And Now, Time Travel

by Christopher Brimmage

  As the BeavBoks gathered in larger and larger numbers, they began tying the sequoia trunks together with thousands of ropes. They also changed outfits from their primitive shawls and hooded cloaks into little space suits. If Agent 27142 had not been a jaded bastard, he probably would have commented about how incredibly cute they looked.

  Each wore a silver flight suit with a clear bubbled helmet, along with a large wooden backpack, the bottom of which contained an exhaust port. Agent 27142 realized that these were wooden jetpacks when some of the younger BeavBoks began playing a game where they would all blast to the tops of surrounding trees and return with bird eggs, which they would promptly smash upon the head of the member of their party that was the slowest to return. Agent 27142 watched them play for a few minutes, until an adult showed up and began yelling at them for wasting time when there was so much work to do. Agent 27142 shrugged and walked away.

  Soon, President Clearland gave the order to depart. The entire population of BeavBoks disappeared into the forest, piling into the sequoia-spaceships. Agent 27142 returned to the B.T.T. ship with God-Art and his resurrected B.I.T. troops. He powered up the ship and lifted it into the air.

  Soon, hundreds of sequoia logs mimicked this motion, each floating in the air with ropes connecting its rear to the front of the next log nearest to it. The BeavBoks had attached ropes that connected the back of Agent 27142’s stolen ship to the front of the first in the line of sequoia-spaceships. This harness would allow the BeavBok trees to follow Agent 27142’s Infinity Transport Ship as it jumped to its next destination. According to Agent 27142’s inquiries into the onboard computer, the portal that Agent 27142 created would not shut until they all made it through because they were all connected, and the portal would register them as one long ship. This had been an idea of God-Art’s, and the annoying god had not shut up about how good it was since he learned it would work. Agent 27142 had lost track of the number of times he had sighed in response.

  Agent 27142 smirked, set the destination and time coordinates of the B.T.S. Unicorn Husker, and piloted his ship into hole the ship sliced in the sky. The BeavBok ships followed.

  Chapter 20

  NOTHING BUT NOTHING NET

  Drillbot watched as First Officer Alexandros ho Megas snatched the Chronal-Dispersion-Shotgun from Normal-Art’s hands. Alex retrieved a device from his holster. It was a small screen with a dongle dangling from its end. Alex plugged the end of it into a receiver on the gun.

  The screen sprang to life. Green numbers scrolled across it. They seemed to go on forever. Alex touched a button on the device’s side and a keypad popped up. He typed in a command, and the font on certain numbers within the unending string changed from green to blue and others changed from green to orange.

  Alex handed the Chronal-Dispersion-Shotgun and the device to Bagoo. “You ready?” he asked.

  “I am ready,” replied the bog ghost.

  Alex frowned. He said, “The B.T.T. thanks you in advance for sacrificing this time from your life. I know it is an inconvenience, my friend, and I am sorry that you must endure it.”

  Bagoo nodded. He said, “No need for apologies. You’ve done this task yourself in past loops. We both know it is a necessity.”

  Alex nodded, and then he pointed at Drillbot and six Purple Shirts. He said, “You all are going to jump with Bagoo from place to place and time to time in order to stop the god from reforming and making his way here to thwart our objective. The rest of us are going to continue our primary mission and hope for the sake of the Space-Time-Multinuum that you are successful.”

  Alex then pointed to the screen on the device he had handed to Bagoo. Alex explained, “Just in case any harm befalls Bagoo and he can no longer continue, this is how this device works: the blue numbers are the locations and times in the past into which Arthur sent the god’s molecules. The green is the future. The orange is the present.”

  “[whir] But how are we to – CLACK – to stop him? If we kill him, he will just – CLACK – just reform, and he will make his way here, anyway,” said Drillbot.

  Alex removed another device from his holster. This one was a bundle of small metal sticks folded atop one another. Alex unfolded them, and when uncoiled, they formed a chrome rod about two feet in length. He pressed a button on the rod’s side, and a net made of green electricity appeared from the rod’s end. In the net’s center lay swirling, utter blackness.

