The elevator jerked to a halt on the eighty-eighth floor. The door opened. Agent 27142 and God-Art stepped off the car. The elevator bank stood in the exact center of this floor. The room was a gigantic circle that spread out in a radius that must have been at least a half-mile wide with a ceiling that must have been a good eighty-feet high.
This was one of the B.T.T.’s many docking floors. Ships of all shapes and sizes filled the expanse of the room. The outside walls were all open to allow ships to land here, where they would dock and unload cargo, reload cargo for trade, and fly away again into the vast expanses of the Space-Time-Multinuum. There was constant movement, and it would be easy to get lost in here or to creep about without being noticed.
Luckily for Agent 27142 and God-Art, the latter was just what they were looking to do. They crept from the elevator and turned right. They followed a narrow path between a small fleet of ships shaped like the numeral four. Then they ducked left between a long, skinny ship in the shape of a snake and a wide ship that looked like a silver pancake.
They continued winding and creeping for a good twenty minutes until they finally approached the ship for which they had been searching: a twenty-by-thirty transport ship shaped like a numeral eight. The ship was painted neon green, and orange letters on its side spelled Mama’s Gangrene. Agent 27142 tapped a button on a black pedestal rising from the floor near the ship. A hiss sounded from the side of the ship, and then a door opened in its side and a ramp descended to the ground.
Agent 27142 and God-Art ascended the ramp. They passed through a short corridor that opened onto a small cantina. Off to one side of the cantina lay an ordering counter with pictures of all kinds of fried foods. Spaced evenly across the bulk of the room were tables with benches attached to them. The lights were off, and the room seemed cold. Embedded along the walls were rows of rifles and pistols hung inside locked cases.
God-Art walked over to a case. His finger transformed into the shape of a key, and he jammed this key-finger into the lock where a key would go and wiggled it. The lock disengaged, and God-Art opened the case. He plucked a rifle from its home and examined it. Then he noticed something embedded in the wall.
“Hmmm,” he muttered. He tossed the rifle aside, and then he performed the same finger-key trick with a safe that lay in the wall.
God-Art retrieved a palm-sized object from the safe. It was a silver device in the shape of an eight. God-Art said, “And what do you do, little thing?”
The readout on Agent 27142’s goggles appeared: Unidentified device. Molecular residue surrounding it indicates that it can somehow affect time. Recommend staying a safe distance away, a full two realities over if possible.
Agent 27142 ignored the useless readout, since it did not have the functionality to adjust to his classified-level access in order to identify the object. His mind shifted back to the classified documents through which he had scoured when he had first achieved high enough classified access within the B.I.T. to learn of the B.T.T.’s existence.
As though he were reading from a teleprompter, Agent 27142 said aloud to God-Art the text he had memorized from the classified tomes, “That device is a Timeflow Gun, not to be confused with a Time-Phaser, which is a standard-issue B.T.T. device that freezes time or devolves or evolves opponents. The Timeflow Gun is much more powerful. It allows agents to reverse or fast-forward time in a given area—target range as large as an entire reality or as small as an appendage on a person. In addition, there are toggles that allow the user to send an object to a particular location across realities and backward or forward in time. However, the Timeflow Gun was discontinued, and the remaining few in service are issued only to the highest-ranking medical officers for use in healing the Space-Time-Multinuum’s most important individuals. This is because the device operates by borrowing time from the endpoint of the Space-Time-Multinuum, and the B.T.T. discovered that this catastrophic endpoint was moving earlier with each use of these devices.”
Agent 27142 walked closer to the device and studied it more closely with his goggles. The goggles returned no serial number. Agent 27142 continued, “Judging by the fact that this one was tucked inside a safe inside a locked cage, coupled with the fact that it has no discernible serial number, I’d guess it came into this ship’s possession illegally.”
God-Art shrugged. “Or this is a medical vessel.”
Agent 27142 replied, “Sure, that’s possible. But it’s unlikely given the gigantic cargo hold indicative of a transport ship and the lack of obvious medical equipment. Oh, and also the fact that this was labeled as a transport ship in the B.T.T.’s databanks. But I guess there remains a microscopic chance that this ship is a medical vessel.”
