by Scott Meyer
Martin asked, “Is she—”
Future Martin said, “Fixing Brit the Elder? Yes.”
Martin said, “So this is—”
“All over? Not until after . . .” Future Martin cocked an ear, listening to the song. He waited three or four seconds, one finger sticking up in the air. As the rap break featuring Q-Tip started, Future Martin said, “. . . this.”
As if on cue, the front door burst open.
28.
Just beyond the door, Hubert stood in his grass-stained tuxedo, wide-eyed with horror. Behind him and flanking him on every side, bedraggled young men all smeared with dirt and plant clippings jockeyed for position and craned their necks, trying to see into Gary’s home.
One of the young men, a stout but malnourished-looking fellow wearing a hard hat with a large crack in it, shouted, “The master and his friends are under attack!”
“By the master and his friends,” Hubert added.
“We must defend them,” the young man in the cracked hard hat said.
“How?” Hubert asked. “And who, from who?”
They watched the fight for a few more seconds, then the man with the cracked hard hat said, “We’ll attack them all. In the end, the strongest wizard will be left, and we’ll pledge our fealty to them!”
Hubert shook his head. “I don’t think—”
“We’ll use our tools! Our magical tools! They were given to us by our master, now we must use them to defend our master!”
“You’re planning on attacking the master!”
“Either way! Come on, fellows!”
Hubert stammered as the rest of the apprentices flooded past him through the door, brandishing their hammers, chisels, and other assorted woodworking implements. The last in line ran by wielding a hand-powered wood drill, its gears grinding as he cranked it at top speed.
The untrained-workmen-turned-untrained-warriors flooded into Gary’s home, and chaos ensued. Martin put up a force field just in time to save himself a blow on the head from a claw hammer held by the man in the cracked hard hat.
He made a beeline for me, Martin thought. They always come straight for me. Whatever awful thing happens to us, it usually happens to me first. I wonder if it’s the shiny sequined robe.
Martin extended the force field, using it to scoop his attacker into the air and hold him there, harmless. He looked over at Future Martin to see how he’d fared.
Future Martin feigned an unconvincing look of horror as the apprentice wielding the hand drill ran straight into him, leading with the drill, cranking furiously.
The drill sank into Future Martin’s sternum like a hot wire cutting into a block of wax, if the block of wax was full of many gallons of highly pressurized blood.
The blood shot out as if from a fire hose. It blew the drill out of the hole and hit the apprentice who had used the drill square in the chest, knocking him off balance and causing him to fall. Future Martin stood his ground, bending slightly at the waist so that the stream of blood remained aimed at the man who had inflicted his wound.
Martin spun around. He saw the Tylers fighting two more apprentices. Current Tyler used his rapier to parry away multiple attacks from an apprentice swinging wildly at him with a handsaw. Every time the saw blade struck the rapier, it made a high twanging sound that both hurt Martin’s ears and made him want to laugh.
Future Tyler used his own sword to keep a young man armed with a pair of pliers at bay. The stalemate held for several seconds, but then Tyler bumped into Future Tyler, who jostled in anticipation of the hit, turned to look at Tyler, lowered his sword, and said, “Watch where you’re going.” He looked back up in time to see the apprentice, now right on top of him, clamping the pliers on his nose.
The apprentice twisted, and Future Tyler’s nose twisted with them, but his face remained stationary. The twisting action propagated through Future Tyler’s face, and spread to his body, strengthening and exaggerating as it went, until Future Tyler resembled a bath towel being wrung out. As the twist grew tighter, Tyler’s mass seemed to dissipate, and soon his entire body twisted itself out of existence, and vanished completely.
Fake, Martin thought. They’re letting the apprentices win. They have it all choreographed out, complete with macros to make their deaths look good.
Beyond the man with the pliers, Jeff and an apprentice were pressing against each other with all their strength, each holding on to what looked like a large level.
“Seriously,” Jeff grunted. “What do you think you’re going to do with this? Make sure I’m plumb?”
The apprentice said, “Hit you with it. It’s heavy.”
Jeff said, “Oh, fair enough. Transporto hejmo.” Jeff disappeared. The apprentice fell face-first to the floor, still clutching his spirit level. Jeff reappeared next to him and sat down on the man’s back, rendering him helpless.
Future Jeff, meanwhile, was lying prone, shielding his head with his right arm while an apprentice worked at his wrist with a coping saw. Future Jeff cried out in pain as his hand fell off bloodlessly and hit the ground with a dull thump. As the severed hand lay lifeless on the ground, Martin caught a glimpse of the flat edge where the saw had cut it off. Instead of blood and bone, it was a featureless flesh-tone stub, as if Future Jeff were a living statue sculpted from bologna.
Future Jeff stared at it, shrieking, as the apprentice started sawing at his shoulder.
Martin turned and saw Roy, standing straight and tall. An apprentice stood behind him, attempting to strangle him with a tape measure, but with so little success that Roy couldn’t be bothered to try to stop him. Instead Roy seemed transfixed, staring at the spot where Future Roy had been standing, now inhabited by an apprentice holding a wood plane, standing ankle deep in a pile of Roy shavings.
