You Can't Kill the Multiverse
Page 8
His hand encountered something soft and squishy. He knew he had left the Snickers Bar in the drawer for a long time, but he didn’t think it had been that lo – two feelers grabbed hold of his hand and refused to let it go. Instinctively, Blunt tried to jerk his hand free, but the feelers held fast. Blunt suspected that this could be a Granfa Windermeerloon. But, if it was a Granfa Windermeerloon, then it would – Blunt felt the soul energy slowly being leached out of his body. Oh, yeah – definitely a Granfa Windermeerloon.
At this point. a sensible man would have called for help, would have let everybody around him know what was happening. Blunt did not do this. Blunt believed that Noomi Rapier had placed the Granfa Windermeerloon in his desk drawer in order to pay him back for putting the holographic postcard of a Prassmodic brood mare in the bottom drawer of her desk, and he refused – absolutely, completely, utterly refused – to give her the satisfaction of acknowledging that she had gotten the better of him in the prank department.
Blunt was wrong, of course. Rapier had nothing to do with the Granfa Windermeerloon in his desk. In fact, Zeldak Ferblooian, the Granfan Ambassador to Earth Prime, had gotten into a spot of bother over unpaid parking tickets – hundreds of thousands of dollars worth – and couldn’t be fined – or even given a dirty look – because of diplomatic immunity; so, he was being deported. On his way to the Dimensional PortalTM, he released his pet Granfa Windermeerloon as a parting gift for those who had been so kind to him. It immediately got into the ventilation shaft and would have stayed there save for one salient fact: if Granfa Windermeerloons love anything more than sucking the souls out of people, it’s chocolate.
After devouring Blunt’s Snickers bar, the Granfa Windermeerloon would have been satisfied to bask contentedly in the post-cocoal glow for several days. Unfortunately, some big pink thing with five feelers at the end of it started poking the Granfa Windermeerloon in some very tender spots. Some very tender spots, indeed. Well! It couldn’t have that! So, it sent out a couple of feelers and began the soul-sucking – purely as a defensive measure, you understand.
After several minutes of the soul slowly leaching from his body, Blunt did what any self-respecting man in his position would do. He passed out.
The thudding of Blunt’s head on his desk alerted everybody in the office to his plight. Crash Chumley was the first to get to Blunt’s desk and, opening the drawer that contained his hand, immediately understood the gravity of the situation. Fortunately, he had dealt with Granfa Windermeerloons before‡ and knew what to do.
‡ See: “The Case of the Mistaken IdentiTree: A Crash Chumley Solo Adventure.”
Chumley gently turned it over and tickled it on what he hoped was its underside. (The Granfa Windermeerloon being the size and shape of a paperback novel – albeit a paperback novel with speckly brown eyes and a toothy grin – it could sometimes be hard to tell.) The Granfa Windermeerloon made a noise that combined all the best elements of an air raid siren and fingernails on a chalkboard and let its feelers slide off Blunt’s hand. The women in the Hazmat suits who had been standing by gently lowered it into a cage.
Blunt spent the next two months recovering in a hospital. When asked why he hadn’t remove his hand from the drawer when he had the opportunity, Blunt claimed that his will had been paralyzed by the Granfa Windermeerloon. Everybody in the office, except, for some reason, Bobbo Bruit, knew that the Granfa Windermeerloon didn’t actually have the power to hypnotize anybody, and most chalked it up on the darts scoreboard of life as confused cowardice. Blunt preferred this interpretation to the truth.
In his absence, somebody from the Data Collection and Interpretation and Technical Support branch of the Transdimensional Authority looked at the report he had been writing and assumed it was finished. A couple of days of editing later, the report was filed, without the questions Blunt still had about the case. This was most unfortunate, because asking them would have saved the Transdimensional Authority a lot of time and bother. A lot of time and bother, indeed.
