by Lee Bond
“Longest Groundhog Day Event you can imagine.” Garth supplied helpfully, rubbing the back of his neck to relieve the tension mounting there. “The timeline you were given was only the most recent of events. The first time I walked out of that facility and met up with Jim Seeker and crew, I spent nearly a century roaming the fucking Wasteloads. Eventually wound up making my way to where Samiel’d be. Did battle with him. He threw me into the incongruity, which is a thing he likes doing because he thinks … thought … it was funny.”
“Only it didn’t kill him.” Chaos supplied for those –Eddie- who were trailing behind in the ‘Let’s Make Sense of How We Lost So Badly’ game. “Sent him back to when he first stepped out.”
“From there?” Drake, eyes still hooded, answered his own question a few seconds later. He held two fingers away from each other and slowly moved them together. “Temporal attenuation? All the events, crammed tighter together?”
Garth grabbed the Slurpee from Chaos and took a sip, making a face when the rowdy flavors of Cherry and Licorice hit his taste buds. It figured. Fucking thing did nothing but bitch about eating pizza and burgers all day long, so naturally the assclown'd pick the worst Slurpee flavors this side of the Unreality.
“Only the major events. A lot of what I did that first century wound up being superfluous to the overall timeline. Weeded out. Sort of what like our man Samiel did to his own self in the original timeline, except … mine was just plain old handled by the Engines.”
“How many times did you go through all that?” Eddie asked, loathing the tone in his voice. He didn’t want to be enraptured by this story. He was, but he didn’t want to be.
“Mm.” Garth shrugged. “Dunno, really. Something like eighty times or whatever. Doesn’t matter. What matters is, is I spent almost three thousand years fucking around up The Line."
Chaos, who’d stolen his Slurpee back so he could enjoy the fruits of his labor, nearly choked on a mouthful of sugary goodness. “Doesn’t matter? Doesn’t matter! You put yourself in danger every goddamn minute of every goddamn day and it’s asshats like this dude,” the OS pointed a damning finger at Eddie, just like a priest accusing someone of being demonically possessed, complete with furious gaze and trembling arm, “that roll in and fuck everything up. Look! He’s not even denying it!”
“He had his reasons.” Garth put a hand on Chaos’ outstretched arm until the OS resumed enjoying the last time he’d likely ever be anything other than an operating system for a partially functional collection of quadronium implants and augmentations. “They all do. They all did.”
Eddie struggled to find some words to offer by way of thanks, but the festering hatred he’d been harboring for so long stood in the way. Part of him appreciated the free pass Nickels had just given him, but the other part … oh, that other part just saw the offer as more of the same from a man who went around destroying lives.
So, rather than admit they’d even ventured off-topic, Eddie said, “We’re talking hundreds of years of experience.”
“Yeah, yeah, you got that right.” Garth’s words dwindled down to nothing as pieces of history flashed before his eyes. The apocalyptic version of the future he’d endured had been difficult, even for a Kin’kithal, especially when Wayfarers and Samiel’s ultimate Ziggurat-infected monstrosities were thrown into the mix.
In retrospect, those Wayfarers must’ve been dreamed up by the M’Tai as they sought to understand what was happening to their pocket Universe without becoming directly involved in the events themselves. But they’d ultimately failed in their unspoken directives, because in their own way, Samiel’s troops in the 25th century had been damned near invincible, forcing the hierarchy of ‘farers to tread ever so lightly lest they find themselves hunted to extinction.
Drake shook his head, baffled at Garth’s experiences. “How’d you do it? How’d you stay sane and focused the whole time?”
“Well now,” Garth leaned back in his chair and watched a particularly fine blonde with a pixie haircut and wonderful taste in bikinis run by with a tiny Pom on a leash, before answering, “who says I did? Lots of room and time for a Kin’kithal to go off the rails out there in the darkness of a Wasteload without anyone to say a word against me. Plenty of opportunity to blow off some steam.”
