by Lee Bond
"We is not wrong." They said purposefully. Chad loved the look on Griffin's face. The dawning of awareness were a wonderful fing. "'e is do it on purpose, on account of 'ow 'e'd already set up The Cordon stuff to kick all 'is enemies out until 'e were ready to deal wiv ‘em on better terms. Man's always planning, right? Couldn't take care of 'em back firty thousand years ago, so 'e works out a way to deal wiv 'em now. Coz now? Now ‘e ‘as got everyfing ‘e needs to deal wiv your Granda and whatnot. Cor, the man is a fiend when it comes to plannin’ stuff out, hey?"
Griffin chose to sit in silence for a long while, starring mindlessly out into the depths of the strange ship that his ‘grandfather’ had devised. Planets whirled and turned, soldiers marched to and fro, and somewhere beyond all of that, out of sight but not out of mind, machines twice the size of any planet monitored the legions and legions of clone pods, maintained the order of every world within the ship, controlled defensive measures both impenetrable and unbeatable and offensive weapons capable of sundering solar systems.
None of that compared to this new image of Garth ‘Nickels’ N’Chalez that was growing inside him. They’d always known he was smarter, more intuitive and certainly more cunning than he’d ever let on, had always treated the goofy comments and the absurd love affair with fast food and pop culture to be nothing more than a thin veil to hide his true purpose, but they’d never let that blind them.
Neither had the Armies of Man commanders, either. They may have failed each other in admitting the true depth of Garth’s abilities, but that was their own fault. In failing to see all the Kith’kin and Kin’kith as nothing more than chattel, those old, bigoted assholes had done more to torpedo the war efforts than good.
It was a lot to swallow. Even more to digest. Did the man ever misstep?
“Ah learnt quite a few thangs, tied to the engine controls of this here ship.”
“Oh?” Chad liked learning new fings. It were a sign of positive growth, and these days, ‘e were all about that, weren’t he just? Had a lot to do wiv all the hims as had gratefully returned to the fold.
Humbling moment, that, and since that luxurious rebirth, Chad had promised all of himself that they were going to learn as much as they could about everyfing they could before the whole effing fing fell off the map to be replaced by summink new.
“The mighty and powerful Kith Antal, an ancient being so steeped in connection to the extra-dimensionality that he is not only mostly crystalline now but that he somehow contrived a way of trapping the beings seeking to end the Universe inside of himself is hurt.” Griffin laughed softly. “Upset.”
Chad stuck a pinky finger into his ear and wiggled around until it made that weird clicky noise inside their skull. He popped it loose with a loud sound and looked at his traveling companion. “I is sorry? We is ‘ear you say that thundering wafflefuck is upset. Like, little girl upset? Or un’appy like ‘Oy, there is summink wrong wiv one of me generators and I is not know why’?”
Griffin cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. “Little girl upset. A little, crying girl made out of indestructible, crystalized ex-dee essence. A big, fat, crying bitch of a girl.”
Chad swiveled around and made himself comfortable. In the process, he sat themselves down in such a way that implied he was paying quite possibly all of the attention anyone had ever paid anything since that first moment when the Engines of Creation had turned on the gas. Resting their head in his hands, Chad spoke eagerly. “Oh, this is summink I is love to ‘ear, we is just know.”
“As Antal ripped the fire out of me to fuel the gigantic engines of this ship for no other reason than because he could, and because he is an asshole, he complained. Bitterly. Non-stop. About the disappointment he had for his only son.”
The very first time Antal had cracked his yapper to go on and on about Garth, Griffin had been under the illusion that he was losing his mind. The great and powerful Kith Antal, airing complaints? About anyone?
Impossible. And, more to the point, weird.
The second time, though … the heavy voice tinged with odd susurrations formed by the now permanently open connection to ex-dee had taken on a wheedling tone.
“Go on.” Chad smiled sunnily. Every foe had their weaknesses, hey? Especially the ones as were like Antal. They were well hid, naturally, and might only pop out once a decade, but they were all in there, weren’t they just.
“This all ties inta yer belief that Garth let Shikozi inta find us all, y’understand?” When Chad nodded again, head still in his hands, Griffin resumed. “Ah reckon ain’t a soul alive other’n Antal knows this here bit of the tale of how this here future-side o’ the War ‘gainst the Heshii even got started, so if’n ya’ll feel like ya gotta spout off an’ lose yer shit, save it ‘till the end, coz even Ah still cain’t believe it, an’ Ah ain’t got no reason not to, y’hear?”
