Worlds Apart

by James Riley

  Dr. Verity grinned. “Guess what? I’m so glad you showed up today! After I took out the old magician, I’d planned on tracking you down and paying you back for leaving me in that world of science toddlers. You coming to me just makes this all much easier.”

  “You cannot harm me, Verity,” Nobody said, eye sockets growing in the back of his head as he kept his cylinder hand near Bethany. “Don’t make me teach you another lesson.”

  “No one teaches Dr. Verity anything!” the mad scientist yelled, then sighed. “Trust me, I did not do very well in school. But that may be because I’m a better teacher than student. Here’s a lesson for you—a simple one, in fact: Never turn your back on me!”

  “I have no back—” Nobody started to say, then jerked as a blast from the ray gun hit him in the shoulder. He turned to look at the spot as it bubbled and hissed, then slowly began to grow something . . . odd. Something featureless. Something with eye sockets.

  A duplicate head turned to look at Nobody from his shoulder.

  “What did you do?” both heads said, turning to Dr. Verity in unison.

  “The way I hear it, Charm and my fellow Quanterians developed a possibility machine,” Dr. Verity said, shooting Nobody in the stomach, which sent him doubling over. “Then someone turned it into a weapon. Good idea. But it wasn’t fully formed yet.”

  A small locomotive engine grew from Nobody’s stomach as he groaned in pain. He pushed both his hands on the emerging engine and pushed it backward into his stomach, reabsorbing it into himself. Dr. Verity laughed, then shot three more times, and Nobody collapsed to the floor.

  “See, the version the Quanterians had just added pure possibility into something. But I made some modifications. Now it shoots both possibility and specificity. Not only does it make it possible that you can change, but it will up the likelihood to about a hundred percent that you will change into whatever I want. Because why leave things to chance?”

  Three more shots, and now Owen could barely even recognize Nobody in the midst of all the things growing out of his body. His left leg resembled the arm of a troll, while his right arm looked like a blackboard filled with math equations. A barking dog poked out from underneath his arm, and tiny Nobodies ran in circles over his body, still attached by their feet.

  “Not that I wanted to think of something new for each shot,” Verity said. “That part wasn’t so important to me, so there’s a randomizing setting too. What is important, though, is watching you suffer.” He patted the ray gun fondly. “Seems like it’s working pretty well, wouldn’t you say?”

  Nobody roared and tried to push to his feet, but Dr. Verity just shot him again, and the featureless man began turning a variety of colors, like a kaleidoscope.

  “Does it hurt?” Verity asked, leaning in close to the writhing Nobody. “I’m guessing you haven’t felt anything like this, have you? For the sake of science, maybe you could share what you’re experiencing, just so we can get some solid data out of our little testing here.” He frowned. “Unfortunately, I foresee this experiment not ending well for you, but that’s how science goes sometimes. Can’t make nuclear elevators without breaking some eggs, I always say.”

  Nobody tried to reach for him, but Verity just shot his palm, and it began to split into smaller hands, then split again, over and over until there were too many to count.

  “No interrupting!” Dr. Verity shouted, shaking his head. He glanced over at Bethany. “And then there’s this poor girl. You claim that fictional people are better off with control of their own possibilities? Look at what this annoying girl has done with hers! You think I’m going to let that happen to me if I start daydreaming about becoming a little less chubby or something? It’s a sad day when I have to save all of reality, just to protect myself.” He glanced at Kiel and grinned. “Guess I’m the hero now, huh, boy?”

  “You are not—” Nobody said, but Verity just unleashed the gun on him over and over continuously.

  “What did I just say?!” the mad scientist screamed, the sizzling of the gun almost overpowering his voice. “You don’t get to talk. This is my time to monologue! This is about me, not you, you idiotic fool! Don’t—”

  The gun began to smoke and started making a strange buzzing noise. “Whoops!” the doctor said. “Almost used up the entire charge in one go. Just two shots left. Where would you like it?” He moved the gun over Nobody’s body slowly, then finally stopped at what Owen thought was his head. “How about the face? Maybe it’ll grow you some eyes.”

