The Captain arrived at my supply closet door five minutes to 19:00, which is when we normally mounted up a leap.

“So where’s this Drop I keep hearing about?” she said, as she walked over the door’s threshold. I looked down at the throw rug in the center of the small floor.

“Down there?” she said, in disbelief.

I whisked the rug off the floor to reveal the trap door beneath.

“I don’t remember that.”

“Yes, I installed it,” I said with a grin.

I flipped open the door, with a creak of the metal. The Captain looked down into the manmade hole.

“The force of gravity shifts, once you decend down the manhole,” I said. “It’s best to dive head first.”

“You go,” she said, and witnessed my swan dive into the portal. She followed my lead and we climbed up to the metal platform at the bottom of the Drop.

“Wow, you’ve been busy,” the Captain looked around my orb-like abode in astonishment. Her eyes glittered at the sight of a running waterfall, into a crystal clear mote that surrounded our stone and grass meditation garden. She looked around the perimeter to see Jacob and Gabriel’s living room off in the 10 position. And Edward and Donna’s city bar and restaurant, and Ron and Rachael’s yacht club, in the 2 and 4 positions, respectively.”

“How- How did you do all of this?” she whispered.

“I bent space-time,” I said plainly. I was now on step 5 of the Thunderbird initiation—teaching the crew. Warping the reality was way back in step 2, “zen in the Drop.” I had moved onto bigger and better things, but cool to allow the Cap to catch up.

The Captain frowned briefly while nodding, looking all around the inside of the orb in mild understanding. “Hmmf,” she said. “So how do we leap dimensions from here? I have a place in mind.”

***

You’ve heard me mention the Cap occasionally throughout this log, largely from a distance. Many of my formative months on the Cheshire were spent either avoiding the Captain’s iron fist–style of management or suffering the rash of her discipline when I couldn’t avoid the steely gaze. But inviting the Cap down to my Drop that night, and her obliging, was a watershed moment for us. And before I get into that momentous leap we took—the Cap, the Crew and myself—I feel it’s important to explain where she was coming from at this moment in our history.

While I maintain that where several of the Crew and I were leaping to most nights was far more interesting than any of the Cheshire’s everyday rigamarole, I must also mention that the Captain did have a life. She was the skipper of one of the most important dimensional oscillating vessels in the UU. And she had suffered a very public and embarrassing failure, getting sucked into that black hole, which is where my story began.

Her days were spent at the Cheshire helm, guiding tagging missions delegated by Danny V. She was determined to dig us out of that deficit. But once Mr. V began to suspect some of the Crew were up to our extracurricular nightly leaps, he didn’t appreciate the divesting of attention. He felt like he owned us, the Cap, the Cheshire and all. To punish us for our supposed departure from civil duty, he piled on more and more assignments. The Cap took the brunt of this pressure.

Most of her nights were spent at UU social events, accompanied by her partner and ship’s spiritualist Guillermo. Though the Earth version the UU had cast us out to sit way out in the remote and obscure far reaches of the known universe, the Captain still had a reputation to uphold. She and Guillermo alone would thus leverage the ship’s oscillating dimensional engine to attend galas and banquets and fundraisers at the UU’s epicenter, Citydom. She had a lot resting on her shoulders those days. Later she would tell me that, even then, she suspected the growing influx of tagging missions were unsustainable. She was looking for a way out.

Which brings us to 19:00 at my closet door that night she came down to visit, and then unto the Drop. I can still remember how nervous I was to impress her. As we did every other night, we sat in a circle in our zen garden at the center of the Drop, once the rest of my leaping crew made their way down.

“There are two ways to dimensionally leap by the old ways, Cap,” I said, readying my mind, body and those of the Crew to take our jump. “We can summon the electromagnetic forces all around down into our ankles and breach space-time in the physical form. When I was first learning the technique, that’s how Sully and I leapt you’ll recall. But I’ve since perfected the technique into a purely energetic form—the astral leap. We have yet to experience the limits of this method, which is both exciting and also ominous. That’s why we’ve restricted our boundaries to the Earth versions around a focal Moon. And it appears to be no coincidence that all of the Crew including you come from an Earth version we can reach this way. So, tonight we’re going to let your memories and feelings guide the way.”

I looked over at Kitty who was sat next to Cap. She had become one of the strongest leapers, second only to me. I hardly even kept her protected in my magnetic bubble anymore. She could fly solo, if she wanted.

“Kitty, I want you to keep an eye on Cap tonight,” I said. “Let’s not let another Sully episode happen.”

“If you guys lose me, good luck handling Danny V. in the morning!” the Cap added with a chuckle. Who knew she had a sense of humor.

***

As we sat in our lotus positions at the epicenter of the Drop, I dedicated most of my attention to Cap, who took to zen meditation rather readily.

“Ok, Cap,” I said. “I want you to picture in your mind’s eye a destination. Ask yourself where you want to go, and then answer that question with the picture in your mind.”

