new body, which was unlike my mortal flesh. It was much better.

“Why is my body half covered in black script?” I typed into the Drop terminal. I also added, “And why does it feel like my bones are made of tightly wound carbon fiber?”

The computer responded: “Your Thunderbird structure is comprised of densely packed molecules that can stand the super gravity of massive black holes. The portion of your skin that’s black is due to the many tattoos chronicling how many worlds you’ve visited thus far. One tattoo for every Earth. Look more closely at the etchings.”

I looked down my right arm. The inked script completely covered the limb from shoulder to wrist. It was impossible to count how many Earths had been etched into my neutron skin. I had apparently been Earth hopping for a while.

It had been 42 years since I had seen my crew, but it would only seem like hours to them since I last left. I couldn’t wait to see them again, but would obviously have to curb my longing. Dissonant time dilations were an occupational hazard of a Thunderbird.

---

My helmet helped me reacclimate to the Cheshire’s status quo. Past life memories were still flooding into my mind. I was regaining full sense of my soul, but the immediate circumstances of that day on the ship just prior to my leap still escaped me.

I had the helmet call up a blueprint. When I climbed up to the upper echelons of the Cheshire and encountered my first crew member, the helmet’s blueprint would project augmented reality (AR) cues onto the viewfinder to smooth the transition.

I bumped into Keith first, who was getting something from the kitchen.

“You’re still wearing your helmet, I see,” Keith said, rummaging around in an overhead cabinet.

“Yeah, just dismounted from a long leap,” I said.

“How long?”

“42 years.”

“Wow,” Keith stopped rummaging and turned to me. “Still reintegrating I bet.”

“You know it,” I said. “Do I owe you answers on anything?”

I could see Keith’s eyes searching. I think he was debating whether or not to to lie.

“Yeah, you said you’d give me $50,” he said with a smirk.

My helmet cued up a clip on the AR viewfinder that played my last conversation with Keith, pre-leap. Keith had asked to borrow $50 himself from me, as I made my way down to the Drop.

“I think you might have that one backwards, Keith,” I said plainly.

“Ahh! Just testin’ ya! Glad to see you’re almost fully back.”

“I’m about 80 percent of the way there,” I said. “How are things with the rest of the crew?”

“Well, Kitty’s not too pleased with ya.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know,” Keith said, resorting back to his rifling through the cabinets for an afternoon snack.

---

I approached Kitty’s room, the entrance to which held a quaint hallway door like you’d encounter on the second floor of some warm suburban home. The Cheshire corridors were familiar like that, complete with creaky hardwood floors and a distinct savory scent that further spurred core memories into my waking conscious.

I knocked.

Before long, I heard light footsteps approach the door on the other side. The door knob turned and Kitty quickly pulled open the oak wood.

“Remember me??” she said, in a tone by which I could tell she was annoyed.

“Hi— Hi, Kitty,” locking eyes with her sprung a torrent of memories back into my mind. I could barely keep up conversation, but it was so good to see her. It had been 42 years for me, and only a few hours for her.

“Why did you dive so deep without telling me?? You lost recognition of yourself and had to rely upon the code words only after you leapt back aboard the ship?” I could tell Kitty was livid. She must have checked the logs upon my Drop return.

I glanced behind her into the room. Its walls rose to curved ceilings in semicircle archways. She also enjoyed giant circular windows looking out on the Dyson Sphere city in superposition and at a higher plane above relative Earth space. It was true the Cheshire occupied both local space in an Earth Lagrange point and also at the higher plane of the Dyson City that wrapped around a super massive black hole at the center of the Universal Union (UU). I always thought Kitty had one of the nicest rooms on the ship.

“Yeah, it’s all still coming back. I’m sorry. I should have warned you I was going so deep this time,” I was still waiting for my memory recall to reach the point where I could supply her an explanation as to why I nearly got lost to oblivion on this most recent of leaps. Nevertheless, it was good to be home.