  Owen couldn’t believe this was happening. Was Dr. Verity actually defeating Nobody? But why hadn’t Owen’s older self seen any of this? That was a good sign, right? Anything different had to be good, since all of the other Owens had failed.

  “Say good-bye, you creepy, faceless pretender,” Verity said quietly. “You presumed to think yourself better than me? NO ONE—”

  A massive hand pushed up out of Nobody’s chest, grabbing Dr. Verity around his torso and head, then poured around him, covering his entire face. The hand lifted the scientist up off the ground, while another arm grew out of one of the hand’s massive fingers and plucked the possibility gun from Verity’s grasp. And then the hand squeezed, and a muffled scream sounded through the room, making Owen shudder in horror.

  A moment passed before Nobody dropped Dr. Verity to the ground, and the scientist hit with a groan. Nobody slowly rose to his feet, the various different possibility growths all absorbing back into him. As he rose, he seemed to grow several feet taller now, like the possibilities he’d absorbed had added to his mass somehow.

  “What you’ll never understand, my good doctor,” Nobody said as he aimed the possibility gun at Dr. Verity, “is that you, like me, are made of infinite possibilities already. Adding more just makes us stronger . . . if we have taken control of ourselves.”

  Dr. Verity shoved himself away on the ground, shaking in fear. “That’s impossible! You should have dissolved like that girl did. There were too many possibilities for you to handle!”

  A smile split Nobody’s face like a crack in an egg.

  “There’s no such thing as impossible,” he said, and shot Dr. Verity with the ray gun.

  The doctor screamed in pain and collapsed back to the floor. His wild mad scientist hair slowly drooped down, and he slowly picked himself up, the insanity now gone from his eyes as he gazed clearly at Nobody. “What did you do to me?” he asked, his voice much calmer than it had been a moment before. “I feel . . . more peaceful.”

  “I gave you the least likely possibility you’d have ever chosen for yourself,” Nobody told him. “I made you decent.”

  Owen gasped. Of all the things they needed right now, a non-evil Dr. Verity was last on the list. Nobody lowered the possibility gun, and for a moment, Owen thought he might be able to grab it, if he were quick . . . but then Nobody tossed it against the wall, breaking it into several pieces.

  Owen’s shoulders went limp, and he dropped his head into his hands. Nonfictional Bethany had been right. He had no business being here. What could normal human beings do against . . . this? Fictional people who could rewrite themselves into anything?

  “And now, we were discussing what to do with you,” Nobody said, turning back to the Bethanys. Reforming the transparent cylinder, he closed it around fictional Bethany, encompassing her on all sides. She began to scream noiselessly, but Nobody just put a finger to his nonexistent lips, asking for silence. He slowly lowered her cylinder to the ground, where it separated from his wrist, becoming a glass container.

  “This will keep you in one piece for now,” he said, using his other hand to rip open a page in midair next to her. “As for the future, there are no promises.” He picked the cylinder back up and started to walk through the page.

  “Where are you taking her?” nonfictional Bethany asked, her face a mixture of uncertainty and fear.

  “Don’t worry,” Nobody told her as an arm pushed out of his back. “You’re coming too.”

 
Before Bethany could move, the arm wrapped around her and dragged her into the ripped page as well, and she screamed for help.

  “No!” Owen shouted, running toward them, hoping he could at least jump through to wherever they were going.

  “You know you cannot beat me, Owen,” Nobody said as nonfictional Bethany struggled in his grasp. “I endeavored to show you the truth of things, but you refuse to learn. Come after me, and the lessons shall be over. You will be my enemy, and I will deal with you in the harshest possible way. You won’t receive another warning.”

  Owen started to respond, then went silent, and he looked away, his face bright red.

  “Good,” Nobody said, then looked around the room. “The rest of you, go back to your stories while they still exist. And when the end comes, and you are absorbed, have faith. I shall build a new world with no taint from the nonfictionals. If you happen to not be brought back, I apologize, but we must have standards.”

