by Wyatt Kane
Just in case, I decided against shouting. April! Where are you?
What’s happening?
Shit. Okay, Caleb, think, I said to myself. First, I reached out and re-froze everyone except the twins. Then…. What happened to the President? I asked.
I felt a deep-seated sense of dread. Is he dead?
Double shit.
The gigantic bug-demon was gone. Jimmy Carter may or may not have been dead, along with an unknown number of White House staff. We’d accomplished precisely nothing of what we’d set out to do, and in fact may have made things worse. And I was stuck down a hole in the middle of the White House.
It was the very definition of a failed mission. And with the President and the monster both gone, all we could do was make our way back to the van with our heads bowed and tails between our legs.
Not a great outcome, but at least we were all still alive.
I slung my rifle over my back and laboriously started to climb. To make it easier, I focused my talent on the debris all around me, freezing that in time in the same way I normally froze the people. My whole body groaned in protest, but within a couple of minutes I’d made my way back up to April and June, who helped me up the last couple of feet.
I turned to look at the hole and wondered how exactly it had come about. Sure, the bug-monster had crashed through the White House floor, but the hole went much deeper than that. Had my use of power somehow blasted through the White House’s foundations?
I didn’t know. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
April and June followed me as I hobbled along. This time, my hobbling had nothing to do with my bad leg and everything to do with the fact that I’d just fallen down a massive hole in the middle of the White House.
We reached the van and piled in with something akin to relief. For a moment or two, we just lay on the cushions and stared up at the ceiling. Then June turned my way. “Caleb, I’m really glad you’re still alive,” she said, “but don’t you ever fucking scare us like that again.”
I could sense her roiling emotions. “Yes, ma’am,” I said, knowing she meant it.
April eyed my arm, which she could see beneath my tattered jacket sleeve. It was covered in blisters and still felt like it was burning with acid. “Can you fix your arm?” she asked. “Like the old man?”
Given that the only other option was to suffer, I figured it was worth a try. I closed my eyes and muttered the spell I’d used before, and in moments, both my arm and jacket sleeve were whole again.
If I’d thought about it, I might have realized that in enacting that spell, I’d effectively unlocked a key to immortality—or at least the potential for a really long life. I mean, I could heal any injury that wasn’t immediately fatal, and if I happened to grow old enough that things started to fail, I could just wind back the clock until they were as good as new.
“Right,” I said. “Let’s find somewhere a little further away and figure out what to do next.”
<<<>>>
We drove back to the out-of-the-way field, and Shell converted the van back into a 1970s motel room of before. Not my preferred option, but at least it was comfortable and familiar.
April grabbed a shower while I asked Shell to display any news. As she’d done before, the AI obliged, showing multiple angles of the disaster at the White House. Much of the East Wing had been destroyed, and no one could figure out where the massive hole beneath had come from.
“I’ll be damned,” June said. She was watching the news with me, and we had just watched a rescue crew pulling Jimmy Carter out of the rubble.
“I thought you said the bug got him,” I said.
June leaned over and turned up the volume. “It did. It snatched Carter away and disappeared down that hole. If April hadn’t used her shield, it would have got us as well.”
It was the first time I understood how close I’d come to losing the girls. I didn’t know what to say. I was just intensely relieved that they were okay. At the same time, my focus was on Carter.
“The bug must be in control of him again,” I said.
“Shh. Listen.”
The footage of the President getting pulled from the rubble couldn’t have been live, because the screen switched scenes to show him holding an impromptu press conference out on the lawn.
“Furthermore, this attack on our capitol will not go unpunished,” Jimmy Carter was saying, sounding justifiably angry and looking as if he’d just been dug out of a hole. “As you can see by the events that played out today, it appears that the Russians will stop at nothing to destroy the United States, and I won’t stand idly by while our country burns. There will be consequences for their actions. They think they killed me, but I’m made of stronger stuff than that. There will be no more warnings.”
It sounded just short of a declaration of war. June and I sat there, stunned by the President’s words. We watched as reporters asked a few more questions, seeking clarification, but President Carter added very little before being escorted away, still fuming, by the Secret Service.
I wondered at the control the bug-demon had over the man. Was Carter really angry, or was the monster just making him appear that way?
Either way, Shell then showed us various expert interpretations of what we’d just seen, most of which was no more than what we could have figured out for ourselves. It was just a panel of talking heads saying things like, “These are dangerous times,” “The threat of war is real,” and “Carter is lucky to be alive.”
I watched it all, feeling numb, and no longer had any doubt. We had made things worse. Significantly. Even as April returned from her shower and we explained what had happened, I felt the familiar unpleasant tingling of new timelines spinning out, and I wondered if we hadn’t hastened the unfortunate end Shell had predicted.
April sat next to me and put her head on my shoulder. “What do we do now?”
“Sleep,” I said. I was too tired for anything else. “And hope that the world doesn’t end before we wake up.”
