Checking Out- The Complete Trilogy

by T W M Ashford

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Kellogg,’ said Pierre, stepping forward. ‘The universe really needs your help.’

  Chapter Five

  I don’t know why I bothered to be surprised anymore.

  Every time I thought I’d seen the oddest, most conscious-altering, incomprehensible thing the universe could throw at me, I had to realign my expectations of reality all over again. And I don’t know why I found this new situation any more surprising than the last. I mean, why wouldn’t a near-suicidal middle-aged widower from Littlewick Green be conversing with a giant galactic earthworm on the other side of the universe, far in the distant future? Why wouldn’t he be?

  I’m not sure how else to identify Kellogg Durant other than how I just did: a giant galactic earthworm. Or maybe more of a grub - he was a bit on the portly side. He was twenty-five, maybe thirty metres in length. About eight metres tall (not counting the space between his floating body and the floor, of course) and roughly the same in width. As far as I could tell he was a sort of peach colour (the harsh fluorescent lights made everything look a little washed out), and as he spoke spheres of ambers and blues would blossom beneath his skin. He had no face to speak of - no eyes, no ears, no mouth - but he seemed to see and hear us just fine, and his kind but confident voice reminded me of Mr. Basil Pembleton’s, the headmaster of Sam’s old school… for the short time Sam was enrolled there.

  And unlike most everyone in Port Iridium, he was perfectly pleasant. Not immediately helpful, but pleasant.

  ‘I’m flattered that you’d come all this way to ask for my help,’ he said, glowing a light pink. ‘Really, I am. But I’m not sure what use I am to you. I’m not one for travelling and as I’m sure you know, my kind aren’t the type to go meddling in current affairs.’

  ‘The past, present and future are all being rewritten!’ exclaimed Pierre.

  ‘All seems pretty current to me,’ Kellogg replied. I imagine he would have shrugged if he could.

  A wave of bright red washed over the giant worm, and in the air he wriggled in discomfort. His tone faded back to its usual peach colour.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he grumbled. ‘Been getting these sharp aches all day.’

  ‘Stomach ache?’ I suggested, in an attempt to contribute something to the conversation.

  ‘Maybe if my species ever ate anything,’ came the worm’s surprised reply. He hesitated, then spoke to Pierre. ‘Poor George is still a bit new to all this, isn’t he?’

  ‘How do you know my name?’ I asked, feeling a cold hand tickle my spine.

  ‘Because Pierre here ends up saying it,’ replied the worm.

  ‘You’re still thinking very three-dimensionally, George,’ Pierre said with a wink.

  ‘And there you go,’ said the worm, cheerfully.

  ‘Oh, I’m very confused,’ I sighed. I felt an insatiable urge to curl up into a ball, disappear from existence and then wake up in my bed back home, with no more pressing a responsibility than to go down to the corner shop for some fresh milk.

  ‘Dear George, you needn’t be,’ said the worm, and I must say I found myself reassured by his headmasterly tone. ‘It’s all quite simple once you know. I am a Great Perdurantic Worm, probably the last of my kind. It’s quite hard for any of us to meet up and find out who’s left, you see, as we don’t make a habit of travelling through the first three dimensions. And it’s quite hard to avoid being eaten by thirteen billion years worth of predators at once when you’re stuck in one place.’

  ‘Kellogg is a four-dimensional being,’ explained Pierre.

  ‘Quite right. Try to think of it this way, George. A table has two ends - a start and a finish, whichever way you choose to measure it. You can chop it up or add bits on but at any given moment the table is just… there, stamped into existence. Well, time works in much the same way as space: it’s a flat plain. At one end is the beginning of the universe. At the other end, the universe’s end. Your life, just like mine or Pierre’s or anyone else’s, is like a worm wriggling across that plain. Sure, your life has a start, a middle and an end - if you look at it from outside the fourth dimension. But look at it from inside, and your life - your whole physical existence - is like that table. Past, present and future - it’s happening all at once. It’s all one piece… you just experience it a bit at a time.’

