Arthur is eighteen, fresh out of college, and just found out last week that he was adopted as a baby.  

"Absolutely!" 

And so, a month later, he receives a letter reminding him of the Uniform Code and asking him to come to Cardiff to be sworn in and to depart for Bute.

He shows up promptly, not quite impeccably dressed but certainly within the bounds of the Uniform Code. He's not even hungover, and wasn't that a fun conversation to have with his d—with Derek.

Almost as fun as the screaming match when he told Derek he'd signed up for the Warping Program. Admittedly, most of the screaming was on Arthur's side, and he's not particularly proud of playing the 'not my real dad' card. But it was the look in Casey's eyes that really made him feel like an arse. His—well, not his older sister, but try telling her that. 

No time to think about Casey now, or how much she claimed to miss him. It's too late to back out even if he wanted to. 

And he and the other volunteers are presented to the queen and asked to swear before Almighty God to be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs and successors, and as in duty bound to honestly and faithfully defend Her Majesty, her heirs and successors in person, crown and dignity against all enemies and to observe and obey all orders of Her Majesty, her heirs and successors and of the generals and officers set over him.

Arthur repeats the words along with everyone else, although he does at least try to pay attention to what he's saying.

He doesn't particularly care about the God part, for all Derek's efforts to raise him as a good Christian, but the Queen? Yeah, that's an authority he can get behind. 

And he is taken to Phase 1 Training, and over fourteen weeks of constant hardship taught to fight and trained to obey orders without question, kill without hesitation, and take pride in being a soldier in the Warping Program.

He's tried dozens of sports over the years, both team and individual, but none of them ever felt quite satisfying enough.

Fighting—the shooting part, a little, but especially the hand-to-hand—feels like coming home. He excels in training and even starts helping out and directing his fellow trainees. 

His fellow trainees appreciate this.

Eventually they complete Phase 1 Training and are flown to Bute. In the compound surrounding the Warp, they meet the soldiers who are joining the Warping Program after engineering training, and are instructed on how to report their waking up after possession, what information they should and should not share with their possessor (Never share your identifying codes, suspicions of treason, possessor policing protocols. Don't share non-mission-critical information likely to make your possessor sympathize with the enemy. Share everything else mission-relevant unless specifically ordered otherwise; normally stuff your possessor shouldn't know will be kept from both of you, as some possessors are able to read their hosts' minds), to report any powers as a precaution against possessors trying to conceal them, and how to report if they notice or suspect treason on the part of their possessor.

...wow. It has maybe only just properly sunk in that there's going to be a whole other person living in his head for the rest of both their lives. 

Another person. In his head. Maybe even reading his mind. 

Some people would be scared off at this point. Arthur doesn't blame them—but he isn't one of them, either. He signed up for this, and he'll see it through. 

And now the new privates wait to be sent through the Warp one at a time.

In the edge of one of the yards, one of the army engineers is sitting alone, looking distressed and scratching the ground with a stick.

Arthur is bored enough that he wanders over to see what she's doing. 

"Mind if I join you?" 

She drives the stick into the ground hard enough that it breaks and growls.

"If you like."

"Does that help?" he asks, indicating the stick. 

He sits down a safe distance away, just outside arm's reach in case she decides she wants to hit something. 

"No."

She resumes scratching the ground with one part of the stick.

"I don't want someone else in my head."

"You know you can still back out, right? I'm pretty sure it's illegal for them to make you do this."

It's only been drummed into them several hundred times over the last few months. Something something informed consent; he wasn't really listening after the first couple of repetitions, secure in his certainty that he wasn't going to take the option to back out. 

"Yeah, as far as the brass is concerned I can back out. Doesn't mean God's okay with it."

Arthur sits back and makes himself comfortable in his impromptu seat before attempting an answer to that. 

"I'm no expert, but...no God I'd worship would want you to go through with something this big if you didn't actually want to do it. Mixed feelings are one thing, and maybe that's all it is. But if you've thought about it and decided the benefits aren't worth having to have someone else in your head, or you think you'd find it horrible enough that you couldn't do your job afterwards anyway..." 

She snorts.

"You think God cares what I want? Why do you think God made the Warps if he doesn't even want technicians to go through them?"

Well, she's determined, he'll give her that.

"Maybe you'll do more good some other way. He can't want everyone to be Warped, we all have different callings, right?" 

"Yes, people have different callings. That doesn't mean we just get to do whatever we feel like. I can still do good some other way once I'm warped."

"So you still think being Warped is your calling," Arthur concludes. "Alright, fine."