  “With this,” answered Alex. He held the net above his head, and then swooped it down over a Purple Shirt next to him. The Purple Shirt squealed in surprise. His squeal disappeared right along with him.

  Before anyone could object or ask what the device was, Alex said, “It’s a Nothing Net. It’s a link to a spot outside of space and time. It’s like a temporary jail we can use for cosmic threats during emergencies until we can relocate them to a more permanent holding space. Just swipe it over your quarry, and he’ll be pulled inside.”

  Alex pressed a button on the Nothing Net’s side. The center of the net spit the young Purple Shirt back out. He crashed to the ground. He was in the midst of squealing the same squeal he had been squealing when he was sucked into the Nothing Net. He realized everyone was staring at him, so he stopped squealing.

  Alex pointed at the kid. “And much like this youngling, when they are removed from the prison, it will be like they had just entered, because no time passes within.”

  Another Purple Shirt helped the kid to his feet. After doing so, he and the other Purple Shirts pulled their own Nothing Nets from their holsters and powered them up. Alex handed his personal Nothing Net to Drillbot. Alex pressed a button on the device’s side, and a loop formed from the bottom of the net’s handle. The loop fit over Drillbot’s arm, allowing him to wear the device like a bracelet that clasped just above his drill. The handle stretched down Drillbot’s arm so that the net proper hung past the end of his drill.

  Alex said, “Now get moving. Bagoo, you have command. Drillbot, you’re his second.”

  Bagoo and Drillbot nodded. Bagoo tapped the first blue series of numbers scrolling across the screen. A magenta sphere of light flashed from the end of the Chronal-Dispersion-Shotgun, creating a small gateway in the Space-Time-Multinuum. Bagoo gestured toward the gateway and said, “Drillbot, you’re our heavy hitter on this. You first. If there’s anything big and bad on the other side, you distract it. Purple Shirts, you’re after him. I’ll go last and seal the gate behind us.”

  Drillbot nodded and leapt through the gateway without hesitation. His vision fluttered and scrambled for a moment. And then he was out the other side, landing in a black cave with a six-inch puddle of water pooled across the ground. As soon as he landed, a large tentacle crashed into him, knocking him to the floor. He sighed, stabbed it with one of his drills, and stood up on his wheels. He wished that for once, something would just be easy.

  *

  Drillbot made quick work of the tentacle’s owner by slicing the tentacle from its owner’s body and then shoving a drill through its owner’s head. Only after felling the tentacle’s owner did he discover that he had killed a giant octopus. Little mole-people with brown fur and squinty eyes appeared from notches in the ceiling of the cave.

  “[whir] Hello. Drillbot is this robot’s name,” he said.

  Over the next few moments, he conversed with the mole-people and discovered that he had killed an octopus-queen who had ruled over this cave with an iron, fascist grip. By the time Bagoo and the Purple Shirts finished arriving through the portal, the mole-people were bowing to Drillbot and worshipping him like a god, for he had answered their prayers for freedom.

  Bagoo sealed the gateway and pointed to an area at the back of the cave. Drillbot and the Purple Shirts rushed toward the spot, ignoring the prayers and adulation of the mole-people. When they reached the back, the Purple Shirts stared in confusion. There was nothing there.

  Drillbot, however, knew better. He noticed movement on a microscopic level and zoomed in his telescopic eye
s. There was a tiny swirl of power. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it swirled in the opposite direction and disappeared.

  “[whir] Back up! Drillbot has a bad – CLACK – bad feeling about th-”

  Before he could finish speaking, flames burst forth from the spot the little swirl had occupied. One of the Purple Shirts caught fire and fell writhing in the puddle covering the ground. She rolled in place, and by the time she had put the fire out, half her uniform was gone. Her skin was red and raw.