“Anything is equally possible when you’re with me.”
Agent 27142 sighed and then cleared his throat. He pointed toward a ladder at the rear of the room. “Sure. Whatever you say. Let’s move. We’re in a bit of a hurry,” he said.
God-Art nodded, and the pair stalked up the ladder. They found that it exited onto the bridge. Agent 27142 sat in the pilot’s chair. His fingers flew across the instruments and the ship’s engines roared to life. He pressed a button to shut the entrance on the side of the ship and raise the ramp. Once that was done, he grabbed the controls and jerked back on them. The ship lifted from the ground.
Agent 27142 steered it toward the exit. A voice crackled over the radio, “Mama’s Gangrene, you are not yet scheduled to depart. Your hold has not yet been fully restocked for your next missi-”
Agent 27142 jerked the radio knob until it squelched off. He jammed the accelerator and the ship lurched forward, launching out into the bright purple sky.
Agent 27142 began toggling devices on the dashboard. After testing a few of them, he found the one for which he was looking. As he twisted this one to the left, the readout atop the dash indicated he was changing their destination to the past. Before Agent 27142 could engage the button to initiate the jump, God-Art grabbed his wrist.
“Wait,” said God-Art. He was still holding the small eight-shaped object and staring at it. “We need to make a quick stop first.”
“But if we don’t leave now, we may not have the luxury of doing so later.”
God-Art smirked and gestured toward his surroundings with the back of his hand. He said, “Oh, please. The B.T.T. is a joke. They were never able to stop me in the past, and there’s no way they’ll be starting now.”
God-Art pointed toward a spot on the ground far below and said, “Set the ship down there. We will be quick. It will be worth it, I promise.”
“You know that’s where we appeared on this reality, right? Why would we want to go back there? It’s going to be swarming with B.T.T. agents at any moment, if it’s not already.”
God-Art sighed. He said, “Trust me. I’ve got a plan.”
Agent 27142 shrugged and turned the ship toward the cursed valley that had played such an instrumental role in shaping the last decade of his life. He frowned, feeling like his life had become a series of concentric circles surrounding this damned clearing.
Chapter 14
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE CONSPIRACY OF THE GODS
It felt like the magnet that was holding Drillbot’s B.T.T. license to his chest had expanded all over his body. A tingling sensation burned through his torso and limbs and gears and rotors.
And as quickly as it began, the feeling ceased. Drillbot found himself standing in a forest, when before he had been standing in the Jump Chamber aboard the B.T.S. Unicorn Husker with the other members of this mission’s Landing Crew. Trees towered over him with trunks so wide that it would take him at least a couple seconds to drill through them. A light breeze blew through the forest, causing flowers of orange and yellow and blue and magenta to dance amongst the surrounding foliage. Birds twittered overhead, and bees buzzed from flower to flower. A light layer of grass and dark mulch covered the ground. Drillbot zoomed in his telescopic eyes and watched an ant fight against the odds, pulling to some unseen
lair the carcass of a dead insect probably twenty-times its size.
Drillbot allowed the serenity of nature to wash over him. The breeze frolicked across his metallic hide. The birdsongs delighted his processors. The subtle vibrations of the buzzing bees pollinated the hope that lay nearly dead beneath the closed petals of his steel heart. And then one of the Purple Shirts sneezed and ruined the moment. Drillbot jerked his head around to glare at the young man. But the young man apparently could not read Drillbot’s annoyed expression, because he waved at the robot rather than wetting himself in fright.
Drillbot sighed. The logical part of him knew that the peaceful moments never lasted long, anyway. Thus, he could not begrudge the young Purple Shirt for ruining it so abruptly, especially since the youth seemed ignorant of the frustration he had caused. So Drillbot waved back at the kid, and then turned to face First Officer Alex.
