And Now, Time Travel

by Christopher Brimmage

  Hissing laughter echoed around Alex and his crew. Alex glanced from his spot on the floor to the Cerberus. Its left two heads—the ones with the yellow and red eyes, respectively—barked ferociously at the group, while the rightmost head was doubled over in laughter, its sharp teeth glistening and gums bloody with gingivitis. The Cerberus slapped the floor in delight with its right forepaw, while its left forepaw swiped at the group, though it was too far away to make contact.

  The creature used its right forepaw to push off the ground. This momentum allowed it to stand upright on its hind legs. The motion also caused its lab coat to flap open. Alex realized the creature had three pairs of male genitalia, each matching in order the eye color of the three heads. Alex sighed. Life was ridiculous.

  The creature’s right forepaw straightened its spectacles and then reached into a pocket in its lab coat. It retrieved an aerosol can, and then it sprayed the can into the faces of its two left heads. The heads coughed and hacked and then fell unconscious. Its left forepaw and left hind leg went limp.

  The Cerberus took a moment to steady itself on the wall. Then it shuffled over to the Landing Crew—taking a step forward with its right leg, dragging its left behind it, and repeating. The beast reached its right forepaw down into the maul and wrested Alex from the tangled heap, picking him up and setting him upon his feet.

  “Hi. Hast thou any freshly churned butter, any unbroken eggth, or a clock that needs no mending?” asked the Cerberus, speaking with an occasional lisp because its tongue sometimes lolled out of its mouth when it talked.

  Alex smiled and nodded. This was a B.T.T. password from a few centuries ago. He recognized it from the archives he had been forced to memorize as a Purple Shirt. He answered, “The butter is melted, the eggs returned to the womb, and the clock always spins.”

  The bespectacled wolf’s head smiled and nodded back. It said, “I suthpected you were B.T.T. You carry yourthelf like an officer. And the colors of your disguiseth give you away, to someone who knows what they are looking for.”

  “We’re here on a mission,” Alex said.

  “I know. I am here to help. I am known amongst the B.T.T. as Cerbby of the Clock.”

  Alex smiled. He said, “I am familiar with the name. To those of us with classified status high enough to access your file, you’re a legend.”

  The bespectacled wolf stared at Alex with an arched eyebrow. “Hmm. This ith my first mission. Good to know it’s all uphill from here.”

  “Truer than you could imagine,” replied Alex. “Tell us, how did you infiltrate this place? That detail was not covered in your files.”

  Alex neglected to tell Cerbby of the Clock that he already knew the answer because he had learned it during past time-loops while assigned to this Landing Crew. But because he could not be completely certain what course of events were vital to the future in unforeseen ways or what time anomalies he might cause by not asking the question as it had been asked in the past, he asked and listened attentively, anyway.

  Cerbby of the Clock said, “I was doing my duty as the guardian of Earth 922,013,002’s underworld when the call came from Artheothkatergariabetrugereiinganno for my pantheon to assitht with his C.O.G. My pantheon lent my thervices to the cause, because my three heads are my pantheon’s patron gods of mauling, home security, and mathematics—I’ll allow you to guess which head ith which. But what my pantheon did not know wath that a warrior had attempted to enter the underworld a few centurieth prior, and he had run his spear through this head with which I am thpeaking to you now.

  “This head was brought before a B.T.T. recruiting council before it could die,” continued the bespectacled wolf. “Thith head wath commissioned into the B.T.T. and underwent training to become an undercover operative. It wath then returned to my body in order to begin my role ath a double agent—unbeknownst to my other two heads. When I wath thent by my pantheon to assist with the C.O.G., this head was stationed as a vital part of Artheothkatergariabetrugereiinganno’s mathematics team, while my other two heads were assigned to security, guarding this room when it is left otherwithe unattended. I have been falsely serving thith foul conthpiracy for centuries and have been waiting for a team from the B.T.T. to arrive to help.”

  Alex nodded and said, “I thank you for your service to the B.T.T. But we must hurry. Will you please let us pass so that we may approach Artheoskatergariabetrugereiinganno’s formula?”

