He wanted to ask where they were going, but his strength had all but left him. Instead, he surrendered himself to his old friend, knowing Splurt would never knowingly do anything to hurt him.
His head hit off another door frame. He grunted. Splurt rippled apologetically, then swept him on through the ship.
Cal slept fitfully, balanced on the jagged ridge between life and death. It would not be the death he had imagined for himself. That death had been a good one, facing down some giant alien menace, or sacrificing himself to save the galaxy, or calling Mech a robot one too many times. This – a decaying husk on a ship full of ghosts – was not the death he had hoped for.
When he next opened his eyes, he saw them, and a gasp or a sob or something in between burst from his lips.
They were all facing front now, Mizette having turned to see what the fuss was about many years previously. Splurt propped Cal up so he could get a clearer look.
He saw Mech with his assorted hats, and felt a chuckle like dry leaves fluttering somewhere in his chest. He saw Miz, her eyes wide and inquisitive, her tail frozen mid-wag.
He saw that fonking glass, still perfectly intact and upright on the floor. Seriously, what were the chances?
And he saw her. Most of all, he saw her. Loren. Her eyes wide with worry, her mouth turned down in concern. Concern for him. For where he had gone. For what could be happening to him.
If only she knew.
Cal lay there, with Splurt wrapped around him, just looking up at them all. His crew. His friends.
His family.
“Oh, Splurt,” he said, and he realized that he had been wrong. All this time, he had been wrong. This would be a good death.
Good enough.
And there, surrounded by his Space Team, Cal Carver of the planet Earth closed his eyes and surrendered into the open, waiting arms of former Hollywood actor, Tobey Maguire.
Forever.
NINE
OR NOT.
Cal’s eyes opened and he sat bolt upright, bending at the waist like he was spring-loaded. Mech, Loren and Miz were still staring back at him, just as they had been a moment before. Still motionless, still frozen, still…
“Ew. Like, who’s the creepy old guy?” asked Miz.
“Holy shizz!” Loren yelped, drawing back in fright. Her eyes narrowed as she studied him more closely. “Cal? Cal, is that you?”
Cal’s jaw dropped. “What?” he mumbled. “Who? How the… I mean… That’s not…”
“Where the fonk did all these hats come from?” Mech demanded. His neck whirred as he looked around at the dozens of home-made flags that hung on strings from the ceiling. “And what the fonk is ‘Smashdown’?”
The word triggered something inside Cal. He sprang up from his Splurt-bed, rediscovering an energy he hadn’t known in years. Roaring, he raced towards Loren, then toe-punted the glass that had been on the floor in front of her.
He watched with an immense sense of satisfaction as the tumbler arched through the air and hit the far wall.
Thunk.
It slid down and landed on the floor, completely intact and the right way up.
“Son of a…” Cal wheezed, then he spun around, squinted, and stabbed an accusatory finger at Loren and the others.
He began to scream. It wasn’t clear why, exactly – Cal, himself, didn’t really know – but he screamed for almost a full thirty seconds, then ran in a circle a few times and blacked out.
He woke up again before he even hit the ground, managing to eject another short, sharp scream before his old bones clattered against the hard floor, taking the wind out of him.
Cal decided it was best if he lay there for a while. Just lay there, doing nothing, gazing up at the all those little Smashdown flags which looked almost as new as they had done when he’d made them all those years before.
The others were staring at them. Fonk it. Let them stare. He’d stopped giving a shizz about what anyone thought of him decades ago. Granted, he’d been surrounded almost exclusively by monsters at the time, but the point was… The point still…
His wrinkled brow furrowed. What was the point? He’d forgotten.
He smiled gummily when Loren appeared beside him. Just like the flags, she, too, looked good as new. She gently slid her arms beneath Cal’s shoulders, and he surrendered to her grip as he realized just how frail he’d become. “Cal? Are you OK?” she whispered.
Cal managed a slow nod.
“What happened?”
“About fifty years happened,” Cal managed, then he was wrenched out of her arms and yanked suddenly onto his feet by some invisible force, like a puppet being dragged upright on its strings.
