by Ira Nayman
“It may take a few lifetimes,” Crash allowed.
After a few moments of contemplation, Noomi bitched, “Well, that was horrible!”
“As in ‘poke in the eye’ horrible?” Crash, not unsympathetically, asked. “Or, more like ‘being trapped in a cabin in the middle of the woods while hordes of zombies are howling outside and one of your companions isn’t looking so hot’ horrible?”
“It was like I didn’t exist!” Noomi grumped.
“Oh. The ‘I’m having that nightmare where I seem to be invisible to everybody’ horrible,” Crash allowed. “Yeah, most of the investigators aren’t used to having a woman on the team. Still, we can remedy that.”
“Yeah? How?”
“When you write the report, be sure to give yourself all the credit for the idea that broke the case. It won’t make a difference to the guys in the room, but it will make a difference to future promotion committees.”
Noomi’s face brightened. “Really? Thanks!” she enthused. A couple of minutes later, long after Crash had walked away from the desk and she had started typing up her notes, Noomi’s face darkened again. “Waaaaaaiiiiit a minute…”
Indistinguishable From Magic (And Twice as Ugly)
Special to the Alternate Reality News Service
INTRODUCTION You haven’t played golf until you’ve walked the course on Adrian Ardenei with a ferschlagget drockken-beast. And, you have. You haven’t achieved nirvana until you’ve seen Madeleine Yoshi Grr’Al’zebub do the Dance of the Seven False Consciousnesses on the seventh Valerian Adar meteor. And, you have. Twice. And, the fourth consciousness (‘Consumerism’) surprised and unnerved you just as much the second time as the first. You haven’t had a paper cut until you have experienced the exquisite tortures of paper on Zeph Poltroon, Earth Prime 4-4-7-8-0-1 dash omicron. And, you have. And, the fourth finger on your left hand may never stop bleeding. Exquisitely.
Where can a thrill-seeking alternant go for new kicks short of the * UNHINGED ZONE *
This Enero marks the 163rd anniversary of the Singularity, when all matter in the universe at all levels of organization, from the smallest sub-atomic particles to galaxies, became conscious. “We were warned,” chuckled Pauline Allegro, President of the Greater Conscious Universe Tourist Board and Cheese Tasting Society, “but it has taken most of us this long just to get comfortable talking to our tables. As you might imagine, the rules of polite dinner conversation have had to be…modified.”
ACCOMMODATIONS Buildings in Earth Prime 6-4-7-5-0-6 dash theta are constructed in the style of “liquid architecture.” This does not mean that the architects drank too much liquid before they sat down to design the buildings (although you may want to have a good slug of liquid refreshment before you stay in one). It means that your room may be next to the elevators when you go to sleep at night, and be on the other side of the floor with the ice machine when you wake up in the morning. Or, on a different floor. Or, in a different building.
The Motel Sixes and Sevens in Moncton, New Skatchewan is typical of this style of architecture. Inherent in liquid architecture is a feature known as ‘variable gravitational fields’, which means that you could wake up and find your room is at a forty-five degree angle to the other rooms on your floor. It’s like spending the evening in an Escher painting, except with a seventy-eight per cent greater need to take Gravol.
FOOD Natives of Earth Prime 6-4-7-5-0-6 dash theta have a soli-dendritic diet: they have adapted their bodies to live off of sunlight. They do sometimes ingest things that could be considered, in its broadest sense of the word, ‘food’ (for example: a pink fog that can cover several city blocks and tastes like cotton candy); however, they do so more for the pleasure of the sensation than actual nourishment.
Of course, the constituents of food are largely willing to be made into something digestible, since they see it as their role in the universe. Pigs want to be slaughtered and made into bacon, mmmmmmm bacon. Wheat wants to be harvested and baked into bread. Corn would like to believe it was created for better things than being eaten off the cob, but, if you’re charming enough, it can be persuaded. The problem is that, no matter how willing the food, watching it prepare itself is usually more than a little disgusting.
To be safe, pack a lunch before you go.