  ‘You know what?’ I replied. ‘That actually makes a kind of sense. It’s like a road. When you’re driving along it, you only see one bit of the tarmac at a time. But if you were to look at the road from above…’

  ‘Then the whole road is already there whether you’ve travelled down it yet or not,’ laughed Pierre. ‘Not bad, George.’

  ‘But how does that work, if we’re jumping from time period to time period?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, sometimes the worm gets snipped in two and scattered across the table,’ replied Kellogg, a note of discomfort in his voice. ‘It’s not a perfect metaphor. The point is, I experience my existence from a fourth-dimensional perspective, which means my past, present and future happen all at once. For me there is only a sort of perma-present. It’s alright. Makes me very popular with gamblers, if nothing else.’

  ‘And with people who need answers to questions nobody else has even thought to ask yet,’ added Pierre, testily. ‘Come on, Kellogg. Help us. You know something is wrong. If those sharp aches you’re getting were normal, you’d already know why you were having them. But you don’t, do you? It’s because the universe is being rewritten, and you’re being written out of it. They’re erasing you from the past up, Kellogg. You’re going to end up on the cutting room floor if you don’t help. For us it’ll be painless, at least. One minute here, the next… poof. But for you…’

  The huge worm was silent, but even without a mouth I could tell it was smiling.

  ‘You realise that for me this conversation has already happened, right?’ said Kellogg. ‘The outcome can’t be changed. But stop your worrying. Of course I’m going to help you. I already have, just not yet.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you say that at the start?’ cried Pierre.

  ‘Because then the conversation would never have happened,’ replied Kellogg, speaking slowly. ‘Besides, people don’t like feeling like there’s no point to what they’re saying. It’s quite sweet really. So go on, ask me that question about how to get to the Council of Keys meeting in the Space Between Worlds.’

  ‘How can we get back to the very first Council of Keys meeting in the Space Between Worlds?’ asked Pierre. ‘The one where they… Wait, what?’

  ‘Disconcerting, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, just a little. I see your point.’

  ‘Everyone slow down a second, will you?’ I asked, waving my hands. I took Pierre to one side. ‘You said we needed to come speak to this Kellogg guy, and I went along with it. Now you’re saying we’re headed to the Space Between Worlds, a prison outside of time and space? Jesus Christ. You hardly sold that place to me the last time you brought it up in conversation. Why on Earth do you want to go back?’

  ‘When the Torri-Tau escaped they rewrote the multiverse,’ whispered Pierre. ‘Their actions don’t echo out across the multiverse like ours do, right? If they pick up a coffee cup in one universe, no alternate reality emerges where they don’t. They only pick up the cup, which is why it’s such a problem when they visit a universe that isn’t their own. That’s why the Council called them the Gatecrashers, I think. And that means the only way to make any kind of course correction is if they do it themselves. Just trust me, alright? I have a plan.’

  ‘If it makes things easier for you, George,’ interjected Kellogg from behind us, ‘you end up going along with this plan too.’

  ‘Fine,’ I sighed. ‘It’s not like I’ve got much of a choice anyway, have I?’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ said Pierre, patting me on the back and turning around to face Kellogg again.

  ‘And those special keys of yours won’t do the job?’ asked Kellogg. ‘You know, the ones the Council ga
ve you?’

  Pierre pulled his own golden key out of his pocket and rolled it around in his hand.

  ‘Nope,’ he sighed. ‘I don’t know if they’d work that way, and even if they do - where am I going? I might have been to the Space Between Worlds before, but I don’t know where it is. I don’t know how to get there. And I can’t find the vibrations if I don’t know which frequency I’m supposed to be listening out for.’

  ‘You sound unsure of yourself, Pierre. Like the ground on which your reality stands has been shattered.’

  ‘It’s… it’s strange. I’ve always been able to find a universe’s wavelength and just… go. Any time, any place. Now all those times and places are disappearing, and I feel boxed in. Trapped. I’m scared to use the key, if I’m honest. For the first time in a long while, I’m scared of where I might end up.’

  He stuffed the key back in his pocket and straightened his concierge jacket.

  ‘So no, the keys aren’t of any use to us. Not for taking us where we’re going. But the doors aren’t the only way of going from world to world… are they?’

