A few hours ago, Art had snuck away from his room to find the Inventory Officer while Ginny was sleeping and embroiled in another nightmare on his bed. He had managed to finagle a large box of shoelaces from her. Ginny did not know how he had convinced the officer to hand them over, because as always, Ginny had not been invited to join him. She sighed. He could be damned charming when he wanted to be. She sighed again. She had hoped that he would want to be damned charming toward her now that they were back together after so long apart, but such notions obviously did not matter to him. She sighed a third time as she watched Art begin his next round of mischief.
While the agents were distracted with Alex’s briefing, Art moved slowly and silently around the room, tying the shoelaces around the ankles of the surrounding agents, which he did instead of tying their own shoelaces together because a B.T.T. uniform’s shoes form fit to an agent’s feet rather than have laces. For each lace he wrapped around some poor, unsuspecting Purple Shirt’s ankle, Ginny grew more frustrated and more disgusted with him.
She wondered why she ever thought the two of them made a good couple. She could recall no romantic dates or passionate trysts. Dread filled the pit of her stomach when she remembered how easily the Pink One had manipulated her frustration with him to turn her into a hateful puppet. She shuddered. If the Pink One ever got ahold of her again, the bear could probably twist the exact same knife as before to cause Ginny to do her bidding.
“I can’t believe I was ever so stupid,” whispered a voice in Ginny’s ear.
She turned to see Older-Art leaning over her and smirking. Ginny whispered back, “Maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see at the time, but when we were reunited after so long apart, I thought that he—well, you, I guess—had changed. That the events of the last couple decades had made him realize how much I matter to him, especially since our fates seem so intertwined.”
Tears trailed unbidden down Ginny’s face. She felt her cheeks flushing red. She did not want to feel this weak.
Older-Art reached out his hands to cup her cheeks. He whispered, “He is a fool. But I am not. I am a far different person than my younger-self, and I understand how important you are to me—to us. It’s pretty clear that the Multiverse has destined us to be together, Gin. But maybe the me of your time period just isn’t ready for us and isn’t yet mature enough to put his own needs aside to be there for you. But if you give current-me a chance, I will not take you for granted as that fool has done.”
Ginny leaned against him. She felt the softness of his midsection give against her weight. Something about it was comforting, like lying down on an old, overstuffed couch at the end of the day. He kissed her forehead. The phantom pink tendrils of doubt and hatred began to form in her heart, but when he kissed her forehead again, they retreated into the black depths from which they had appeared.
Ginny closed her eyes and enjoyed the weight of Older-Art’s enveloping arms. It felt right, like maybe Older-Art’s maturation was the missing ingredient in making their relationship work. The Multiverse obviously wanted Art and Ginny together, for they were both the centerpiece and the cause of the war that ravaged across the Multiverse for over a decade. Ginny smiled.
After a few moments, she realized silence had claimed the room. She opened her eyes and looked toward Alex, who stood with his arms crossed over chest. He was staring at Normal-Art, who was standing once more and staring back at Alex, trying his hardest not to smirk at his own mischief.
Alex said, “And that about covers it. Any questions?”
Once again, Normal-Art said, “Wait, what’s happening? I wasn’t listening. You’ll need to explain everything again. Or you could just send me home.”
All the Purple Shirts in the room groaned, threw up their hands in exasperation, and immediately tripped. After falling onto the ground, they all began cursing at the shoelaces tied around their ankles. It felt to Ginny like she, Alex, Drillbot, and the Arts were all standing in an ankle-deep, writhing, angry, purple flood.
Alex stalked over to Normal-Art. He brought his face inches away from Normal-Art’s and spat, “You agreed not to interrupt me. You agreed to stop annoying those around you.”
Normal-Art tried to back away. He tripped over a prone Purple Shirt. Ginny began reaching out a hand to prevent him from falling, but then thought better of it and let him fall. Normal-Art looked up at Alex from the ground and responded, “A-A-And I held up my end of the bargain. I didn’t interrupt you. I also agreed to stop being so annoying, not that I would stop being annoying altogether. I think we can all agree that a shoelace prank is much less annoying than pissing in a chair and then spraying it on people.”
