by Lee Bond
Humbling, he bet. Especially in light of what he and Eddie were suffering through right that moment.
“Bingo!” Chaos nodded and fired an invisible gun at Drake’s face, complete with expertly mimicked sound effects.
“Wherein,” Garth resumed, “Lissande Amour made me an offer. She, like Granger, was growing tired of Samiel’s efforts at what-the-fuck-ever and wanted out from the asshole’s thumb. Sensing, and regrettably seeing, the kind of power I actually had, she saw her way out. So she offered to chuck me up The Line so I could deal with Samiel a little closer to home. I leaped at the chance because it was obvious the fucking guy was never going to come down The Line, not after having worked so diligently to remove himself from the picture. So through I went.”
“It hurt like a motherfucker.” Chaos announced to Eddie and Drake, just on the off chance they wanted to know. He put a hand to his chest. “I mean, I don’t know that for certain because I’m an artificial construct, but examination of the memories kind of suggests that it hurt more than you two guys can possibly understand.”
“We get it, Nickels. You went up The Line, met some people, did some things, fought Samiel, couldn’t beat him on your own, made a bargain with the Ushbet, they sent you home. That’s why you keep calling it ‘Stalemate’ in your head. Because you didn’t kill Samiel.” Eddie was royally tired of all the nonsense, especially at the capering, moronic Chaos and it’s antics.
Like right now; following his irritated synopsis of events after Garth’s arrival in the 25th century, the wireframe idiot started laughing so hard it was literally doubled up, on the ground, slapping the cold stone like it were trying to tap out of a wrestling match.
“Something tells me we’re at one of those ‘edit points’ he’s been hinting at, Eddie.” Unlike his friend and even though he was pissed at Nickels, Drake was burning with curiosity as to what’d really happened.
“Yeah, well, he can lick my bag. I just want this to be over. If he’s going to kill us Barnabas Blake style or Phantom Zone us or whatever, I just want it over with.” Eddie ran a hand through his hair, then scratched idly at his neck. “I mean, I get it. I fucked up. I fucked up worse than anyone ever has in the entire history of the Universe. I grew corrupt and angry and bitter and all of that is still in me, and it’s not likely to go away. The only reason I’m calm and under control right now is because I don’t have the fucking option of doing anything else. If I could, I’d be burning him into ash right now with focused beams directly from the incongruity itself. I’d unspool that asshat Chaos into component pieces and use what’s left to hang my Christmas lights. You just don’t get rid of this kind of animosity overnight, Drake.”
“Gee, you think?” Drake drawled sardonically.
“Anyways…” Garth trailed off, looking around the place. “No, you know what? Wrong venue. Wrong venue all the way. I feel like I’m on stage and you two fucks are Statler and Waldorf.”
“Ohhhh shit!” Chaos clapped his hands and did a little dance. “Bim-bim-sallah-bim!”
“That’s vaguely racist, I think.” Garth pursed his lips. “I really think so.”
“Hey, man, the 60’s in The Dream was weird.” Chaos offered. "Casual racism everywhere."
“I think I’m gonna go with something a little more sedate.” Garth clapped a hand on either elbow, closed his eyes and nodded once, very firmly.
Emperor-for-Life Etienne Marseilles’ Grand Amphitheater, a place born of power and designed to make the penitent feel even smaller than they already felt, disappeared…
***
When the scene resolved itself enough for the two captives to see where they were, both Drake and Eddie found themselves relaxing against their better judgment; instead of the cold, domineering and ultimately too vast theater, they were now sitting at a beachside café.
The air was crisp and clean, the water –no more than two hundred feet away- had perfect conditions for surfing and wakeboarding. Men and women and children of all ages strolled up and down the sidewalk, laughing and having a grand old time. Dragon kites battled for supremacy in the skies, rollerbladers sped through and around clusters of tourists. Hawkers hawked and panhandlers panhandled and buskers busked.
Chaos could be seen down on the beach, running around like a moron, playing Contact Frisbee with a bunch of kids from the University. None of them were aware that they were playing with a wireframe construct that represented the greatest AI in existence or if they were, they weren’t letting it bother them.