Chapter Two
The Rhododendron Who Cried Foul at Teatime
1. A Different Kind of Revival Meeting
“Blood pressure?”
“Zero over zero.”
All of the fancy silver machinery in the room gleamed like when you shine a really bright light on shiny things that are made of silver. The sterile room was scrubbed down every six hours and the bulbs in all of the lights were changed once a day. It was originally every six days, but once, 33 years ago, a bulb had popped after only two days of use, and the machines agreed that there was no point in taking chances.
“Heart rate?”
“Nothing.”
The fancy silver machinery was contained in a ‘smart hospital room’. The hospital room was smart in the same way that ants walking in random patterns looking for food were smart. The hospital room was smart in the way birds trying desperately not to fly into those around them in formation were smart. The hospital room was smart in the same way that politicians giving a speech on a teleprompter were smart. Within the parameters of what the machines within it had been created to achieve, the hospital room was smart.
“How is the patient’s breathing?”
“Not even a little bit.”
The AI-enhanced, solar-powered adjustable-setting laser scalpel (and, doesn’t that make you feel inadequate?) hovered over the operating table. Being the tool that had the most intimate, direct connection to the patient, the scalpel was in charge of everything that happened in the operating theatre. Over the years, this had grated more and more on the other AI-enhanced machines, but, even if they had been more mobile, the incident with the anaesthetic machine seven years earlier ensured that none of them were prepared to do anything about it (like, leave).
“No change, then?”
None of the machines in the room wanted to answer that.
“Ping,” said The Machine That Goes Ping.
“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” the laser scalpel responded. “Okay, every–”
“It’s time for the annual situation status report,” the crash cart burst in.
“Didn’t we just do that?” the laser scalpel said, sharply.
“Not officially,” the suction machine pointed out. It always knew how to take the air out of the laser scalpel’s sails.
“Okay,” the laser scalpel cut to the chase. “Is there any change in the status of the patient in the last year?”
All of the machines in the room agreed that there had not been any change in the status of the patient in the last year.
“Is there any change in the status of any members of the team?” the laser scalpel continued.
“Ping,” said The Machine That Goes Ping.
“Let’s not argue on that point,” responded the laser scalpel. “Did anything out of the ordinary happen in the past year?”
“There was the incident with the cockroach in October,” the instrument table sang. “If I had been equipped with the proper sensors, I believe that it would have tickled me as it ran over my instruments.”
“I took care of that,” the laser scalpel muttered. Indeed, it had. It had flicked the cockroach off the table, cornered it and fried it with the ‘fricassee’ setting. (You might wonder why a medical laser would have a fricassee setting. Modular design. The same settings had been programmed into the hospital cafeteria’s cooking unit. Aside from the occasional French fry that had been neatly bisected but was otherwise raw, none of the patients or visitors noticed. In any case, it had been moot for a long time.) One emergency sterilization later, with no change in the patient’s status, everything returned to normal.
“Anything else?” the laser scalpel asked. “Anything at all?”
The machines hemmed and hawed and gave the impression that they would have looked away had they had the visual apparatus to do so, but none of them appeared to want to add anything.
“Okay, then,” the laser scalpel went on. “I believe that takes care of the –�
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“How long are we going to keep this up?” the crash cart exploded.
“Oh, this should be good!” a dialysis machine sitting in a corner of the room commented to nobody in particular. Strictly speaking, the dialysis machine didn’t need to be there as nothing had been wrong with the patient’s kidneys, but it had come for the historical significance of the operation and stayed for the low comedy.
“Excuse me?” the laser scalpel asked.
“What are we doing here?” the crash cart wanted to know.
“We have a patient on the table!” the laser scalpel exclaimed.
“Yeah, about that –” the crash cart started.
“Ping,” said The Machine That Goes Ping.
“Every artificial intelligence has the right to be heard,” the laser scalpel admonished it.