  Drillbot glanced from the writhing Purple Shirt over to the source of the flames. God-Art lay curled there in a fetal position, a smile on his face. He rose to his feet and proclaimed, “Behold, foolish mortals! Like the dawn each morning, I am reborn, and I shall not be stoppe-”

  Drillbot swiped his Nothing Net over the god’s head. Then he turned back to Bagoo and the Purple Shirts. “[whir] Drillbot advises not to let the – CLACK – not to let the god finish gloating. It only leads to – CLACK – to trouble.”

  Bagoo nodded. “One down,” he muttered. “Only billions more to go.”

  The Purple Shirts helped their injured comrade to her feet. Bagoo pressed the next in the series of blue numbers on the device he held. A new gateway appeared. Drillbot leapt through it.

  Chapter 21

  A QUICK REUNION

  Normal-Art and his group turned from Bagoo’s gateway.

  Alex raced over to a map on the wall that showed exit routes in case of an emergency. He ran his finger over it until he found the correct room. It was marked B-42.

  “This way,” Alex called. “We must get to B-42 in the next few minutes, or all is lost.”

  He sprinted ahead, with Normal-Art and the rest of the group on his heels. They rounded a corner, and everyone crashed into Alex’s back before they could stop themselves. They fell to the ground in a tangle. Normal-Art glanced up and realized that Alex had screeched to a halt to prevent himself from sprinting into a magenta gateway identical to the one Bagoo and his team had leapt through moments ago. The gateway had appeared in the middle of the hallway.

  Drillbot emerged from it in a leap, still wearing his Nothing Net positioned on his arm while cradling five additional Nothing Nets in the crook of his other arm. An elderly woman with gray hair, more wrinkles than Normal-Art cared to count, and a hunched back shuffled through the gateway behind the robot. She used her Nothing Net as a cane. Her purple uniform hung loosely from her skinny frame. Bagoo floated in behind her. He shut the gate.

  “Why are you all on the ground?” asked the bog ghost. “Don’t you have a mission to accomplish?”

  Alex scrambled back onto his feet. Everyone else did the same. He did not answer the question.

  Bagoo said, “How long have we been gone?”

  Alex shrugged. “Old friend, you jumped back to this place only a few seconds after you departed,” he muttered. “A minute at most.”

  Bagoo nodded. The old woman scanned the six remaining Purple Shirts in Alex’s group until her eyes found a young man with black hair and brown eyes. Her eyes lit with joy. She shuffled toward him.

  “Phillippe!” she cried. “It has been a lifetime. But I held on, all in the hope that I would see you one last time.”

  The young man looked confused. “Lonnie?” he asked.

  She grinned. She had no teeth, so her grin amounted to widened lips over red, bloody gums. She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “Yes, it’s me. How I missed you! Did you long for me every moment that I was gone, as I longed for you?”

  He wrinkled his brow. He said, “It’s only been like a minute since I saw you. So, sure. Sure, I did.”

  “But it has been 36,135 days since I saw you. I thought of you every second. Did you think of me?”

  The young man held his nose and said, “Sure. Like I said, it was only a minute. Babe, I can’t talk this close to you. Your breath is horrid.”

  Lonnie frowned. She said, “There were no toothbrushes on the mission.”

  Phillippe frowned back. Then he scratched his chin and muttered, “I don’t think I can do this anymore. I need my space. But it’s totally not you. It’s, y’know, it’s me, I guess. I need time to find me, or whatever.”

  Tears filled Lonnie’s eyes. “Wait, are you breaking up with me?” she cried. “After I waited on you for nearly a century? After I resisted temptation in the Land of the Succubi and refrained from partaking in the hospitality of the Pleasure Dimension?”

  Phillippe shrugged. “I didn’t ask you to do that for me, babe.”

  “Go to hell!” shrieked Lonnie. Unfortunately for her, her body had grown too old to handle this stress, so she began her journey there first. She collapsed to the ground. As she lay dying, she panted, “My heart is broken. Do not resurrect me. I want to be at peace, as far from Phillippe as I can be.”

  And with that, she died.

