Then it devolved and melted into white goop. Alex leapt away before he could sink into the pooling liquid and drown. Boukephalas II swooped in below him, and he landed safely back in his saddle.
With Grundelflower dead, the zombified broccoli-people began shifting from withered whiteness back into their healthy green colorations. They cheered. Little baby sproutlings erupted from the ground and joined in the cheering. The king and the other Brikings unearthed themselves and cheered, too.
Alex landed Boukephalas II in their midst. He shut off his laser-Kopis and accepted their cheers with a bow. The females all leapt forward and began stroking his body. Dozens of flowers appeared before Alex, and the king called out, “Prepare for ecstasy, my new friend. Chew upon every flower and with each bite, feel more pleasure than you could possibly imagine.”
Alex smiled and reached out to the first one, which was attached to one particularly buxom female.
A blue light flashed, and a bang erupted amidst the broccoli-people. By the time the light faded, Captain King Solomon had appeared on the scene. He clapped Alex on the back and said, “Great job, First Officer. As the Captain of our ship, I shall do my duty and oversee the victory celebration.”
Alex frowned. “B-But I did the work,” he complained.
“And I delegated it. Someday, when you are in my position, you will understand this heavy burden.”
Alex kicked the dirt and scowled. The Captain put his arms around a pair of the females. He began to nip on one of the flowers, but then he stopped himself. He turned to Alex, “Speaking of delegation, I need you to return to the Unicorn Husker right away. Instructions have arrived from the B.T.T. Governing Council. It’s time to gather the Arthurs and start the mission for which our ship was commissioned. You give the briefing, and I’ll return after ensuring the proper celebration customs have been followed here.”
Alex did not know whether to smile or to frown. On the one hand, his frustration with his captain threatened to overflow its metaphorical amphora, but on the other hand, the briefing of the Arthurs and the subsequent completion of their mission would relieve him of their annoying presence for a while.
He chose to smile. He tapped the B.T.T. badge on his uniform four times in quick succession—activating its communicator functionality—and said, “Officer Trixie, this is First Officer Alexandros ho Megas. Jump me back aboard the ship. And please relay orders to Officer Groveland to collect my Gravitron Saddle for return to storage.”
And with that, blue light filled his vision and he reappeared on the ship with a newfound sense of hope.
Chapter 10
THE FIRST BRIEFING
The room in which Drillbot stood lay in a side corridor a couple minutes’ stroll from the bridge. The room was a large circle approximately twenty yards in diameter. The shiny chrome covering the walls reflected the lights overhead. A round, mahogany table nearly twelve feet in diameter sat in the center of the room. The table was surrounded by a few dozen black, rolling office chairs. The position of the officer to which the chair belonged was emblazoned in silver letters across the back of each chair.
Each of the chairs had someone seated in it except for the one designated for the Captain. Though Drillbot knew that the Captain had left the ship to perform the native celebration duties with the broccoli-people following Alex’s successful mission on Earth 48,333,241,111, the empty chair created a haunting absence amidst the surrounding crowd. Drillbot momentarily wondered if the scene foreshadowed something, but then he remembered that he was a robot, and robots do not have the necessary coding within their programming to spot foreshadowing as it is occurring. Thus, he promptly ignored the premonition.
Standing around the table behind the seated officers were Drillbot, Normal-Art, Older-Art, and Ginny, along with nearly five-dozen Purple Shirts. All stood silent as First Officer Alexandros ho Megas called for silence to the silent room so that the briefing could begin.
Alex gestured toward the center of the table and said, “Behold: Earth 8,669.”
Everyone in the room glanced where Alex pointed. Everyone looked confused. Alex frowned. Normal-Art asked, “Does Earth 8,669 look like a table?”
Alex scowled. He said, “No, it does not look like a table.” He turned to his fellow officers. “Why is the imaging machine not displaying Earth 8,669?”
29333 replied, “You have to turn it on, sir.”
Alex’s scowl grew larger. “And why would I have to do that? It’s always on when Captain King Solomon gives the briefings.”