There was an odd sensation radiating out from the center of his chest. It wasn’t a heart attack – he’d had those. This was something different. It felt… not good, exactly, but not bad, either.
He spasmed violently. OK, that was less good.
What happened next, none of them could really explain. From Cal’s point of view, he felt like the universe was both collapsing in on him and exploding out of him at the same time. If he’d had to liken it to a noise, it would have been: “Krak-ump,” which wouldn’t really have made it any clearer for anyone.
Mech, Loren and Miz also got the impression he was doing two things at once, although not the same things as Cal was experiencing directly. His whole body seemed to become utterly, impossibly still, and yet it simultaneously began to shudder and shake, vibrating faster and faster until it was simultaneously both a blur of speed and a rigid, unmoving statue.
“Think it’s too late to take the eye-shizzing gig?” Mech wondered.
“Shh,” Loren urged, although she didn’t know why. Cal was making no sound as he stood there both moving and not moving, so Mech talking didn’t really affect anything in the slightest.
Miz leaned over and nudged the cyborg with her elbow. “You know you’re wearing make-up, right?”
“Huh?” Mech brought his forearm up to his face and checked out his reflection in the screen. Sure enough, his cheeks, eyes and lips had all been painted, dusted and smeared with a selection of vibrant colors. “What the fonk is this?” he demanded, earning himself another curt reprimand from Loren.
Finally, whatever was affecting Cal stopped. It stopped abruptly, and with enough force to launch him across the room, where he skidded over a table, fell off the other side, and landed on the floor with a crunch.
“Well, there go his hips,” Miz muttered.
Loren approached slowly, holding a hand out and gesturing for the others to stay back. As she neared the table, she could make out the crumpled heap of his shape on the other side, folded up on himself in a way that couldn’t possibly be comfortable.
“Cal?” she asked, stopping a foot or two from the table. “Cal, are you OK?”
Cal sprang upwards, screaming, his eyes wide with terror, his beard…
He grabbed at his face.
His beard. Where was his beard?
“Where’s my beard?” he asked, and his voice came out stronger and more piercing than it had done in decades.
Cal felt his hair. Last time he’d checked it had been long and wispy, but now it was short and thick, and almost certainly in need of a wash.
He saw the relief on Loren’s face, but it paled into comparison with the relief he knew must be written all over his own.
“I’m alive. I’m alive and… And I’m young!” He laughed. “I’m young! I can do anything!”
He tried to touch his toes, but failed.
“Fonk. No. Can’t do that. But still… I’m young, Loren. I’m fonking young!”
“Young-ish,” Miz corrected, and Cal laughed again. He threw his arms around Loren and hugged her, savoring the softness of her against him. She was alive. He was alive.
And he was young.
Ish.
“So, I gotta ask,” said Mech. “What the fonk is going on?”
“Oh, it was horrible,” Cal said, reluctantl
y pulling himself away from Loren. They both held on a little longer than either of them intended, before detangling their limbs and stepping apart. “I aged. I, like, I aged.”
“We saw that,” said Loren. “How?”
“Same way as everyone else,” Cal explained. “One day at a time. See, while you three were standing there doing nothing for half a century, I lived out my whole life. Here. On this fonking ship.”
Cal, Loren and Miz all exchanged looks. “Sorry, not getting it,” Loren said.
Cal darted past her to where Splurt was still in a sort of half-trolley, half-blob shape. “Buddy! It’s me. I’m here. You OK?”
Splurt boinged back into ball shape. His crusty exterior was glossy and smooth once more.
“Alright! We’re back!” Cal cheered, then he spun back to face the others. “Look, it’s pretty simple. You guys were standing there, I walked over there, and then suddenly… whoosh. You know?”
“No, man. We don’t know. What the fonk is ‘whoosh’?”
“I mean… whoosh,” said Cal, adding an arm gesture as if that somehow helped clarify. “You guys slowed down. Or I sped up. Or… I don’t know. Space Magic. I lived out my whole life while you just stood there. And then I died, and then… Then… Well, then I came back. Here and now. And you’re moving again.”