To Chaos’ credit, he seemed very good at Frisbee.
“Isn’t this better?” Garth took a great big snootful of salty San Franciscan air, then took a sip of coffee. He looked from Eddie to Drake, then laughed at Chaos’ antics. “Yeah, this is totes better.”
“How, exactly, are you doing this?” Eddie demanded, poking his chocolate croissant with a distrusting finger.
“The quadronic circuits he had that idiot out there litter the earth with.” Drake supplied, quickly ordering a chocolate milkshake from the waitress as she walked by. “It’s the only way.”
“Yeah.” Garth nodded. “That shit’s not going anywhere until the entire simulation is ended. The stuff Chaos sketched out when you weren’t paying all that much attention were rootkit hacks. Backdoored in. Severed your connections. Sorry.”
“You’re not sorry.” Eddie contradicted moodily, tossing his croissant in the garbage. “Not one bit.”
“You’re right,” Garth drank more of his coffee, “I ain’t sorry. I’ll never be sorry. I mean, okay, I’m a little sorry you guys came through the wormhole created by the Ushbet and all that because obviously that was one of the most awesome, self-sacrificing decisions ever made, and I’m sorry you saw how shitty my Universe is and the manner you discovered who I really was and all that, but I am not sorry about how things turned out. You’re an asshole, Eddie. You kind of always were.”
“Ouch!” Drake, still swallowing chocolate and ice cream goodness, wiped goop from his chin.
“You’re not much better, man.” Garth said this around a mouthful of cookie. “You’re a narcissist and an asshole as well.”
“Pot. Kettle. Black?” Chaos’ words drew all three men’s unwavering gaze his way. “Only reason he can say that kind of stuff to you two is because he’s worse than the both of you combined. Don’t forget. He’s got all a Kith’s towering ego problems, ramped up to umpty-leven. Luckily for all of us, it usually just manifests itself like this. Hey, uh, Garth, could you … could you make me a bicycle? Only some of the guys want to go for a rip on their mountain bikes and whatever and I don’t have one…”
“Kids today.” Garth snapped his fingers and a brand new bike appeared, which Chaos hopped on right away. The construct sped off towards where his new friends waited on their bikes. When the wireframe goof was out of sight, Garth turned his attention back to his friends. “The only reason I’m indulging him is because I need him to be my friend when I get back outside. He’s been very reluctant to give me what I need when I need it.”
“Huey programmed him, right?” Eddie asked, watching the dragon kite fights, hands twitching in time to one of their flight paths.
“Yeah. I suspect my AI buddy knows more about what’s happening than I do and made the appropriate changes. I just wish I had the time and opportunity to find out what’s really going on.” Garth finished his cookie in one giant chomp, wiped cookie dust onto his jeans and said, still chewing, “Anyways. Boom. There I am, in the 25th century. In one of Baron Samiel’s heavily guarded way stations that connected from wherever in time he was to the 21st. My old friend and died in the wool sourpuss, Captain Jim Seeker and his ragtag band of miscreants and soldiers are mounting a surprisingly decent attack against said station, launching missiles and all kinds of shit. You with me?”
“This milkshake is perfect.” Drake announced, looking around awkwardly when he realized he’d been in the middle of a weird daydream about milkshakes. “I mean, yes. Samiel way stat
ion, your first encounter with Seeker is en route. We’re with you.”
“Cool.” Chaos went whipping by, standing on the bike seat and balancing just barely enough to keep the damn thing from sending him to the hospital with a … dented wireframe skull. “Mmm… I changed my mind. Questions and answers are a go. I repeat. They are a go.”
“You are the weirdest dude.” Eddie settled into his chair. They weren’t going anywhere, not until Garth decided they were finished, so it was either accept his fate or try to change it. Of the two options, the former was the better choice, if for no other reason than he was finally able to relax.
“Yup. Now. From the moment I meet Jim to the moment I beard Samiel in his stupid stone time traveling space pyramid-thing, how much time do you think passed?”
“Well obviously that’s a trick question.” Drake looked to see if his statement elicited any kind of response from Garth, but all he got for his efforts was a Spock-brow.