“Lad, we is amaze at ‘ow roughly you is treat the King’s English it hain’t e’en funny, hey? You is mangle every word rattlin’ loose past them lips o’ yours, yet we is positively entranced. But,” Chad made an ‘X’ across their chest, coincidentally right where Garth had blown a hole through them, “we is absolutely one ‘undred percent promise we is say nowt about nowt, e’en if what comes next is the sort of fing as blow the top of our skull clean off.”
Griffin found Chad’s opinion about how he spoke Texan to be particularly hilarious, but kept on point. The two of them could argue back and forth in their respective patois until they descended into little more than syllabic grunts and whistles.
He took a deep breath, and started in. “Ya’ll know that Garth prepared this here future for himself, so that when he climbed outta Alpha, everythang would swing into motion. Ya’ll know that he joined the Armies of Man early on, that he took them risks to turn a light on the darkness for them assholes and ya’ll know that he eventually revealed the existence of us so-called hybrids and that he wuz instrumental in our birth by manipulatin’ the Kith and Kin’s DNA when they were doin’ the nasty, raght?”
“We is up to speed on all that, yeah.”
“Ya’ll done the math on that? Like, really sat down and done some calculatin’? Ah’m the youngest o’ the lot, and Lisa was near about thirty or so when Garth came knockin’ on her door with that ragged smile and them gleamin’ blue eyes o’ his.” Griffin watched Chad do the math, caught sight of the tiny spark of realization and nodded, smiling. “’s raght. Round about the same time Garth was busy bein’ trained by Kith Antal to be the weapon aimed at the heart of the M’Zahdi Hesh, we wuz all young’uns runnin’ around the playground gettin’ in fights and watchin’ goddamn Power Rangers on the teevee.”
“Well, that don’t make no sense, mate.” Chad held a finger up and started doing the actual math in the air, silvery numbers shimmering against the backdrop of planets. “Huey were tellin’ Gwy and me that Nickels were eighteen when he were trainin’ wiv his da, and ‘e were joinin’ the Armies a year or two after that. ‘e weren’t too clear on the dates. When did you join up?”
“Freshly turned eighteen. Ah remember like it wuz yesterday. Ah wuz so proud. Ah was happy to’ve learnt there wuz more people like me out there. Ah wuz given a purpose, and it wuz awesome.” The Armies had put on quite a grand welcoming for them all, made them feel special, welcome, wanted. Shortly after that, things had gone rapidly downhill, but by then, Nickels had stepped up to the plate, working overtime to keep the venomous hatred trickling down from on high from poisoning their souls against the very people they were trying to save.
Chad shook his head dismissively. “Nope. That hain’t work. The maths says so. You is wrong. Or you is ‘ave a terrible memory. Is you fink it possible you is, like, sort of … slow? You was an Enforcer for a long time. Maybe you got bonked on the ‘ead a few times to many? And wot does this all ‘ave to do wiv your Granda?”
“Ah’m gittin’ there, son, hold your horses.” Griffin cleared his throat for no real reason, then resumed. “Ah was raght where ya’ll�
��re at not too long ago. Didn’t make no sense. Ah don’t raghtly thank anyone’s ever sat down and properly looked at it all. Too much time and space’s gotten between the past and now for it to have any real impact, but it’s got so much to do with how thangs are goin’. As Ah wuz sayin’, Antal was trainin’ Garth on how to be the first Kin’kithal while the rest of uz were poopin’ in our pants and all. There’s this trick we used t’be able t’do before the ex-dee got all buggered up by Antal, this kind of … relocation thang? We could pop into the ex-dee and sort of lahk …”
“Tellyport. We is on board.”
“Teleportation, raght, raght.” Griffin had never really liked entering ex-dee. Burned through to the inside of his bones every time. “Now, it’s noisy, okay? Every time a Kith or Kin did it, the Heshii could see that there shit raght up into the future. ‘s how they tracked their commanding officers. Big ole noise, loudest thunderclap ya’ll ever heard. Antal wuz trainin’ Garth on how to do that shit on the quiet, coz it wuz an important thang that he be able to move against his enemies without bein’ seen. Daddy was a powerhouse, like Ah said. Big ole noisy fuck. Kept gettin’ his daddy in shit with the Heshii, cuz they ain’t lahk it when their soldiers just started doin’ random shit without their permission, only since he wuz the only one at that point, they kinda just let it go. So the two of ‘em kept practicin’ and practicin’ until one day, Garth fell out of the Universe.”
