Agent 27142 next stabbed the disembodied god’s hand that surrounded his feet. As he kicked free of the melted appendage, he winced, because stabbing pain in his thigh reminded him that a steel bar was embedded there. He jabbed the pill’s spikes into the bar. The bar melted away, and as it flowed out of his leg, Agent 27142 was left with a gaping hole in the now-unoccupied space. He could feel the color drain from his face as blood erupted from the wound.
He pulled from his holster a device that looked like a needle-sized machine gun—particularly one known colloquially on Earth 5,999,234,007 as a “tommy gun,” a term he knew because he had confiscated one there on a mission to assassinate the matriarch of the Patronella Family after she decided to circumvent interdimensional law by smuggling cheap booze onto her earth from other dimensions without registering the operation with the B.I.T. or paying the proper tariffs or filing the proper paperwork. He smiled as he recalled the delightful kick when he pulled the trigger on the confiscated tommy gun and the horrified look on the lawbreaker’s face as she was filled with bullets.
But then pain shot through his leg and jerked his mind to the present.
He grunted and pointed the barrel of the tiny machine-gun-shaped device into the opening of the wound. He pulled the trigger. The device’s barrel flashed over and over in rapid succession, firing lightning bolts into his leg like a machine gun would fire bullets. Agent 27142’s nose twitched at the smell of burning flesh, and when he finally released the trigger and pulled the miniature gun away from his wound, it was cauterized all the way through. He felt the wound’s entry and exit with his fingers. Satisfied he had stopped the bleeding, he placed the miniature gun back into his holster and forced himself up onto his feet.
His head spun, but he could now manage a crouch in the space he had opened in the little cocoon. He checked the floating three-dimensional model to ensure that nothing had shifted during his melting of the wreckage above him. Satisfied that it had not, he stabbed the brass pill once more, ducked his head as more metal and canvas melted around him to pool at his feet, and then found that he had torn into the wreckage enough that he could stand upright with only a slight hunch. He smirked and began repeating the process over and over, always checking the three-dimensional model to ensure safety before stabbing. Before long, the pain in his elbow became too much of an encumbrance, so he pulled a cube of gel from a pouch on his holster and swallowed it. Later tonight, its aftereffects would force him into a dreamless slumber. But right now, it numbed the pain in his shattered elbow and sent a burst of energy surging through him. He continued stabbing into the wreckage above, climbing up into it once he had melted his way high enough where climbing became a necessity.
Finally, after much stabbing and climbing and stabbing again, he stabbed one last time and felt fresh air dance across his face. He squealed with joy and realized that he was free. It felt like he had been working for days to ascend from the wreckage. He smirked when he glanced at his timekeeper and found that from start to finish, it had taken him only fifteen minutes to stab to freedom.
He climbed out of the gash in the wreckage and collapsed onto the top of the billboard’s crumpled corpse. The disc floated out of the wreckage and hovered next to him. He tapped a black button on its side, and it fluttered down to his palm and powered off. He returned it to his holster, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply. Freedom smelled delightful, though he could not help but note that it was accompanied by undertones of raw sewage.
“I don’t know if all B.I.T. agents have horrible senses of smell—or if it’s just you—but the tones of your inhalation indicate that you are entirely too satisfied with the stench of this neighborhood. This development is very disturbing to me,” said a familiar monotone voice, breaking Agent 27142’s concentration.
Agent 27142 opened his eyes and glowered at Henry, who was lying on his side and being rolled up on top of the wreckage by the tattooed cockroach. Behind the pair, on the concrete below, the god’s corpse lay smashed and broken. Blood and organs pooled in a wide arc around him. The blood transformed into little rainbow-colored pixies that fluttered up into the sky. Agent 27142 chose not to respond to the jump totems4, instead watching the oddly beautiful juxtaposition of the graceful pixies forming from the disgusting pile of gore.