  The bespectacled head nodded. The middle head snored. The leftmost head drooled. “At once,” said Cerbby of the Clock. “The other science and math deities have been granted leave to participate in the networking orgy. Ath always, I was left on my own so that my other heads might guard the lab. Follow me this way.”

  Cerbby of the Clock placed his right paw on a computer terminal embedded in the wall. Green light flashed around it, and then a door marked B-42 opened. Behind the door lay a hallway. The three-headed wolf shuffled down this hall, slowed by his left hind leg, which he dragged behind him.

  After a few agonizingly tedious minutes, the group reached the end of the hallway and entered a completely spherical white room. Stairs led down to the bottom. Dozens of desks were spread across one side of the room, and these desks were cluttered with computers and stacks of papers and scientific equipment. Dozens of desks were spread across the other side of the room, and these desks were cluttered with cauldrons and scrolls and assorted magical equipment.

  When the group reached the bottom of the sphere, Alex looked up. Older-Arthur followed his gaze and whistled in the same annoyingly awed tone he used when he saw the Infinity Vortex on the Landing Crew’s approach into the city. The ceiling that had seemed white upon entry to the room was not in fact covered by stark white paint, but was instead a miasma of billions of dots of light that formed a model of the nearly infinite stars in the sky. It was beautiful. Alex spotted a few familiar constellations and smiled.

  Older-Arthur whistled again when he noticed a jumbled mass of ethereal mathematical symbols floating through the room. It was an equation, a mixture of numbers and symbols and annotations and colors swirling through the air. It was ghostly and ominous and delicate and mesmerizing all at once.

  Cerbby of the Clock patted Alex on the shoulder. “Though it represents the motht dangerous threat in the Space-Time-Multinuum, it ith oddly beautiful, no?” asked the beast.

  “It most certainly is,” replied Alex, looking away from the equation and turning toward Cerbby of the Clock. “I take it you understand what we must do?”

  Cerbby of the Clock nodded. “Aye.”

  “Thank you.”

  Cerbby of the Clock stalked to the side of the room and retrieved a small black baton from a sconce in the wall. He began waving it at the floating ghostly equation like he had become a symphony conductor. The swirling math—which had in the meantime formed into a tornado of numbers and had begun wreaking property damage to computers on the far side of the room—reversed its course and twirled back toward the middle of the spherical room. As it did so, it began undulating to the beat of the Cerberus’s baton, and soon laid itself out across the starry ceiling so that the function started in the center of the domed ceiling and twirled round and round in an expanding spiral to occupy every square inch of the ceiling.

  “There,” said Cerbby of the Clock. “The equation is tamed for the moment. It is time for your team to act.”

  Alex read through the equation until he found the spot he recognized as the weak point from the classified briefing documents given to him by Captain King Solomon. Altering the equation here would change the output of the function and release a virus that would reverse God-Arthur’s alterations to the Space-Time-Multinuum. It would also cause the function to falsely sound the signal to the local pantheons that the function had succeeded. Just to double check with the mathematician, Alex pointed to the spot he had in mind and said, “We insert an eight after the zero in the millionths place of that number and we’re good, correct?”

  Cerbby of th
e Clock shook his head. “No, no, no. Add the eight after the four in the octillionths place. If you put it in the millionths place, the wrong cosmic gong will sound, and no god in any pantheon outside of the tone-deaf vampires of Earth 67,909,111 will believe the C.O.G. succeeded.”

  Alex nodded. “Glad you’re here to double-check our work, then.”

  Cerbby of the Clock let out an annoyed sigh and said, “It flabbergathts me that for a mission thith important, the B.T.T. wouldn’t have thent a competent mathematician. It is ridiculouth that you would need to double check your figureth with a giant wolf such as me. Now hurry.”

  Alex ignored the criticism and turned to one of the remaining Purple Shirts. He removed a tiny vial full of white liquid from his holster and placed it in her hand. He squeezed the young woman’s shoulder and said, “Everyone in the Space-Time-Multinuum thanks you for your sacrifice. When your portion of the equation exits the stratosphere, please release the contents of that vial.”

