by Rob Dircks
“Yeah, I know I did that. Thanks.”
He turns to the manager. “We’re sorry, sir. Obviously my friend here is sick. I’m going to get him back up to the room, and if you could call a doctor that would be great.”
I reach out to help blot some of my vomit off the poor guy (even though it helped him smell better if you ask me), and Pete grabs me, and pulls me down the hallway.
“Fuck. Back to the ITA.”
Pete’s pissed. Another no-go. Dimension #83 is bullshit. I’m sniffing back tears, and he’s had enough. At the top of the stairs, he grabs my shoulders and shakes me.
“Listen, Chip. Stop crying. Stop. I know you’re a baby, so there’s only so much you can handle. But you have to keep trusting me. We have to keep moving forward. We’ll figure this out. And fuck, if we don’t… at least we have each other.”
Holy shit. Pete is NOT a man of heartfelt moments. I can’t help it. I lunge at him and hug him and I just stand like that until he ruins the moment.
“Get off me. Now.”
Whoops. Almost forgot we’re in the middle of a list. What number were we at, 9? Okay…
The Ninth Thing to Know About the INTERDIMENSIONAL TRANSFER APPARATUS (ITA):
9. Here’s the biggee. Drum roll, please. Now right before we come back through the ITA, I notice the clock on the hotel room dresser – 10:04pm. And it hits me. That’s about the same time it said when we left Alternate Chip and Pete back in dimension number one – SEVERAL HOURS AGO.
Hmmm. To test the theory that’s developing in my neanderthal brain, we wait maybe ten minutes, then peek back into dimension #83 (holding our noses this time) to see what time the clock says.
10:04pm.
No time difference. Okay. Second part of the theory. We walk into dimension #83 and stand there for five minutes, right next to the dresser, in the insane stench, to see what the clock says.
10:09pm.
Five minutes have passed. Okay. We’re inside a dimension and time passes normally. We try the whole thing again, same result.
Okay. Third part of my theory. I look through the emails I’ve sent you, and yup – they’re all stamped with the same time. So here’s the Number Nine Thing to Know:
Time does not pass when you’re between dimensions in the ITA.
At first, this seems like good news. Hey, at least we won’t grow old trying to find our way out, right? We’ve got nothing but time! We can take all the time in the world, and when we get back, it’ll be June 4, 2015 5:43am. And we won’t have aged a day. We’ve got forever!
Wait.
We’ve got FOREVER.
We’re in a hallway that never ends, with doors to infinity. We’ve got eternal time to roam around like idiots. We will never grow old. Never die. And possibly never find the right doorway. I mean, what are the chances we open the right one out of ALL OF THEM? There IS NO all of them! And I think an email’s going to get to you? TIME doesn’t even work in here! We’re going to be stuck in this goddam hallway FOREVER, looking for home. FOREVER.
FOREVER.
My crying this time isn’t the cry of fear, or disappointment. It’s the little whimpers of a guy without hope.
Hopelessness.
God, what a shitty feeling.
This whole crazy time, I guess I just assumed somehow we’d be okay, that the puzzle would somehow work itself out. That’s how my whole life’s been. (And usually it’s someone like you or Pete bailing me out, thank you, btw.) But now I know my free ride is over. Karma has finally caught up with me in a BIG way, holding out his hand for payment: “Hey Chip, guess what? You’re going to have to pay for your own goddam chinese food from now on.”
Ugh. I’m trapped in between dimensions with my best friend, a furry alien, an infinite choice of doors, and no hope. It’s over. Shit.
And the worst part? I’ll never feel your face in my hands again. We’ll never rent Evil Dead 2 again. I’ll never put another band-aid on your finger after you cut it chopping tomatoes and you’re crying even though it’s really nothing. I’ll never get to watch you walk down the aisle in the wedding dress you insist is ugly but secretly love. I’ll never hear your sense of humor in our son Dale (we have two kids in my imagination) or see your beautiful red hair on our daughter Gail (wait, rhyming names? probably not.) We’ll never walk our grandkids down Main Street at DisneyWorld. We’ll never sit there at the end, all gray and worn-down, and chuckle about all the stupid shit we’ve done over the years, and all the love we made.
I have a jillion choices I can make, a jillion doors, but I can’t have the thing I really choose: you.
Goodbye, babe.
6
Forget That
Last Part
From: Chip Collins
To: Julie Taylor
Date: June 4, 2015 5:43am
Forget that last part
Julie!
Yes, It’s me – back from the brink! Man, I thought that was my last email. Hope was gone. I was ready to turn the Shogun on myself (although that would be a cool way to go, very samurai-like, right?). And then it happened…
Scratch.
Scratch.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
“Dude, stop scratching!”
“Dude, don’t look at me. It’s Bobo.”
But it’s not Bobo. Bobo’s just sitting there. And man he can sit. Like, you have to poke him sometimes to make sure he’s alive. So no, it’s definitely not him. I jerk my head around like a… what’s good at hearing? A meerkat? So I’m jerking my head around like a meerkat, looking for the source of this annoying scratching sound. It’s barely there, but it’s annoying as shit. Even when you’ve given up on life, annoying sounds are annoying sounds and must be dealt with.