“I hear sirens in the distance,” continued the gourd. “On my home reality, those were signs of emergency vehicles approaching. We should probably get out of here before they arrive.”
Agent 27142 looked away from the pixies and nodded. He said, “Yes, we’ll need to jump to one of my safehouses so that I can heal.”
He then pointed to the cockroach and said to Henry, “But first, we will need to dispose of the bug.”
The bug reared up onto its hind legs. It flashed lightning between its antennae and spread its wings, revealing the entirety of the turquoise tattoos covering its body.
Henry squealed, “Don’t say things like that to Beverly! She just saved my life. Besides, methinks disposing of her is easier said than done.”
Agent 27142 glared at the gourd. Agent 27142 was unused to his orders being disobeyed.
Henry said, “To remind you once more, I have no eyes. So, if you are glaring at me, I wouldn’t know it. However, I can smell emotions, and I can tell that you’re full of anger and remorse over something. I would hope these emotions are your conscience punishing you for your heartless desire to murder this gracious, selfless, me-saving jump totem.”
Agent 27142 said nothing. He refused to tell Henry the cause of his angry and remorseful feelings, refused to profane his lost love by saying Agent 29333’s name to this apparently traitorous gourd and its new friend.
Henry interrupted the silence to continue, “You’re supposed to be the strategist, but you’re blinder than me. You wanted vengeance on your former prisoner and the robot, and you almost had it. Instead, you fought the god and let your true prey escape.”
“Get to the point,” spat Agent 27142.
“The point is that Beverly and her master had no desire to fight you. She told me as much while you were buried underneath this billboard. They merely want to use your former prisoner as bait to capture a cosmic pink bear. But now their bait has escaped them, leaving both of you bereft of your quarry. It seems to me that your goals are now relatively aligned.”
Beverly rubbed her forelegs together. Henry continued, “She says she’ll speak to her master about a partnership. She is over ninety-percent certain that he will partner with you to pursue your former prisoner and the robot, and he will almost certainly turn them over to you for punishment as soon as he has used them to capture the pink bear.”
Agent 27142 scowled at the bug. Without taking his eyes from her, he waved his hand toward the crushed and broken corpse of the god. “I take it none of you noticed the flattened body of her master. A little hard to team up with his corpse.”
Laughter erupted behind Agent 27142. A shadow fell over him. He twisted and found the god towering above him, fully reformed. Agent 27142 glanced from the figure over to the corpse spattered across the concrete, and to his dismay found that the corpse was gone. The god said, “You must be as stupid as the version of us that escaped. I told you, I’m a god that resurrects.”
Beverly rubbed her forelegs together, and her clicking sounded almost melodic. The god nodded and then continued, “Seems ol’ Bev thinks we should all work together. She’s been right more often than not, so I’m inclined to listen to her on this one. What do you say?”
The god held out a hand for a shake. Agent 27142 frowned, and then held out his own. They gripped, and neither winced as the other squeezed tight. Agent 27142 said, “Fine. I’ll help you find my prisoner and the robot. You can use my prisoner to get the pink bear. Then I get to kill them both with my own two hands.”
The god smiled, but there was no mirth behind his eyes. It reminded Agent 27142 of a snake. He furrowed his brow. The god said, “You have a much better handshake than our mutual prey. My name is Art
heoskatergariabetrugereiinganno, but let’s not stand on formalities. At least two written records refer to me as God-Art, so you may do the same. Now stand. Let’s get you healed, and then we can go somewhere to discuss our next steps without the distraction of incoming emergency crews.”
Agent 27142 raised himself onto his feet, and by the time he finished standing, music had filled the air around him and little hovering cartoon musical notes were floating from the god’s lips and crashing into his shattered elbow, his wounded leg, and his longsuffering shoulder. This shoulder was the one in which the corpse of his former jump totem—an eagle issued to him by the B.I.T. way back when he had achieved his officer status—lay embedded beneath his flesh due to his experience a decade prior in the maw of a fifty-foot tall Cyclops.