Chad felt their jaw drop and the back of their skull threatened to fly away into the distance to become a tiny little moonlet around one of the worlds above their head. “I is sorry but come again? I is expect you to say,” he put on his best Texan accent, which came out a mangled mishmash of nearly thirteen different ones, “’mah daddy done did that there thang lahk he was s’posed ta and then they went out and had themselves a fine old dinner of pork and beans’.”
“That was terrible and don’t do it again.”
Chad sketched a mini-bow of apology, then pressed the point. “Still doesn’t dismiss the fact, yeah, that you is just say ‘e fell out of the Universe.”
“Well, he did. And here’s the weirdest fucking part of the whole fucking thang.” Griffin held up a finger, took a deep breath, held it for thirty seconds, then let it out in a slow, slow exhale. “Grandaddy knew it wuz gonna happen. On that day, at that time, in that place. He’d known about it for nearly two hundred years. No, don’t open your mouth, don’t interrupt. Don’t … don’t say anything. Garth N’Chalez, practicing his ex-dee teleport tricks, fell out of the Universe and disappeared. Both forever and never, because when he returned to the Unreal Universe, it was nearly three hundred years into the past.”
“Time travel don’t exist. Not in this ‘ere Universe.” The concept of time travel was well documented and continually worked towards, and one of the things he and Huey and Gwy had talked about often on their odyssey through Trinityspace was whether or not it could happen. Huey –always trustworthy when it came to what he knew- had flat out denied it was possible because the Universe itself didn’t like time travel.
There was a bit of untruth to the sentiment now that they knew about the Hesh and their abilities, but since the entire Universe had always been aimed at destroying them, it was safe to say that if the Universe had wanted it’s chosen to do that thing, they would’ve invented time travel around the same time as they figured out fire was important for cooking food.
Chad said all of this, finishing with, “An’ even if the Universe didn’t want time travel to be real, I is bet our right ball that N’Chalez would’ve told the Engines to politely fuck off before going on to come up wiv a very fancy method of zipping through time anyways. So you is wrong.”
“This is comin’ from Antal’s mouth, and it ain’t a lie.” Griffin's tone evoked a nod of acceptance from Chad. Antal had no reason to lie, and the crystal giant's impassioned rage showed no signs of fabrication. He well and truly hated the man called Garth N'Chalez with every scintilla of his soul, blackened and dark as it was.
"Before there wuz even a proper war against Man, before there wuz even a hint that the Heshii'd need to step up their game, Garth showed up on Antal's doorstep and the two of them did battle. Nearly took killin' 'is paw afore Antal decided to step down and lissen t'reason. Then Garth started in on the lies and deceit. Worked on the man in secret, subtly, so subtly that if ya'll were to hear those same words, even knowin' how crooked Garth is, ya'll'd still follow along. Promised Antal the world. Swore blind that in time, in the right away, the Heshii would be gone and Antal would be normal agin. It'd just take time, but it'd be worth it. And Antal bought it. Hook, line and sinker, on account o' the fact that Garth proved he was related. That familial hook, y'see. They dig in deep, don't you know."
"Oh, aye, sonny Jim, we is know all about them hooks, don't we just." Several of him tore off into the mist of their collective conscious soul, so unwilling were they still to accept the colossal amount of manipulation they'd suffered for thousands and thousands of years. "I assume that wot 'appened to Antal was summink that Antal were not told."
"Shit, man, y'met the dang fella. You think for a dang second 'e'd be on board with turnin' inna giant thang made outta crystal?" Griffin picked a rock by his elbow up, tossed it into the air, then turned into fine vapor with a precise shot of fire. "Granted, the man's got all the power ever, but 'e's fuckin' shithouse crazy. Crazy enough to know 'e ain't happy bein' that way, and all that hatred an' rage, thirty thousand years o' bein shoved further an' further out into the Universe, slowly coming t'realize y'son ain't never comin', ain’t' never gone do whut 'e promised, well, shit. Ah'm surprised the whole fuckin' Universe just ain't imploded on account o' all that black venom. So when ya'll tell me that y’think Garth done set Shikozi up to die like 'at, an' all t'accelerate the war to the point where Humanity had no hope o' winnin' and wouldn't for thirty thousand years, not only do Ah b'lieve ya'll, Ah cain't b'lieve everyone missed it. His daddy done knows ‘at now, and Garth, he gone suffer."
