Ginny turned to face Drillbot, tears continuing to stream down her face. She said, “It feels like a terrible nightmare. I’ve woken up from this horrid dream, but every terrible thing I did inside that dream was true. I’m so sorry.”
She hugged him. He hugged her back.
* * *
7 Ginny Rex was a Tyrannosaurus-Rex-version of Ginny who was queen of her native earth. Her attire typically consisted of a crown formed from gilded fangs, a blonde mullet, a leather jacket, and a harness strapped to her back that contained a saddle and a pair of rocket launchers.
Ginny Rex and Drillbot fought alongside one another in service to the Blue One, during which time they fell in love. While serving the Pink One, Regular-Ginny permanently killed and disintegrated Ginny Rex.
Chapter 8
WHEN HUNGER STRIKES ARE INEFFECTIVE…
Normal-Art lay on his cot in the darkness. He could not sleep. His stomach growled, and he stared at it with a combination of frustration and forlornness.
Ginny lay next to him and breathed on his neck with her warm breath. Claustrophobia overwhelmed him. He attempted to clamber silently over her and off the bed so as not to wake her, but he instead managed to tangle his legs in the sheets, and he tripped. He crashed to the cold, hard floor and yelped a curse. He glanced over at Ginny, expecting her to wake from the noise, but she continued tossing and turning and moaning and squealing, apparently ensnared in the pink tentacles of another nightmare.
Normal-Art watched Ginny for a while. He strained within himself to feel something for her. He tried to tell himself that he loved her and missed her absence when they had been apart, but really, he just missed her warmth because it helped him to fall asleep faster. This new thing where she screamed in her sleep and sweated what he calculated to be gallons of sweat throughout the night was wearing awfully thin, though. He felt like he had been sleeping in a waterbed the last few nights, if only waterbeds consisted of regular mattresses soaked overnight in a salty bog. He had not showered since Ginny began sleeping in his bed, because he simply wiped away the wetness each morning and felt it was clean enough for his own approval.
He held his breath and flexed every muscle in his body, hoping it would jumpstart some sort of feeling of affection or love for Ginny, but all it did was make him lightheaded. It seemed like love for her should be there in his heart. After all, the Multiverse must have noticed some sort of connection between them, since the last couple decades seemed to have completely revolved around the symbolism embedded in their relationship. But maybe the Multiverse was wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.
He decided to leave her where she lay and continue his hunger strike where the B.T.S. Unicorn Husker crew could see him. He hurried into his clothes. Then he picked up the small scrap of cardboard box that he had found near the storage deck a couple days ago when on a walk with Ginny. He exited his chambers. In the light of the hallway, Normal-Art could read the message he had written in marker across the cardboard’s face: NO HOME = NO FOOD = NO SAVING THE SPACE-TIME-WHATEVER!
He plodded down the hallway toward the elevator bank. As he passed cabin fifty-six, the door zoomed up into the ceiling, and his older-self stood in its threshold, staring at him. Normal-Art pretended he did not see the man, and instead continued plodding. Older-Art cleared his throat and stepped out of his cabin, quickening his pace to walk next to Normal-Art.
“I remember this moment well,” said Older-Art. “You’re on the way to protest and flaunt your hunger strike in the face of this ship’s officers.”
Normal-Art ignored his future-self and continued walking in silence.
Older-Art said, “Please, for the love of whatever god you want to insert into this sentence, take my advice: just stop now. It’s not going to work. All that’s going to happen is that you’ll get frustrated. And then you’ll change tactics. But don’t! You’re in soaked shoes will cost you years of your life!”
Normal-Art scowled. Older-Art’s advice made no sense. Normal-Art’s shoes weren’t wet, and even if they were, why would wearing wet shoes cost him years of his life? That was dumb. Normal-Art would have asked for clarification if he cared to hear it. Instead, he shrugged and walked faster. Older-Art leaned against the wall and yelled, “Listen to me! When the idea about the shoes pops into your head, drop it! For my sake as well as yours!”
Older-Art continued yelling, but Normal-Art did not feel like listening, so he quickened his pace and ignored the older man. He hated his older-self for kidnapping him and bringing him here, and every time he saw the older man, he became more and more annoyed.