29333 shrugged and pointed to a blue button in the middle of the table. She said, “He gets here early and turns it on himself before everyone else arrives. It’s that button there. He had it installed in the middle of this round table so that we would all feel more equal. Or something like that.”
Alex sighed. He looked like an undignified bug as he climbed up onto the table and scrambled to its center to press the blue button embedded there. He sighed once more and returned to his seat, all the while muttering curses under his breath. The metallic ceiling spread open, and a black cone emerged from the opening. The end of the black cone glowed blue, and below it an image formed of the planet earth, though its continents all lay clustered together in one large land mass.
Alex cleared his throat and said once more, “Behold: Earth 8,669.”
As he continued speaking, the image of the earth zoomed in to focus on a large city at the jagged edge of a bay. “This is Herceg Novi, a bustling port city in this earth’s version of Montenegro. This city is one this earth’s major sources of wealth. More importantly for us, this city is also the site of the infamous Montenegro Bay Convention.”
At the mention of the Montenegro Bay Convention, all the Purple Shirts in the room hissed. Drillbot thought they sounded similar to robots releasing pent up steam. Alex waited until their hisses died down before continuing, “For our guests in the room who may not know,” Alex waved a hand toward Drillbot, the Arts, and Ginny, “this convention unleashes one of the direst problems to ever face the Space-Time-Multinuum. In the B.T.T., we commonly refer to this problem as the Conspiracy of the Gods, or the C.O.G. for short.”
The Purple Shirts hissed once more. As soon as their hisses began fading, one of the seated officers whom Drillbot did not recognize clarified, “Not to be confused with the much more interesting C.O.G.S., or Cost of Goods Sold. Or, if you were to originate from Earth 709,991—where gods are a product traded for currency—Cost of Gods Sold.”
Alex glared at the woman. He said, “Officer Sprig, when I want the ship’s Finance Department to interrupt my briefing with color commentary, then I will invite you to do so.”
The officer melted under Alex’s gaze—literally, because she was a sentient butter sculpture formed into the shape of a woman. “Y-Yes, sir. Just trying to h-help, sir,” said Officer Sprig, now a pool of liquefied butter contained within a marigold uniform on the seat of her rolling office chair.
Alex took a deep breath and said, “The C.O.G. occurred over a century ago within the timestream of Earth 8,669 when a nearly infinite cabal of gods assembled from across the Multiverse. The convention proceeded as these types of conventions are wont to proceed—networking events, orgies hosted by the gods of such things, catered lunches, et cetera, et cetera—but the power-hungry keynote speaker set in motion a plot that would ultimately destroy the Space-Time-Multinuum. This plot would prevent the Multiverse from creating new splinter universes, and thus would limit existence to universes that existed prior to the C.O.G.
“This is the part where it may get complicated for our guests to understand, so please pay close attention,” continued Alex, staring at Normal-Art, who at this point was staring up at the lights in the ceiling and drooling with boredom. Ginny elbowed him, he squealed, and then he locked eyes with Alex. Alex nodded and said, “The reason the C.O.G.’s outcome is so bad is that it prevents alternatives existing simultaneously in the Space-Time-Multinuum. So, when a major cosmic threat succeed
s in destroying or conquering the Multiverse, following the C.O.G., there is no longer a second, equally infinite Multiverse that sprouts off from the existing Multiverse in which the cosmic threat fails. And given that the Multiverse is infinitely large and thus full of an infinite number of threats, it is only logical that if the C.O.G. is allowed to succeed, then there will definitely be a cosmic threat that ends the Multiverse—and thus all timestreams after that terrible moment in time—at some point, dooming us all.
Alex took a deep breath and continued, “To use an example our guests are familiar with: if the C.O.G. succeeds, then when Arthur rescues the infamous cosmic bears from Earth 1,000,000, there would be no simultaneous reality where he fails. Without new splinter realities forming, the bears are definitely out there in the Multiverse, rather than remaining in a metaphysical state of being there and not being there. And thus, every reality and every timeline will eventually be affected by the cosmic bears’ war as it continues to grow. This will be ultimately disastrous, because it will eventually envelop all existence. And this is but one example of the many cosmic threats lurking out there in the Multiverse.