He stands. "I think that's about as much effort as I want to put into convincing you not to do something you don't want to do." As he walks away to rejoin the other recruits, he tosses a "Good luck!" over his shoulder.  

The first of Arthur's unitmates to enter the warp, Brown, crawls out missing a leg after a day and a half and is granted medical discharge.

Arthur watches, and maybe paces a little, and waits for his turn. 

"...that doesn't happen often, does it?" he asks whoever's meant to be supervising them. 

That would be a Major Reed.

"It's not typical, but it's not unheard-of."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." 

Back to pacing. How much longer until he can do this and get it over with?

That depends how long other people spend in the Warp. Three more of his unitmates are going in before him.

Thompson comes out after nineteen hours female, Australian, and with medical training.

...cool.

The 'female' bit he'd be just as happy to pass on, but he could live with the rest. This seems more promising than 'missing a leg'. 

Two down, two to go?

When Lewis comes out, after twenty-one hours, he resigns from the service on the grounds that he refuses to participate in the "internal conflicts" of a "primitive civilization". Reed yells at him for a while before permitting it.

...oookay. You do that, weird mirror-universe Lewis with a stick up his rear end. 

Arthur isn't too worried about that outcome. He's pretty sure any version of him that's meaningfully him wouldn't take that attitude. He feels kind of bad for the original Lewis, though, whenever the guy wakes back up to find his possessor quit their job. 

Well, when that happens they'll want to see if original Lewis can get anything useful out of his possessor.

Smith comes out after sixteen hours as a Chinese man named Jiang whose training is centuries out of date. He will be sent back to Phase 1 Training.

Arthur is sent to the Warp.

His first reaction is relief that the bloody waiting is over. He rides that feeling almost all the way to the edge of the Warp before his second reaction—panic—hits. He's actually doing this, he's going to walk in there and a different version of him is going to walk out, what if he's terrible, what if he's a girl, what if—

Fuck it. He's come this far. 

Taking a deep breath, he firmly tells that train of thought to shut up, and keeps walking. 

The Bute warp used to be a corner of a pine plantation. The Warping made straight rows of trees into a twisted maze full of blackberry bushes and expanded it such that, though from outside it is less than a hundred meters across, looking in they go on as far as the eye can see. In the time since the warping, the blackberries and other weeds have grown denser and some of the seedlings have grown into trees themselves in the gaps between rows. This far North and in late Autumn, it's bitterly cold.

It doesn't particularly matter which way he walks, so he picks a path that looks interesting—but not too overgrown. There's no point wasting his time pushing through the undergrowth when...someone else...will only have to do the same on the way back. 

If he turns around, he will find the edge of the warp is no longer visible.

Several hours later, he loses consciousness and someone else (??) finds himself suddenly in a strange and cold forest.

Aquaman whirls around, looking for the pirates he was just fighting, and seeing nothing but...trees? Wasn't he on a boat a second ago? 

Maybe this is a hallucination; the pirates were smuggling drugs along with their other cargo. But he's pretty sure he'd have noticed them trying to inject him—apparently Atlantean skin is tougher than most humans'. Maybe he's lost time; maybe he's finally snapped and gone insane. Maybe it's magic of some kind.

After taking a moment to calm down and think it through, he suspects the only way to find out is to engage with it as though it's real. Accordingly, he looks around to see if there's any sort of trail he could follow, or any sign that one direction is different from another. 

If he looks for a while he might find a trail of snapped twigs and disturbed leaf litter ending at his current location.

It eventually loops back on itsself.

He takes a little while to notice this, with the complete lack of landmarks, but he does notice. Right, picking a direction at random it is. There's still nothing to distinguish them, so...that way?

He tries to walk in as straight a line as possible. Ugh, if he dies of starvation after getting lost in a forest he'll never hear the end of it.

Well, there are birds around?

Eventually night will fall.

How big is this forest? Is he going in circles again?

This is too long and boring to be a dream, and too consistent to be a hallucination. Either he has amnesia or he's been magically transported here. (Or both. It might also be both.) He'll keep walking, for lack of anything better to do, but if he doesn't find a way out of the forest in the next few hours he's stopping to rest. Going straight from fighting pirates to...whatever this is...was not part of the plan.  

He does not find a way out of the forest in the next few hours.

It's a little cold, but Atlantean physiology means he's not in danger of dying from exposure if he sits down against a tree to nap for a few hours. So he does that. 

In the morning, the forest is just as inexplicably foresty as it was the night before, and there's still no sign of an end to the trees. He sighs, gets up, and starts walking in what he thinks is the same direction he was going last night. 

Eventually, sky becomes visible through the trees ahead, then glimpses of buildings, then uniformed soldiers standing guard.

