You Can't Kill the Multiverse

by Ira Nayman

  BLUNT: Would you prefer musical theatre?

  MALVONCELLIOUS: Of what nature ist this interrogation? It be not like any interrogation of which I have ever heardst!

  BLUNT: And, yet, you’re already talking. (long pause) Of course, Prince Wallaboo had the unhappiness of his nobles with the 30 Years Peace to contend with…

  INTERROGATION OF SUSPECT SOLOMON “MERRY” MALVONCELLIOUS

  INTERROGATOR: Bob Blunt, Transdimensional Authority

  In case of emergency, leave the bloody glass alone!

  00:48:02

  BLUNT: …and, then, he bursts into the lair of the off-white worm and says, “Sorry to barge in like this, but I heard there was a coming out party, and I love debutantes!” And, then, the off-white worm says, “Jack Ryan! I thought I had killed you with that bomb…and the bullets…and the slow-acting poison…and the re-enactment of the sinking of the Titanic in pantomime…and…” And, he went on like that for a couple of minutes, but I’ll spare you the details. And, then, Jack Ryan tries to put the cuffs on him, but worms don’t have hands or stuff, so he just throws him into a police cruiser and says, “Tequila’s loss is the multiverse’s gain!” (chuckles) You don’t have Jack Ryan, Transdimensional Authority Police in the universe where you come from, do you? That’s a shame. It’s a really good programme. Let me tell you what happens in season four, episode 17…

  INTERROGATION OF SUSPECT SOLOMON “MERRY” MALVONCELLIOUS

  INTERROGATOR: Bob Blunt, Transdimensional Authority

  The life you save may not be your own

  01:40:37

  BLUNT: …you know that there are no colours in objects? We see colour because we can differentiate between wavelengths of light that are reflected off objects, but they aren’t properties of the objects themselves. Objects in the universe are actually made up of varying degrees of grey. Do you know what that means? That’s right – dogs, who cannot perceive colour, have a more realistic visual understanding of the universe than human beings. Dogs! Imagine that! It really makes you think, doesn’t it? Are you thinking? Are you thinking now? Of course you are! I’ll bet I just blew your mind…with science!

  INTERROGATION OF SUSPECT SOLOMON “MERRY” MALVONCELLIOUS

  INTERROGATOR: Bob Blunt, Transdimensional Authority

  O Superman. O judge. O mom and dad.

  02:32:23

  BLUNT: (singing) Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I’ll love ya, tomorrow!

  You’re only a day away!

  (speaking) Did I hear somebody ask for an encore? Weeeeeeelllllll…okay! You know how I hate to disappoint my fans!

  (singing) The sun’ll come out, tomorrow!

  Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow -

  MALVONCELLIOUS moans.

  INTERROGATION OF SUSPECT SOLOMON “MERRY” MALVONCELLIOUS

  INTERROGATOR: Bob Blunt, Transdimensional Authority

  To avoid infections, please wash hands before leaving the room

  05:11:50

  BLUNT: (howling) Awooooooo ooooooooooooo woooooooo! And, the little piggy responded, oink oink oink! Well! They had a clear disagreement here! The sheepdog tried to intervene with a loud woof woof woof, but he was clearly out of his depth. The chickens went cluck cluck cluck, even though they weren’t in the timber wolf’s direct line of fi -

  MALVONCELLIOUS: (shouting) Shut up! Shut up! Dost thou ever shut thy loquacious trap!

  BLUNT: …re. Oh, sure. Sure, I shut up. I shut up plenty. It’s just that I hate those awkward silences that happen between people, you know? (long pause) Like that. (pause) Or, that. (pause) Or, even that. When those silences happen, I just want to jump in to say something, anything because, you know, awkward silences just lead to awkward thoughts, and that -

  MALVONCELLIOUS: Okay! Okay! What dost thou want knowing? I shall tell thee anything if thou wilst just stop with the clucky clucking and the mooey mooing!

  BLUNT: Oh! I hadn’t even gotten to the cows, yet. And, they’re my favourite part!

  MALVONCELLIOUS: By the seven simpering simians of Smitherman! For the love of all that is unholy…!

