And Now, Time Travel

by Christopher Brimmage

  When the group exited the hallway and returned to the grand atrium, Normal-Art desperately looked for a restroom. Just when he spotted a door marked with a sign that seemed to indicate one, one of Bagoo’s wispy bandages wrapped around Normal-Art’s wrist and pulled him away from the group and toward the entrance to the arena. Normal-Art frowned. His bladder hurt and now his wrist was freezing.

  Bagoo pulled three ticket stubs from the folds of his robes and handed them to the attendant to check. The attendant waved Bagoo and Normal-Art and Phillippe through. Normal-Art sighed.

  *

  Though Bagoo, Normal-Art, and Phillippe presented the ticket stubs for their old seats to the inattentive usher, the trio dared not return to the seats they had previously occupied. It would be too obvious that they were connected to the assassination attempt.

  Normal-Art stared down at his feet as Phillippe and Bagoo studied the arena, looking for a spot with three open seats they might occupy. Normal-Art refused to look up, refused to fall victim to the overwhelming vertigo of staring up into infinity once more.

  Phillippe nudged Normal-Art and nodded in Bagoo’s direction. The bog ghost was drifting toward a staircase. Normal-Art followed while Phillippe brought up the rear. The trio ascended nearly a dozen flights of stairs—Normal-Art growing more out of breath with each one—and finally exited onto a row of balcony seats. The awning overhead was carved from black marble, and it was decorated with an intricate sculpture that depicted a crowned monkey stealing a musical note from an alligator in Victorian era attire. Normal-Art shrugged.

  The trio approached an unoccupied segment on the bleachers between a rotund six-eyed god with tiny legs and a beautiful male who seemed to wear his long, curly, brown hair as a suit of plate armor.

  Bagoo said to them, “Our pantheon is in a drunken stupor, and in our mythology, our father kills and eats us whenever he becomes intoxicated. We would prefer to avoid that scenario, at least until the end of this convention. Do you mind if we occupy these seats?”

  The rotund god shrugged. The hairy god said, “Do as thou will. As lower demigods within our own pantheon, we understand thy struggle.”

  Bagoo nodded. “You have my thanks.”

  And with that, the trio occupied the bench. Bagoo sat in the far seat near the rotund god, Phillippe in the middle, and Normal-Art on the other end, next to the hairy god. Normal-Art leaned over to Bagoo and whispered, “Way to think on your feet!”

  Bagoo stared at him blankly. “I have no feet,” the bog ghost replied.

  Normal-Art began to point out that his statement had merely been an expression, but he stopped short when he noticed the look on Phillippe’s face. He was gazing out across the arena, his face pale. Normal-Art followed his gaze and immediately felt the blood drain from his own face.

  Every single Purple Shirt who had been involved in the faux assassination attempt had been strung up in grotesque display. Their hands and feet were nailed to the walls. Their eyes were gouged out, and their midsections ripped open. Every single one of their internal organs had been pulled from their bodies and hung below them. Written in blood on the wall next to each of them was a warning: Here hangs an attempted assassin. Miracles kept him alive, so he might experience the pain of a million lifetimes before his execution. Don’t be an assassin. Unless you love to be tortured.

  Normal-Art stifled a gasp.

  The hairy god must have followed Art’s gaze, because he leaned over and said, “Thou must be a deity of mercy to gasp at the punishment of traitors and assassins. I find deities of mercy very sexy. Would thou like to find a dark corner and fulfill our fantasies together?”

  Normal-Art glanced over at the god and realized his hair was growing even longer than before. Normal-Art scooted away, nudging into Phillippe. “N-N-No, thanks. I am not looking for anything outside my own p-p-p-pantheon at the moment.”

  The hairy god smiled. “Tis thy loss. If thou ever changest thy mind, look me up on Earth 6,098,972. Name’s Hairy Dave, patron god of wigs, toupees, and—because of some stupid joke made by my pantheon’s patriarch as he was copulating with my mother during my conception—sour milk. The two of us can get into lots of trouble. Sexy trouble.”