  Alex slapped Phillippe across the face. “You have no courtesy, you cretin. She was clearly close to death. The least you could have done was pretend to love her to keep her stable until we could get her back aboard the Husker and have the medics reverse time on her. And now, because of your wretchedness, she has died and forbidden us from resurrecting her. She was destined to play a key role in the Gruntipolian Labor Revolt two decades hence! And now she will not, and that timestream may be doomed. If you were not necessary for this mission, I would flay you alive and make you eat your own skin.”

  Phillippe’s shoulders sank. “Understood, sir,” he muttered.

  Normal-Art chimed in, “Alex, can you really blame the guy? Did you see that old hag? I would’ve done the same. And if she is so important to the B.T.T., then why don’t you just bring her back, anyway?”

  Alex scowled. He replied, “Because B.T.T. agents can request to leave our service at any time. It will result in the agent dying and might place parts of the Space-Time-Multinuum in danger, but according to our bylaws, we must abide by such requests.”

  Normal-Art frowned. “Wait, if people can leave at any time, then why haven’t you listened to me and sent me home?”

  “Because you are not an agent. You are our guest,” said Alex. He then ignored Normal-Art’s squealing protests and turned to Bagoo. He asked, “Did you succeed?”

  Bagoo collected the Nothing Nets from Drillbot and from Lonnie’s corpse. He folded them into tiny cubes and inserted them into a pouch on his holster. He nodded to Alex and said, “Aye, sir. We captured every instance in the Space-Time-Multinuum where the god’s molecules were dispersed.”

  Alex nodded back. “Well done,” he said.

  And with that, Alex sprinted forward. Everyone followed him. Normal-Art groaned. He did not want to sprint anymore.

  Chapter 22

  TWEAKING THE EQUATION

  Alex created a mental image in his head of the backstage area and mapped out how to get to his destination. To keep track of his position as he sprinted, he envisioned a miniature model of himself moving across the map. If he were from Younger-Arthur’s time period, he would have likely made the connection to how similar the mental image looked to the game Ms. Pac-Man.

  He sprinted down the corridor, darted past two intersecting hallways on his right, and slowed to a halt before a third that opened on his left. Down this hallway lay the room marked B-42, the room housing the mathematical formula that would cause wanton doom to envelop the Space-Time-Multinuum if left unchecked. He turned the corner and immediately screeched to a halt.

  A colossal, three-headed wolf with black and silver fur stood in the hallway. It was nearly as tall on all four legs as Drillbot. A white lab coat dangled from its shoulders, the bottom of the lab coat shredded and in tatters from obvious claw and tooth marks. The eyes on one head were yellow, the next red, and the last black and covered by a pair of round spectacles. All six eyes stared at Alex, and slaver began dripping from the maws of the heads with the yellow and red eyes.

  “Cerberus,” Alex muttered. His fight instincts took over, knocking aside the rational part of his
brain. Despite an awed fear filling his bowels, his hand moved on its own, reaching for the cylindrical device in his holster from which he created his laser-weapons.

  Before Alex could power on the weapon, the remaining members of the Landing Crew turned the corner behind him and crashed into his back. They all fell in a tangle to the floor. Alex sighed. This group crashing into his back and then falling on the floor seemed to be developing into a habit.

  From their new vantage on the ground, the rest of the Landing Crew noticed the three-headed beast. They all tried to leap to their feet, some overwhelmed by a desire to fight, others overwhelmed by a desire to flee. But neither intention mattered, because the act of everyone in the already-tangled group simultaneously attempting to scramble upright led to a further tangling, and soon, everyone lay stuck. If a deity were present who happened to be the patron god of slapstick comedy, it likely would have felt incredibly honored by the performance.

  Alex yelled for everyone to stop moving, and they all did—all except for two Purple Shirts, one of whom had been unlucky enough to get tangled in Drillbot’s spiked wheels, the other of whom had retrieved a device from her holster that she was using to treat the first’s wounds. The wounded Purple Shirt writhed and moaned, and his blood pooled on the floor beneath the group, but his life was ultimately saved.