“Is it?”
“Yes, it is.” Eddie replied forcefully. “And your unspoken implication is that we’re at the first of the memory edits. Now, as much as I’m willing to relax and let you unspool your ‘great and majestic bullshittery’ in your own time and in your own way, I gotta tell ya, I’m more interested in this all being over and done with. Drake?”
Drake shrugged.
All told, he was entirely too goddamn ambivalent about his ultimate fate; living in BishopCo towers for longer than Man’s initial growth period on Old Earth had been too much like a prison sentence for his liking, and when you got right down to it, being forced to exist in close proximity to the incongruity –unless you wanted to die- was also very much like prison.
“Drake.” Garth flashed his friend a smile. “How’s about you tell me what happened just after I stepped out of The Line mover?”
“Uhhh.” Drake closed his eyes, played the scene through. “You step out, terrifying the techs. Seeker’s Wolverine Tank launches a huge payload, which hits the side of the building and makes everything shudder. You take that opportunity to escape. You eventually meet Jim. You prove you’re not a Zigghead and off you go. You have a falling out, mostly because of that Wayfarer trying to issue you a rede, you wind up meeting Eloise at Fandoo’s and then…”
“Annnnnd thennnnn?”
“No ‘and then’.” Drake said with a smile. “Then you eventually get off your ass and go Samiel Hunting. But that’s not what happened, is it?”
“Nope.” Garth shook his head. “And you still haven’t asked my …”
“Just a little under two years, start to finish.” Eddie supplied wearily. “Seven hundred and fourteen days, to be exact, from the second you stepped off the platform until you made your bargain with the Ushbet to be sent home.”
“That number is wrong. Well.” Garth held up his hands. “Well, okay, for that iteration of events, that number is spot on the money. Right down to the day. All told, we’re looking at closer to one hundred thousand thirty-six. Plus or minus.”
Eddie and Drake exchanged disbelieving glances. It wound up being Eddie who broke the silence. “Say what now?”
“True story.” Garth put a hand over his heart and nodded most solemnly. “What you didn’t see, what I worked from my conscious memories with every fiber of my being, and with the help of my asshat OS, was what really and truly happened the moment I tried walking off the platform.”
“Do tell.” Drake couldn’t keep the excitement from his voice. When Eddie looked at him sideways with enough ‘are you fucking serious man’ in his face for a thousand lifetimes, the ex-android shrugged apologetically. He’d always loved sci-fi movies like this, and he was –for better or worse- caught in the third act of one right that very second.
“Nah. Ain’t gonna tell. It looks better in person.” Garth snapped his fingers, and a sizeable portion of empty space between their table and the horizon was replaced by a gigantic television screen, on which, two of Baron Samiel’s technicians were working as fast as they could to deal with the sudden –and extremely unwanted- Line deliverance while they were in the middle of dealing with an also unwanted assault…
“Their … their … are those hats?” Drake pointed. “Their … head things … look like they’re made out of tinfoil!”
“Proto-Reality.” Garth offered by way of explanation. “Engines had a real boner for fifties and sixties sci-fi. It’s all over the…”
“Can we just watch this, please?”
“God. Trying to do a Mystery Science 3000 bit, here, Eddie. Least you could do is play Crow with a little dignity. Drake’s okay with being Tom Servo for this bit, right?”
“No.”
“Fucking fuck. Chaos got to have all the fun this time, and the moment I try to cut loose, you guys turn into dicks. Okay, fine. Let’s watch what happens next.”
Up on the sky-screen, big fat purple sparks were filling the air with all kinds of smoke and low-budget special effects. At one end of a gangplank –upon which, the two aforementioned Samiel-technicians, complete with stupid tinfoil science hats, struggled desperately to contain a core breach- a huge metal door is irising open…
***
“Contained?” Technician 1132 demanded, shouting to be heard over the ungodly klaxon alarms screaming through the facility at what had to be illegal levels.
“Contained!” Technician 1640 confirmed, equally loud. “Only barely, though. One more jolt like that and we’re done for. This thing,” 1640 tapped the slender glass cylinder suspended between two towering metal rods that disappeared out through the roof and down, down, down into the absolute bowels of the earth, “isn’t really meant for this kind of stuff. Seeker must be using some seriously powerful weapons.”