It’s the journal. There are scratching sounds coming from the journal.
Pete looks at it. I look at it. (Bobo looks at his feet and wiggles his toes.) I open the journal right to the last page with writing on it and I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Somebody’s writing in the journal. No, not somebody.
Nikola Tesla’s writing in the journal!
Wait. How the hell is Tesla writing in the journal? He was around 86 when he walked into the ITA. So he’s long dead by– NO. When he walked in (or tripped in, considering how small he made these doors), time stopped. So he could TOTALLY be alive. 86 and half-baked, but alive. And maybe, just maybe…
The journal starts filling up with entries, so fast I can’t keep up. So I flip right to the back page and wait for them to arrive. The scratching stops somewhere in the middle, so I flip to that page. And Julie, for your reading enjoyment, I’m typing out the whole thing for you:
“7 January, 1943: I, Nikola Tesla, inventor of the INTERDIMENSIONAL TRANSFER APPARATUS, (Wow, after 70 years, he really can’t get enough of saying that) have reached an end to my adventures. A conclusion to perhaps the greatest exploration in Universal History, the story of which is contained in these treasured pages. I wish to return to dimension #234,698,594,394,683 and share these wonders with my fellow man.”
Holy cow – Tesla is not only alive, but he knows EXACTLY which dimension we belong in, and he’s coming this way!
WE’RE GOING HOME!
I start my Oscar speech, thanking everyone I’ve ever known, on my knees weeping with joy. Pete starts dancing around with Bobo (btw, that Bobo can dance!), and we’re all pretty giddy. We’re going home! And Tesla left a cute P.S., too. I can’t wait to read it to Pete:
“P.S. There is one slight complication. I am being held captive in an interdimensional prison of quite an advanced nature. It may be several millennia before I can devise an escape.”
Pete stops dancing and looks at me. Bobo keeps dancing, totally unaware that the Ultimate Rug has been pulled out from under us. We’re dead. Again. I drop the journal. Thank God Pete’s go
t one last joke in him.
“Tesla, that nut. What’s he gotten himself mixed up in this time?”
And I laugh. You know, that laugh like it’s the end of your life and you just can’t give a fuck anymore. And Pete starts laughing. We’re howling, Julie. I swear, I’m not kidding when I say I’ve never laughed like that. We’re both on our asses now, crying from laughter, and I’m grabbing my side because it hurts, and Bobo is just standing there (he finally stopped dancing), blinking, looking at us like he knows we’ve reached the end. And I wonder to myself: does Bobo know it’s the end for him, too?
Well, that thought sobers me up for a second, enough to roll onto my side and curl up to ease the pain in my gut. And the journal is right there, an inch from my face, and I see it.
“Hey dude, wait. There’s more.”
“P.P.S. There may be another way. Although the journal I left behind clearly has been mishandled, and no brave adventurer has joined me on my journeys, perchance some smart fellow might happen upon it in the next few hundred years and recognize its worth. Then it may be possible to communicate between the journals. I could conceivably lead him to this godforsaken and dangerous place, enlist his aid in a daring rescue, then as cohorts travel home for a shot of whiskey and a lengthy retelling of my tales of wonderment.”
Pete’s frowning. “Great choice. Try our luck here, or face near-certain death to save Tesla.”
“Yeah, but he can get us HOME, dude.”
The word “home” rings in both our ears, and Pete nods at me like General Eisenhower giving the go-ahead to invade Normandy (remind me to fact-check that later). I grab my pen (I took it from the hotel, it was shiny) and scrawl my first words to Tesla, hoping like hell the journal works both ways:
“Okay, Tesla. Where to?”
In that moment, I realize that I’ve already changed. I’ve been to the bottom, so there is nowhere to go but up. I’ve shed my skin and survived the first trials. And I’m certain of something, maybe for the first time in my life. I KNOW. I know that even if you can’t come and save us, I’m coming back. Coming back to reclaim my damn life. Coming back to make it up to Pete. Coming back to be with you.
There is a way back. And I’m coming home.
Part Two
Where the Hell is Tesla?
7
Being a
Superhero?
Turns Out
It Sucks.
From: Chip Collins
To: Julie Taylor
Date: June 4, 2015 5:43am
Being a superhero? Turns out it sucks.
Hi Julie,
So me and Pete are standing there on 86th, helping the good citizens of New York City up from the flooded subway station. They’re hugging us, thanking us through their tears. Cops are following our instructions, getting people to safety. Firetrucks are barreling down Broadway, sirens blaring. And I’m thinking:
Oh yeah. Being a superhero rocks.
Suddenly there’s a rumble. Like an earthquake, but… alive. Then silence. All the sirens stop. You can hear a pin drop. Everybody (I’m talking a crowd of thousands) is frozen still, looking at us for some kind of answer. But before we can say a word, the street buckles right in the middle and gives way, leaving this giant 50-foot diameter hole in the ground.
