Power Ewes: Gigamon Action Go! was an action-comedy series produced by Yakonoko Animation, with two seasons released from 1993 through 1995. Read Dr. Lee's first dispatch for details.

Despite the official account of the show’s two-season production, Dr. Lee found a credible source, Middleton Police Chief Harry Thompson, who claims that a third season was privately screened for personnel at the Yokota Air Base in 1996 at the latest. Read Dr. Lee's second dispatch for details.

Upon viewing the last known copy of Power Ewes at the home of an anime archivist named Ataru69, Dr. Lee comes away more convinced than ever that paranormal forces are involved. Read Dr. Lee's third dispatch for details.

A dream suggests the involvement of Cyberlams, leading Dr. Lee back to Ataru69, but too late to save his life. After the archivist's associates speculate on the coincidence of truck-related accidents and Ataru69's affinity for stories in the isekai genre, Dr. Lee finds herself being pursued by an ominous truck. Read Dr. Lee's fourth dispatch for details.

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Dr. Elara Lee, noted expert on the Sleeping Android, writes:

I froze, unable to move as the isekai truck sped toward me. It wasn’t a big truck, more of an oversized van, designed for deliveries and compact enough to maneuver around tight streets, but I suppose the size of a metaphysical object is hardly its most important attribute.

Were the local legends true? Could such a mundane vehicle really provide transport from our reality into worlds of fantasy beyond imagination? Why was it a cargo-hauling truck and not a bus or taxi, something more appropriate for transporting passengers? If there are gods who mediate these trips, are humans nothing more than their bowling pins to be knocked down and reset in another lane? If we are to be treated as cargo, shouldn’t we rate better than a vehicle better suited to delivering FedEx packages?

These thoughts and their ilk cycled through my head in the final moments before the truck swerved and slammed into a wall, not ten feet away. The only injuries I suffered were nicks from a shower of cinderblock shrapnel, a jangling of nerves, and general heart palpitations.

I remained firmly attached to the universe of my birth, relieved and disappointed in equal measures.

Smoke billowed from the truck’s rumpled hood. The engine still sputtered, but otherwise, I could hear no sound in this strangely quiet residential neighborhood of Kyoto. No people came running to investigate the crash. No cars followed the truck down the narrow street. Not a single circling bird served as witness to the crash.

From the driver’s seat, a voice asked, “Dr. Lee? Dr. Lee? Are you all right, Dr. Lee?”

The isekai truck knew my name!

Before I could respond to this kind inquiry, and while I was patting myself down to verify that I was indeed still alive, a second me popped up from the truck’s passenger seat. “No, I am not all right, you lunatic. Let me out of this deathtrap right now!”

The door opened and the other me stumbled out of the truck’s cabin.

Gentle Reader, let me attempt to phrase that better…

A woman matching my own looks, mannerisms, and voice stumbled out of the truck’s cabin.

My own personal mirror image came to life and stumbled out of the truck’s cabin.

A being who seemed to share every aspect of my essence stumbled out of the truck’s cabin.

I can find no way to adequately convey the strangeness of the experience. I was confused by seeing another me, the other me was confused by seeing me, and both of us are probably still shaking as a result.

“Don’t trust a word that creature has to say,” the other me warned me, pointing a thumb over her shoulder at the truck.

“What? How? What’s going on?” I asked my other self.

“You’ve doubled yourself. Again,” said the truck driver whom I could now see was, without any doubt, a cybernetic sheep. A Cyberlam. A living dream of the Sleeping Android.

“Again?” I asked.

“No, you’re the one who doubled us.” My other self frowned. “Doubled me? Us? Me? The physical endangerment is bad enough, but the grammatical ambiguity is worse. For the sake of our sanity, we can’t do this again.”

“Again?” I asked again. “Has this happened before?”

“This is the ending and the beginning of the loop,” said the Cyberlam. “See how the truck is repairing itself? Unburning its fuel? Unwearing its rubber tires? Opposing entropy in a million microscopic ways? The universe hates when something like that happens. That’s both the source and the result of the truck’s temporal and intercosmic energy discharges.”