She gently nodded without opening her eyes.

I then summoned the necessary electromagnetivity to project our astral selves into the movierain. Like a lightning strike, my energy leapt from my physical form and hovered above, as did the crew. I pulled Cap’s astral projection from her solar plexis and held her close to my bubble. We wouldn’t lose our commander, if Kitty or I had something to say about.

As we surfed the Dew of world droplets raining down all around, the Captain finally opened her eyes.

“Fixate on your destination, Cap!” I yelled.

She kept her zen amidst the melee and an image, a scene, formed above her crown. I zeroed in on its frequency to guide the group toward that world.

“Hold it, Cap! We’re about to delve into its atmosphere,” it felt weird to give our skipper orders, but she held close and complied. She was a natural.

We plummeted down and down, like the rain, as the world below got bigger. We landed in a lush garden, a pastoral clearing amidst some jungle, with trees draped in vines stretching to the sky. The oxygen-rich air filled my lungs, as we materialized into physical form down on the ground.

We touched down.

“Wow, that was smoother than I thought!” said the Cap, newly initiated as a leaper like us.

“Where have you taken us, Cap?” I loved when the other crew’s memories guided our leaps.

“I imagined the first place I met Guillermo,” she said.

We hiked through the brush for not long, until we came to another clearing. Sure enough, we saw a young Guillermo in the distance, sitting quietly under a tree. My helmet picked up traces of DMT in his bloodstream. He was in a psychedelic trance, communing with the plant spirits around him. He was preparing for a ceremony.

“I was on a spiritual journey as a young woman,” the Cap whispered, as we peered from the cover of the brush at Guillermo chanting quietly to himself, in the ancient language of the plants.

“I had arranged to meet with the local shaman of this Peruvian jungle,” she continued. “My younger self should enter the clearing any moment.”

“How can the Captain be with us right now, and also meet young Guillermo in the jungle?” Kitty asked me.

“We’ve leapt to a version of Earth that’s near identical to one at the time the Cap met Guillermo,” I said. “Even though it’s not the exact planet where she and the shaman met, we can learn a lot from their history by observing this similar entanglement.”

Just then, the young Cap walked into view.

Young Cap: “Are– Are you the shaman?” as she carefully approached Guillermo, still chanting.

He opened his eyes slowly to take in the stunning vision of the Captain.

“Yes, yes,” he said gently to his new pupil. “Please sit.”

The young Captain sat a few feet opposite the shaman, who had now ceased his chanting to give her his undivided attention.

“You have embarked upon a spiritual journey, yes?” Guillermo asked. The young Captain nodded.

“To truly comprehend the spiritual realm above our earthly existence, we must first understand our authentic origin,” he jumped right into his instruction. “We are not only connected to all life on Earth, the plants, the animals, the microorganisms; we ARE these beings. We ARE the Earth. To effectively step up into the spiritual realm, you must believe this notion at the core of your soul. Our individual accounts each represent Earth versions. And, now, in this moment, we share an event where our respective versions overlap.”

Current Cap: (whispering) “With that, I was hooked. He had me. I think I might have fallen in love with him at that moment. I remember how profound it was to think of myself as Earth Herself. It was both liberating and empowering.”

***

“That’s one of the best stories I’ve ever heard on a Wednesday night,” said the tavern ringleader, picking up his slacked jaw from the awe of the Cap’s story.

After we witnessed the Captain and Guillermo’s first rendezvous in the jungle, I took the crew on a leap to the tavern in Jacob and Gabe’s world. The Captain fit right in with our Wednesday night gang.

“Well, she’s one of us,” the ringleader continued. “Can we expect your lovely presenece every week now?” (I think he was taking a liking to her.)

“Not every Wednesday,” she said, flattered. “This was more of a proof of concept mission for me. And Bill and his team passed with flying colors. But there is a lot of ship work that still needs to get done. And I still need to get Danny V. off my back.”

“You’re welcome back any time,” he said with hearts in his eyes.

***

We leapt back to the Drop to return to our shipbound bodies. The Captain and I were a little closer after that night. I think I had finally impressed her. And she saw promise, she told me, in our unorthodox leaping techniques.

At 0700 the next morning, instead of reporting to my usual post cleaning metal platforms the levels above the engine room, she told me to report to her wheelhouse, by the bridge (the highest level).

I smelled a promotion.

***

DROP UPDATE: I logged the Cap and Guillermo’s garden in the 12 spot of my Drop, to commemorate the successful voyage, maiden with Cap in tow. My backdoor was at 6. In the 4 and 2, respectively, were Ron and Rachael’s favorite harbor date spot and Donna and Edward’s city speakeasy. Jacob and Gabe’s Shermer house sat at the 10 position. Kitty and Keith chose an infinite baseball diamond—where every conceivable baseball game every played could load—at the 8 position, but we’ll get to that.

***