  ‘Of course not. People were travelling across the multiverse long before the Council commissioned the first of their keys to be forged. But those ways are mostly lost now.’

  ‘Mostly?’ asked Pierre.

  ‘If you’re hoping I’ll bestow upon you some ancient incantations, magic runes and smelly candles, you’ve got another thing coming,’ chuckled Kellogg. ‘But yes, there might be a way. It’s… possible. Not guaranteed, or safe, and certainly not comfortable… but possible. Have you ever heard of a cosmic crack?’

  ‘Pretty sure the kids sell that behind the clock tower in the village centre,’ I joked. Nobody laughed.

  ‘When the first ever universe exploded into existence during the Big Bang,’ continued Kellogg, ignoring me, ‘things went from very cold to very hot, very quickly. Ever since then the universe has been getting steadily cooler again, as the fabric of spacetime expands and everything draws further apart. Now, the universe is elastic… but it’s not that elastic. You know the way that ice cubes crack in warmer water? It’s sort of like that. They were tiny fissures at first - one dimensional, no more than a proton thick - but it’s been a long time, and the universe is a much bigger place than it once was. Those cracks can be traced right back to the beginning… and what do you think one would find behind those cracks in spacetime?’

  ‘The Space Between Worlds,’ Pierre answered. He scratched his head. ‘How come the Torri-Tau never escaped that way, then?’

  ‘It’s a crack in the fabric of the universe, not a National Trust nature trail,’ replied Kellogg. ‘I won’t lie to you - your chances of survival aren’t brilliant. Nobody, to the best of my knowledge, has dared travel inside before. And there’s no coming back the other way. That’s the thing about an infinite void; you can walk and walk forever, but you’re never going to stumble across a way out.

  ‘But in theory this would work?’ asked Pierre, ignoring my bout of surprised coughing. ‘Following the fissure back to its source would lead us to that very first Council meeting?’

  ‘Come on, guys, let’s get our thinking caps on,’ I said to an audience of none. ‘There’s got to be a way that doesn’t involve a string-theory suicide run. I mean, I’ve only just decided to enjoy life.’

  ‘In theory,’ continued Kellogg. ‘But in practice, arriving at the exact right time might be tricky - the Space Between Worlds doesn’t actually have time, after all - and whether or not the human body could even withstand the pressure of the journey is another thing…’

  ‘How about we try our luck using the keys anyway?’ I asked with dwindling enthusiasm. ‘For all we know, the Torri-Tau might have forgotten to rewrite the events immediately before and after the Council meeting, and maybe we could… No, that’s probably unlikely…’

  ‘But in theory?’ repeated Pierre.

  ‘In theory, yes,’ confirmed Kellogg, flashing a satisfied shade of flamingo pink.

  ‘That settles it then,’ declared Pierre, clapping his hands together. In truth, his face didn’t look half as optimistic as his voice sounded. A quartet of worry lines had dug their way across his forehead. ‘Where can we find one of these cracks in spacetime?’

  ‘Well, they’re not exactly the sort of thing you come across in a promotional packet of crisps. Even in a universe this size and this fragile, they’re rare. And that makes them valuable - even more valuable than me, I dare say. It’s from those cracks that mining companies extract antimatter energy - you know, antiprotons and antiquarks, that sort of thing. Expensive stuff. Profitable stuff. I’d say the chances of you finding one that hasn’t already been claimed by one enterprise or another is next to none, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Well, where’s the nearest one then?’

  ‘Nearest one? To here? Hmm. That would probably be the one just off Ophenia Four, over in the Gelapito cluster. You can’t miss it, apparently. Got a digital journal to hand?’

  ‘Erm, no.’

  ‘Pen and paper?’

  Pierre patted his various pockets. ‘Nope, not got them either,’ he said.

  ‘Ah well. No problem. Put Ophenia Four into any half-decent ship’s navigation system and it’ll know where to take you. Good luck.’

  ‘Oh, is that it?’ I asked, surprised by his abruptness.

  ‘I wish it weren’t,’ replied Kellogg, radiating bursts of mellow purple, ‘but I’m afraid your time is up.’