  BLUNT: Right. Sorry. Like any storyteller, I can get captivated by my own tale. Why did you come to this dimension to turn cars into frogs?

  MALVONCELLIOUS: What manner of moron dost thou be? I spent decades perfecting the black arts – why wouldst I waste mine efforts turning cars into frogs? I WAST ATTEMPTING TO CAST A SPELL THAT WOULDST FEIGN ALLOW ME TO TAKETH OVER THINE WORLD!

  BLUNT: And, it never occurred to you that your spells wouldn’t work the way you had intended in a universe that didn’t support magic? (pause) And, you call me the moron? (long silence) Humph. You’d be surprised by how many evil sorcerers’ plans are foiled by that simple technical miscalculation. Okay, why this dimension? Why not try to take over your home dimension?

  MALVONCELLIOUS: I…I wouldst rather not say.

  BLUNT: Are you familiar with Gilbert and Sullivan?

  MALVONCELLIOUS: Thou. Darest. Not.

  BLUNT: (singing) A wandering minstrel, I

  A thing of threads and patch -

  MALVONCELLIOUS: Alright! Alright, thou navvy bastard! I wast sent hither by Schlomo the Dragon.

  BLUNT: Schlomo…the Dragon…

  MALVONCELLIOUS: That be correct. Schlomo the Dragon. He worketh as a busboy at Moishe’s Nosh Cupboard in The Valley of Unsung Heroes.

  BLUNT: (disbelief) Schlomo the Dragon, who is a busboy at a deli called Moses’ Lunch Counter –

  MALVONCELLIOUS: Moishe’s Nosh Cupboard in The Valley of Unsung Heroes. That’s right. He wast not working for himself, obviously.

  BLUNT: Obviously.

  MALVONCELLIOUS: He confided that he dost worketh for somebody named Jerzak Carnakhian.

  BLUNT: And this…Jerzey -

  MALVONCELLIOUS: Jerzak Carnakhian.

  BLUNT: Right. That guy wanted you to take over the world.

  MALVONCELLIOUS: Umm, no, actually. He…he didst want me to setteth up a system whereby he couldst smuggle counterfeit Home Universe GeneratorTMs into thine universe. Taking it over – taking it over was mine own idea.

  BLUNT: Wait. This is about counterfeit technology smuggling?

  MALVONCELLIOUS: Privy, I beg thee, telleth not Schlomo that I tried to taketh over this world. He shall tell Jerzak Carnakhian, and he didst make it passing clear in the job interview that he dost not appreciate underlings takingeth initiative…

  BLUNT: You know, the Transdimensional Authority takes cross-dimensional technology smuggling very seriously.

  MALVONCELLIOUS: Art thou listening to me? Jerzak Carnakhian wilst killeth me for what I tried to do – OR WORSE!

  BLUNT: (to himself) This changes everything.

  MALVONCELLIOUS: Why dost I even bother to talketh?

  TRANSCRIPT ENDS

  Blunt rushed out of the interrogation room and into a burst of applause. He ignored it, putting a finger to his head and furrowing his entire face in concentration. Ignoring the applause dying down and everybody getting back to work, he continued thinking. Faith and Hope were the only ones left to watch him.

  “That was amazing,” Hope enthused.

  “I thought for sure he was going to crack when you started quoting the final chapter of Finnegan’s Wake,” Faith added. “Did you really memorize those 50 pages?”

  “I was improvising on a theme,” Blunt absently responded, and turned his attention back to his thoughts; after a few more moments, he stopped furrowing and took in his surroundings once more.

  “Coffee?” Faith offered. “You know, for your legs?”

  “What?” Blunt at first didn’t understand. “Oh. Umm, thank you.” He took the oversized cardboard cup in both hands. “Listen, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to take Malvoncellious into custo -”

  “WHAT?” Faith and Hope shouted at once.

  “You can’t do that!” Faith insisted.

  “He’s our collar!” Hope argued. “We got him fair and square!”