ATTRACTIONS Throw a rock in any direction, and you will likely hit something exotic (and quite possibly make friends with the rock, which has always wanted to travel). What follows are just some of the attractions the Greater Conscious Universe Tourist Board and Cheese Tasting Society recommend you see on your first trip.
The Northern Shield Choir Have you ever wondered what twelve ton rocks trying to sing Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Three Little Maids from School’ would sound like? Of course, it’s a deep, rumbling bass, just as you would expect. Still, it’s so much more!
Knottingham Barns Three single story barns over a hundred feet tall built on an ice floe in the Arctic. Why? Nobody knows. Scientists have studied them. Dissertations have been written about them. They were featured on an episode of William Shatner’s Weird or What? However, the only way to truly appreciate them is to see them for yourself – maybe they will inspire you to go back to university to get an advanced degree!
Sperm Races It’s like horse racing, only with thousands of entrants and the possibility of a pregnancy. Look over the sperm as they wriggle around in the testes. Be sure to place your bet before ejaculation. Then, watch the sperm as they jockey for position in the shaft of the penis and make their way towards the egg in the woman’s uterus. Will your sperm be the one to penetrate the egg? Only one way to find out! (Just remember: know your limit and play within it!)
CAVEAT Natives speak to conscious matter through the Quantum Entanglement Dimension by thinking about what they want to say. Over time, they adapted to speak to each other the same way. As a result, their ability to communicate verbally has withered and died (except for a few aural fetishists, but, because the practice is generally frowned upon, good luck finding them!). This will not bother empaths or people who are otherwise able to communicate mind-to-mind, but it may make it harder for everybody else to follow the sperm races.
Excerpted from Fyodor’s Guide to Really Strange Places. No, Really Strange. We Know, We Know, You Thought Your Weekend in Bolton Was Strange, But That’s Like Nothing Compared To The Places Described in This Book! Published with the kind permission of Exuniversal Excursions, Ltd., except for the section on Accommodations, which was published with grudging permission, and the section on Food, which was published with acrimony and much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.
Six Degrees of Desperation
by MAJUMDER SAKRASHUMINDERATHER, Alternate Reality News Service Education Writer
Say you’ve wanted to be an evil scientist since you were knee-high to Frankenstein’s monster. It happens. Some children want to be firemen when they grow up. Some children want to be astronauts. Some children want to blow up the world if their ransom demands aren’t met. There are schools where you can learn to become a fireman or an astronaut, but where do you go to learn the finer points of blackmailing world governments with barely credible but ultimately ridiculous superweapons?
Phoenix University – Earth Prime 9-8-3-7-6-8 dash omega campus was the place, before the Transdimensional Authority shut it down.
“Yeah, well, they didn’t have to do that, did they?” snorted Phoenix University – Earth Prime 9-8-3-7-6-8 dash omega campus President Rudy Ruttinger. “The whole ‘using a battering ram to knock down the front door and storming the faculty lounge with a large SWAT team’ is so 1970s cop show, don’t you think? If they had just made an appointment to meet me for tea, I’m sure we could have gotten this all sorted without the drama.”
The school had only one programme: the Nth Degree. Students had to study at least 2
5 majors, including: Advanced Mathematics for Cosmologists, Advanced French Literature of the 17th Century, Advanced Biochemical Weapons Engineering, Advanced Firefighting Techniques, Advanced Topics in the Advancement of Political Economy, Advanced Landscaping, Advanced Gender Politics and Relationship Advice, Advanced Game Design, Advanced Game Theory and Advanced Computer Programming for Beginners. Graduates are said to have an IQ higher than Saudi Arabia.
It was established in Earth Prime 9-8-3-7-6-8 dash omega because time passes differently there, allowing students to spend 100 years studying while only a few minutes passed on Earth Prime (and, to them, it felt like mere hours). Unfortunately, the school didn’t get permission from the TA to operate in that universe.