  With that, he stepped through the ripped page and disappeared, the page closing behind him.

  CHAPTER 35

  A moment went by where no one spoke.

  Footsteps came rocketing down the hall outside, and Kara Dox burst into the room, handcuffs on her wrists. “The whole world is disappearing out there!” she shouted, then skidded to a halt. “Owen?!”

  “Kara!” he shouted, breaking into a grin in spite of everything. She was safe!

  She came running straight at him, beaming, then leaped at him, and he had to hug her to keep them both from toppling over. “You’re okay!” she shouted.

  “Well, mostly,” he told her, not wanting to get into it all just yet. “How about you? Did Dr. Verity hurt you? Where did you come from?”

  “Those black helmet soldiers were holding me outside, thousands of them,” she said. “But then something happened, and every one of them just dropped to the ground, like someone turned them off.”

  Charm stood up, leaning from the weight of her sword arm. “Verity probably controlled them with some sort of receiver. Whatever Nobody did to him must have shut them all down at once.”

  “Yeah, I saw him break the tower and was so worried,” Kara said as Owen grabbed one of the lasers and carefully burned through her handcuffs. “But that doctor creep kept bragging about a way to kill him, so I hoped maybe he’d actually have a chance.”

  “Nope,” Owen said, shaking his head. “He didn’t. Not even filling Nobody with possibilities stopped him. I’m not sure anything can.” He pulled the now-cut handcuffs off of Kara’s wrists and looked her in the eye. “What did Dr. Verity do to you? Are you okay?”

  “Interrogated me, mostly,” she said, shuddering at the memory. “When I wouldn’t talk, he just hooked me up to some kind of machine that could pull my memories out of my head, so he could get a visual of what the time bracelet looked like inside.”

  “And from there, he upgraded it,” Owen said, giving the scientist a death look. The now-rewritten Dr. Verity just waved back with a pleasant smile.

  Ugh, it was going to be hard to hate the guy in his new state of not being evil.

  “And after he used it, he destroyed it, before we came through the portal to this world,” Kara continued, shaking her head. “Without my time bracelet, I’m not sure how much I can help.”

  Join the club, Owen thought. Not that he’d let that stop him. Bethany, both Bethanys, were in trouble, and Owen wasn’t just going to leave them there. Besides, he knew from his older self that he’d be facing Nobody eventually one way or another, and that he’d do it alone.

  But that raised a good question: If he was going to be alone anyway, maybe he could save his friends by leaving them behind from the start? Then they wouldn’t get hurt along the way.

  He cleared his throat, then purposely made his voice sound as pessimistic as possible. “Nobody just took us all down without even trying, Kara. I think we’re doomed. Dr. Verity’s weapon didn’t stop him. At best, it slowed him down for a moment, but even that’s broken now. I’m not sure what chance we have against him at this point.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Charm said, running wires from her remaining robotic arm down over the sword half, either to control it better or to add some sort of electric field to the sword. “Stay here if you’re too afraid, Owen. But I’m going after him. He has my possibility machine and destroyed my planet. For that, he’s going to pay.”

  “He can become anything,” Owen told her. “And look at us. Kiel doesn’t know magic—”

  “Though I’m still amazing in other ways,” Kiel pointed out.

  “Kara has no powers—”

  “Unless we come across any paradoxes, I guess?” she said, trying to sound hopeful.

  Owen couldn’t help but smile at that, but it faded quickly. “And I can’t use my superpowers again without my heart literally breaking. And you might be superstrong and a genius and all, Charm, but Nobody can match those things, even surpass them. He just has to rewrite himself.”

  For a moment, they were all silent.

  Then Charm snorted. “So?”

  “So?” Owen said. “Did you not hear anything I just said?”

  “I heard it,” she said, sending electricity crackling down her sword forearm. She swung it around, then gave it a satisfied nod. Turning to Owen, though, her face melted into a disgusted look. “You’re thinking small, which shouldn’t surprise me. He can handle any of us individually, maybe, though I still think I can take him. But if we all come at him at once, he won’t be able to compensate. He can’t rewrite a different defense against every one of us at the same time. All we have to do is attack as a unified force. It’s not rocket science.”