Oh, good. He presses on, a little faster now he can see his destination.

The soldiers look like regular army, rather than gang members or minions for a supervillain. That's promising, but not quite enough to get him to let his guard down just yet. He doesn't even know what country he's in—he'd guess the US, but there's something just a little different about the uniforms...

A soldier sees him and calls out "Warped!" in a British accent.

...he's not going to assume that's the insult it sounds like, given the circumstances. Accent suggests he's probably in the UK—could be better, but could be a lot worse. At least they speak English here.

"Hello there!" he calls once he's in hailing range. Arthur Peterson's Welsh accent has been replaced with an American one, but his voice is otherwise similar. 

"Come here, Peterson!" another British accent shouts back.

...are they talking to him? Do they think he's someone else?

Well, going over there seems like the best way to get answers, so he goes. 

He will come to a rectangular yard which somehow surrounds the forest despite being much smaller than it, in which a number of soldiers appear to be standing guard. An officer, who told him to "come here", addresses him again.

"Peterson."

Yeah, okay, they're definitely calling him by someone else's name.

"Sorry, I think you have me confused with someone else," he says calmly. His voice is a little deeper than Arthur Peterson's, and his way of speaking is much more confident. "And I seem to be lost; can you tell me where we are?" 

"This is the Bute Warp Army Base, Scotland. I am Captain John Blain. Your memories have been altered; you are in fact Private Arthur Peterson of the British Army. What year and allegiances do your memories indicate?"

...he looks down at himself to check. Yup, he's still wearing his Aquaman gear. Two-piece wetsuit, orange at the top, green at the bottom, belt with a stylized letter 'A', no shoes. He's pretty sure he'd have noticed himself suddenly wearing shoes. 

"Uh huh. And what's your explanation for why a private in the British army is dressed like Aquaman?" And why get his first name right, but not the surname...

"Warping can alter the body and the clothing on it as well as the mind."

He poduces a notepad and a letter, and reads from the former:

"Arthur Peterson, adoptive son of Derek Peterson. You left this letter to yourself prior to your warping;"

...sure, he might as well read the letter. Even with all the other strangeness, it's unlikely that the ink is magical and staring at it will send him to sleep or something.

Hey, it's been a long couple of days.

It's written in his own handwriting, or at least a reasonable imitation thereof. 

Dear Arthur, or whatever your name turns out to be,

My name is Arthur Peterson and I'm adopted. God that sounds like an AA meeting I have no idea who my birth family were—maybe you do, maybe you were raised by them, I have no idea. I was raised by Derek Peterson, in a small town on the outskirts of Newport in South Wales. He's shit how do I describe him ...

...

...had a fight, right before I left. I yelled at him, told him he wasn't my real dad. And I guess I could have called to apologise but I was scared never got around to it. So...sorry for making you deal with that. 

...

...university, she's always been the smart one. She's studying politics, blowed if I know why. One thing I do know, you're not a politician. If you are, I'm disowning you. Can't stand politicians, they're all air and no grit...

...in a week's time. So, see you then, I guess.

Private Arthur Peterson

There's a photo, folded in with the letter. Peterson, wearing a giant '18' badge, stands with one arm around a red-haired girl Aquaman doesn't recognise—Casey, according to the description on the back. On his other side, grinning out at Aquaman from a much more familiar face, is Derek Peterson. 

The letter is dated 1990. Peterson wrote it last week. 

That...could be him in the centre, if he squints...but the older man is the spitting image of his adoptive father, Tom Curry. 

He blinks at the date on the letter. 1990? "...last time I checked, it was 2001."

"As I said, your memory has been altered. Since 1963, regions we call Warps have been appearing which cause apparently random changes to people who enter them, especially to their memories. These normally include erasing their memories of Warps themselves ever having existed. You volunteered to enter a warp in the hope of gaining superpowers or unprecedented technical knowledge, both of which are known possibilities."

This seems consistent with the contents of the letter, at least. The Arthur of a couple years ago—Peterson is two years younger than him, not eleven, somehow—would absolutely have signed up for something like this, and was probably hoping for superpowers. Which, actually, implies that he didn't have them...

"If it's been going on that long, I can't be the first to come out remembering the future. Any word on whether you can get accurate predictions that way?" he asks, instead of discussing the matter of superpowers immediately. 