He grabbed Miz by the shoulders and tangled his fingers in her fur. “You’re moving again!”
Mech scowled. “Nope.”
“Nope? What do you mean, ‘nope’?” Cal asked.
“Ain’t buying it.”
“How do you think you got those hats on your head, Mech? Hmm? Or that make-up on your face?” Cal asked. “Or that note on your back that says ‘Kick me’.”
Miz leaned over so she could see Mech’s back. “Oh. Heh. Nice,” she said, then she kicked Mech on the back of the leg and tried to pretend it hadn’t hurt.
“Cut that shizz out!” Mech snapped. He looked down at the hats he was holding in his hands, then pulled the others off his head and studied those, too. Finally, he met Cal’s eye. “You serious?”
“Totally,” said Cal, then he let out a sharp, sudden gasp. “Oh fonk. Oh God, I just thought of something.”
“What?” asked Loren. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
She said it to Cal’s back. He was already off and running, sprinting out of the food court, giddy with his refound strength and vigor.
“Ball room! Meet me at the Ball Room! Splurt will show you where it is!”
“Ball room?” Miz asked. “Like, why?”
But the answer didn’t come. Cal was already gone.
THEY FOUND him sprawled in the middle of the dance floor, face down in a strawberry-frosted wedding cake and groaning with pleasure. As they entered, he pulled his head free with a schlop, and grinned up at them through a mask of pink frosting. He looked, at that moment, like the happiest person Loren had ever seen. Even though he also appeared to be crying.
“This is so good,” he said, the words mumbled and indistinct through the mouthful of cake. “You have no idea how long this fonking thing has been taunting me. Seriously, we’re talking decades.”
Miz’s nostrils flared as she picked up the smell of the frosting, and she took a step closer. Cal wrapped his arms around the cake, completely destroying it as he pulled it to his chest. “Mizette, I love you honey, but if you touch this cake I will scratch your God damn eyes out.” He smiled sweetly. “OK? Same goes for the rest of you. This baby is all mine.”
“I don’t get it,” said Mech.
“It’s a cake, Mech,” Cal replied, shoving a fistful of the thing in his mouth as if to demonstrate. “See? It’s just a cake.”
“No, I mean the rest of it.”
Cal looked down at the cake. “The little plastic guys?”
“No! The rest of it. The time thing. You growing old.”
“I already explained that,” Cal said. “Space Magic. Got to be.”
“See, what the fonk is ‘Space Magic’?” Mech grunted.
“It’s like regular magic,” said Cal, spraying crumbs all down his front. “Only in space.”
Mech muttered darkly. Loren jumped in before violence could break out.
“Even if it did happen like you say – even if you and Splurt somehow, I don’t know, sped up, then how come you came back? How are you… normal, I mean.”
“He ain’t normal,” Mech said. “He’s a long fonking way from normal.”
Cal opened his mouth to offer an explanation, then realized he didn’t have one. “More Space Magic?” he guessed. “Anti Space Magic? Fonk knows. The point is, I’m back, I’m young, and oh my God, there is a giant face at the window.”
Loren glanced at the others, then back to Cal. “Huh?’
“Face,” said Cal, pointing past them. “Giant face. At the window.”
The others turned in the direction he’d pointed, not quite sure what, if anything, they expected to see. Loren wasn’t quite buying the rapid aging thing, but Cal had clearly gone through some kind of trauma. There was no saying what sort of hallucinations he might be…
There was a giant face at the window.
More specifically, there was an enormous eye and part of a colossal nose at the window. It was a dark, glassy eye, and not especially friendly-looking. It watched, unblinking, as Cal slowly got to his feet, crossed to the window, and quietly closed the blinds.
“OK, everyone else saw that, right?” Cal asked. “That wasn’t some mental breakdown or psychological cry for help?”
“Not unless you were crying real fonking loud,” Mech muttered.
“Was that an eye?” Miz asked. “Because, like, it looked like an eye.”