I could see that it was true. The billow of smoke had reversed, like a video playing backward, with every particle returning to its point of origin. The truck’s hood was no longer rumpled like a sheet of used aluminum foil. It didn’t return to like-new condition, but nobody would have known this truck had just hit a wall, except that the damaged wall remained unhealed.

The other me shook my other head. “So you’re saying this loop is unavoidable? What if both of me just walk away?”

“Both of me?” I asked.

“Shut up, other me,” said the other me. “Can’t you see I’m trying to spare you from all this?”

“The loop happened before, is happening now, and therefore has to happen again,” said the Cyberlam. “Your past self has to get into the truck, or unpleasant things will happen.”

“Unpleasant things?” I asked.

“What if I go back instead?” my other self asked.

“You’ll loop forever and, at the same time, you’ll never experience the loop at all. Again, unpleasant things will result.”

“What unpleasant things?” I asked.

“Well for one, an energy imbalance that would require some serious intervention by the Time Masters.”

“So when you say unpleasant, what you mean is inconvenient, and not for me but for yourself and others of your kind,” the other me concluded.

The Cyberlam sighed. “True enough. You won’t be the one feeling put out. Neither of you. You won’t be feeling much of anything, actually, having been erased from the universe as if you were never born. I’ll be the one left to bear the burden of this mess, so yes, it’ll be unpleasant for me. I’ve come to like you, Dr. Lee. The Time Masters employee benefits package includes a grief management program, but even so, it would take a long time for me to get over your nullification.”

Both of me shuddered at that word, nullification.

“Then it seems we have no choice,” the other me said. “The only way to break the cycle is for other-me to get into the truck while I walk away, catch our flight, and post these dispatches to the Cyberlam community.”

“Wait. Am I other-me or are you other-me?” I asked the other me.

“I’m sorry for this,” the other me told me. Then I had the odd experience of watching myself walk away from myself without turning to look back at myself.

People tell me I can be cold and detached, but I’ve never before been so detached that I could watch myself abandon myself and vanish around a corner.

“I guess I should introduce myself. Again.” The Cyberlam rolled its eyes—her eyes, if it was safe to assume from her pink goggles and long eyelashes that she was a ewe.

“You’re a Cyberlam,” I stated, in the tone that people use when they say something obvious because they feel the need to speak but lack the presence of mind to be entirely intelligent.

“Yes. We’ve been through this,” said the lam, “or will be through this, or will have been through this.” She paused for a long breath. “Let’s hit the reset button. Hello, Dr. Lee. I’m Vanessaaa.”

“You’re a Cyberlam,” I stated again, struggling to progress any further in my mental struggles. “I’ve always wanted to meet you. One of you. Any of you. I’ve devoted my professional career to studying the traces you leave behind, and now here you are, serving up an existential crisis while trying to kill me with a truck!”

“Trying to avoid killing you,” said Vanessaaa, “and succeeding, I might well add.”

“I have questions. So many questions!”

“I’ll allow you three,” said Vanessaaa. “I already know what you’ll ask, and the answers are, in order: One, Cyberlam wool is fiber-optic, glows under low-light conditions, and has an active camouflage function; Two, Cyberlam wool grows at a constant rate and needs to be sheared seasonally; and Three, while it can be sewn into sweaters, no, you may not have one.”

“Oh.” I slumped a little, disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to take a warm hand-knit Cyberlam-wool sweater back to the lab with me. Strictly for research purposes, of course. “So I’m meant to get into the truck with you?”

“That’s a fourth question, but I’ll give you the answer as a freebie. Yes, get into the truck and let’s get going!”

Gentle Reader, I won’t lie. I considered running away and calling Vanessaaa’s bluff on the matter of nullification. What would it feel like to vanish as if I’d never been born? In order to feel anything at all, I’d need a place for my mind to be, but in a universe that no longer recognizes me, where would I put my soul?

I walked around the truck and opened the driver-side door. “Move over.”

“Excuse me?”

“I told myself not to trust you, and you must have and are and will be giving me good reason for that, so I’ll come with you—but only if I drive the truck.”

Vanessaaa sighed, but didn’t argue. She moved into the passenger seat and I settled in behind the wheel.

To be continued in Part 6...