Alex bent over Normal-Art and shoved a finger against Normal-Art’s chest. Normal-Art winced. Alex said, “But once again, you didn’t listen to my briefing.”
Normal-Art smirked. He replied, “That wasn’t part of the deal. You never told me that I needed to listen. All you said was that I needed to stay silent so that you could finish the re-briefing, that I needed to be less annoying, and that I needed to get out of the Captain’s chair. I did all three of the things you demanded.”
Bagoo jerked high into the air and pointed at Normal-Art. “Sir, if you will simply allow me to contact the B.T.T. Governing Council and explain our situation, I am sure that I can convince them to let me to mutilate this cretin!”
Alex scowled. “You know them as well as I do. You know they will not change their stance once it has been decreed.”
Alex shoved a thick file folder against Normal-Art’s midsection. Art winced, and then he grabbed the folder. “Fine,” said Alex. “I will repeat the briefing one more time. You will listen, you will annoy nobody, and you will not interrupt. If you do not comply, I will allow Bagoo to mutilate you until all vestiges of your personality have been wiped from your brain, the B.T.T. Governing Council be damned.”
Normal-Art remained silent for a moment. Then he nodded his assent.
Alex repeated his briefing. This time, when he finished and asked if everyone understood, everyone nodded their assent—including Normal-Art. Alex dismissed them to leave, instructing everyone to read and study the file folders they had received before they departed on the mission, because it included more detailed information about the upcoming mission and the timestream to which they would be traveling.
Ginny turned toward the door. She watched the Purple Shirts file out—their ankles now untied. Drillbot followed them out the door, and as she stepped forward to follow the robot, Older-Art gave her shoulder a squeeze. He said, “You know where to find me,” and then he walked away.
Ginny meandered through the exit. Normal-Art shuffled up to her side and said, “I think I finally got through to them. I think they’re finally beginning to understand how annoying I can be if they don’t send me home.”
Ginny looked over at him and scowled. But he did not even notice. He continued rambling about how great his mischief was playing out. She ignored him and walked silently beside him, a weird juxtaposition of numbness and excitement in the pit of her stomach.
When they reached Normal-Art’s room, Art sprawled onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. He began reciting ideas he had for more mischief. She said nothing to him, instead gathering her meager belongings before walking out his door.
Art did not call after her. He did not even seem to notice that she was leaving. She turned to her right and trotted up the corridor. She shrugged, the numbness in her gut fading and giving way completely to the fluttering tingles of excitement. She reached cabin fifty-six and knocked.
The door zoomed up to reveal Older-Art, who stood in a frilly robe with his arms crossed over his soft chest. He said, “Hey. This is the time you come to my door and I should be excited, right?”
She nodded. She removed her shoes, placed them in the disinfectant unit outside his room, and then darted inside. She shut off the lights.
After noting with a frown that age apparently did not in fact guarantee longer du
ration, she rolled away from Older-Art’s sweaty body and promptly fell asleep.
When she awoke naked and covered in sweat and terrified and panting and screaming about the Pink One, she was once more not alone. The panic began to recede.
Older-Art rolled over to her, stroked her cheek gently until she calmed down, and said, “I think you wet the bed.”
Chapter 12
FINALLY! THE COUCH!
“Hotfoot, flush their shoes down the toilet, replace their coffee with decaf, spit in their coffee, complete the crossword puzzles in their magazines, get Ginny to show up on the bridge dressed like 29333 and have them argue over who’s the real 29333, rub butter all over the floor just outside the bridge so the officers slip when they exit, get ahold of itching powder somehow and put it in the officers’ underpants, draw little Hitler mustaches on the computer screens on the bridge so that when the officers bend over them to turn them on, they see the mustaches on their faces in their reflections and think they’re transforming into Hitler,” said Normal-Art as he lay in bed. He felt a lot like the guy from that one movie who listed all the ways to cook shrimp, except he was listing ways to cause mischief that would annoy the crew of the B.T.S. Unicorn Husker until they sent him home.