“So,” Eddie held his hands up like he was waiting for a ball to be tossed his way, “I suppose I get that you picked Samiel and all of that for your grief gauntlet because of your profound experiences there and because you knew you could game the systems to get things going the way you wanted, but how … how did you steal my access? And Drake’s?”
“Either of you guys actually touch the incongruity?” Garth saw the answer in both men’s eyes and smiled. Of course they hadn’t. Not once in thirty thousand years. The incongruous chunk of matter begged to be touched, emanated desire in waves that roiled outwards from the center, a mesmerising, secret command that –if you weren’t careful- would see you pulled in, transformed in ways you didn’t want.
Samiel had done it. More than once. You gained incredible power, but at the cost of being transformed, as he’d been transformed.
“Holy shit.” Drake put a hand on the table and had a look on his face like he was going to just run right away from the whole encounter. “You touched the fucking thing. Something like eighty times. Every time he defeated you. You said! He threw you into the incongruity every time, only instead of dying, you just … you just came back!”
Then he really did get up from the table, wandering over to a series of counters off at the far end of the coffee shop overlooking the ocean. He stared off into the sun-drenched waters, then sat down, putting his head into his hands.
Garth looked at Drake, sorrow prompting him to head over to where the man sat, to offer him some kind of solace or words of explanation, but … Eddie needed keeping an eye on.
Chaos, picking up on Garth’s unspoken desires, headed over there to do the same, hopefully channeling a bit of compassion and understanding before he opened his yapper.
Now that it was just the two of them, they were free to speak … freely.
“Her life is ruined, you know.” Eddie said, feeling ever so small.
By rights, he shouldn’t feel the way he did about poor Naoko. He hadn’t really been a part of her birth, beyond ensuring that his genetic duplicate would provide someone like Naoko. He hadn’t been there for her birthdays or there to clean her face of tears, hadn’t been there during her mother’s descent into lunacy and madness and eventual, painful death.
He’d missed all those important moments, and yet, somehow … he felt responsible.
“I know that better than you think.” Garth said, bottling his emotions up nice and tight. Wouldn’t do for a Kin’kithal with even temporary control over the incongruity to lose his temper. There was no telling what could or would happen.
“She’s out there in the stars, slowly but surely being transformed into something … strange and awful and there’s nothing I can do about it.” Eddie whispered, the words coming out tight and clipped. “I … I did all of that for you, you know. I made the whole of Latelyspace for you and you alone. I engineered a goddamn standing military force of thirty million nearly perfect soldiers, the perfect foil for Antal’s Harmony. Me. I did that. No one else. Drake was off, worrying about his fuckin’ family, leaving me here to design an entire society immune to the Dark Ages, that saw no reason for faith. That’d be resilient enough and tough enough. And then you came along and you broke the whole damn thing anyways.”
Paths. Multiple paths appeared before Garth. Each one, with their own words, offering him a different way to deal with the weird quasi-guilt/jealousy that’d nestled in nice and tight inside Eddie. Good ways. Bad ways. Some would end in fist fights right there at the table, others that’d leave Eddie reeling in his seat.
But there was only one choice that sat right with Garth, so he took it, and devil take the hindmost.
“I never asked you.”
&nbs
p; It took Eddie nearly a whole minute of silence to fully comprehend what Garth had said, and when he did understand, frigid rage threatened to spill over into violence.
“I’m sorry, what?” Eddie went so far as to cup a hand to his ear, giving Garth a chance to recant his words, because there was just no way anyone was that insensitive.
Garth made eye contact with Eddie. “I never asked you to. I never asked you and Drake to come through the wormhole, never asked you to set up shop, never asked you to assist the Armies of Man in the battle against the M’Zahdi Hesh or the Kith and Kin. I never asked you to sit down and try to create your own version of Harmony, I never asked for the fucking CyberPriests of Watt to be born into existence, I never asked for Barnabas Blake the One and Only to steal remnants of my technology so he could build an eternal Dome of Gears. I never asked for any of that. Sit there and fucking think about that, Eddie Marshall. The existence of the ‘Priests and Barnabas Blake were two things I had absolutely no way to plan or prepare for. Their doings went unchecked and unfettered for tens of thousands of years, their existences poisoning my plans. Thank God Barnie called those asshats back to base so he could consume their essences. So. Eddie.