"We can get roughly accurate predictions of the future. Last year they were able to predict an earthquake in San Francisco, but it was about a month off when they expected it. Stuff with more human involvement like wars seems to be less predictable but not totally unpredictable, but it's also harder to say what's cause and what's effect there. There's a clear baseline those memories follow, and actual events sometimes conspicuously follow it but also sometimes diverge from it a lot- we think it might be the course history would have taken if Warps hadn't happened. And memories from further in the future are less convergent as well as rarer"

He nods. It makes sense that erasing someone's memory of the Warps would also change everything that happened as a result of them, but he can't figure out how that alone would result in Tom Curry becoming Derek Peterson, especially since both of them were born before 1963. 

"Well, if anyone wants my contribution, I'm happy to tell them what I remember of the last eleven years." 

"Major Reed will want to find out anything that's changed about you first. Lewis! Show Private Peterson to the Major."

He follows Lewis obediently, taking the opportunity to look around them at the people and infrastructure in the base. 

On the way to Reed's office he will see infantrymen, corridors and doors. Depending on how much he know about the relevant history, he may notice weaponry and locks too high-tech to be from 1990.

Reed addresses him brusquely in an upper-class English accent.

"Peterson. You have recently emerged from a region we call a Warp which induced changes to your memories and body. Prior to entering the Warp, you swore allegiance to her Majesty the Queen of England and obedience to your superiors in her army. I expect you to continue to honour this oath."

...he nods, cautiously. Sure, he'll do that, as long as it doesn't conflict with his other obligations. Which they probably don't need to know about just yet.

"Captain Blain tells me you remember being from 2001. What do you remember of the technological state of the art from that time?"

...sure, okay, that's where they can start. Laptops get better, so do cell phones, and the iPod just came out. DVDs exist. The internet's starting to be a big thing. 

If they're comparing to reports by other Warped, his version of 2001 is slightly, subtly ahead in some areas. A few of the companies he mentions don't exist in this world, or in most others: WayneTech. LexCorp. Kord Enterprises. 

Still, generally behind current Warped-boosted technology levels.

If he doesn't cover medical or weapons technology in detail, Reed will ask about those things specifically.

Not being medically trained or part of the US military, he doesn't know very much about those particular areas. But he'll do his best. The same pattern seems to hold true: World War Two played out exactly the same technology-wise, but there's been a slight acceleration since then relative to the standard timeline, nothing spectacular. Nothing worth noting.

"...superheroes have their own tech, but they don't tend to share it. Like Wonder Woman's invisible plane." 

Next Reed asks him about the eleven years of extra history he remembers, especially with regards to natural disasters and military and political affairs.

(He takes note of Arthur being a civilian and from a world with superheroes)

It's pretty similar to the baseline without-Warp timeline. A few of the country names and city names are different: the major threat in the Middle East, for example, is Bialya. The addition of superheroes doesn't seem to have thrown history majorly off course otherwise. 

Superman started his superhero career in Metropolis in 1998, around the same time as the magician Zatara. Batman started fighting crime in Gotham the following year, and Green Lantern came on the scene the year after that, in 2000. Aquaman has been around for a few months. There are rumours of another new vigilante over in Star City, and Wonder Woman has been sighted for the first time since the forties. Arthur hasn't ever seen any of the heroes in person and doesn't have many details to share. 

Superheroes have prevented and mitigated some, but not all, of the disasters which occur in worlds without their presence, and the existence of supervillains seems to have created new ones—all, thankfully, dealt with. He doesn't mention 9/11. It would have happened about a month ago in the standard timeline. 

"Do you have any superhuman or supernatural powers yourself? Do you know of any ways to obtain them?"

...okay. Moment of truth. He either has to lie to Peterson's commanding officer or give up his secrets.

It's 1990, and his counterpart was 19. Even if Aquaman was always going to exist in this world, he doesn't yet. No-one knows who he is, no-one knows anything about him. They don't have to know any more than he tells them, and he doesn't have to tell them about Atlantis.

"...yes." He gestures down at his outfit.

"This isn't just a costume I put on for fun. I'm Aquaman." 

Reed is surprised.

"You said Aquaman can breathe water and talk to fish. How does talking to fish work? And do you have any abnormal abilities besides those?"

"I have no idea how it works." It's only mostly a lie. 'Magic' isn't really that much more of an explanation than 'I don't know', and none of the other Atlanteans he's talked to have been able to replicate the trick with sorcery, so it might not even be magic. 

"I can communicate with all sea creatures, although most of them don't have much to say—dolphins are great, though. I'm a little stronger than most humans, I can swim faster, I'm more resistant to the cold..."

"What sorts of distance can you communicate with sea animals over? And have you found any tactical applications for that ability?"

"They have to be able to hear me and vice versa." He's still not sure whether the thing he does is more like speech or telepathy, but there's no relevant difference in how he can use it, so he doesn't care.