Alex stopped for a moment to breathe before continuing, “Our mission is clear. We must send a Landing Crew to Earth 8,669 during the Montenegro Bay Convention, and we must prevent the gods from enacting the C.O.G. We will infiltrate the convention by disguising ourselves as minor deities from Earth 45,590,888, a reality that ceased existing a few moments before the convention took place—and thus, there shall be no gods present from that particular reality to dispute our identities. At some point during the keynote speech, the speaker will provide instructions to the crowd on how to stave the growth of the Multiverse. We shall prevent the keynote speaker from finishing his speech. Through assassination.
Alex took another breath and then continued, “I will lead the Landing Crew. Accompanying me shall be Bagoo, 29333, Purple Shirt Squadrons Filbert and Kappa, as well as our guests: the Arthurs, Ginny, and Drillbot.”
Older-Art spoke up, “It’s just Art. And I know my protest will have no bearing on your decision, but I must protest, anyway. We are not trained for this type of mission.”
Alex laughed. “Your Ginny and your robot-man led armies in a cosmic war for over a decade. You and your younger-self unleashed one of the biggest cosmic threats of all time upon the Space-Time-Multinuum. You four are qualified and responsible. You will act, or we will all perish.”
Drillbot rolled forward. “[whir] Drillbot will – CLACK – Drillbot will act.”
Alex nodded and presented a file folder stuffed wide with paper to Drillbot. Written in red letters on the outside of the folder were the words: Mission Briefing: C.O.G. Prevention, Highly Confidential. The robot touched the tips of his drills together to grasp it. Alex said, “I knew you would, brave robot. You are always the first to volunteer. Here are further details concerning our mission. Please read these tonight.”
Ginny stepped forward. She said, “If it will help make up for the damage I caused, then I’ll help, too.”
Older-Art shrugged, but then he followed. “Fine. I know I don’t have a choice, anyway. The sooner we get this done, the sooner I get to go home. You’ve got me, too.”
Alex handed them both file folders identical to the one Drillbot had received. Everyone began glancing around the room, searching for Normal-Art. The chair designated for the Captain began spinning in place. As the chair whirled round and round, Drillbot noticed that Normal-Art’s face was hardened in a look of defiant mischief. When the chair finally came to a stop, all eyes in the room were set upon it.
Normal-Art sat in a puddle of his own making, which was quickly pooling so fast that it began cascading down to the floor and splattering upon the feet of those surrounding him. As he continued his self-proclaimed urine strike, a wide grin lay plastered across his face. “What’s happening?” he asked. “I wasn’t listening. You’ll need to explain everything again. Or you could just send me home.”
A chorus of groans filled the room. Alex sighed. He began the briefing once more.
Chapter 11
SOME THINGS ARE ONLY APPRECIATED WHEN REPEATED. AND REPEATED AGAIN…
The light bounced off First Officer Alex’s brilliant golden hair as he restarted the brief from the beginning. His voice filled the room, and something deep and basso underlying the man’s squelchy tones filled Ginny with confidence. If someone asked Ginny to identify what about the man’s voice stirred this feeling within her, she would have been unable to articulate it. If someone asked Alex to identify what about his voice stirred this feeling in others, he would have claimed divine lineage, battle experience, and the favor of the gods.
Ginny allowed Alex’s honeyed words to wash over her, and she smiled. She glanced around the room and noticed that many of the Purple Shirts were doing the same. They looked hypnotized, like a gaggle of puppets. Alex locked eyes for a brief moment with a pair of Purple Shirts standing near the door, and then ignored them as they swooned under his gaze.
As Alex continued to repeat the briefing, he pointed at a spot on the image of a globe floating above the middle of the table. While he was doing so, Ginny felt something wet splash across her leg. She looked down. What she saw dragged her from beneath the honeyed waters of Alex’s charisma and back to normalcy. She felt like a fish that had been stabbed by a rusty hook and ripped from its underwater home. She scowled.