When I say I didn’t ask you to come, what I’m really saying is, I didn’t need or want your help. Because even now, after thirty thousand years, you still don’t get what the fuck I’m trying to do. You didn’t help, you made things worse than ever, and now, because of your meddling with things you couldn’t possibly have understood, your daughter, someone I cared very much about, is … a tyrant. Poised to rewire the Universe itself, if only she can find the right commands and algorithms. The Unreal Universe, the Engines of Creation … they’re not geared to handle this kind of thing. And now, once I’m done fucking around with you two bozos, I’ve gotta deal with her instead of marshaling my forces. Because brother, by now, dear old dad is at the gates, knocking on the walls, looking for signs of weakness. I’ve got a Universe to reorder. All the people and things I’ve got in place are ready for that and nothing else, so I’ve got to battle a juiced-up super-‘Priest who’s got the bug. All on my own. And I can’t even go at her full strength because if I do, that adds more time to my end of things, which means Antal and anyone else looking to shoehorn their way into my title fight more time to prepare.”
“We came because we were concerned.” Drake said behind Garth, voice sharp and angry. “We came because when after we defeated the Invasion, we found the wormhole, and we peeked inside. We saw how vicious and brutal and empty your world was, and we came, because we finally understood why you were the way you were, why you’d never tried to come back to our time. We’d just been through a savage kind of war, one that you yourself could barely imagine, waged in a place you … you can’t even know, and yet, still, your war was worse, so yes, we came, and yes, we tried to help. We failed. Epically. But we tried. And when we saw how badly we’d failed, we stepped back, considered our options and came here. We dug in, stepped back further still, and began efforts to do things a little wiser. Not everything we tried worked, but after those initial failures that echoed across the heavens, our failures were small, closed in, easily containable. You can’t deny that Latelyspace and BishopCo are assets worthy of having in your back pocket.”
Garth nodded. The most powerful Conglomerate in the entire Universe, flung so far and wide that there were entire Galaxies depending on products and employment and everything else organic life needed was indeed a boon to have.
If he had it. His only experiences so far with BishopCo also involved that bullshit asshat Jordan Bishop, who was solely responsible for kidnapping Naoko in the first place. There was no guaranteeing that if he somehow managed to meet the new boss, he, she or it would even be interested in helping. After all, the destruction of the Universe kinda sorta put a giant hole in the consumer base.
“They did what they did, Garth.” For a change, there was actual, human warmth in Chaos’ voice. “They thought they were doing the right thing. They did it for you, man. The same love and affection you have for them, they had for you. All on the up and up, as far as I can see.”
Both Drake and Eddie nodded, somber as men at a funeral.
“And now you’re in charge.” Eddie tried sounding happy at the turnabout, but … thirty thousand years of unlimited power was a hard thing to toss away so easily, though there was a burning light dim inside him, a kind of … suggestion … that he’d soon feel better and better about it. “What are you going to do with the incongruity?”
“Me?” Garth twitched in his seat. “Nothing. Are you fucking kidding me right now? If I had the choice, I’d drop the fucking thing down the toilet and flush.”
“I …” Drake looked at Eddie, who looked like he’d just been kicked in the balls by a T-1000. “We … I don’t understand. Once we saw how you’d dealt with Barnabas Blake, we knew you’d be coming here, and if it weren’t for Eddie’s unscrupulous …”
“Hey!” Eddie felt like an idiot the moment he tried defending his position. “I … I wasn’t right in the head. I’m still really not, but I’ll get over it.”
“If it weren’t for how things were supposed to go down here, our basic plan was to, uh, hand the incongruity over to you.” Drake gestured lamely. “You know, for, like, Universal destruction-type … stuff.”
“Guys!” Garth threw his hands wide, startling the sims going about their business so much that most of them left the coffee shop without another word. “Haven’t you been paying attention? Didn’t you understand the footage of me and Samiel together? The guy was all sorts of fucked up.”