I could tell, from her judgmental glare, that Kitty required that explanation right in her doorway. But I said I had a lot to catch up on and assured her we’d reconvene a little later. She rolled her eyes and shut the door.

Instead of continuing up the ship’s corridors to the Captain’s wheelhouse at the top, I decided to descend back down to my Drop. The recall was taking longer than usual to return. I had to know why this last leap went so deep.

It was an accident, I would later learn from the printout of debriefing documents that my laptop produced, processing my report from Earth_42. The logs would reveal that I had rushed down to that planet. I hadn’t told Kitty of my departure beforehand (hence her current frustration with me). In an effort to test how deep I could leap into obscure Earth without a safety net in Kitty, I had stood on the precipice of oblivion from the Cheshire. Kitty was right to be pissed.

The blueprint, you see, wasn’t a single document. It was the confluence of several accounts: the prior life flashback prompted by reciting the unlocking keyword phrase; my report of the planet I just visited, a debrief; and a projection of the overlapping Venn diagram between these two streams, the way two eyes combine their separate, flat pictures to create 3-dimensional perspective.

Traveling back in time to the point just prior to my leap upon this planet, from which I was now returning, would reveal my motive. I had handpicked this Earth as the perfect candidate to prompt a spontaneous recall and thus ascension back to the Cheshire. The fact that I was able to return of my own volition and report this account now is proof the risky technique worked. But had I flown even an inkling closer to the proverbial Sun in this endeavor, my connection to the Cheshire, to Kitty and the rest of the crew could have been severed completely. She would’ve had no information, no intel to guide her on my retrieval.

Kitty knew I could have been lost. That’s why she was pissed. I compiled my final report of the planet. It was a full schematic of the near failed mission. I had it in hand when I returned to Kitty’s room to explain.

“Again, I’m sorry,” I said as she opened the door to her room. “Just got through reviewing the logs. I was testing long leaps without a safety net.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she said.

“I knew you wouldn’t let me test, if I told you beforehand.”

“You’re probably right.”

“The extent of memory loss upon returning to my Drop is of concern,” I said, sympathizing with her feeling of slight. “Usually, the keyphrases conjure a full memory recall after only a few moments. This time, I had to compare that with my notes from the planet report to synthesize a full blueprint of the mission retrospective.”

“Well,” she said, “thank god for the blueprint.”

She was still pissed.

We both said good night, and I left. By that point, my full Thunderbird memory had returned. I remembered all of my thoughts and feelings just prior to leaping onto this Earth_42 without the safety of a savvy leaper in Kitty to potentially retrieve me, should things get too murky for my terrestrial existence below.

I sat down to meditate in my zen garden down in the Drop. Though all the information had returned, I had to search my feelings further. “Why would I knowingly leap without safety?” I thought.

The best I could muster was a sense of insecurity. An occupational hazard of a Thunderbird is getting cast so far out into obscurity, you lose your identity. I’d always have Kitty on my six, so long as she knew where I was leaping. She really was so reliable, my dearest, closest friend.

I let all of these thoughts drift in and out of my mind. My third eye cleared and, at once: clarity. I opened my other two eyes. My meditation was complete, because I had my answer.

The reason I had leapt without Kitty’s knowledge had nothing to do with her. It was entirely my own hang-up. I had been scarred from previous leaps that risked complete detachment. And given my recent history upon entering the Cheshire, I was afraid this would happen again: a complete, irreversible memory wipe.

Of course, there was a simple difference between then and now. Now I knew Kitty, who was fast becoming as skilled a Thunderbird as yours truly. I was no longer alone among the multiverse. And resolved to never leap without her knowledge again.

Under the calm granite of mindful meditation, in heavy stillness, one infallible Truth rose above all others: I had to be Kitty’s rock too.

---

This story is from the universe of “Big Cat,” a novel. If you liked this tale, you might like the book.

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