Ginny glanced from her leg over to Art. She shook her head in disbelief. Well, it was not quite disbelief, since she had long ago stopped disbelieving in anything. The emotion was more akin to shocked annoyance paired with a twinge of murderous frustration. Art had used his foot to push off the ground as hard as he could. He was spinning so fast in the Captain’s chair—which he had moments ago filled with urine—that his yellowed discharge was spraying on those standing around him. A grin covered his face. He looked like he had transformed into the most disgusting water sprinkler that Ginny had ever laid eyes upon. She sighed. Her heart sank.
She could not believe that she had allowed herself to reignite a relationship with this scoundrel. She felt foolish. All the signs had been there from the beginning that he was the same selfish, disgusting man he had always been, the same jerk whose narcissism had chipped away enough of her self-confidence that she had been susceptible to the Pink One gaining a foothold in her heart and filling her with cosmic hatred. She thought that their common experience over the last decades would have bonded them in something deeper than before they had been entangled in this decades-long adventure, but the reality of the situation was a stark bucket of cold water to her face.
She thought back over the last couple weeks. Art had never stopped talking about himself or his schemes. And while she had been metaphorically doodling their initials onto existence and surrounding those initials with hearts, he never noticed anything about her unless it inconvenienced him—like her night sweats. He never even realized that she had left to spend most of a day with Drillbot, and he never invited her to accompany him when he ran off to cause mischief. Everything was always all about him. And she realized with sudden clarity that she could not be with someone who would never change or grow.
Alex glanced up from his briefing and scowled at Art. “Stop that,” he ordered.
“Send! Me! Home!” Art replied.
Ginny noted to herself that Art did not demand for Alex to send “us” home. She frowned. He apparently did not even care if she and Drillbot and his older-self were left behind, so long as he got what he wanted.
Alex frowned. “Believe me, I would love to be rid of you. If it were up to me, I’d toss you from this ship at once, Space-Time-Multinuum be damned. But luckily for everyone in existence, I’m not the Captain of this ship, so it’s not my decision to make.”
Art shrugged. He said, “Then what do we need to do to make you the Captain? Do we need to revolt?”
Bagoo jerked higher into the air from where he had been hovering above his chair. He pointed at Art and
bellowed, “Are you declaring mutiny, whelp? Are you foolish enough to ignore my warnings?”
Art sighed. Then he held up his hands in deference. He replied, “No, no, nothing like that. Didn’t mean to imply mutiny. Just a homesick guy brainstorming how he can get home again.”
Alex waved for Bagoo return to his seat. Alex said, “Calm down, Bagoo. As much as I would like to see you mutilate our guest, we need him whole and intact.”
Bagoo floated back down to his original position, mere centimeters above the seat of the chair marked for the ship’s Chief Security Officer. Alex stared at Art in silence. Art stared back into Alex’s steely eyes for a few seconds, and then broke the gaze to stare down at his own feet.
Alex said, “I will finish this time-wasting re-brief with no more interruptions. You will remain silent and you will stop being so annoying to everyone around you. And you will remove yourself from the Captain’s chair. Now.”
Art slowly nodded and then stood from the chair. Four Purple Shirts immediately pushed forward from the back of the crowd with spray bottles of what Ginny assumed was disinfectant, along with towels that they used to wipe clean the Captain’s chair and the surrounding floor and any unfortunate spatter that had sprayed upon surrounding peoples’ shoes or pants. Ginny smirked. All that remained of Art’s disgusting outburst were the wet pants that seemed to cling uncomfortably to his own legs. The four Purple Shirts had not bothered to clean Art.
Alex turned back to the floating image of Earth 8,669 and continued the briefing. As soon as all eyes were returned to the briefing, Ginny saw Art pull something from his pocket and crouch down on one knee. She saw that it was a tangle of thick strings. She frowned.
And Now, Time Travel Page 12