Normal-Art arrived at the elevator bank and waited in the line, which was especially long at this hour. He poked a similarly queued Purple Shirt in the back and asked, “Hey, what’s up with this line?”
The Purple Shirt turned around, and Normal-Art had to force himself not to gasp. The man had two noses and three eyes. The Purple Shirt seemed to sense Normal-Art’s shock. The Purple Shirt barked, “Shift change,” and turned abruptly away from Normal-Art without another word.
Normal-Art waited for what felt like hours but was instead probably only a dozen or so minutes. The hunger pangs in his belly made every tedious moment feel longer. He wondered how long it would take before all his flab faded away and he was left with a six-pack for abs. He stared down at his midsection and concluded that he probably had years to go before that would happen.
When it was finally Normal-Art’s turn to enter the elevator, he sighed. He pushed the button for his desired deck and leaned against the wall as Purple Shirts crowded into the elevator around him. He felt a twinge of motion sickness as the elevator car jerked into motion, stopped, jerked again, stopped again, and so on. By the time he reached his desired floor, he nearly collapsed off the elevator car. He steadied himself on the wall just outside the elevator and waited until his lightheadedness passed.
He wound his way through a series of looping hallways and finally came to a ladder set in the floor. He scrambled down it to the mess hall, where hundreds of crew members were sitting at benches and eating breakfast. Purple Shirts filled most of the hall. Teal Shirts sat at a table near the entrance. And far at the back, Art saw his target: dozens of crew members in marigold shirts sitting at a pair of tables. The tables on all sides of them had been left clear, which Art assumed was an intentional choice by the Purple Shirts to leave some distance between themselves and their commanding officers so that they could enjoy their meals in relative peace and privacy.
The buzz of conversation carried from every table. Normal-Art held his makeshift protest sign above his head and marched toward the back of the mess hall in the direction of the officers’ tables. As he did so, he chanted, “Ding Dong! This is wrong! I won’t eat! Until this fleet! Sends me home!”
None of the Purple Shirts seemed to notice him. None of them changed their conversations at all to mention him. None of them pointed at him or nudged their neighbors to take notice of him. Normal-Art frowned. He had hoped that at worst, he would have at least garnered some thumbs-ups or some nods of solidarity from these metaphorical plebeians at the bottom rungs of the power-scale on this ship. He had even fantasized that many of them, feeling frustrated by their lack of authority, would stand up to march alongside him.
Normal-Art reached the back of the mess hall and climbed atop one of the empty tables near the officers. He held his sign high above his head and screamed his chant as loud as he could. The officers turned to look at him, shrugged, and then returned to their conversations. Amongst the dining officers, Normal-Art noticed Captain King Solomon, First Officer Alex, and 29333. Captain King Solomon and Alex scowled in annoyance, but Art noted a hint of a smirk pass across 29333’s lips before she mirrored the scowl of her commanders.
Normal-Art began chanting louder and marching back and forth across the tabletop. He kept this up for a few minutes before a freezing rope appeared from behind him and clasped around his neck.
Between choking gasps, Norma
l-Art demanded, “Let me go! You can’t harm me! I’m the key to saving the Space-Time-Whatever!”
The rope squeezed tighter. Frost formed on Normal-Art’s skin. A chill entered his veins and coursed through his body. The smell of Sulphur filled his nostrils. Cold breath enveloped his ear as a voice whispered into it, “Get down from there, eat something, and then come with me to my office. We must have a chat.”
Normal-Art turned to face Bagoo, Chief Security Officer aboard the B.T.S. Unicorn Husker. Bagoo was a bog ghost, which was something Art did not know existed before coming aboard this ship. The bog ghost was pale blue and nearly transparent, except for his bright, scarlet eyes. Bagoo’s face looked like it had been scratched from a burlap sack, with jagged nostrils and an overlarge, cartoonishly wide mouth. The top of his head rose to a drooping point. Tiny buzzing flies constantly zoomed in circles around his head. He wore a translucent, ghostly marigold officer’s shirt upon his torso with a translucent holster around his center, in which sat his Time-Phaser and handcuffs and other assorted weaponry and tools. He had no legs, but instead floated in the air. Strips of what looked like bandages dangled from the bottom of his floating torso like tassels, one of which had stretched out to seize Normal-Art by the throat. Bagoo’s arms were wide and looked like elongated balloons that had been overfilled with helium. They ended in thick hands shaped like mittens, with no discernable fingers other than a thumb and a long, skinny protrusion at their tips. Altogether, Bagoo reminded Normal-Art of a vicious cartoon ghost, but he refrained from mentioning that to Bagoo.