“Yeah, well, be fair – we had the paperwork filled out,” sniffed President Ruttinger. “I was going to post it, but then I got caught up in the day to day running of the school. You know: arranging for scholarships – I would especially like to thank the Cheney Foundation, which has been very generous over the years – making sure the curriculum is up to date, buying the most advanced laser disintegrators. The paperwork, well, it just slipped my mind, right? Could happen to anybody.”
“Yeeeeah, no,” stated Transdimensional Authority investigator Barabbas Brinkman. “They tried to hide its existence from us, but, well, like all evil geniuses, they missed one crucial detail. They said it was a school for evil geniuses right on the brochure for parents of prospective students, just above the picture of students playing laser skeet in the quad.”
“Yeah, well…rats,” snozzled President Ruttinger.
At its height, the Phoenix University – Earth Prime 9-8-3-7-6-8 dash omega campus had six students, three of whom graduated. Almost Doctor J. M. H. Booboohedd is suing the University for not staying open long enough for him to finish. “I just had to complete Advanced Particle Physics, a Brain Surgery Practicum, Advanced Basketweaving and Advanced Rocket Science,” Booboohedd complained. “Yeah, okay, the particle physics was an easy A, but still.”
“Yeah, well, maybe including legal training in the Nth Degree wasn’t such a great idea,” sniggled President Ruttinger.
Of the students who did graduate, Doctor Name Changed to Protect the Guilty Schwartzman-Falcone went mad, and currently resides in the Nurse Ratched N. Clank Asylum for the Awkward. Doctor A. K. A. Connubious disappeared, presumed on a reality television show. And, oh, looky here, the third graduate was Doctor Not His Real Name Alhambra, who was given a choice of going to jail or working for the TA.
“I was never evil,” Doctor Alhambra stated. “I always used my knowledge for good.”
“That’s not what our records say,” responded Martha Monopausal, who runs the Marlena Mushmouth Pet Arachnid Web site, a public evil genius watchdog organization.
“Excuse me a moment, will you?” Doctor Alhambra asked, and started typing furiously on his computer. An hour later, he said: “I was never evil. I had been recruited by the Transdimensional Authority to infiltrate the school.”
“That’s not – oh,” Monopausal insisted. Weakly. “Umm, yeah. That is what our records say. Still, it doesn’t explain the incident with the laser disintegrator and the 27 yak hearts.”
“What, that old thing? Excuse me – just one more second, that’s all it should take…” After half an hour of even more furious typing, he said, “Such simple misunderstandings.”
“That’s…uhh, yes, well, it would seem that Doctor Alhambra has always used his knowledge for good,” Monopausal allowed. She looked like she had just swallowed her scalp.
“Just another example of why you don’t bring an ocelot to a gunfight,” Doctor Alhambra smirked. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I was just firing up my state of the art laser disintegrator – I should get back to that before the yak hearts spoil!”
“Yeah, well, the first graduating class of any new programme is going to have… issues,” snaked Ruttinger. “Still, we’re as proud of our graduates as the law allows!”
Chapter Five
Whom the Gods Would Destroy
They First Make Wait for Hours for Tech Support
1. Oral Wisdom Ain’t Worth the Paper It’s Printed On!
Listen.
It wasn’t ePik Flayel’s idea to juggle the herring and chainsaws. In fact, had he been given the opportunity to consider it more fully, he would have thought that it sounded very much like something he would do, which would have immediately invalidated it as a reasonable activity in which to engage.
“Don’t be silly,” XerXemanXander tweeted ePik Flayel from his brand new, not available to the public yet BlackBerry Squid. “It will be fun.”
“One has to try new things in this existence,” moaned BuzzKejl. “That’s the only way one can make eternity even the slightest bit bearable.”
Gigi sent him a pointer to a Web page on which tasteful depictions of chainsaws appeared behind the message, in tasteful script: ‘If it sounds like something you would do, you should be the one to do it. Who better?’