“Aye! I would say that’s an eye,” Cal replied. He shook his head and grinned. “I have absolutely no idea why I said that. Totally not the time.” He threw his arms around Mech. “Man, I missed you guys.”
“Get off me,” Mech grunted, shrugging him away.
Cal jabbed a thumb back in the direction of the covered window. “This is so us, don’t you think? Minding our own business, then – bam – giant face at the window. This is so totally us.”
No-one else seemed as entertained by the situation as Cal was. Loren tried to peer through the narrow gap in the blinds, but to no avail. “Is it still there?”
Cal pulled the cord that raised the blinds.
It was still there.
“Yup.”
He tried pulling a different cord, but only one half of the blinds lowered, while the other end raised. “Shizz. Hang on,” he said, tugging another cord. This time, both ends of the blinds raised, completely revealing them to the giant eye outside.
“It’s totally staring at us,” Miz pointed out.
“I know, I know. Hang on. I’ve got this,” Cal said. He pulled two of the cords at once. The end that was currently raised lowered, while the end that was lowered raised. “Jesus. So many strings,” Cal said, his voice taking on a slightly hysterical edge. “Why are there so many strings?”
“Hurry the fonk up,” Mech said.
“It’s unnecessarily complicated,” Cal protested. He pulled all three cords and the blind dropped suddenly.
“Ta-daa!” he announced, turning and holding his hands out at his sides.
There was a crash from behind him. Cal’s smile faltered, just slightly.
“It just fell off the wall, didn’t it?”
Loren nodded. “Yup.”
“Is the big face gone?”
Loren shook her head. “Nope.”
Cal chewed his lip. “OK. Maybe if we stay really quiet…”
A voice boomed around the ship, shaking the floor beneath them, making Splurt ripple anxiously, and turning the remains of Cal’s cake into tiny nuggets of cakey rubble.
“You have been tried and found to be in breach of temporal law,” it announced. It was an odd voice – neither male nor female, and Cal was pretty sure he felt it in his bones rather than heard it in his ears.
> “Is it talking to us?” he whispered.
“Well it’s looking right at us, so…” Mech reasoned.
“Sure, that eye’s looking right at us,” Cal conceded. “But I’m assuming he has two. Maybe the other one is looking at whoever he’s actually talking to, and this one just happens to be—”
“SILENCE, CAL CARVER!”
Cal shook his head. “Nope. He’s totally talking to us,” he whispered.
“You mean he’s talking to you,” Mech pointed out.
“SILENCE, GLUK DISSELPOOF!”
Cal resisted the urge to respond to Mech, and just fixed him with an infuriatingly smug smirk, instead.
“The punishment for your misdeeds is total chronal disassociation,” the voice continued.
Cal raised his eyebrows. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“You shall all be forcibly removed from the time stream and cast into a void of endless suffering, while any and all actions committed by you during your lifetimes shall be wiped from the annals of history. Thus speaks the Time Titan.”
“Actually, that does sound kind of bad,” Cal admitted. He looked at the others. “Right? That’s bad?”
“I fonking hate you, man,” Mech grunted. “How do you always get me into this shizz?”
“I have no idea,” Cal admitted. “But come on, don’t I always get you out of it?”
“No. No, you don’t.”
Cal frowned. “Don’t I? Huh. I should really work on that.” He turned to the window. “Hold on. Whoa there, big face,” he said. “What are we supposed to have done, exactly?”
Miz’s nostrils twitched. She raised her head, her fur prickling.
“You illegally meddled in the causality of all things,” the Time Titan announced.
“Right,” Cal replied, drawing the word out. “Meaning what, exactly?”
“Meaning you shall be punished by—”
“Removal from… whatever. No, I get that bit. I mean can you be more specific about what we actually did?”
“You interfered with the machinations of the time stream.”
Cal looked at the others and lowered his voice. “That’s more vague, right?” He turned back to the window before anyone could answer. “We think that’s more vague. Can you be more specific?”
Space Team: The Time Titan of Tomorrow Page 10