“L-Let’s chat, then,” muttered Normal-Art. “B-But up here, where everybody can s-see.”
The ghost’s scarlet eyes morphed from scarlet to indigo and began swirling. As the bog ghost spoke, Normal-Art felt as though honey was being poured into his ears and covering his brain with sticky sweetness. And this honeyed feeling stood in stark juxtaposition with the voice of the bog ghost, whose tone was scratchy and transitioned from high-pitched screeching to low-pitched grunting throughout the course of every sentence like an incredibly disturbing and annoying series of waves. “No, you will get down from this table,” said Bagoo. “You will discard that pathetic sign, eat in sight of everyone in this mess hall, and then you will come with me to discuss your behavior.”
Normal-Art felt himself—his consciousness—being pulled out of his body. He hovered above his body and watched in helpless, honeyed numbness as his body obeyed the bog ghost’s orders. His body clambered down from the table and threw aside the sign. The cardboard flipped end over end through the mess hall until it crashed against the head of a burly Purple Shirt, who sprang to his feet ready to fight until he saw that Bagoo already had the perpetrator in custody, at which point the Purple Shirt sat back down with slumped shoulders.
Normal-Art’s body walked to the buffet line, where it began thrusting dirty hands into the trays of food. The Purple Shirts who had been so intent on ignoring him before all stared at him now. Normal-Art’s body grabbed a gigantic glob of scrambled eggs and slammed the gooey yellow mass into his mouth. Much of it ended up smeared across his face, but much of it also ended up tumbling down his esophagus. Normal-Art’s body continued along the buffet line, grabbing fistfuls of bacon and sausage and a green mystery meat in the shape of a star and purple pudding and yellow honey, shoving everything into his gullet as he passed.
From his out-of-body floating perch near the ceiling, Normal-Art felt a satisfied sensation course through him, and his hunger pangs disappeared. A few of the Purple Shirts nearby began laughing. The one whom Normal-Art had hit with the sign laughed hardest. From his floating perch, Normal-Art wondered why. And then he saw the yellow puddle forming at his body’s feet. His body had apparently become so relaxed that it wet itself, though it seemed not to notice. It merely continued shoving food into its mouth.
Bagoo scowled and decided that mealtime was over. He led Normal-Art from the mess hall toward his office outside the brig, which was located on the bottom deck in a secluded corner at the aft of the ship. Normal-Art’s floating consciousness must have been tethered to his body, because he floated along just behind his body without even attempting to do so.
Squish-squish, squish-squish, squish-squish. Normal-Art heard his body’s feet squishing inside his shoes as it staggered along the hallways and down the elevator and along more hallways. He found that with each step, he was floating nearer and nearer his body. Finally, without realizing it had happened, he was back inside himself and marching alongside the bog ghost. His feet were wet and uncomfortable, and he was furious. He had not only been forced aboard this ship, but now he had been forced to eat, his hunger strike ended because of this cursed ghost’s hypnotic meddling.
The squish-squishing of Normal-Art’s feet in his shoes accompanied him as he crossed the threshold into Bagoo’s office. And as Normal-Art listened to his shoes, his next ploy popped into his head with sudden clarity. He realized that his hunger strike tactic had been foolish. Ginny had been correct to criticize it. He was merely inconveniencing himself with it rather than those around him. And nobody else would take notice of his protest unless he inconvenienced them. He grinned.
I am brilliant! he thought to himself. I am hunger striking no more! I’m now on urine strike! He decided that he would no longer be using toilets while aboard this ship, not until they granted him his freedom and sent him home. And as his fury was consumed by the newfound excitement filling his heart, he knew that he needed to get away from the bog ghost as soon as possible in order to begin his new rebellion.