Gary stood motionless while one of his former followers repeatedly placed a chisel up to his chest, but every time the apprentice hauled back with his hammer to strike the chisel, Gary moved.
Hubert stood beside Gary, groveling. “I am so sorry, Master. We heard such awful sounds and I chose to investigate. The others followed me. I did try to talk them out of this.”
Gary said, “Yeah, I saw,” as he again stepped aside just as the apprentice meant to strike the chisel.
“Hold still,” the apprentice shouted.
Gary shook his head. “Why would I?”
Another of the apprentices rushed Future Gary, brandishing what appeared to be a sanding block. He and Future Gary circled each other warily, knees bent, each ready to either attack or defend. Martin noticed that Future Gary’s head was bobbing slightly in time to the music, and his lips were moving, counting out the beat.
The apprentice pounced. At the exact same moment, Future Gary executed a well-rehearsed dodge to the left that looked great, but failed to take him out of harm’s way. The two men’s bodies twirled around for a moment, and the apprentice found, to his obvious surprise, that he had Future Gary in a headlock. He pressed the block to Future Gary’s head and sanded him furiously. Future Gary cried out in pain for a moment, then collapsed into a pile of sawdust that hit the ground with a dull whoomp, then swirled back into the air, coating everything nearby, particularly the confused man with the enchanted sanding block.
As all of the iterations of Brit, Gwen, and Phillip present were standing aside, watching, working, or making light conversation, the only action left in the room was Future Martin, hand drill still protruding from his rib cage, continuing to douse his attacker, and a large portion of Gary’s shag carpet, with torrents of fake blood.
When he was sure he had the room’s undivided attention, Future Martin spun, stopping momentarily to writhe in fake agony at the exact points where the torrent of blood from his chest hit the various apprentices, drenching them. He swept back and forth like a macabre lawn sprinkler, not stopping until
the stream of gore weakened to a limp arc, and most of the room, along with most of the wizards in the room, were doused in fake blood.
Everyone stood, winded from exertion and stunned into silence by the stimulus overload of the previous few minutes. They panted and stared around, wide-eyed, as the bass line of “Groove Is in the Heart” slowed to halt, and Bootsy Collins laughed and said, “Y’all are crazy, man!”
The note-taking Brit reached down and pressed the stop button. The boom box responded with a loud kachunk.
The room was a shambles. The two Gwens and four Brits present were in a small cluster behind Future Martin and had avoided the blood spray. But the rest of the room, all of the apprentices, the remaining wizards including both Phillips, and the piles of Gary dust, Roy shavings, and large Jeff chunks were coated with blood like attendees of a Carrie-themed prom.
A weak stream of blood still poured out of the hole in Future Martin’s chest like water from the end of a garden hose, hitting the ground with an audible splash. He turned to Gary, redirecting the gout of blood to a slightly drier spot on the floor. “Sorry about the mess, Gar. I know you’d just redone the place, but let’s be honest, you were going to have to redo it again anyway.”
Gary said, “True enough.”
“Why?” Tyler asked. “Why did this happen? Why did we . . . attack . . . us?”
Future Martin said, “You’ll get an explanation, but it’s all kinda high-end wizard stuff.”
Martin realized immediately what Future Martin was getting at. Getting hosed down with blood had taken the fight out of the apprentices, but they were still present, looking at the aftermath of what they had done, some studying the tools in their hands as if they were radioactive waste.
Gary said, “Guys, uh, good job, I guess. Thanks for helping us kill . . . us. Why don’t you go out front and clean up. I’ll come out and we’ll talk about it in a bit.”
Hubert, who had witnessed everything but had not taken part in the carnage, held the door open as the bedraggled and blood-soaked young men filed out.
“Okay,” Tyler said. “We’re alone now. Why did you do this?”
The tired-looking iteration of Brit sitting at the computers said, “Because that’s what happened. It was pointless and destructive, and it gave a few of us nightmares for years to come, but it happened, so it had to happen, and before any of you try to complain about it, I suggest you remember who you’re talking to. Anyone have anything to say?”
Nobody said a word.
“Good. Okay. Everyone on the assault team might as well take off. I’ll talk the rest of them through what just happened.” She pointed at Future Phillip, still sulking in his invisible prison. “They’re going to be taking their Phillip with them, so if any of you have anything to say to him, now’s the time.”
Phillip said, “Their Phillip? You’re not from the same time frame as them?”
She tilted her head toward the note-taking Brit with the boom box and the cameras. “No. She is. She choreographed this whole fight according to her notes and videos, then came here to take the notes and the videos.” She turned to Brit the Younger. “She’ll leave the notes and videos for you so you can get to work on the fight straight away.”
Brit the Younger said, “What if I don’t want to get to work straight away?”
“We both know that you don’t, and we both know that you will. You know I don’t like it any more than you do, seeing as I’m you.”
Brit the Younger sighed so heavily she seemed to deflate. “How long will it take me?”
“Planning and executing the fight? Just two months.”
Brit the Younger said, “Only two months?”
Phillip said, “Wait? If she, and all of the . . . us . . . everyone that was just here fighting are from just two months in the future, that means he—” He pointed at Future Phillip.