  Luckily for Normal-Art, the conversation was interrupted by a blast from God-Art’s conch shell, originating from the stage far below. Normal-Art covered his ears. The hairy god frowned. Then his head exploded. But before the damage became too permanent, strands of hair whipped out from his body, snagged the fragments of his head, and pulled them back into place. The god cursed the pain but seemed no worse for the wear.

  Normal-Art shrugged and looked down at the stage. God-Art was standing in its center, the conch shell held to his lips. His stomach distended as he inhaled, and then as he blew once again, words emanated from the magical shell. These words felt like they formed inside of Normal-Art’s head, but they also floated as multicolored letters in the ether.

  “Hear ye! Hear ye!” said God-Art. “It’s time for our networking sessions to end and for us to finish this conference strong!”

  The cheers of nigh infinite gods echoed through the Infinity Vortex. Normal-Art grimaced. When the applause died down, God-Art gestured toward the tortured and maimed Purple Shirts. He continued, “I hope the networking session went well for you. I must say, so long as you weren’t crucified in agony, it went better for you than it did for our trigger-happy mortal guests.”

  More cheers. Then he said, “I hear it’s best to start these types of speeches off with a joke. So, here goes: What do you call it when you murder a groveling mortal?” He paused a second and then continued, “A praying man ‘tisn’t alive no more!”

  Laughter erupted from the gods. Normal-Art scowled. He wished he were capable of scowling harder, for the god’s joke was one of the unfunniest he had heard in a long time. God-Art pointed at a group of gods in togas occupying a row of seats near the stage. They were all giant bugs, and the one wearing a crown was a gigantic praying mantis. God-Art said, “The gods from Earth 7,891 know what I’m talking about!”

  More laughter. Then when it began dying down, God-Art said, “Look, I know everyone here has worlds they want to get back to and mortals they want to oppress or bless or whatever it is you do. We’ve all learned a lot at this conference and have likely all made new friends and allies and enemies. I won’t take up too much more of your time.

  “So, without further ado,” he continued, “I present the key to us regaining power in the face of expanding infinity. In two days hence, at exactly 18:07—or whatever is the equivalent on your reality—every pantheon will brand this mathematical function into a molecule in the atmosphere of its skies. When you do so, the function will spread like a virus to the atmospheres of every reality in existence, and within moments, we will be spared any more growth of the Multiverse! You will hear the sound of a cosmic gong, and that will be the signal that it worked. If you are your pantheon’s chief deity, be sure that you return to your rooms before you depart today. I’ve taken the liberty of having my staff deposit in your rooms your official Multiverse-Capping Mathematical Function Kit, which includes an exact replica of the function that I am about to show you.”

  The gods cheered. It seemed as though their cheers would never end. Finally, God-Art blew into the conch shell to demand silence. He nodded to the gods in lab coats standing toward the back of the stage. Normal-Art noticed Cerbby of the Clock amongst them. The gods of science and mathematics and engineering strode forward, dozens and dozens and dozens of them using their combined strength to carry a black box fastened shut with gold clasps. They set the box on the stage in front of God-Art. Two of them unlatched the gold clasps and the lid popped open. An explosion of multicolored light launched forth from the box and swirled into a chaotic maelstrom of numerals and mathematical symbols.

  One of the deities clambered across the stage to hand God-Art the black baton that Cerbby of the Clock had used earlier in the lab to tame the equation. God-Art said, “We have no
w opened Artheoskatergariabetrugereiinganno’s box, and all that remains inside is the metaphorical despair of anyone who lacks the power of a god.”

  God-Art began waving the baton like he had become a conductor. The multicolored maelstrom became tame. The numbers and mathematical symbols twirled upward, dancing up into the Infinity Vortex. They grew larger so that everyone could see them. Then they flipped and flopped and rearranged themselves.

  Soon, an equation that seemed infinite in length hung in the air, its colors dancing and shimmering. Rising through the Infinity Vortex, it seemed even more mesmerizing than it had been down in the lab. Normal-Art had never seen anything so beautiful. Without realizing it, tears had begun falling from his eyes and his pants had grown wet.