He heard Ginny slink out of his cabin, but he was on such a roll brainstorming his next pieces of mischief that he refused to break his concentration to attempt stopping her. She would be back. She was likely just going for a walk to clear her head. She did that a lot, especially when he got in one of his “listing” moods.
Normal-Art continued listing his mischievous ideas for hours upon hours, starting over when he ran out of ideas. Finally, he dozed off, only to wake up a few hours later and begin listing again. As he did so, he stared at the ceiling, which he often did to take his mind off the spartan décor of his quarters because they reminded him of his decade of confinement aboard the B.I.T. ship, the B.S.S.C. Mimessiah. And now that he was trying not to notice the similarities between his B.T.T. quarters and his cell on the B.S.S.C. Mimessiah, he could not avoid them. The uncomfortable cot, the tiny bathroom, the drab colors. He began feeling claustrophobic. He stood.
He glanced around the room and found a piece of paper and a pencil on the bedside table. He started to write a note to Ginny telling her to where he was going just in case she returned while he was gone, but now that he had started to write, the effort seemed too great. He dropped the pencil. She would figure it out. Probably.
Normal-Art pressed a button next to his door, and the door slid up into the ceiling, freeing him. He walked into the hallway and ventured toward the elevator bank.
Embedded in the walls outside every cabin door was a shelving unit. The door to each was clear, allowing for visibility inside. These shelving units were where every crew member was to place their shoes before entering their personal quarters. Once the door to the shelving units closed, disinfectant and sweet-smelling aromas enveloped the shoes.8
To Normal-Art, the best part about the shelving units was that there were no locks on them. Apparently, the B.T.T. believed everyone in their service to have no use for mischief or personal gain, presumably because their duty was based on altruistic service to the greater good. As Normal-Art continued down the hall, he grinned at the ease with which this altruism allowed him to prank the officers. He noted Ginny’s familiar pair of shoes lying haphazardly atop Older-Art’s inside the shelving unit for cabin fifty-six. He shrugged and kept walking.
Normal-Art reached the elevator bank, waited in line, and then pressed the button for floor three. The elevator zoomed down, and when it came to a halt, Normal-Art trotted into the hallway. This floor held the officers’ quarters. He consulted the computer embedded in the wall to remind him which cabins belonged to which officers. Then he walked to the cabin marked with a two, which was First Officer Alex’s cabin. He cursed when no shoes sat in the clear shelving unit embedded in the wall outside the cabin. Alex must still be on duty.
Normal-Art continued down the hall until he found a cabin with shoes inside the unit. He looked at the number outside the cabin and noted it was 29333’s quarters. His heart leapt with excitement. This woman had tortured him for years. The small inconvenience he was about to unleash upon her feet was the least he could do to pay her back. He removed her shoes from the unit, set them on the ground, and promptly began urinating on them.
Her door zoomed up into the ceiling as he was midstream. “What the hell?” she squealed.
Normal-Art glanced over at her, grinned, and waved with one hand. “Hello,” he said. “Nothing much to see here. Just a guy pissing on your shoes. Think of this as one of many installments in my payback plan for the years of pain you put me through.”
“Stop!”
Normal-Art shrugged. “Can’t. I’ve already started going, and it hurts to stop.”
29333 stalked out of her room and punched Normal-Art in the kidney. He screamed in pain.
“Did that hurt worse than stopping?” she asked.
“Yes!” he shrieked.
“Well, you have less than a second to stop urinating before I give you another.”
Normal-Art frowned. He halted his stream and grimaced with discomfort. He stared down at her shoes. They glistened in the light of the hallway.
“Now pick them up and put them back in the disinfector,” 29333 ordered.