The Brit behind the computer said, “He’s you in two months, Phillip.”
Phillip looked down at the disheveled, haggard figure and muttered, “What? That can’t be.”
Future Phillip sneered up at him. “Oh, like you look spring fresh! It’s been a tough two months!”
The Brit at the computer said, “Men often let themselves go for a bit after the woman they love dumps them, and they know it’s their own fault. In your case, seeing what becomes of you magnifies the effect. It sort of tightens the shame spiral.”
Future Phillip growled, “Can we please get out of here? I can’t stand to look at him anymore.”
Future Phillip, the Brit with the notebook, Future Gwen, and Future Martin all disappeared. One last gout of fake blood from his chest splashed on the saturated carpet in the second after he’d gone.
The Brit at the computer closed her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair. “All right. Look, there are about a thousand better ways I can think of to do what we needed to do, but the big fight and the blood Super Soaker was the way it was done to begin with, so that’s what we were stuck with. I apologize for all the stress, but believe me, someday, you’ll do the same thing. I could give you the exact date, if you want.”
“But what were you trying to do?” Phillip asked.
“Keep all of you out of my way so I could do this.” She hit the enter key on the keyboard in front of her. Brit the Elder, still floating in midair, flickered in and out of the high-polygon and low-polygon versions of herself before locking into the normal high-resolution version. She drifted over the table, then lowered until she lay on the table, unconscious.
“You might want to take off the washcloth you taped over her mouth. Now that she’s fixed we don’t want her to suffocate, though I can tell you for a fact that she doesn’t.”
29.
Phillip almost ran across the room, sliding on the congealing fake blood, to remove the washcloth.
“Why’s she asleep?” Martin asked.
“She’ll wake up in a few minutes,” the Brit at the computer said. “The macro that installed the fix has a few timed events that are still coming up. I couldn’t let her hear any of the conversation we’re about to have. I know you all have questions. I’ll start with Brit the Younger’s. Eight years. I’ve been working on researching the problem and designing this fix for over eight years.”
Martin placed a hand on Phillip’s shoulder. “Hey, Phillip. Your hand?”
Phillip looked at Martin, shook his head as if to ask what Martin was talking about, then looked startled and removed his glove to reveal a perfectly ordinary-looking hand. “Okay,” Phillip said. “Good. Thanks for asking, Martin, but I have more important things on my mind.”
The Brit at the computer said, “More important than me fixing your hand for you, and maybe saving your life?”
Phillip said, “But, I’m sure I helped. I’m sure we all helped.”
“Not you. I didn’t let you. Some of the others did. Jeff, Jimmy, and Louiza were useful. Gwen did quite a bit, but still, it was just a day or two, every now and then. For me, it was a full-time job for eight years.”
“Why wouldn’t you let me help?” Phillip asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Sorry, everyone. Apparently I can’t explain how I fixed the problem that messed up Atlantis and threatened the rest of the world, because Phillip wants to talk about himself. I didn’t let you help me, Phillip, because you helping me is part of what got me into this mess to begin with. You tried to help me by lying to me, keeping secrets from me, and sneaking out to spend time with my worst enemy.”
“But you believe that the person you’re calling your worst enemy is you!”
The Brit at the computer shrugged. “That’s true for most people. It’s just a little more obvious in my case. And what I believe isn’t as important as what you believe in this case. I’ve had eight years to think about it, and while you’d like me to see this as you keepin
g a secret from me to help a later me save every me, that’s not the way you claim to see it. You’ve always insisted that Brit the Younger and Brit the Elder aren’t the same person, and that the fate of one isn’t tied to the actions of the other. Haven’t you?”
“We all know I have, which means that you didn’t have to toss me aside just because some other Brit did.”
“True, but you believing that is also the very thing that makes me want to. I believe that the person you were sneaking off with was me, but you don’t. In your mind, you were sneaking off, lying to me, and keeping secrets from me to help some other person, who I can’t stand.”
“Can’t you try to look at this from my point of view?” Phillip asked.
“That’s exactly what I just did.”
“You’re not being fair.”
“Well, you know the old saying. Hell hath no fairness like a woman scorned. Anyway, in a minute or so, the fix will fully kick in. Brit the Elder will wake up. Atlantis is back to normal, too. You’re welcome.” She turned to Brit the Younger and Brit the Much Elder. “Also, I’ve planted some code in your head as well.”
Brit the Younger said, “You can’t just mess with my memories without my permission!”
Phillip said, “Yeah! That’s completely—”
Both the Brit at the computer and Brit the Younger said, “Oh, shut up, Phillip!”
Tired Brit nodded. “I know, Brit, and you’re right. I’m sorry. If you think about it, and you will for eight years, you’ll see that I have no choice. I made it so that Brit the Elder won’t remember any of this. I gave her some false memories to fill the gap. Because of how the timeline falls, those memories will cascade to Brit the Much Elder as well.”
Jeff asked, “How’d you do that?”
“I can’t be bothered to explain right now. Ask her in eight years. Anyway, Brit, her false memories will tell her that you caught Phillip cheating on you.”