  There came a sudden but familiar chugging sound and behind our backs the two halves of the door jerked open. Our Na’riim guards from before stood in the opening, the comparative darkness of the ship’s belly looking out from behind them, their rifles resting in their arms.

  ‘Goddammit,’ Pierre grumbled under his breath, as we were escorted out of the worm’s cell. ‘I guess we’ll see you around, Kellogg.’

  ‘No you won’t,’ sighed Kellogg, ‘but that’s alright. It’s been nice talking to new people.’

  Chapter Six

  ‘Sneak your way into our sector again and you’re going out the airlock,’ were the last words I heard before my ribs hit the plate metal floor. I suppose I should have been grateful. They could have thrown us back into the furnace.

  The two Na’riim shut the maglock door behind them, leaving me and Pierre to unglue ourselves from the cold, grime-coated deck. Residents and tourists of Port Iridium hurried around us as if we weren’t there. I got to my feet and tried to brush the muck off my shirt, but gave up. I seemed to be wearing more trash than clothes by that point.

  ‘So what now?’ I asked as Pierre narrowly avoided being trampled under a particularly belligerent commuter. ‘Do we scrape together enough change for a bus ride to this Ophenia Four? Or do we have to stow away somewhere?’

  ‘Something like that,’ replied Pierre, in a way that made it evident his plan was nothing like that in the slightest. ‘We need to get to the docks, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Where are we now?’ I asked, looking around us. The busy corridor looked much the same as all the other chaotic, metallic and black-market corridors we’d walked down before, which meant I was totally and utterly lost. To my immediate right was a kitchen, in which a centipede the size of a buffalo was tossing a wok. Off to my left was a wide set of what looked like rails. Robots built like train carriages were zipping along them back and forth, carrying tanks and canisters in their cargo beds.

  Pierre spun himself around in a circle, trying to decipher the rune-like writing plastered all over the space station’s signs. Much to both my satisfaction and irritation, he wasn’t having much more success than if I’d tried my luck.

  ‘Well, we’re not at the docks,’ Pierre deduced. He pointed to a streak of white etchings along the ceiling. Beside an arrow pointing due west was what looked, if you were to squint a little, a bit like a starship. His eyes did a double-take towards the other side of the hallway. ‘But we’re not far off,’ he added. ‘Quick, follow me.’

&
nbsp; We hurried through the crowds toward the tracks, dancing around a herd of dog-sized cockroaches pulling plastic cases. Somewhere in the distance a bell had started to ring. It reminded me of the bell that used to ring out whenever a train was about to pass through my village, bellowing just before the barriers would descend to stop cars from driving over the tracks in the road.’

  ‘Erm, Pierre?’ I asked, already out of breath. ‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play near railway tracks?’

  ‘She did not, actually,’ replied Pierre, absent-mindedly. He was busy peering down at the railings, hopping from foot to foot. ‘But then, I wasn’t the sort of idiotic child who would need such an obvious thing explained to them. Hold your hand out.’

  ‘I’m not holding my bloody hand out!’ I shouted. The bell had grown a lot louder.

  ‘Oh, you’d rather walk there, would you? Fine, we’ll do it another way. But you’ll be the one paying these guys back if it doesn’t stop. I hope you realise that.’

  ‘Paying who back?’

  Pierre marched back across the path and snatched one of the plastic cases from the cockroaches. They screeched and whipped their antennae towards him. A few people turned around to look but nobody bothered to stop.

  ‘What was that for?’ I yelled.

  The bell now sounded as if it was ringing inside my skull, the bellringers bouncing up and down on my tonsils. The tracks were quaking like dandelions in a cold wind.

  ‘Here it comes,’ murmured Pierre. He held the case out at arm’s length, right above the rail.

  It came like a bullet train. At first I didn’t even see it coming - I was craning my neck, but it was impossible to make anything out besides the jostling of the crowds and the hissing steam of the pipes and vents. Then, far in the distance, I saw a streak of grey go whistling along the rail, and I realised why everyone else was shuffling out of the way.

  Pierre remained in place. I could see his legs were shaking.

  Closer and closer it rocketed towards us…