“Alright,” said Alex, “we’ve got about a ten-kilometer hike ahead of us, and we’ve no time to waste. Stay on the trail and ignore any native fauna you may see lurking as we pass. As you all know from reading your briefing dossiers,” he said in a tone that belied little faith in the statement as he stared at Normal-Art, “there are dangerous creatures stalking this wilderness, and we will not be slowing down our cosmically important mission to rescue anyone.”
“Yes, sir!” called all the Purple Shirts together. Drillbot noted that Normal-Art instead called out, “Except me!” Drillbot shook his head. The crew should never have let his former master know how important he was to the success of this mission. It was just enough leverage to make the man dangerously careless.
Drillbot shrugged and occupied the defensive position at the rear of the Landing Crew. Alex led the group along a worn trail that promised to climb over a high ridge and then snake back down into a valley that jutted up against the sea, ending at their destination: the thriving port city of Herceg Novi.
“Why’d we have to land so far away from the convention?” asked Normal-Art. Drillbot noted an odd but subtle squeal underlying Normal-Art’s speech. This squeal was also present when Normal-Art asked his annoying questions in the cargo hold. Drillbot stared at his former master and frowned his version of a frown, wondering if this change in speech pattern signaled another incoming round of annoying mischief.
Drillbot heard the Purple Shirts around his former master groan. One of them said, “If you had read your dossier, you’d know that we landed way out here to prevent as many of the convention-attending-gods as possible from detecting the teleportation residue from the Husker.”
“That’s dumb,” replied Normal-Art, the subtle squeal still there. “I guarantee that at least one of them already knows of our presence. We’re all doomed, I’d wager nearly anything on it.”
The Purple Shirt did not reply. That meant Normal-Art had no quip with which to respond in turn, which meant that the rest of the group could walk in relative peace.
The group of two-dozen Purple Shirts, Alex, Ginny, 29333, Bagoo, Normal-Art, and Older-Art walked in silence, everyone using the staffs from their costumes to support their weight as they began the ascent high up onto the rocky ridge—well, everyone but Drillbot, for he had been given no staff because he had no hands with which to carry one. The trail transitioned slowly from grassy mulch to barky brown soil to dusty rock as it began winding back and forth up a seemingly endless series of switchbacks. Before the group completed two of the switchbacks, Normal-Art collapsed. He lay on his side, panting.
“I – huff – have – huff – to – huff – take – huff – a – huff – break,” moaned Normal-Art, his voice normal once again. Drillbot would have frowned at this development, but Normal-Art’s panting huffs caused Drillbot to worry that his former master might be about to have a heart attack.
Drillbot sent word up to Alex that the group needed to stop and take a break. Alex marched back down the line and stood over the prone Normal-Art. He nudged Normal-Art in the ribs with his foot and said, “Get up. We don’t have time to waste.”
Normal-Art shrugged and said between huffs, “Can’t.”
Alex frowned. He pointed at four of the Purple Shirts and said, “You four will take turns ferrying him on your backs.”
The Purple Shirts waited to groan until Alex had returned to the front of the line and was well out of earshot. Then the biggest of them gripped Normal-Art by the armpits and roughly hauled the lout up off the ground. The Purple Shirt then hefted Normal-Art over his shoulders into a fireman’s carry and trudged forward.
The group eventually reached the top of the switchbacks and emerged onto a rocky outcrop that overlooked a bay far below. Drillbot’s sensors indicated that he was over four thousand feet in the air.
At the confluence of the bay and a wide river lay a sprawling city, overgrown with houses and parks and towering buildings. The roof of each building was capped with dusty brown ceramic tiles, and the façade of each building was painted white.
In the center of the city rose the biggest building Drillbot had ever seen, despite him spending a decade hopping from reality to reality fighting in an infinite war. The building’s shape represented an arena, but it stretched so high into the air that Drillbot could not see the top even when he telescoped his eyes as far as they would go. Its outside seemed to consist of different styles of temples and amphitheaters and theaters and sporting complexes stacked one upon another. The exterior of the bottom layer was covered in an array of Doric columns, Corinthian columns, and sculptures of gargoyles and mythic beasts. This bottom layer was painted white to match the façades of the surrounding buildings in Herceg Novi. The next layer was stark black marble, the next green tile, the next purple velvet. The changes corresponded with the different building styles that were stacked one atop another, creating a jumble of colors and cultures that stretched up into the sky until they disappeared out of sight.