  Something nudged his side, but he could not look away. His head felt both numbly buzzed and exploding with energy all at once. He felt in his gut that he might go blind or die if he continued to stare at the math, but a serene feeling overwhelmed him, and he did not care.

  A cold slap landed across his face, something frigid wrapped around his wrist, and he soon found himself sprawled on the ground. Bagoo was kneeling over him. Bagoo whispered, “I checked the math, and our plan worked. We must go.”

  Normal-Art had not come down from a high like this since the blue and pink lights from the cosmic bears had washed over him back in the pyramid on Earth 1,000,000. His head ached, and he wanted to curl into a ball and die.

  He glanced over at Phillippe. The young man was sitting slack-jawed in his seat, foam dripping from the corners of his mouth. His eyes were bleeding. Bagoo followed Normal-Art’s gaze and said, “Get to your feet. We cannot bring him with us.”

  Normal-Art slowly made his way onto his feet. “Why not?” he demanded.

  Bagoo frowned and led Normal-Art toward the stairwell. He whispered, “Unbeknownst to Phillippe, he was sent along with us for this very purpose. Why else would First Officer Alexandros ho Megas have ordered him to accompany us?”

  “To help?”

  “Don’t be a fool. Alex sent you with me because he needed to ensure that at least one of the people who went into this arena would survive to report to the B.T.T. whether our mission succeeded or failed. He knew that you are destined to escape no matter what—for your older-self is with him—so you were the obvious choice. And he sent me because I am powerful enough to handle myself and would be able to cause a big enough commotion if we’re caught to allow you to escape. Phillippe provided nearly no marginal benefit to us.

  “However,” continued the bog ghost, “he is one of many mortals in attendance today. Some are members of other organizations here on missions. Some are merely infiltrators looking to gain godlike power. The common thread with the mortals present is that they all go brain dead from staring directly at the mathematical function for too long when it is displayed across the backdrop of the Infinity Vortex. When the conference is dismissed, they will all be noticed by a version of Baron Samedi from Earth 56,742,222,418, who will transform them into mindless members of his ghoul army. A few millennia from now, this version of Samedi will represent a huge cosmic threat as his undead hordes begin conquering dimensions. But in one such incursion, Phillippe’s mindless husk will come across a version of Lonnie. His guilt and arousal upon seeing this love from his past will allow his mind to overtake his rotting body. He will then discover that he has the ability to wrest control of the rotting corpses around him—because unbeknownst to him, he is a direct descendent of his dimension’s Samedi—at which point he will lead an uprising that will succeed in overthrowing Samedi and the cosmic threat he represents. And then Phillippe will return to the B.T.T. He’ll be granted a marigold officer’s shirt and be bumped up in rank to that of Chief Security Officer on a Bureau Time-Ship, where he will use his mindless corpse-drones to save the Space-Time-Multinuum on multiple occasions.”

  Normal-Art yawned. “Are you done?” he asked.

  Bagoo said nothing.

  Normal-Art exclaimed, “I thought you would never stop talking! Aren’t we in a rush? You could have just said it was important for him to stay—or, hell, you could have even said you didn’t feel like carrying him, and I would have been fine with it.”

  Bagoo scowled. He turned his back on Normal-Art and began descending the stairs.

  Normal-Art glanced back at Phillippe’s mindless body and frowned. He would have felt bad about leaving the kid to be defiled and to lose years of his life to undead slavery, but Art was now one step closer to finishing this stupid mission and returning to his couch to stare at his television until his eyes bled. Thus, any potential tingle of sympathy at Philippe’s predicament evaporated before it could find a foothold in his heart.

  Normal-Art grinned and followed Bagoo.

  Chapter 24

  TRICKSTER GOD SUPPORT GROUP

  When the Landing Crew entered the atrium from their sojourn backstage, Ginny watched as Normal-Art split off from the group with Bagoo and the Purple Shirt named Phillippe. Her former lover waddled in his purple toga, and his absurd appearance struck an odd foil to the creepy floating bog ghost and the handsome young Purple Shirt.

