And Now, Time Travel

by Christopher Brimmage

  Alex nodded and said, “Drillbot, I appreciate your courage, but I did order everyone—including yourself—not to interact with the fauna. This beast in particular, which you were about to unceremoniously tear apart, is destined to lead the bearopi of this forest in revolt against the peoples of Herceg Novi, who have mistreated these beasts for years and don’t realize that these beasts have become sentient. As a matter of fact, at this bearopus’s orders, one of the species has managed to get a tentacle with a human-shaped image on its end elected to government office, and then managed to pass legislation to protect the bearopi, which has given them enough freedom to breed higher numbers unmolested so that they might eventually fight back. This revolt will cause a helpful distraction for the B.T.T. later in this timestream. So, please follow my orders in the future, because they do have a strategic purpose.”

  Drillbot frowned his version of a frown. “[whir] If this bearopus was – CLACK – was so important, then why did you just – CLACK – just kill it? Is the end result not the same as Drillbot killing it? Is the manner of its – CLACK – of its death important?”

  Alex tsked. “Oh, Drillbot. I thought you of all people here would put the pieces together. I didn’t kill it. I used my weapon to devolve it. I set my weapon so it will return to normal—albeit a little confused—in a half-hour.”

  Drillbot nodded. “[whir] Drillbot understands. We should – CLACK – we should move, then. Before it returns to its original – CLACK – its original form.”

  Alex nodded. “Right you are.” He pointed to the Purple Shirts who had been carrying Normal-Art. “Pick that bastard back up, and if one of you drops him or lets him do something foolish again, then so help me gods, I will execute you myself.”

  The Purple Shirts scrambled to obey. Drillbot took another awed look at the mammoth building that grew from the center of Herceg Novi like it was a redwood tree amongst a field of tiny wildflowers. Then he rolled forward to continue the mission.

  *

  As Drillbot rolled across Herceg Novi’s uneven cobblestone streets, his vision bobbled and bounced. If Drillbot were capable of motion sickness, he would likely be feeling it right about now.

  The streets were packed with citizens bustling about to work and to play, and Drillbot often had to dodge to prevent his wheel-blades from slicing their legs from their bodies. The group passed all manner of shops as they hurried toward the middle of the city where the Infinity Vortex grew. Each pavilion they passed contained hundreds of people crying out their wares and bombarding the group with cheap trinket after cheap trinket. Drillbot noticed a shop selling shoddy, plastic dinosaur toys. They reminded him of Ginny Rex, and he shuddered with sadness.

  As they neared the center of the city and reached the marble stairs leading up to the entrance of the Infinity Vortex, they passed a cart selling little clay sculptures of a familiar figure with fiery hair.

  “Wait! I have to get me one of these!”

  Everyone groaned and turned to look at Normal-Art. He was leaning over from his perch on the shoulders of one of the burlier Purple Shirts and grabbing one of the figurines from the stand.

  Everyone’s groans turned to gasps. Normal-Art held the figurine up near his face. Nobody had noticed on the remainder of the hike here because everyone was doing their best to ignore Normal-Art and his increasingly annoying behavior, but a second neck and a second head had sprouted from his right shoulder. The second head looked just like Normal-Art’s own, except its eyes were black, its skin was pale blue, and flames rose into the air from its scalp.

  Normal-Art seemed confused. He asked, “What? Why’s everyone staring at me?”

  29333 pointed to the second head on Normal-Art’s shoulder. She said, “Look to your right.”

  Normal-Art slowly turned his head to the right, and immediately screamed.

  “There’s no reason for that,” said God-Art’s head. People on the street turned to stare, but since they had all recently experienced an infinitely tall building sprouting up from the ground, this development seemed relatively minor. Thus, they all continued about their business.

  Normal-Art screamed again. God-Art shook his head. “You should stop screaming,” said the god.

  Normal-Art stopped screaming just long enough to gasp, “What the hell? Where did you come from?”