  “He’s not going to need much to compensate against me, unfortunately,” Kara said.

  “And honestly, I probably work better without others getting in the way,” Kiel said.

  “Oh, I think you’re all completely worthless, but that doesn’t make the strategy less sound,” Charm said, glaring at them. “How are you not getting this? If I’m saying we need to work together, you know things are about as bad as they can get. So maybe just do what I say and stop with all the pointless objections.”

  Kiel and Kara exchanged glances.

  “That doesn’t really seem fair,” Kara said.

  “She’s always saying my objections are pointless. It’s really insulting,” Kiel agreed.

  “Owen told me you two had been working together for years, though.”

  “Well, I’m very understanding of other people’s flaws.”

  Charm’s ray guns buzzed to life. “One more word from either of you, and I shoot you both.”

  Owen quickly stepped between them all and pushed her weapons down. “Those were on stun, right?” he whispered.

  She gave him a long look, but didn’t say anything.

  He sighed and backed away before Charm decided to turn her ray guns on him. Why did all of his friends have to be so brave and selfless? He was trying to save them here. But if he came out and told them what his older self said, they’d be even more likely to come along, because they wouldn’t believe it could be true.

  Still, he had to give it one last try.

  “Even if we do all attack as a team,” Owen said, “it’s not going to be easy to reach him.”

  “I was his unwilling guest for a while, but I’m not sure I could tell you where that was,” Kiel said. “Not to mention we can’t travel between worlds anyway, unless we take the Magister with us.”

  “Um, are you kidding—” Charm said, but Owen quickly interrupted.

  “I can travel between worlds,” he said. “I learned how a few months ago, before Nobody sent me home. But I know where Nobody is, and it’s a really dangerous place.”

  “Who cares where he is?” Charm said. “I’ve been to the end of the universe. There’s nothing I haven’t seen.”

  “Try a time prison in the Mesozoic Era that resets your time line every day,” Kara told her. “Owen’s right. Nobody’s not going to just m
ake it easy for us.”

  “So back out if you’re so scared,” Charm said, glaring at her.

  “Am I missing something?” Kara asked. “What is your problem with me?”

  Charm glanced at Owen, then turned away angrily. “I don’t have a problem with you. I have a problem with all of this!”

  As Kiel joined in the argument, Dr. Verity stood up and walked over to Owen. Owen automatically put his fists up, ready for a fight, but the doctor just gave him a friendly smile. “I might be able to help, if you don’t mind?” he said, moving to take something out of his pocket.

  “Slowly!” Owen said, not sure what he’d do if Verity pulled some kind of science fiction weapon on him. His heart began to beat even faster when the scientist produced his possibility ray gun, now looking good as new. “But I thought Nobody broke it. How did you—”

  “Oh, it didn’t take much to fix,” Dr. Verity said. “Unfortunately, it’s just got one charge left. But maybe that’ll be of some use?”

  Owen took it, just to get it out of the doctor’s hands, in case he turned evil again. “I don’t know, it didn’t seem to do much but slow Nobody down.”

  Dr. Verity shrugged, still smiling, which weirdly made Owen more nervous. “You never know! It contains literally any possibility you can think of, so just use your imagination. You might be able to come up with something good in the moment.”

  Right, because Owen’s imagination had been so much use in getting him this far. At least now that he was back in the fictional world, it seemed to have entirely returned. “Thanks,” he said, turning away from Dr. Verity.

  “All you have to do is concentrate on the effect you want it to have, and the ray gun will do the rest,” the doctor continued, coming around to face Owen. “It’s tuned in to the brain waves of whoever’s holding it. Little something I added to Charm’s design. But that’s not all I’ve got to offer.”

  Owen had to fight the impulse to just punch him. “Oh, great, there’s more?” he asked through clenched teeth.

  “Well,” he said, and started gesturing in the air, leaving holographic marks behind, just like Charm. “From the way I understand our two realities, the nonfictional world was once connected to this one, correct?”