Agent 27142 flinched in surprise and nearly fell, but God-Art steadied him. A few moments later, Agent 27142 was completely healed, and his dead eagle was removed from his shoulder. The only signs of his struggle with the god were all the surrounding property damage and the dust that covered him from head to toe and the rips in his uniform.
Agent 27142 picked up Henry and said, “Jump us to Earth 47,787. I have a safehouse there.”
Beverly scrambled up God-Art’s cloak and rested upon his shoulder. Lightning flashed from the two jump totems’ antennae and then crashed into Agent 27142 and God-Art. Ambulances and fire engines turned onto the street just as the four of them disappeared.
* * *
4 Just in case you chose to skip the first two novels in this series: a jump totem is an object/animal/plant/machine native to an earth (usually manifested as a sacred symbol) that is evolved to teleport between dimensions. These objects/animals/plants/machines allow their owners to legally travel interdimensionally for tourism or employment purposes, so long as the citizen has followed protocol and obtained proper permitting from the B.I.T. before jumping. If caught dimension-hopping by the B.I.T. without the proper paperwork, punishment can range from a fine to a life sentence of hard labor in a penal dimension, depending on the severity and repetition of the infraction.
Chapter 5
BUREACRACY, BUREACRACY EVERYWHERE
Normal-Art watched the blond man’s curly hair bounce with each step he took, playfully pitter-pattering atop the shoulders of his marigold shirt. Normal-Art felt like he was watching a shampoo commercial. The idea of a commercial reminded him of home, and a deep sense of dread and longing filled the pit of his stomach. He just wanted to go home. Why did no one seem to care?
The blond man periodically glanced over his shoulder as he spoke, but Normal-Art had little desire to listen. He instead sulked silently and studied the random humanoid crew members that the group passed. Most of them wore shirts in some assorted shade of purple, though they passed a sporadic few with the same marigold color as their guide’s. Many were human, and many more looked close enough to human to pass at a distance—ridged foreheads or black bowl cuts with pointy ears or rolling chins with segmented waves of cartilage. Many others, however, were bizarre creatures ranging in diversity from scuttling mastiff-sized spiders to ferocious spider-sized mastiffs, all of whom had stuffed themselves into purple shirts designed to cover more humanoid bodies.
After walking for entirely too long and ascending entirely too many steps and winding through entirely too many bends along the path, the quintet arrived at an elevator bank. A queue of purple-shirted individuals stood before it, but they seemed deferential to the blond guide and quickly ducked aside to let the group pass. When the elevator arrived, the guide led Normal-Art and his three companions into the car and pressed a button. He glared at one of the Purple Shirts who had begun stepping onto the elevator behind them.
“Um, I’ll just wait for the next one, sir,” she said as she backed out of the car.
Normal-Art’s stomach twisted as the elevator shot upward. The guide began talking again, but Normal-Art continued tuning him out. He stared at his shoes for the duration of the ride. Then the elevator jerked to a halt. The guide disembarked and then gestured for his followers to exit. Drillbot, Ginny, and the robed, older version of Art stepped off the elevator car.
Normal-Art followed, but as he did so, he instinctively reached out his hand and pressed all the buttons on the control panel inside the elevator car. He smirked as they all lit up. Then he noticed a long queue standing outside the car, waiting to climb aboard. His smirk grew. He heard the new passengers yell out curses behind him as they entered the elevator car and saw what he had done. He quickened his pace away from the scene of his mischief.
After what felt like another hour of walking—but was likely closer to five minutes—the group stopped in front of something that looked like a vending machine embedded in the wall near a black door. The machine seemed to sense the group approaching, because it lit up with a circular pattern of neon blue lights emanating from its center.
The blond guide turned to Normal-Art’s older twin. “Use your I.D. card to get a new uniform,” ordered the guide.
Older-Art stared at his pink carpet slippers and muttered, “Umm, that may be a problem. I was in such a rush, I forgot my card. It’s in my bathroom back on Earth 6,076.”