Normal-Art grabbed the shoes from the ground, opened the door of the clear locker, and tossed them inside. When he shut the door, hissing sounds began emanating from the locker as the disinfector went to work.
Normal-Art wiped his hand dry on his shirt and then glanced over at 29333. She looked just like Ginny if a tiger had somehow climbed inside her skin and taken over the controls. Her eyes gleamed with predatory coolness. She smirked, and Normal-Art could not shake the feeling that he was merely prey, and she was toying with him.
“OK, look, I’m just gonna go now, and we can forget this ever happened,” said Normal-Art, backing slowly away and holding up his hands in deference.
She shrugged. “I didn’t give you permission to leave.”
Normal-Art stared down at his feet. “Ummm, OK,” he said. “May I have permission to leave?”
29333 ignored his request and asked, “Why were you vandalizing my property? And why have you been a constant source of annoyance to those around you?”
Normal-Art frowned. “Wait, what do you mean? I’ve been clear about my reasons for being annoying since the moment I was kidnapped and brought aboard this stupid ship.”
“Well, obviously you haven’t been clear enough,” 29333 replied. “All I see is a guy tromping around this ship causing random acts of mischief. If Bagoo and Alex would only give me permission, I would have you sorted in but a few seconds.”
Normal-Art’s frown deepened. He nearly sobbed as he said, “I-I-I’ve been doing this so you all would get so annoyed with me, you’d s-s-send me home.”
“Maybe you should have articulated that more clearly.”
Normal-Art muttered, “B-But I protested. I-I-I made a sign and everything. And I constantly talk about not wanting to be here and how you all should send me home.”
29333 shrugged. “OK.”
Normal-Art’s shoulders sagged. He slumped down onto the ground. He realized too late that he had sat in the warm pool that he had created on the floor. He sighed, thinking of all the urine he had wasted on the officers’ shoes over the previous days and all the other brilliant pieces of mischief he had committed in vain, because the purpose behind them had not been understood. Then he said, “I just want to go home. I haven’t sat on my couch in over twenty years. I never wanted to get wrapped up in this mess. And all I’ve known is torture and pain for what seems like forever.”
29333 frowned. She sighed, and the predatory look faded from her face. She said, “It wasn’t my choice to torture you, you know. Those were my orders. Granted, you were—and still are—the most annoying person I’ve ever met, so I probably enjoyed it more than I
would have if you were just some regular fool off the street. But I had nothing against you. You broke the law, so I was ensuring justice got served.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Normal-Art grunted.
29333 sighed once more. She stepped toward Normal-Art, and he flinched. She grabbed his arm and attempted to pull him to his feet, but he slid onto his back and used his bodyweight to resist her. He looked like a frumpy turtle stuck on its back.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “Get up. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Y-You promise?” he asked.
She let go of him. “You may think as many ill thoughts about me as you like, but when have you ever known me to lie to you?”
Normal-Art pondered for a moment the ten years he had spent with her. He could not recall a single instance of her being dishonest. She may not have always answered his questions to his satisfaction, but he could not say that she had lied to him. So, he used the wall to steady himself, and he stood. He said, “I’m up. Now what?”
29333 pulled on Normal-Art’s arm and led him toward the elevator bank. Normal-Art noted that she stalked away from her room without putting her shoes on. “Where are we going?” Normal-Art asked.
“To the one place on the ship that might make you happy. Maybe if you’d have seen this earlier, my shoes would be dry right now.”
*
Normal-Art followed 29333 off the elevator when it opened onto the thirteenth floor. He followed her without speaking as they wound down a wide corridor and then turned down a low-ceilinged side hallway, which featured near its entrance an oblong dent in its ceiling and multiple scrapes in the paint on its walls. They followed this side hallway to its end and emerged where multiple hallways intersected. Directly in front of them stood a closed black door with green letters above it that spelled Holo-Scouting Deck.
And Now, Time Travel Page 13