Bagoo sat Normal-Art down on a stiff wooden chair and then floated around to the opposite side of his gigantic wooden desk. He released the strap from around Normal-Art’s throat. Warmth began filling Normal-Art’s body once more. The frost on his neck melted. Normal-Art winced as cold droplets of water trickled down his back. The strap fell back to dangle below Bagoo, joining the dozens of other tassels hanging there.
A small, black nameplate lay atop the bog ghost’s desk on which was written in silver block letters: BAGOO THE BOG GHOST, CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER. A framed picture sat on the desk nearby between the nameplate and the ghost’s computer. Within the frame was a picture of Bagoo with his arm around a bog ghost that looked nearly identical to him, except this one had dark curly hair that rose into the air above it like kelp floating in the ocean. In this ghost’s arms was cradled a baby ghost.
Bagoo caught Normal-Art staring at the picture. The bog ghost nodded toward it. “My wife and kid,” he said. “The photo was taken not long before the B.T.T. recruited me from my deathbed.”
Normal-Art squinted. Bagoo chimed in before Normal-Art could ask. “Yes, bog ghosts can die. We’re not really ghosts. We’re a species of clouds that live in swampy areas, where we eat algae and a certain type of fungus that grows within mud. Unfortunately, I ate the wrong type of algae while out foraging. My genetics predispositioned me to be diffuse into nothingness upon digesting this particular variety of algae. Hence my deathbed recruitment into the B.T.T.”
Normal-Art nodded. “Ok, sure,” he said.
Bagoo nodded back. “We can’t have you starving yourself,” said Bagoo. “And we can’t have you trying to incite a riot. We just can’t, no matter how much you want to go home. We’re a military operation, and to maintain a well-ordered ship, there must be discipline. Your protesting amongst the Purple Shirts could cause some of them to think that insubordination is OK, and if insubordination occurs, there is a chance that it could show up in the middle of a mission during which the fate of the entire Space-Time-Multinuum is at stake. That is too great a risk to allow you to continue such behavior.”
Normal-Art fought a smirk from crossing his face and stared at the bog ghost with feigned remorse. Finally, he muttered, “You’re right. I am ever so sorry.”
The bog ghost nodded. “I would punish you physically as I would any Purple Shirt who disobeyed B.T.T. protocol, but I have been forbidden from harming you by the B.T.T. Governin
g Council, because you are a guest on this ship and are needed intact for a vital mission.”
This time, Normal-Art could not prevent a smile from wedging the edges of his lips slightly upward. The bog ghost just confirmed that Art could not be harmed no matter what he did, and it took everything in his power not to grin wider than he had ever grinned before at this news. Normal-Art said, “Understood. You have my word that I will stop my hunger strike and will never attempt to lead anyone else into a protest ever again. May I go?”
Bagoo furrowed his brow and sighed. He stared at Normal-Art for a moment, and then he nodded. “Very well,” he muttered.
Normal-Art stood and walked out of the office. Once out of view of Bagoo, he turned to a computer terminal on the wall. He logged in and searched for the cabin locations of all the officers on the ship. He giggled to himself.
As these officers slept in their cabins at the ends of their shifts, he would begin pilfering their shoes and urinating into them. His giggles turned into barking cackles, and he cackled so hard that by the time he finished, he had to sit on the ground to catch his breath. Once he had himself under control, he hurried toward the nearest elevator bank. He needed to return to his room to begin strategizing this new round of mischief.
Chapter 9
IN THE MIDST OF THE BROCCOLI-PEOPLE
First Officer Alexandros ho Megas drank deep on what these local people referred to as mead. It was unlike any mead he had ever tasted. It consisted of the fermented blood of this people’s enemies. Unfortunately, the people of this earth consisted of humanoids made entirely from broccoli—gigantic stalks that walked on humanoid legs and worked with humanoid hands and had humanoid faces just below their puffy, bulbous florets—so the mead tasted like broccoli sweetened with extreme amounts of honey.
And Now, Time Travel Page 10