  “Well, my father was a god of wisdom and battle. One day, as he was strolling to the market, he noticed a fissure in the southern hemisphere of the planet. Even though he was a god of wisdom, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t extremely stupid. But to be completely fair to him, this was a long time ago, back before anyone was really all that smart. Anyway, my father went wild on that crack—if you know what I mean—and nine years later, I popped out of it.”

  Normal-Art groaned. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  “Oh, you must have meant you wanted to know where I came from before I appeared on your shoulder,” said God-Art. “Well, you should have been more specific. The answer to that is simple. Some of my molecules hitched a ride on you when you meandered through them in that contraption on the B.T.T. ship that retrieves a three-dimensional moment in time. Just enough of them attached to you for me to resurrect myself here and now. After all we’ve been through, you really should have known to stay away from that place if you didn’t want me showing up. Also, the B.T.T. should consider simple hologram technology rather than physically displacing a moment in time and bringing it aboard a ship. It would prevent surprising developments like this.

  “Anyway, I reformed inside your skull, and then burst forth from a pore in your shoulder,” the god continued. “It’s funny. Everyone thinks you didn’t listen the last time that the buffoonish blond briefed you because you’re normally such an annoying buffoon yourself. But you actually did listen to him! But I didn’t because I wasn’t yet attached to you, so I pulled some levers in your brain and made you pretend you didn’t know anything. And then I kept doing it the whole way here because it was fun.”

  “I knew it!” yelled Normal-Art. “I knew something was wrong. I kept asking about the briefing without being able to control it. I thought at first maybe I was just addicted to annoying everyone around me, but it kept happening, and I couldn’t stop it. At least now I know that it was just some stupid god controlling my body, and not me going crazy!”

  Everybody in the group who had hands slapped themselves on their foreheads in dismay. Alex moaned, “This isn’t an improvement to the situation, you dolt! If that god-version of you is here, then it means our mission is foiled before it even truly begins.”

  God-Art grinned. He pursed his lips and whistled. Atoms whirled and swirled, and a miniature gray tornado formed on the ground. It rose about eight feet into the air and then disappeared. In its place stood God-Art’s body, only it was headless. The body’s arms reached out, grabbed the god-head growing from Normal-Art’s shoulder, and ripped it off. Blood sprayed from the base of the head in all directions. As it rained down onto the cobblestones, it transformed into tiny pixies. The pixies darted one by one over to kiss God-Art’s cheek before fluttering away.

  The body slammed the head in place atop its neck, and God-Art stood re-formed before the group, wearing his usual outfit—his cloak made from the stitched-together hides of baby seals and white wolves, his necklace of severed ears dangling down to his belly button, and his belt made from rope on which hung his pouch, his serrated dagger with the hilt formed from a green tiger’s paw, and his obsidian tools. The god’s grin widened.

  “Oh, Alexandros ho Megas, you have no reason for such harsh words,” said the god, placing both hands over his heart. “Look, I might be a right bastard at times, but I want to help.”

  Alex furrowed his brow. “Why would you want to do that?”

  The god said, “Because I’ve listened to you, and I’ve learned the error of my ways. Look, if I don’t stop this conspiracy that I put into motion, if I don’t help prevent the cosmic bears that I helped unleash from being unle
ashed on every reality in existence, then I’m as good as responsible for the Multiverse’s eventual downfall.”

  Alex’s brow-furrowing deepened. “And why would that concern you now? Surely past-you understood that the end of the Multiverse might be a possibility if you proceeded with your scheme.”

  “Yeah, well, past-me didn’t truly understand what I might be causing. Your briefing made me realize that if the Multiverse is ended, then I’m ended, too, because we’re all ended. That’s bad for me.”

  Alex replied, “So, helping us is ultimately about helping yourself rather than helping the infinite people you would murder if you caused the end of the Multiverse.”

  God-Art frowned. “I guess so,” he said. “But helping infinite people is an added benefit, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Drillbot rolled forward and pressed the tips of his drills against the sides of the god’s skull. “[whir] Do not trust – CLACK – trust this god. He will betray us. We should kill – CLACK – kill him, and then kill him again when he – CLACK – when he resurrects. Over and over, until the mission is complete.”