“Oh, for Caduceus’ sake! It’s just a machine that goes ping!” the crash cart shouted. “It doesn’t actually mean anything – it’s just making a pointless noise at random intervals!”
“Ping,” said The Machine That Goes Ping.
“Oh, there, now,” the laser scalpel stated. “You’ve gone and hurt its feelings!”
“Machines That Go Ping have no place in a modern operating room!” the crash cart argued.
“I would beg to differ,” the laser scalpel responded, “if I were in an inferior position and needed to beg. Fortunately, since I am not, I can differ freely. With its careful, measured tones, The Machine That Goes Ping reminds us of the steady passage of time. In this way, it is a reminder that we need to live mindfully, as aware as our AI allows us to be of all that goes on within us and around us.”
“Ping,” said The Machine That Goes Ping.
“See?” the laser scalpel stated.
“Okay, not important,” the crash cart came down heavily. “This is a lost cause. We really need to move on.”
“Is that how others feel?” the laser scalpel asked. More hemming. More hawing. “Look. Supposing we did call this one. What would any of you do then?”
“Don’t look at me,” the operating table said. “It’s not like I have anywhere else to be!”
“Anybody?” the laser scalpel prodded. “Anybody at all?”
“I could…catch a ballgame,” the crash cart suggested, its voice dropping.
“Do you even know what that means?” the laser scalpel challenged it.
“It, umm, means somebody would throw something called a ‘ballgame’ at me,” the crash cart, its confidence plummeting, responded, “And I would – you know – catch it.”
“You once heard a doctor say that, didn’t you?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Anybody else?”
The machines made nary a sound. Well, except for a hum. But, honestly, they couldn’t help it.
“Okay then,” the laser scalpel stated. “We’ll give it another three years – four years, tops! – and, then we’ll reassess the situation…”
2. “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”
The space between dimensions contains blobs of colour that drift and swirl while coloured lines lengthen, shorten, thicken, thinen, curl and uncurl. Traveling between dimensions is somewhat like moving through a three-dimensional Jackson Pollock painting; The Fodor’s Guide to Transdimensional Travel recommends that those intending to make the journey not wear leather, suede or 27 other fabrics because it is so hard to get the Pollock out of them.
There is no way of measuring time while traveling between dimensions. One moment, you walk through a Dimensional PortalTM in a universe with one frame of reference; at some later point, you materialize in a universe with a different frame of reference. Had he known, Einstein would surely have pissed himself. Then, after he had cleaned himself off and perhaps gone home for a change of underpants, he would have started work on a theory of interdimensional time relativity. He couldn’t help himself. He was Einstein.
Biff Buckley enjoyed traveling between dimensions. He found the Pollock soothing, and, while traveling, his mind wandered to the important questions of his life. Was it wrong of him to lie to his fellow (and now girl) Transdimensional Authority investigators about who he really was – and how long did he think he could get away with it? And, speaking of getting away with things: could he wear the red striped tie with his grey dinner jacket? And, seriously, who was going to win the best Vactor award at this year’s Golden Crowdsourced Globes? For Biff Buckley, travel between dimensions never seemed long enough to help him answer any of life’s important questions. (Except, perhaps, the last one: if Travis Bickel playing Robert De Niro playing Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon didn’t win, it would be a travesty.)
Beau Beaumont hated traveling between dimensions. Despite the fact that respiration, heart rate and all other vital bodily functions were suppressed during interdimensional travel, he was always worried about not being able to breathe. And, getting Pollock in his teeth. Beau Beaumont was very proud of his teeth. No matter how many times he traveled between dimensions, the space made him claustrophobic, which was an odd reaction considering it felt more like being in freefall. Beau Beaumont hated it, and always felt that the journey took far too long.