"That's our lad, hey? Primed to destroy the Unreal Universe for his own goals, doin' wotever needs." Coming from the other end –that of not trying to kill Garth and trying not to be killed by Garth- you really could appreciate the beauty of the lad’s efforts. The planning.
Chad knew they were the preeminent soldier in the Universe –next to Antal, of course- and that he could sit down and work summat out that were similar, but there were an elegance to what N’Chalez were doing that were outright fantastic.
“There’s a cost, though, ain’t there.” Griffin didn’t intend to sound so wistful, but dammit, it come out that way anyhows.
“You is look at it the wrong way, mate.” Chad reached out to clap a hand on the younger man’s shoulder.
When the fiery-headed Kin’kithal looked at the pale hand like it were a dead fish and Chad himselves felt frankly awkward as fuck, he withdrew the friendly gesture and stared at the extremity like it’d gone bonkers. “Hain’t called the Unreal Universe for nowt, is it?”
“Not you too.” Griffin shifted to get the pins and needles in his ass gone. He went to take a drag on his cigarette, saw it’d gone out, then simply lit it with a wink. Trailing smoke around his head, the ex-Enforcer spoke. “Now, Ah git it. Ah really an’ truly do. This here place ain’t real, so we’re runnin’ around callin’ it Unreal. Iz ‘at accurate, though, is whut Ah wanna know. Are we less real, all the way not real, or is there some kinda middle ground?”
“Sonny Jim, if you is see some of the shit we is see,” Chad held up a hand when Griffin went to talk, probably about summat ‘e’d run into across The Cordon, “lad, bear in mind, we is come from Arcadia. The only place in the whole entirety of Existence as had proper, stable nannytech. I is a fookin’ Platinum Brigadier and I is able to make wotever I is want come to light just by wishin’ for it. Okay, it is not as simple as that, but it is damn near close. In a proper Universe filled wiv proper people doing proper sorts of living, runnin’ into the kind of shite we’ve seen shou
ld be infinitely less often than it is, hey? Out ‘ere,” Chad waved his hands at the sky full of planets and tremendous, motorized walkways that shuttled forces throughout the limitless vessel, “you is sometimes not be able to go out and buy a newspaper ‘ere you run into some new species that is like ‘Oi, weird lad wiv two ‘ands an’ feet, we is the Blobpeople from Blobberton, and we is take your planet now, yeah?’.”
“The point’s moot.” Griffin conceded the argument with a shrug. “The only real fact to consider in the argument of Real vs Unreal is the fact that regardless of which is closer t’true, the Hesh, Trinity, and Nickels’re all out there, gunnin’ t’be the first to pull the trigger on this place.”
“That bother you?” They hadn’t given too much thought about the end of the Unreal Universe because Chad didn’t really feel like it mattered all too much to them no matter what happened.
When they did think about it, Chad couldn’t escape the feeling that when all were said and done, he was going to be absolutely fine. A few of him believed it was remnants of their absolutely staggering levels of narcissism and the beginnings of a decent God complex owing to their unique, multiple nature, and all of them were perfectly okay with feeling like that.
“Realizin’ that no matter wot, sooner or later, one of this big heavies is gonna do summat as will pull the blanket over the stars and you is simply not going to be anymore?”
Griffin pulled some grass loose from the soil and threw it into the wind. The two men watched the green blades flit off into the distance. “Figger Ah’m like m’daddy on the subject these days. Ah’m tired. Ah think we all are, only most of us just don’t know it yet. This here Universe … well, the Universe that Garth forged into being on account o' how he's such a crafty sumbitch, it’s gone on for too dang long, idn’t it? Ah dunno much ay-tall about how this new Reality’s gone be formed, but if’n it’s true, if’n there idn’t gone be room fer people like you an’ me and yer average Joe’s gonna have a better chance at a nice, long full life without aliens droppin’ from the sky to fuck with their shit, Ah s’pose it don’t matter whut Ah thank. Because again…”