“Which begs the question,” 1132 called up a hasty diagnostic and started reading through the report, “where did he get this stuff from in the first place? No one likes Seeker. And why in the hell is Amour sending someone up The Line right now? This is completely unscheduled. When the Baron gets wind of this, our heads will roll.”
“Oh,” Garth N’Chalez said weakly as he pulled himself out of the chamber, using the gangplank bars on either side of the walkway for support, “I think they’re going to roll a lot fucking sooner than that.”
1132 jumped so high she nearly fell over the edge. If it weren’t for 1640 being more on the ball, her death would’ve been the stuff of whispered legend.
“Who the fuck are you?” 1640 demanded loudly, hefting his heavy wrench threateningly.
“Really?” Garth jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Really? Like, really really?”
1132 looked around, confused. “What?”
“Guy walks out of a temporal shift platform unannounced,” Garth started, “without any of the, uh, weird fuckin’ eye things or any of that shit and the first thing you think to ask is ‘who are you’? I’d be like, hey, bro, why aren’t you a pile of goop on the floor. Or something similar. Not ‘this happens all the time and I’m totally used to it, so I’d like to get to know your name, maybe add you to my Christmas card list’.”
The Kin’kithal made a huge show of looking around the suitably science-y lab. “I mean, this is Baron Samiel’s temporal waypoint to the 25th century, right? That’s where she said she’d be sending me.”
“Lissande sent you.” 1640 stepped forward, raising his wrench.
“Yup.” Garth reached out with his telekinesis and held the obstinate science person in his tracks. To keep himself occupied, the freshly inaugurated time-traveler began decaying the really seriously stupid anime-sized wrench into lumps of metal. “So when exactly am I? Lissande was sort of vague on actual times.”
1640 tried moving and couldn’t. Dribbles of metal flakes were spilling down his arm and pooling on the floor. “I think we’re in trouble. Answer his question.”
“2432.” 1132 answered swiftly, unable to take her eyes off 1640.
Garth rubbed his hands together. “Awesome. Sweet. Okay…” he held up a finger until both sci
ence people were paying him all of the attention they’d ever pay anything else in their entire lives, “my next question. Where is Baron Samiel? No fibbing, now. Tell me the honest truth and we can all go our separate …”
Just then, the entire building shook like it’d been hit with the biggest Mack Truck the future had ever seen. Technician 1132 gave a hearty shriek that dwindled into the distance as she fell down the long shafts to the very bottom of the installation. 1640 didn’t do anything of the sort because he was being held in place by a very sturdy telekinetic grip, but he died anyways because part of the ceiling –a large, slow blade, once connected to a fan- fell right on top of him and cut him in half.
“Dammit.” Garth muttered, stepping forward and around the dead science-type person, eyes alight with the reflections coming from the glass tube holding the slender purple sliver. He flicked a couple fingers against the surface. “So. You’re part of it all, huh? Don’t look like much…”
Another explosion rocked the foundation of Samiel’s waystation, forcing Garth to grab hold of the gangplank’s boundary a second time. Great gouts of fire and smoke burst all over the place and –as a second powerful eruption burst throughout the facility- the too-bright purple crystal began bouncing around inside it’s glass prison.
“Well, shit.” Garth watched on, uncertain what to do, as the crystal broke loose from it’s glass housing and struck the floor. The Kin’kithal held his breath, waiting for something suitably science fiction-y to happen.
When nothing happened, when the explosions pummelling the structure died down, Garth N’Chalez took the opportunity and started running…
***
Eddie pointed at the crystal chip on the gangplank floor. “That didn’t happen.”
“Gee, duh.” Chaos, who’d gotten bored of riding a bike with a bunch of people who didn’t exist, had taken everyone’s interest in the video clip as an excuse to join the table. Between his wireframe hands he held the biggest Slurpee he could find.
“Repercussions?” This, from Drake, who had that absentminded look on his face that announced he was relying on Spur-borne talents to uncover those ‘repercussions’ on his own.