“Isn’t forgetting your card kind of impossible?”
Older-Art blinked. “N-No. Not so much. Not if you take it off, which you can do if you really want it off. I removed it one night when I was drunk and forgot to put it back on.”
The blond guide sighed. “Fine. I’ll procure you a uniform with my card. What size are you, Agent Arthur?” asked the guide.
“It’s Art. And I’m an XL, with size thirteen shoes,” answered Older-Art.
The blond guide leaned against the vending machine’s glass, pressing his left pectoral against it until it beeped. The guide then leaned back and tapped a few buttons on a number pad that appeared on the screen. The neon blue lights turned green and the number pad disappeared. The screen then turned opaque and swirled as though a whirlpool had formed in its center. A few seconds later, the whirlpool changed direction, and a few seconds later than that, it spat a bundle of clothes into the blond guide’s arms. A pair of black slip-on shoes flopped from the machine and landed atop the pile.
“Still Lavender?” asked Older-Art, staring at the color of the shirt. “Not that I really care, but I thought, y’know, with the job well done and all that, I would’ve earned a Violet promotion. Or an Orchid at the very least.”
The blond guide shrugged and handed the bundle to Older-Art. “Guess not,” he replied with a smirk. “Now put that on. And be quick about it. We’re in a bit of a rush here, and you know the rule: agents aren’t allowed on the bridge without wearing a B.T.T. uniform.”
Older-Art pulled on the pants over his dirty boxers. They were form-fitting to his legs. He frowned as he pulled them up and the realization set in that they ended mid-calf. The pants looked to Normal-Art like Capri pants. If Normal-Art’s mom were around, she likely would have asked Older-Art when the flood’s coming. But she was not around, so he refused to think about what his mom would say.
Normal-Art then watched as his older-self kicked off his pink carpet slippers and slipped the B.T.T. shoes onto his feet. The older man’s toes crumpled against the ends of the shoes. Normal-Art grew worried that they would pop out, and then stopped worrying when they did just that and busted through the ends of the shoes. Older-Art scowled. He then disrobed, pulled the shirt on over his head, and stretched it down as far as it would go. It covered the top of his torso and ended a few inches above his belly button. The sleeves ended just above his elbows. Obviously flustered, he stuffed his arms back into the blue robe and tied it to cover as much of his exposed body as he could.
Older-Art looked like an overweight, middle-aged dad dressing up in his child’s clothing. He glared at the blond guide, who returned the look with an arrogant grin. “You gave me the wrong size. Of everything,” muttered Older-Art, stating the obvious.
“Oh, did I? I hadn’t noticed.”
Old
er-Art said, “Look, if this is about that shoe thing I used to do, can’t we just let bygones be bygones? The last two decades had to be punishment enough for me.”
“I still smell your foul odor in my nightmares. So no, we cannot just let bygones be bygones,” replied the guide. He pointed at the door and continued, “Now move. The Captain is waiting.”
Older-Art shoved his hands into the pockets of the robe. The guide walked to the black door, pressed his palm to a keypad next to it, and walked through the threshold when the door opened. Older-Art followed, Drillbot followed him, Ginny followed him, and Normal-Art, having nowhere else to go, followed her.
*
Normal-Art could not stop staring at the man’s billowing salt-and-pepper beard. A few flecks of meat lay entangled in the bushy cloud of hair near the corners of the man’s mouth, and Normal-Art was sure there must be years and years of similar crusty food hidden in the expanse from his chin to the end of the beard, down near the man’s waist.
Normal-Art was so enthralled by the beard that he did not notice the man holding out a hand for a shake until the man waved the hand in front of Art’s face and Ginny nudged Art in the ribs. Normal-Art jolted free from the beard’s trance long enough to return the shake, but he was so distracted that he could only muster one of those clammy dead-fish handshakes.
And Now, Time Travel Page 5