"I can persuade dolphins and whales to harass enemy vessels, that sort of thing?"

"Do you know which sea animals are clever enough to serve as scouts or messengers? Do you have a way to persuade them to do so?"

"Dolphins are pretty smart. Octopuses, too, but they're less mobile. Most fish are pretty dumb. And, uh, not really," he admits. "All I can do is talk to them; I can't make them do anything they don't want."

"Well, we can pay them if we need to. I'll recommend you be transferred to the Marines, and since you don't remember Phase 1 Training you should re-do it with the unit you're transferred into."

...well, he doesn't actually have a pressing reason not to do that.

"Yes, sir. But...could I have some leave time in between? I—my foster father died, in my world, and..." He trails off, not wanting to talk about his feelings with a superior officer he's only just met. 

"As a new warped, you are entitled to four weeks without duties in order to adjust, but you are also to be kept under observation in case you are concealing dangerous traits. A relatively small number of warped have started hunting and eating people after initially seeming normal. You may spend the four weeks in Cardiff and it will be possible for your family to visit you there or for you to visit your family under escort."

"Eating people?!" Arthur repeats, wide-eyed.

"Yes," he says after a moment, "I can see why you'd want to be careful. And, yeah, I'd—like to see my dad. That sounds good."

The rest of Peterson's unit, who Arthur doesn't know but who seem to know him, see him off.

He probably won't get a chance to get to know them better, since he's being transferred after his four-week leave. Oh well.

Off to...Cardiff? A place he's never actually been, according to his memories, but Peterson apparently has. It's less than an hour's drive from the town of Caerleon, where Derek Peterson and his daughter Casey live. The army would probably have fits if he wanted to spend any of the four weeks actually staying in Caerleon, wouldn't they? 

He can't have an escort for a whole week. He can have one for up to three days.

Three days is probably longer than the Petersons want to host the person who's possessed their real relative. 

He should probably call ahead to check whether they want to see him at all. Their number is in Peterson's records; he calls it from the base in Cardiff. 

"Peterson residence. Hello?" To someone who spent nearly eighteen years living with Thomas Curry, Derek's voice is almost as familiar as his face. Only the Welsh accent stops it being identical.

"...Hello? Someone there?" 

Holy hell he thought he was ready for this but he really wasn't. 

"Uh...hi," he begins awkwardly, hyperconscious of his American accent now it's been brought into contrast by Derek's. "I'm...Arthur. Arthur Curry." He stumbles through an explanation of the circumstances, both grateful for and terrified by Tom's habit—and, apparently, Derek's—of saying as little as possible and giving people space to dig their own graves. 

"...and I have four weeks of leave before my next posting, so I thought, uh, we could maybe spend some time together? I can get an escort to come to Caerleon for three days, or you can come to the base, I think. I, uh. Apparently the escort is because Warped sometimes. Eat people." 

"You planning on eating us, boyo?" 

"Well, no, I guess..."

Damn it, his dad always does—did—does this. Took one small piece of your argument and turned it into the butt of a joke, then used it to wave away the rest like so much cigarette smoke. 

"Well then," Derek says, as though that settles the whole thing. "Now, how soon can you get here, and how long are you gonna be staying?" 

...yup. Every time.

They hash out the details. Arthur gets an escort for his maximum three days, and Derek insists that they'll be staying with the Petersons. 

He gets through all the preparations, all the bureaucracy which seems to be universal. Gets through the journey itself, staring out of the window at a stream of unfamiliar landmarks. He doesn't falter for an instant until he's on the steps of a house he's never seen before, about to ring the doorbell. 

An upstairs window opens, and a young woman with red hair leans out. 

"You're not going to stand there all day, are you, little brother?" she calls down. 

"I'm not exactly the little brother you remember," he responds. "But I guess I'd better come in anyway." 

He rings the bell. 

Arthur spends three days with the Petersons, learning the subtle ways Derek differs from Tom and getting to know Casey for the first time. He's never had a sister before, and it's a new experience. At the same time, the two of them are learning, or relearning, how to relate to the not-quite-stranger who's replaced their son and brother. They don't seem to resent him for taking their Arthur away from them. If anything, Derek seems to be grateful. 

"We didn't part on the best of terms, my Arthur and I," he explains at some point. "Off he went to army training, and I thought that might be the last we'd ever see of him. But then you came along, and perhaps you're not quite my Arthur, and I'm not quite your da, but we're close enough for government work, isn't that the saying?" 

Arthur laughs. 

When he leaves to go back to Cardiff at the end of the three days, he carries the memory of that moment with him.