  The red-headed woman looked upset. She had four eyes and sharp fangs lining her mouth. She said, “Wait, why me? I freed my people from tyranny. I fought and won a dozen wars before joining the B.T.T. I have so much more to offer.”

  She hooked a thumb at the Purple Shirt standing next to her—Phillippe—and said, “This guy was a drug addict who lived in his mom’s basement until he overdosed. Unlike me, he is the definition of expendable.”

  Alex frowned. He said, “If you did not want to be used as a sacrifice for the good of the many, then you should have worked your way through the ranks faster. And though you may choose not to view it this way, I have honored you with this sacrifice because it is painless, and in a way, it will make you immortal. The drug addict next to you cannot be trusted to complete this vital mission. And besides, the B.T.T. has need of a different, less dignified sacrifice from him.”

  Phillippe gulped. The young woman stared at her feet. Her lower lip quivered. She nodded a tiny, almost indiscernible now. As soon as she did so, Bagoo shoved a gigantic syringe into her neck. Within the barrel of the syringe, Alex watched lightning and stars and nebulas swirling in an oddly hypnotic miasma.

  As Bagoo pressed the plunger, the material disappeared from the plunger and entered her body. The whites of her eyes clouded black, and stars formed within them. Her skin sloughed off her body and transformed into smoke. Her bones and blood melted away before also transforming into smoke. Soon, all that remained was a floating, ethereal green numeral eight with a tiny white vial embedded in its middle.

  “Do your duty,” ordered Alex.

  The numeral floated into the air and inserted itself into the equation, shoving its way between a four and a zero in a number within a portion of the equation that sat inside a pair of brackets that lived within a parenthesis somewhere near the middle of the string of what seemed to be a miles-long equation.

  Cerbby of the Clock lowered the baton. The equation lost all sense of docility, blasting back across the room in a swirling tornado of numbers and symbols. Cerbby of the Clock said, “My other two headth will wake soon. I can convince them that you were a dream if you are not here. Leave at once so I may return to guard duty. I hope to therve with you again one day.”

  Alex reached out a hand and shook the beast’s paw. “Your work here is appreciated,” said Alex. “The B.T.T. Governing Council will know of your bravery.”

  Cerbby of the Clock nodded. Alex spun on his heel and sprinted from the room. The Landing Crew followed.

  Chapter 23

  CONFIRMATION

  Normal-Art followed close behind his older-self, and they both hung near the back of the pack. The reason for this was twofold: first, they were both too out of shape to keep up with Alex’s brisk pace, and second, Drillbot occupied the rearmost position in the group. Near his watchful gaze seemed like the safest spot in the entire Multiverse.

  The group turned a few corners, passed the intersection that led to the networking orgy, and slowed to a halt. Alex signaled for the group to circle up. 29333 used the disc from her holster to erect a sound shield around the group. Normal-Art glanced from Drillbot to Alex to the humanoid faces of the remaining Purple Shirts, and as he did so, he felt as though he were in a huddle at a football game where weird mascots had taken the field in place of the athletes.

  “OK, from here on out, we will be walking at a leisurely pace and acting nonchalantly. If we arouse suspicion, all is lost,” said Alex.

  The group nodded. Except Normal-Art, who said, “Wait, so you think there is any chance we won’t arouse suspicion when our group is dressed exactly like the group who attempted to assassinate God-Me? Seriously?”

  Alex sighed and ran his hand through the hair of his wig. He said, “If anybody asks, we’re from the same pantheon, but a different earth. There are lots of repeated gods out there.”

  “Which earth?” asked Normal-Art.

  “It doesn’t matter. Just not the same one as the assassins—not Earth 45,590,888.”

  “But it does matter,” replied Normal-Art. “If we pick a random number and it happens to be the same earth as the person interrogating us, then that’s going to be bad.”

  “Look, the odds of that happening are approximately infinity to one,” said Alex. “We don’t have time for this debate. We must move.”

  Normal-Art shrugged. “I just want to be prepared is all.”

  Alex sighed louder than he had ever sighed before. Normal-Art noticed that his breath smelled vaguely of spinach and sour cheese. Alex said, “Now you want to be prepared? I’ve been trying to prepare you for days, and all you’ve done is ignore me!”