“Uh, dude. This is not good.”
Pete inches toward the edge and peeks down.
“Calm down. There’s nothing down ther-“
Instantly a giant thing (sea monster? dinosaur? Satan himself?) explodes out of the hole, hurling taxis and concrete everywhere, and landing with a watery thud right in front of us. Julie, this thing is HUGE. Like full city block huge. Shaped like a big slug, but with little t-rex arms, and a big horn on his head. So it lifts this crazy-ass ugly (and huge) head, squinting against the sunlight, and looks around.
“Nothing down there, huh?”
But before Pete can punch me in the shoulder, or we can run like hell, the thing SPEAKS. I mean, it doesn’t really talk, but you can hear it in your mind. It’s loud as shit. Anyway, here’s what it says:
BOK HAS RISEN.
WHO POSSESSES THE GLEAMING STONE?
“Wait. Did he say BOX?”
“No, BOK. Like a chicken. BOK BOK.”
“Stupid name. But they were right about the legend. Hey, shouldn’t we be leaving?”
I pull my backpack on a little tighter, getting ready to bolt, and right on cue the Controller falls out of the not-quite-fully-closed back pocket. Basically three pounds of solid Rhodium, the rarest metal on Earth. I watch it fall in slow motion.
C-L-U-N-K.
It’s the loudest clunk of all time. Guinness-record-setting clunk. So loud that the entire crowd spins around and stares at me and Pete, and the Controller, with its pure, gleaming rhodium sitting there on the pavement. And I suddenly make the connection: the Controller IS the Gleaming Stone.
BOK WILL ASK ONE MORE TIME.
WHO POSSESSES THE GLEAMING STONE?
And to answer the thing’s question, every last one of these ungrateful New Yorkers lifts their finger and points at us. (Two seconds ago they’re naming their kids after us, and now they’re turning us over to BOK. Thanks, folks!) BOK’s gaze follows their pointing fingers right to us and the Controller. And I don’t know if it can smile, but if it can, it’s definitely smiling right now. And licking its lips.
And in that moment, every fantasy I ever had about being one of the Fantastic Four, or saving a planet, or lifting a building to save some wounded blonde, goes out the window. All I can think is this:
Nah. Being a superhero SUCKS.
8
Wait, Let Me
Back Up
From: Chip Collins
To: Julie Taylor
Date: June 4, 2015 5:43am
Wait, let me back up
Hi Julie,
Woah. Sorry. Got WAY ahead of myself, and realized I must sound like I’m dropping acid. Superheroes? Legend? Controller? BOK? Gleaming Stone? What the fuck?
So let me back up:
“Okay, Tesla. Where to?”
We figure out that the lost journal of Nikola Tesla is a two-way communication device to the man himself, which gives us a little hope and a clear, easy-to-remember goal:
Find Tesla. Go home.
I’m feeling good, like karma’s back on my side. Life’s going to get back to normal soon – Tesla just needs to give us directions to find him, then we break him out of some prison he’s in (how hard can that be?), shoot back to dimension #234,698,594,394,683 (a.k.a. home-sweet-home), heat up that lasagna, get married, have a party, and live happily ever after. Boom. Done.
And then karma kicks me in the balls.
“Dear Sir,
Aha! A fellow traveler! Finally! Welcome to the INTERDIMENSIONAL TRANSFER APPARATUS. I am Nikola Tesla, its inventor. Before you embark on your own journeys, however, I would ask your assistance in extricating me from the prison mentioned in my previous journal entry. The coordinates are 59380918.593820e+482024.id.mt. Enter them into your INTERDIMENSIONAL NAVIGATION CONTROLLER and you should be here in less than a year. Perhaps even sooner if you utilize the shortcuts.”
Wait - INTERDIMENSIONAL NAVI-WHAT?!?
Pete pretends to shoot himself in the head. Bobo does too (though it’s pretty damn cute when Bobo does it).
“Hey Tesla – you mind telling me what’s an INTERDIMENSIONAL NAVIGATION CONTROLLER?”
“It’s the device that CONTROLS your INTERDIMENSIONAL NAVIGATION.”
“Duh. I got that much.”
“Duh?”
“Never mind. Where’s this controller?”
“I placed it on my desk, with instructions, right next to the copy of the journal you are reading. It is critical to the operation of the INTERDIMENSIONAL TRANSFER APPARATUS. You cannot find your way without it. If you don’t have it already, simply return through the doorway you originally came through to retrieve it.”
I turn to Pete. “Simply return through the doorway
we originally came through? Doesn’t he know we’d be RUNNING THROUGH THE FUCKING DOORWAY HOME and never coming back if we knew which doorway it was?”
Then something snaps with Pete, and he’s got this wild look in his eyes (which might be cool, if it wasn’t me he was looking at). “You know what? I’ve had enough. That book has screwed us for the last time. Give it to me.”
“No, dude. Calm down.”
“Now. Give it to me.”
“Pete, you’re upset. I understand. But we need the journal. It’s our ticket home. Our only ticket.”