Somebody let out a stunned whistle. Drillbot realized it was Older-Art. Alex furrowed his brows at the man, and Older-Art replied, “I didn’t pay enough attention to appreciate its scale the first time I saw it.”
“What is it?” asked Normal-Art, the underlying squeal returning to his voice, this time a little stronger.
Drillbot glanced over at Normal-Art. The Purple Shirts assigned to ferrying him had set Normal-Art on the ground as they gazed up at the infinite building. They let out a collective awed breath at the sheer scale of it. Normal-Art, however, merely shrugged after looking up at the building for a couple seconds.
Alex sighed. Then he screamed, “It! Was! In! The! Briefing! Dossier! That! I! Gave! You!”
Normal-Art screamed back, “I! Obviously! Didn’t! Read! The! Stupid! Files! You! Gave! Me!”
Alex grunted. He rubbed at his temples. He muttered, “It’s an Infinity Vortex. It has retrieved the courts and arenas and gathering places from the nigh-infinite pantheons within the Multiverse who accepted their invitations to the convention. It stretches unto infinity now, but it will split apart after the convention ends and each will return to its proper earth. It’s where the Conspiracy of the Gods will be set into motion.
Alex continued, “We must hurry. If the vortex has been summoned, then the cocktail hour has begun, and the convention will soon be underway. The B.I.T. will respond to this threat in about ninety-six hours, and as we know from the history of the Space-Time-Multinuum, that will be too late.”
Drillbot watched Normal-Art. The human stared down at the ground, and his eyes went wide when he noticed a cute, neon green bunny on the ground, its ears flopped to the side and its eyes gigantic and wide. The little mammal nuzzled up against Normal-Art’s leg.
Drillbot let out a tiny gasp when he realized what was about to happen.
“Well, look at you,” whispered Normal-Art. “Aren’t you just the cutest thing?”
“[whir] Don’t!” called Drillbot, but he was too late.
Normal-Art bent down to pet the bunny. As soon as he touched it, the bunny melted and contorted and wrapped around Normal-Ar
t’s arm. It formed into a neon green tentacle and lifted Art high into the air.
The tentacle’s owner revealed itself. Its top half was a ferocious brown grizzly bear nearly twenty feet in height. Instead of legs, eight octopus tentacles stretched from the bottom of its torso, each a different color and each with the image of a different cute animal occupying its end.
Drillbot’s internal processors fired, and his mind brought to bear the information about native flora and fauna from the briefing dossier: This creature is known as a bearopus—this one specifically belonging to the grizzly variety. Its diet consists of fish, fruit, children, and travelers. Numbers of wild bearopi have dwindled to near extinction in recent years, but the native scientists have bred them in captivity and begun releasing them into the wilderness outside Herceg Novi. Their numbers are now steadily increasing. The bearopi are fiercely territorial and are known to wander into the city in search of food when it is scarce in their native habitat, making meals of entire elementary schools before emergency crews can respond and return any trespassing creatures to the wilderness. Because they are endangered, it is currently illegal to kill the animals.
Drillbot willed himself to stop scanning the file from his memory banks. He brought his mind back to the present.
“I told you not to interact with the native fauna!” Alex screamed at Normal-Art.
Drillbot launched into action, gunning his engines and roaring headlong toward the maw of the beast, which was mere inches from tearing into Normal-Art’s flesh. The purple wig atop Drillbot’s head fluttered in the wind like a battle standard.
As Drillbot reared his drills back to drive them into the beast’s flesh, a conical bolt of orange light flashed past his head. The bolt slammed into the bearopus’s torso. The beast flailed and screamed. It dropped Normal-Art, and then it melted into a pile of brown and yellow goop.
Drillbot screeched to a halt. He shrugged and glanced over his shoulder. Alex stood holding a metal cylinder from which stretched a bow formed from solid light.
And Now, Time Travel Page 16