“We assumed that was from time travel.” Drake supplied helpfully.
“Nah.” Garth shook his head. “From the blob. The blob fucks with you. Now, you guys didn’t touch it, which sort of slowed things down, and you didn’t use it for time travel, which was super smart because good old Samiel was prolly close to a million years old when I killed him, but yeah no, even being in the presence of the incongruity fucks with you. I mean, look. You,” he pointed at Eddie, “got the worst of it on account of how much more often you used it’s power back in the beginning. This shit … it amplifies your inner selves.”
“And fucks with your brain, so you think it’s all cool and fine and stuff.” Chaos chortled. “You see how weird Baron Samiel was there at the end? I mean, goddamn, and he was all ‘hey, when I’m done, I’ll just use OP powers and undo it all’. That’s not the right way to think. Not at all.”
“Waitaminute.” Eddie flagged the chatter going on and everyone died down. He pointed a finger at Garth. “You said Samiel died. You said you killed him.”
“Mmhmm.” Garth nodded. Chaos was vibrating with excitement.
“Say it…” Chaos chanted. “Sayyyyy ittttt ….”
“If you killed him,” Drake said slowly, utterly puzzled, “if you killed him, where does the Stalemate come from? Why do you keep thinking of it as a stalemate if you killed him?”
“Oh man.” Chaos looked around. “Oh man, oh man. I should’ve had you make me a microphone, so I could drop it and walk away right now. Oh man. This is so cool.”
“Yeah.” Garth grabbed a glass of water from the table and drank down the contents. Nutshelling on this level was thirsty work. “Yeah, I killed him. The stalemate … comes from my dealings with the Ushbet M’Tai.”
***
The sun was setting on the beach now. The owners of the dragon kites, having successfully defended their patch of sky against one another, were packing up their belongings, laughing and shouting at one another. The surfers were headed in, too; the undercurrent was growing too wily, and the last thing they wanted was another drowning. They’d head inland, find a bar or a club or a backyard with a bonfire and have some fun that way.
Even the sidewalks, with the rollerbladers and bicyclists and tourists, were thinning out. There were maybe a handful of men and women on dates, reluctant to call it a night, strolling along the slowly moonlit path.
In the café, Drake, Eddie, Garth and Chaos were the only ones left sitting; their outbursts had grown too loud and noisy for the sims to handle, and even those programmed as servers were now lurking inside the shop, plainly reluctant to come out and talk to the guys who seemed like they were friends, but who argued so loudly and angrily.
Once again, it was Eddie who broke the dumbfounded silence. “I’m sorry, what?”
Chaos nodded so assiduously, it was like his head was on a spring. “No, really. He dealt with the Ushbet loads of times, but, like, it was that last time, right when Samiel literally and actually popped like a balloon, when the whole thing became a Stalemate.”
“Except for the first and last times, at the Alpha and Omega of your journey, there were zero instances of you dealing with the Ushbet!!” Eddie stated this firmly. The moment he’d become aware of the thing in the box’s true potential, he’d gone over those particular memories with a fine-toothed comb, intent on uncovering the absolute best method of dealing with the Ushbet. “You never met with them ever again! That’s the truth! That was the first thing I looked for when I started trawling your memories!”
The long and short of his investigations had revealed that the best way to come out on top of dealing with an Ushbet M’Tai was … to not bargain with them at all.
Garth opened his mouth to say something, but Eddie wasn’t done talking. “And not only that, but there was no indication you had any recollection of doing so. Or what they did.”
Chaos raised his hands in confusion, looking around the table as though he were sitting in on a meeting of idiots. Idiots with memory damage. Idiots with memory damage who were also incapable of remembering things. “Hello? Memory edits? We only just went over this, guys?”
“What deals did you make?” Drake asked, fidgeting. “In the beginning?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Garth replied firmly. “Really doesn’t.”
“They figured out what he was and asked for his help. In return, they totally promised to send him home.” Chaos supplied. When Garth punched him in the shoulder, the construct barely flinched.