  God-Art held up his hands in supplication. “Drillbot, you are much fiercer than I remember you. May I make a suggestion? Let me help on a trial basis. At the first sign of betrayal, then move forward with killing me. This plan you’re enacting has so many opportunities to fail, having a god on your side may be the difference between success and failure.”

  “Do it, Drillbot. Get rid of him,” barked Regular-Ginny.

  The god glanced at her with murder in his eyes. The hostility disappeared almost as soon as it appeared, and he once more feigned supplication. Drillbot noticed it, though. He began to power on his drills.

  Alex placed a hand on Drillbot’s shoulder. “No,” said the commander. “The god is right. It is in his own best interest to help us, and the B.T.T.’s files on him are clear: if we can trust one thing, it is that this creature will serve his own interests above all others. Strategically speaking, that is an advantage for us. We shall accept his help.”

  Ginny and Normal-Art gasped in surprise and then scowled with disgust. Drillbot groaned and then lowered his drills.

  “[whir] Drillbot will be watching you – CLACK – watching you,” Drillbot warned the god.

  God-Art smirked. “Sure. Whatever you say, Drillbot.”

  Alex nodded. Then he spun on his heel and strode up the steps, entering a doorway in the side of the Infinity Vortex. God-Art spun on his own heel in mocking mimicry and followed. Drillbot followed close behind, readying his drills to spring into action at a moment’s notice. He had a bad feeling about what was to come.

  Chapter 15

  INTO THE CONVENTION

  Ginny ascended the marble steps. Her thighs burned, sore from the long hike to get here. She scratched the top of her head, trying to dig her fingernails deeply enough into her purple wig that she could relieve the itching it caused on her scalp.

  The pit of her stomach was filled with dread. This anxiety was rooted in two causes: one part caused by her poor acting skills, which she was confident would cause her to flub at an inopportune time and lead to the Landing Crew getting caught, and the second part caused by her distrust of the god-version of Art, who had reappeared on the scene a few moments ago.

  She swallowed hard and continued her ascent up the steps. Her feet followed just behind the Purple Shirt’s in front of her, who must have been following just behind the Purple Shirt’s in front of him, and so on. As a matter of fact, people must have been walking up these marble steps in this same pattern for a long time, because they were worn and bowed inward. She wondered how long attendees had been gathering for this godly conspiracy.

  She glanced up. Every inch of the building’s façade was covered in sculptures of gargoyles or gods or mythological beasts. As she neared the door, she realized that it was no exception. The stone around the door was shaped like the wide, angry face of a toad, the threshold an open representation of its mouth. Ginny felt odd as she stepped past its lips and into its gullet. After all she had seen and experienced, she would not have been at all surprised if the sculpture came alive to swallow her whole.

  Once past the threshold and inside the Infinity Vortex, Ginny and her companions came to a grand staircase that led down into a colossal atrium. The atrium’s walls were the same white marble as the exterior of the building and its ceiling was so high that when Ginny looked up, she could not see its top. Concession stands lined the walls offering all manner of divine fare, ranging from mashed ambrosia to bottled incense to charred oxen-fat wrapped around thigh bones to flagons of mead. Lines had formed in front of the many stands, and Ginny scowled when she witnessed how gods queue: they twist their lines back and forth and up and down to create sigils.

  Before Ginny was given the opportunity to ignore the behavior and move on, God-Art leaned over to the Landing Crew and whisper-yelled, “They stand like that to channel protective wards. Many of these gods represent opposing forces. They’re vulnerable in line, so they stand in such a way that allows them a modicum of safety. Normally they could count on a truce to keep them safe, but every pantheon’s trickster god is present at this conference. And those guys should never be trusted.”

  Alex replied, “We know. All of this was in the briefing dossier. Now stay silent!”

  God-Art winked at Ginny. She shuddered and looked away. Gods of every shape and size had filled the atrium. She saw a pair of green-skinned giants who were so tall their faces disappeared out of view and a black rabbit wearing a top hat and a muscular male in a toga with a storm cloud covering his face and a giant spider and an angry man with long blond hair carrying a gigantic hammer and a one-eyed man with a bronze helmet and a buffalo wearing a colonial-era powdered wig and a baby fluttering around on tiny wings and a man with rainbows for nipples and hundreds upon thousands more gods with equally odd physical features.