  “I can’t disagree,” Blunt, who gratefully gulped the coffee down his raw throat, responded. “Only, cross-dimensional trafficking in counterfeit Home Universe GeneratorTMs is a crime under the treaty of Gehenna-Wentworth, and, unfortunately, that comes under the TA’s jurisdiction.”

  “Is this what this will come down to –” Hope asked, disgusted, “a…jurisdictional dispute?”

  “I hope not,” Blunt agreed with her. “I always find jurisdictional disputes to be the most tedious parts of police procedurals, don’t you?”

  They hemmed and they hawed, but Faith and Hope eventually agreed. Who wouldn’t?

  4. There Be Dragons

  Precious Gifts from the Nosh Cupboard

  by MARCELLA CARBORUNDUREM-McVORTVORT, Alternate Reality News Service Food and Drink Writer

  You’ve just spent a gruelling three or four months battling evil orcs, Morks and Baldroggian morporcs. Several good men and true have died in the effort. Most of the remainder of your party will be scarred for the rest of their lives by the experience. Yet, in the end, as it always must, evil has been vanquished.

  How should the survivors celebrate?

  If you live on Earth Prime 1-3-5-8-8-6 dash epsilon (local name: Athstragor), you could do worse than Moishe’s Nosh Cupboard in The Valley of Unsung Heroes. (Despite the obvious advantage of having the location in the name, it is quite a mouthful, so locals simply refer to the delicatessen as “The Bagel.”)

  “We get all kinds, here,” laughed owner Ariel Kerplatsky. “Hobbits. Goblins. Tax assessors. They come for the dragons, but they come back for the food.”

  Ah, yes, the dragons. Although they tend to be reclusive, dozens of dragons are employed at The Bagel as fry cooks (they are often used as a back-up source of heat when the ovens are on the fritz), busboys and even delivery agents. You can order food from the deli from anywhere in Athstragor: simply scrying glass your order in and wait for a dragon to deliver it. (Their motto: “30 hours anywhere in the world, or it’s free!”)

  As unique as the ambience is, it is the food that determines the quality of a restaurant, and, I have to say, the food at The Bagel was excellent. The Braised Beelf Brisket was to die for – tender and juicy, with just a hint of coriander (or whatever the equivalent is in this universe). What is beelf, you may ask? (It’s okay, I asked, too.)

  According to Ariel, beelf is a magical creature that lives forever. When a beelf grows too large to move, meat is carved out of its side (although this operation used to be quite barbaric, it is now done in a sanitary glen with the most modern anaesthetic available: ether). One of the magical properties of beelf is that the atoms that are taken from their bodies slowly migrate back to them after they have been removed.

  “So,” Ariel pointed out, “you may feel hungry an hour later. On the other hand, it’s great for people on a diet.”

  “How can that possibly be kosher?” I wondered.

  “It’s all in the way you slaughter the animal,” Ariel explained. “I assure you, the head rabbi of Athstragor did approve.”

  I asked if this applied to the corned beelf.

  “Sure does,” Ariel told me.

  And, the roast beelf?

  “Same drill.”

  How about the spaghetti and beelfballs?

  “Is that – what? Let me see that menu,” Ariel said. After a moment, he said, “Damn the dozen dozey eyes of Dallagor – that’s a typo! I’m going to have to have a talk with the dragon who proofread that!”

  Although the fries were tempting (“Made from potatoes flown in by dragon from Hobbittown every morning!”), I decided to have “One Basket of Onion Rings To Bind Them” as a side. As I expected, they were a crispy golden brown kind of delicious. And, the best part? The batter was made of bran, so I could argue that they were actually healthy for me.

  Considering they are such a big part of the restaurant’s appeal, I had to ask: how do you get the dragons to be so cooperative? “Every dragon has a secret name,” Ariel said with a wink. “You know what the name is, you can control what the dragon does. Plus, we have a great benefits package!”

  At 60 stories high, The Bagel is hard to miss. (Most of the floors have to be at least two stories high to accommodate the movement of the dragons.) The only thing to rival it is Sauron’s Towers, a retirement home on the other side of The Valley of Unsung Heroes. But, Sauron’s Towers doesn’t have dragons flying in and out of it at all hours of the day and night (although, to be fair, the Bagel doesn’t have a cardiac unit on 24 hour duty – everything has its pluses and minuses).