<<<>>>
The world didn’t end overnight. When I woke, the sun was already streaming through windows. Feeling stiff and sore from the previous day’s adventures, I crawled out of the bed and headed for the shower.
Since the girls were sleeping, I took my time, not really looking forward to our next task. Somehow, we still had to free Jimmy Carter from the bug-demon, and set everything back to how it should have been. Considering how easily the monster had defeated us in the White House, we needed a better plan for taking it out.
If only we had the wizard with us, I wished again. Then we might have had a fighting chance.
Sighing, I reached for the tap as I heard someone enter the bathroom.
“Hey,” April said. She stood on the other side of the clear wall, treating me to a view of her stripping out of the t-shirt she was wearing as a nightie. “Got room for another?”
I turned the water back on and stepped aside for her to get in. “We seem to keep meeting in the shower,” I said.
“Mmm…” she began as I tilted her head back into the water. The ritual began simply enough. Water, shampoo, lather, rinse. By the time I finished, she was moaning into my fingers.
I chuckled. “Like that?”
She smirked without opening her eyes. “You’re okay.”
Shifting so she was pressed against the wall, I lifted her legs and wrapped them around me. “Just okay? I’ll have to work on that.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
I slid into her warm, wet body. She gasped, and I set a fast, hard rhythm. I was learning what the girls liked, and was happy to please them. With my hands gripping her butt and my body pressing her into the wall, we lasted only a few minutes. Apr
il came hard, digging her nails into my biceps. With a few more thrusts, I followed.
When I let April down, she leaned her head against my chest for support, and I held her.
Then, I heard heavy breathing that didn’t belong to either of us. Turning, I saw June standing at the shower door, naked, touching herself. Her fingers worked her clit as she rubbed her own nipple. Grabbing her arm, I pulled her under the water where she leaned back and continued to masturbate. I watched, mesmerized by her body and the pure, almost shy way she moved beneath her own fingers. Turning her around, I hugged her to my chest, her ass pressed against my cock. She writhed now, increasing her pace, and I touched her hips, her hair, and her breasts as she came.
“Caleb!” she breathed.
When she finished, I helped both girls get washed, feeling like the luckiest man in the universe.
It was then that we all heard the city’s warning sirens begin to sound in the distance.
XXXVI
“Shell, what’s going on?” I yelled. The three of us had burst through into the main room, naked except for the towels we’d grabbed on the way from the bathroom.
The AI floated near the TV, which turned on in response to my question.
“Just fucking tell us!” June said, her tone a mixture of frustration and worry.
Fortunately, Shell did as June asked. “Less than half an hour ago, President Carter ordered a pre-emptive strike on numerous Russian targets. Needless to say, this did not occur within the original timeline. The Russians have responded in kind. The sirens you hear are Washington’s early warning system. It is an indication that there are missiles inbound.”
“Nuclear?” April asked.
“Yes.”
Each of us stared at the AI, stunned. “How long have we got?” I asked.
“Minutes.”
“Good of you to fucking tell us!” June shouted. I felt the terror coming from her in waves, and had to fight to remind myself that it wasn’t mine.
I feared for a moment that Shell would go into one of her sulks at the dark-haired twin’s tone, but she didn’t. “You were bonding, which is the most important—” she began, but April cut her off.
“Do we really have time for this? Shell, turn this lousy 1970s hotel back into the van. And Caleb, get us out of here!”
Within moments, we were back in the old Bedford van, complete with curtains on the windows and its never-ending assortment of cushions with the laundry chest nestled among them. The girls immediately began sorting through the chest for something to wear, but I figured it was more important for me to get us out of there.
“Shell, plot us a course!” I said to the floating AI. Then, buck naked, I took a single step toward the cockpit, and all hell broke loose.
The horizon lit up in a burst of bright energy. I shielded my eyes and dove for the girls, doing my best to protect them. The van rocked as something hit it hard, and we all yelled when it flipped completely over. We tumbled onto the ceiling. I lost my hold on the twins and bounced into Shell. The van continued rolling, and we crashed against the walls over and over.
“Caleb!” April yelled. “Do something!”
I attempted to put a time lock on the van and was surprised when it worked. The Bedford halted with two wheels on the ground, and I scrambled into the cockpit. “Shell, plot a course!”
“Where too?” the AI responded.
“I don’t care! Anywhere!” All I wanted was somewhere quiet where I could think. “The same place we are now, two days before we arrived!”
At the same time, I turned the key, pulled the time-lever, and jammed the Bedford into gear. We lurched forward, the van groaning as if stuck on something. I stomped on the gas and with a squeal of tires, we jumped off the ground and into the space-time continuum. The van righted itself, and the purple bubble formed around us like a cushion.
In moments we were back in the field among the trees. Everything was quiet and peaceful. Importantly, there were no massive explosions trying to throw us about like a toy.
I checked on the twins, who were picking themselves up off the floor.