So it came to pass that, on a wave of enthusiasm and poorly thought out logic, ePik Flayel juggled herring and chainsaws. And, all of the gods in Digitaleusia dined on fish fillets for many days and nights thereafter. Unfortunately, at the same time, ePik Flayel, err, filleted his own, uhh, fish stick, and the whole thing didn’t seem quite as amusing any more. Well, not to ePik Flayel, in any case.
ePik Flayel retired to the music room of his hut and pondered the meaning of his latest misadventure. They all think I’m a complete pompafloon! he thought. That’s what my latest misadventure bloody well means! Nobody was sure exactly what a pompafloon was, least of all ePik Flayel, and he was the one who had made the word up! It probably had something to do with slipping on banana peels and being hit in the kisser with cream pies and shortening your (fortunately overample to begin with) manhood juggling herring and chainsaws. Definitely shortening your manhood juggling herring and chainsaws.
Not wanting to be characterized as a pompafloon, ePik Flayel decided to make himself smart. Being smart must be at least tangentially opposite to being a pompafloon, he reasoned. Being smart was the opposite of just about anything one wouldn’t want to be. So, ePik Flayel did something unthinkable for a digital god.
He read a book.
ePik Flayel read A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking. Hunh, he thought when he had finished, there’s nothing to this reading business. So, he followed this up by reading A Long History of Time, by Hawkesley Stevens. Then, he read Pride and Prejudice. Then, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Then, Pride And Prejudice in the 24th and a Halfth Century! Then, Pride and Prejudice and Judy Tanuta. And, he read Bridge on the River Kwai, A Bridge Too Far (Abridged) and Goren on Bridge. He read everything ever written by Zane Grey, Billy Zane and Billy Budd. He read Welcome to the Multiverse* on the theory that even the most obscure books must have something to offer. Then, he read 50 Shades of Asa Grey and decided that they really didn’t. He read Ethel the Aardvark goes Quantity Surveying, but he didn’t really get the joke. ePik Flayel read The Great Gatsby and couldn’t understand why nobody else thought it was a comedy. He read Cranberry Growers I Have Known by Hiroshi Tuxedo and became hungry. He read Carrie by Stephen King and lost his appetite. He read the Bible and wondered what life was really all about, then he read 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade and decided that it was probably for the best that he not know. ePik Flayel read the complete works of Doctor Seuss to get the bad taste out of his brain.
* Sorry for the Inconvenience
ePik Flayel walked around Digitaleusia, proud that he had read just about every book that had ever been written. And, nobody noticed. To the outer world, he may as well have been the same old pompafloon that everybody had always thought he was! How could he show the other gods that he was now smart because of all of the books he had read?
Upon returning to his hut, ePik Flayel fired up one of the 27 computers in his games room. Only, he didn’t use it to play a game; instead, he logged onto the Godr
eads Web site, where he started rating and reviewing all of the books that he had read. Within minutes, his screen froze.
“Well, that’s inconvenient,” ePik Flayel said to himself. At a loss for what to do, he embarked on an epic quest that involved 12 club DJs, a crate of naval oranges (to keep from getting scurvy, obviously) and a left-handed zamboni. When he returned to his hut, Godreads was back up, so he tried to enter his ratings and reviews once more. And, once more, after a few short minutes his screen froze.
“Well, that’s very inconvenient,” ePik Flayel said to himself. Coincidentally, at that moment there happened to be a war council in the epic battle against the rain midgets, so he decided to go for a giggle. As usual, the war council broke up in ego-driven confusion and poorly defined terms and, much to his chagrin, ePik Flayel wasn’t responsible for either.
When he got back to his hut, the computer screen assured him that Godreads technical personnel were working on the problem, and they were confident that they would have the site up and running in no time. More or less. ePik Flayel decided to wait. Three weeks later, just a few days before he was going to give up, Godreads came back online. ePik Flayel tried to enter his ratings and reviews once again and, with a sigh, Godreads once again froze.
Silly god, the omniscient narrator chided. You have read an almost infinite number of books, and Godreads has a finite amount of server space. In trying to show off how smart you are, you’ve just shown how silly you are, you great pompafloon!
And, ePik Flayel thought Hmm…