  And, is there a Moishe at Moishe’s Nosh Cupboard in The Valley of Unsung Heroes? Ariel laughed. “Moishe was my father’s father’s father’s father. We keep the name out of respect. Well, respect and the fact that our accountants tell us that it would be too expensive to rebrand the operation. The cost of changing the business cards alone would kill us!”

  Tasty and practical. I look forward to my next visit!

  5. “Trust me, I Know What I’m Doing!”

  Floor 13 of Moishe’s Nosh Cupboard in The Valley of Unsung Heroes was quiet. The lunch rush of wizards had just about petered out, with only a few pointy white hats sticking up above the booths, and the family dinner business wouldn’t start for another couple of hours. Typical Flursday afternoon.

  Blunt and Malvoncellious sat at a table by the central spire of the building. Opposite them was a large mural on the curved outer wall of the building that showed elves lighting menorahs and orcs in kipas and tallises bent over in prayer. Talk about a fantasy world!

  Malvoncellious had imagined himself subjecting Blunt to the most excruciating tortures to be found in the Malificient Malefactorum de Maliciosi. Really nasty stuff. Stuff that would make Clive Barker blush…whoever he was. Unfortunately, the Transdimensional Authority had anticipated the sorcerer might try something when he returned to his world, and had taken steps to assure that he would not be able to:

  “If you had to choose,” the tall, thin besmocked man wearing a bowtie and serious manner asked after consulting a clipboard he was holding, “would you rather drink something that tasted like strawberry, chocolate or chalk?”

  “Umm…strawberry?” Malvoncellious ventured.

  “Hmm,” the man hmmed, making a notation on the clipboard. “Now, and this is very important, if you had to choose between chocolate or chalk, what would your second choice be?”

  “Chocolate,” Malvoncellious answered with no small degree of certainty.

  “I see,” the man muttered, making another notation on his clipboard. “They never choose the chalk – why do they never choose the chalk?”

  “Who art thou?” Malvoncellious asked.

  “It’s whom, actually,” the man uttered. Then, looking up, he said, “I am Doctor Alhambra. This is my assistant, Doctor Richardson.” Doctor Alhambra motioned towards a short man with light socket hair and a sweet disposition who was sitting at a table monitoring the output on a computer screen. They were in a lab with various bubbling, burning and bilious Bunsen burners and other impressive science equipment. “You may call me Doctor Alhambra.”

  “What –” Malvoncellious started, but Doctor Alhambra cut him off with a wave of his hand.

  “Before you ask any questions, I’d like you to drink this,” Doctor Alhambra ordered, taking a flask off a nearby table and offering it to him. Malvoncellious took one sip and nearly gagged.

  “What foul concoction vile be this?” he protested.

  “Yes, you may have gone a little overboard with the adjectives,” Doctor Alhambra criticized, “but I do take your point. That was Doctor Richardson’s attempt at a strawberry milkshake.” He threw a daggered look at the other scientist in the room, who shrugged pleasantly. “I would suggest that you drink it quickly,” Doctor Alhambra suggested. “One way or another, you will drink it.”

  Malvoncellious screwed up his face and gulped the sludgy liquid down. It was, indeed, a vile concoction most foul (or words to that effect), but
, actually, it wasn’t much worse than the mead down at the Overcast Orb, and at least he didn’t know what ingredients were in it, which was a definite plus. When he was done, he wiped his lips with the sleeve of his robe and handed the flask back to Doctor Alhambra.

  “Very good,” Doctor Alhambra encouraged. Putting the flask down, he nodded at Doctor Richardson, who pressed a button, leaned into a microphone and said, “Investigator Blunt, we’re ready for you in Lab 0023. Investigator Blunt to Lab 0023, please.”

  “What now?” Malvoncellious asked.

  “Patience,” Doctor Alhambra soothingly told him. “Science isn’t a cheap hamburger and a Michael Bay film – it requires patience. Gratification may be delayed for days, weeks, years, sometimes even decades. But, when it – ah, there you are. What took you so long?”