  Throughout the atrium, potted plants dotted the landscape. On closer inspection, Ginny realized these were not placed at random, but instead formed more sigils. Some of the plants were blossoming fruit bushes, while others were withered and dead. One gigantic god with a gray beard and a name tag that read, “Hello! My Name is Yahweh!” stood next to a gigantic tree from which dangled apple-like fruit. He handed out the fruit to passersby. A sign at the base of this tree’s pot warned that this was The Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil, and that demigods and half-gods should refrain from partaking.

  There was so much divine oddness to observe that Ginny could have stood there and stared at the scene forever. When she turned to make just such a comment to Older-Art, she realized that the Landing Crew had continued walking without her and was now down the stairs, through the atrium, and over near the entrance for Section 42, the section for which the Landing Crew had tickets.

  Ginny cursed as she ran to catch up to her group, dodging between gods and pots and queues and stalls. She caught up to them as they reached the usher for Section 42. Alex pulled a wad of tickets from a fold in his marigold toga and handed the tickets to the usher standing at the entrance. The usher was an old, wizened man who chewed on his lips as he took the tickets from Alex. He hummed a happy little tune as he flattened the tickets and counted them.

  As the usher ripped each ticket in half, a small rainbow launched from its end and crashed down to the floor next to the usher. It looked like someone had taken a bulldozer to the floor where the ends of the rainbows crashed. Ginny leaned over and chanced a glance into the hole. She could see no bottom. Before Ginny could ask, Alex leaned over and whispered in her ear, “The weight of nearly an infinite number of rainbows crashing to the floor in the same spot. That’s the problem with these damnable enchanted tickets. Nobody thinks about the unintended consequences. I bet whatever city is on the opposite side of the world is having a really bad day right about now.”

  The usher handed the stubs back to Alex, who handed one to each member of the Landing Crew. The group began walking forward, but the usher
raised a hand to stop them. He said, “You’re one short.”

  God-Art grinned, dug into the pouch that hung from the rope he used as a belt, and produced a ticket stub. It looked just like the stubs that Alex had just handed to the Landing Crew, but older, dirtier, and even more wadded. The god arched an eyebrow at the usher and said, “Mine’s already been torn. I entered this theater a long time ago, left, and now I’m back.”

  The god turned and winked at the Landing Crew. Every single member sighed. The usher joined them in sighing, and it sounded as though a choir of angels had all become jaded at the exact same moment.

  The usher said, “Alright. I take it you’re another of them gods of time or illusion or whatever. I done seen enough of yer kind today to know there’s no point in trying to understand what’s happening here. The presentation starts in half an hour. Now move along, the lot of you.”

  The usher waved the group through, and they walked past him and toward the arena proper. They ascended a flight of stairs. Ginny felt a weighty sense of history and importance to these stairs, and she noted it was the same feeling she sensed the time that her father had taken her to see a game at Wrigley Field when she was a kid. People had poured their energies into that place and had turned it into one of symbolic importance. Gods had done the same to this location, and she could not help but feel the palpable weight of this significance as it coursed through the building around her.

  The group reached the top of the stairs and emerged into the arena. Ginny had never heard anything like it. The voices of a nearly infinite number of gods rang out all around her. Though the gods were merely engaged in small talk, their small talk was on a divine scale. Ginny felt every atom inside of her vibrate. It tickled and hurt all at once. She traded expressions between laughing and wincing.

  Then she glanced around her, and all her senses became overwhelmed by the sheer size of the arena and the insignificance she suddenly felt about herself. Outside this building, the Infinity Vortex seemed mesmerizing, but at the same time was something her mind could at least theoretically wrap itself around—it was a building with a bunch of interesting design quirks that was so tall it disappeared into the sky. However, as she glanced skyward inside the building, it felt like the building was both wrapping around her so she could not breathe and heaving her upward into infinity. The blood drained from her face and her legs buckled out from under her.