  Normal-Art began to say something in response, but Alex waved it away with the back of his hand. Normal-Art opened his mouth to try again, but Ginny elbowed him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He grunted and doubled over, huffing to try and catch his breath.

  Alex nodded to Ginny and then glanced at each remaining member of the Landing Crew. He said, “We must all be aligned on this: the Space-Time-Multinuum is more important than any one of us. If your cover gets blown, you’ll be as good as dead, anyway—so cause a commotion and draw attention to yourself. Allow the rest of us to escape.”

  Normal-Art had apparently recovered enough to say, “Unless it’s me, right? If my cover gets blown, then others should sacrifice themselves to save me. The B.T.T. Governing Council deemed my life vital for this mission, remember?”

  Alex rubbed his fingers across his temples. “No, you dolt. The part you needed to play was to be a vessel to bring God-You back here so that he could warn his past-self of the assassination attempt, thus misdirecting attention and allowing us to alter his math without suspicion. You are now just as expendable as everyone else.”

  Normal-Art gulped. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  Older-Art leaned over to him and smacked him across the back of his head. He whispered, “You obviously survive. I am you from the future, you idiot.”

  Normal-Art grinned. “So that means I’m invincible,” he muttered.

  Everyone groaned. Ginny and 29333 leaned over and slapped him at the same time. They both said simultaneously, “Be quiet and listen. The rest of us want to get out of here alive.”

  The two versions of Ginny looked at each other and frowned. Then they both gave an identical shrug. Then they both frowned harder. Then they both gave another identical shrug. “This is weird,” they both said.

  Then Ginny smiled while 29333 scowled, breaking whatever bizarre twin-magic was occurring.

  Normal-Art obeyed the slapping women and stayed silent. Alex continued, “In order to ensure our interference in the C.O.G. succeeded, we must confirm that the equation gets presented to the gods as we left it. And to do that, we’re going to split up.”

  Alex pointed at Bagoo, Normal-Art, and the Purple Shirt named Philippe. He said, “You three are going to rejoin the audience in the arena. Once Artheoskatergariabetrugereiinganno displays the math and you confirm that our alteration is present
, you may sneak out to join the rest of us.

  “The rest of us are going to walk slowly out the front entrance and wait for you outside,” continued Alex. “If you cannot find us out there when you exit, proceed to the rendezvous point without us, for it means we are dead or are fleeing. If you are under pressure and must run somewhere other than the rendezvous point, you must be at least two miles away from the Infinity Vortex to ensure proper operation of our teleporters. Also remember that you should try not to put yourself in such a position, because it is much more cost effective for us to teleport large groups at once. The difference in costs will come out of your pay, a condition of employment you will surely remember from your B.T.T. employee handbooks.”

  Normal-Art fidgeted, waiting for Alex’s long-winded speech to end—for proclaiming to be in such a hurry, the man sure did know how to take his time with instructions. Normal-Art took a deep breath. At times like this when he was about to be forced into a dangerous situation, his stomach would normally ball itself into a knot of anxiety. But he felt none of the normal anxiety, for Older-Art had made a solid point: if Normal-Art was destined to die here, then Older-Art would not exist. He smiled.

  And then he realized that while he was lost in thought, 29333’s sound shield device had disengaged, and the huddle had broken, and everyone had begun walking toward the exit of the backstage area, already a dozen feet ahead of him. Drillbot stood over him, staring. “[whir] Does Former-Master-Art plan to – CLACK – plan to join the rest of the group?”

  Normal-Art did not bother to respond. Instead, he grabbed the hem of his toga and yanked it up so he would not trip. He shuffled forward after the Landing Crew. They walked through the exit and past Heimdallr, who remained vigilant outside the door. The god called his farewells to the Landing Crew as it passed, his voice growing more and more forlorn as he realized nobody had brought him a plaything from the networking orgy. He sighed, and his breath shook Normal-Art’s organs. Normal-Art remembered with sudden clarity that he needed to urinate and had been holding it for what felt like days.