“Was that a nuclear bomb?” June asked shakily. She was still naked, but there were more important things to worry about. Her expression was one of wide-eyed terror, and this was matched by the waves of emotion coming from her.
“I think so,” I said. As soon as I said it, June’s terror grew worse. Nor was she the only one.
“Does that mean we’ve all been hit with a bunch of radiation?” April asked.
It was a good question. “Shell?” I said.
“The integrity of the van remains intact,” the AI responded. “It is impervious to radiation just as it is impervious to the vacuum of space. Your health, other than that impacted by minor bruising and contusions, remains as it was.” So saying, Shell once more displayed our character sheets.
My health bar was no longer a cheerful green. It was starting to dip into the red, at thirty percent. Which was about how I felt.
I wondered what it would have been last night, before I’d slept.
More interesting, however, was my Time Bending skill, which still showed a two, but was now augmented to the tune of x3. Which meant I was six times stronger than I had been before any of this started.
I wondered if that would be enough to help me finally put an end to the bug-monster.
The waves of fear I’d been feeling from June started to subside. Shell’s words and display had reassured her that we weren’t at risk of a painful, radiation-induced death any time soon. Abruptly, she seemed to realize she was naked, and scooted herself over to the wooden chest.
But it was April who put my own thoughts into words. “So, we’ve just witnessed what will happen if we don’t stop the bug-demon,” she said. “We’ve already faced it twice, and barely made it out alive. Worse, our efforts just moved up the timeframe. So, what do we do? How do we beat it?”
She sat in the middle of a pile of cushions, naked as the day she was born and not making any effort to do anything about it. I looked her up and down, admiring the view and wondering whether or not to tell her what I knew.
In the end, I figured she deserved to know. They both did.
“It’s worse than that,” I said quietly. June stopped rummaging through the chest and stared at me.
“Worse? How?” she asked.
“Go on,” April said.
I sighed out loud. “It isn’t just our world that’s at risk. It’s the whole universe. Or multiverse. Hundreds of timelines. Thousands, maybe. I don’t know.”
I could see the confusion on April’s face just as I sensed June’s fear, and knew I wasn’t explaining it clearly. “It turns out that the multiverse has a definable shape, with all the various timelines helping to form that shape. Think of it like a knitted sweater. Our timeline is just one of many threads that helps form its shape. Shell, show them, if you would.”
Obediently, the AI displayed a three-dimensional, holographic representation of the multiverse. It was a lot more complex than a knitted sweater, but even so, the analogy still held.
“This bug monster’s actions are causing new timelines to spin off like mad. It’s causing a jumble, and is twisting the fabric of the multiverse out of shape.” As I spoke, Shell shifted the holographic image to match what I was saying, showing a bulge in one area that she shifted perspective to focus on. “If it continues, the multiverse will rupture, and an unknown number of timelines will cease to exist.”
Again, the AI made the holographic image match my words. Like an ornament made of crystal, the multiverse shivered, and a vast number of threads splintered into dust.
I hesitated for a moment, then dropped the other shoe. “We don’t know exactly when this might happen. We might have weeks, or days. Or even hours. But when it happens, there won’t be anything we can do about it. We will just be gone, never having existed at all.”
There was complete silence in the back of the van. Then June let out a small noise
combined with a wave of dread. “Like Thanos snapping his fingers,” she said. “Or even worse.”
But April’s response was different. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” she asked, her eyes flashing dangerously.
I didn’t flinch. Just looked at her. “I wanted to protect you,” I said. Her expression didn’t change. I figured she was mad at me for keeping it secret. But I wouldn’t have done it any differently if I had the option. “Would it have made any difference if I had?”
“Then why tell us now?” the blonde sister demanded.
That was a question I didn’t quite know how to answer. “I don’t know. It’s just—it feels like it’s important that we all know what we’re up against,” I said. “I couldn’t not tell you.”
“You couldn’t not tell us?” April asked. For some reason, she still seemed angry, and I didn’t understand why. “First, you keep this to yourself as if it’s your cross to bear, and then you decide to tell us when there’s nothing we can do about it?” She seemed incredulous.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I began. “And there might still be—”
“Then tell me, what did you mean?” April demanded, interrupting me. She was sitting in the back of the van, completely naked, and yet she seemed far more dangerous than usual. At that moment, I would almost have preferred to fight the bug monster itself with nothing but a pair of toothpicks than her.
I tried to gather my wits to explain what I meant, but surprisingly, I didn’t have to.
“If I may?” Shell interjected. When nobody objected, the AI continued. “Caleb’s motivations are clear. At heart, he is a protector. He will seek to prevent harm from coming to both you and June, regardless of what form that harm might take.”
“Yes, I get that,” April said, her tone slightly begrudging.
But Shell hadn’t finished. “Paradoxically, this has made it more difficult for the three of you to bond in the way that is necessary.”
I sensed June’s confusion before she spoke. “But I thought—”