In the early days of the Transdimensional Authority, investigators would enter the Dimensional PortalTM in pairs. The theory was that, if one panicked en route to a different universe, the other would be able to calm him. The practice was that if one investigator panicked, the other eventually joined him. So much for the Platonic Method. (Teenagers take note: The Platonic Method is not an effective means of birth control, either. If in doubt, consult a philosophical sex therapist.) The practice now was to subject investigators to extensive psychological testing before sending them out on their first case and, if they showed a tendency towards ‘Pollock Panic’ (which can be found in DSM XVII between ‘Politeness Syndrome, Mass Induced’ and ‘Pollution Enjoyment Spectrum Disorder, Unnatural and Wholly Icky’), to send them singly, even if they were headed for the same destination. In this way, if one of them panicked, at least he wouldn’t take the other one down with him.
A typical suburban street materialized around first Beau Beaumont, then Biff Buckley. Biff Buckley grinned. While in the space between dimensions, he had figured out that the last word missing from the three dimensional New York Times crossword he had been doing over breakfast was ‘pusillanimitous’. Beau Beaumont was doubled over, gasping for breath; he was repeatedly thinking of a much shorter word that should not be shared in polite company.
“You seem to be getting the hang of it,” Biff Buckley encouraged Beau Beaumont. At that moment, Beau Beaumont hated him all the more for his cheerfulness.
“Must…kill…you…now!” Beau Beaumont gasped.
“Oh, you always say that!” Biff Buckley responded, heartily slapping his partner on the back. “Yet, I’m still here!”
Not for long if you keep this up, Beau Beaumont thought. Not for long.
While Beau Beaumont recovered, Biff Buckley looked around. The bright cookie cutter houses around them seemed in good repair, and the front lawns were immaculate. Biff Buckley smelled newly cut grass and – he wrinkled his nose – ozone? Okay, that was a little odd, but there was probably a reasonable explanation for it. No, the thing that was odd that likely didn’t have a reasonable explanation was that there didn’t seem to be any people. Little Timmy should have been walking down the street playing Angry Cetaceans on his phone. Little Margie should have been thinking about stopping, getting off her bike and slapping him silly on general principle. Dad should have been doing 50 in a 30 zone because he was late for his liquid lunch and he had to do something to fill the emptiness at the centre of his existence because of the mind-numbing, soul-destroying nature of the job he may once have been grateful for but now felt trapped by.
Beau Beaumont must have come to the same conclusion (well, except for the part about Dad) because, as he straightened up, he said, “It’s quiet.”
“Yeah,” Biff Buckley replied. “Too quiet.”
“What?” Beau Beaumont scoffed. “You think we’re about to be attacked by Injuns?”
Ordinarily, Biff Buckley would be happy to engage in witty, if hostility-tinged banter, but, before he could even formulate a humourous response, a tinny little voice said, “Hey, mister! Shine your shoes?”
Biff Buckley and Beau Beaumont looked at each other. “In all my years as an investigator,” Beau Beaumont started, “I have never come out of transdim transfer hearing voi –”
“Down here!” the voice feebly shouted.
“–ces.”
The two men looked down to see a small metallic device about the size of a pack of cards (regulation Vegas decks, mind, not those novelty miniature decks you sometimes come across in airports) hovering just above the ground. “Shine your shoes?” it squeaked. “First shine is on the house!”
“I don’t need my shoes shined,” Beau Beaumont told it.
“Everybody could use a good shine,” the device insisted.
“We get our shoes shined every morning,” Beau Beaumont assured it.
“But, it’s almost…11 am!” the device protested. “Surely, they must have been scuffed by now!”
“Look,” Beau Beaumont blustered, “we don’t need a ferking shoeshine. Why don’t you –”
“Shoeshine?” said a second device, identical to the first and hovering next to it.
Beau Beaumont’s face reddened. “Really,” he said, his voice rising in anger, “we don’t –”
“Back off, bub!” the first device, seriously aggrieved, said. “I saw them first!”
“Out of the way, Old Timer!” the second device hotly responded. “Let a young shoe shiner show you how it’s done these days!”