  Ginny grabbed Older-Art’s hand and turned away. She glanced around the atrium. Where before it had been full of odd deities queuing for snacks and meals, now it was nearly empty and eerily quiet.

  The only people occupying the gigantic space was a group of six surly deities sitting in a circle on folding chairs near the main exit. The group consisted of a man-sized black cat wearing a monocle and a shoulder holster that held two revolvers, a leprechaun wearing a green business suit, a ten-foot tall Venus flytrap with a pair of leaves jutting from its stalk that resembled hands and a clay pot covering the bottom of its stalk that seemed to serve as its pants, a man with short red horns wearing a bespoke red-and-black striped suit, a mostly nude half-monkey-half-elf wearing nothing but a white doctor’s coat with an accompanying stethoscope dangling from its neck, and a burly humanoid whose back was to the Landing Crew. Above them was a poster with letters written sloppily in marker that read: Trickster God Support Group.

  Ginny studied the god whose back was turned toward the B.T.T. crew. He had thin, black feathers that resembled hair covering his shoulders and a braid that extended from the back of his head down to the floor. A pair of leather chaps was his only attire, and tassels dangled from the chaps like limp worms.

  Ginny could overhear snippets of the gods’ conversation from this distance. The humanoid with his back to the Landing Crew said to the support group, “And they don’t ever trust me. In today’s interconnected Multiverse, with so many threats from foreign pantheons, why would I try to harm my own people? I only did that kind of stuff back in my earth’s Gilded Age because I was bored. Back then, we ruled our dimension with an iron fist, and nobody threatened us. But now we’ve got pressures from all sides of the Multiverse. And instead of listening to my advice, they dismiss everything I say. They accuse me of trying to further my own ends. But I’m genuinely trying to help!”

  In response, the other deities in the circle let out sympathetic grunts and shouts of “Here! Here!” A few patted him on the back, but he swatted their hands away and screamed, “Don’t touch me! I don’t like being touched!”

  The Landing Crew walked toward the exit, steering as wide a berth as they could around the support group. Their footfalls echoed loudly through the atrium. Ginny felt her heart skip a beat with each step.

  The gods sitting in the circle noticed the Landing Crew and began staring at them. Many of the gods smiled, but none of their eyes revealed any mirth. As a matter of fact, their eyes were steely and cold.

  The god who had his back to the Landing Crew stood. When he turned to face the Landing Crew, Ginny noticed that his eyes were black and birdlike, his nose was wider than it was long, the feathery plumage that covered his shoulders extended down the front of his torso to his naval, and his nipples and genitalia were not like any nipples and genitalia she had seen before—black whirlpo
ols swirled in the spots where they belonged. His eyes began vibrating, and then he scowled.

  His voice transformed from the vulnerable treble that he had been using with the support group into a venomous hiss. His dialect also became much more formal as he said, “What art thou doing in this sacred place, mortals? And why doest though approach Balroth the Bemoaned and his companions without leave? Art thou attempting to steal our powers, as mortals have from time immemorial?”

  As Ginny stared into the god’s black eyes, she felt her bowels threaten to quit and claw their way out of her body. She squeezed tight on Older-Art’s hand. He moaned in pain.

  Alex’s hand dropped to the cylinder in his holster from which he formed his laser-weapons. His voice filled with bluster as he demanded, “You dare accuse us of being mortals? You dare insult us with such filthy allegations? We seek no enmity with you. We seek only to leave this convention early and return to our home reality so that we might beat traffic out of here. Stand aside or face our wrath.”

  The remaining members of the support group stood and gathered behind Balroth the Bemoaned. They posed in their most malevolent poses. The leprechaun stood only three feet in height and came up to Balroth the Bemoaned’s kneecap. He looked so cute that Ginny wanted to pet him, but his eyes transformed into flames and rainbow-colored smoke began drifting from their corners, and the desire fled.

  Balroth the Bemoaned chuckled, which sounded like meteors scraping across the cold, metal husk of an abandoned spaceship. He declared, “Mortal, methinks thee protests too much. Thou shouldst know better than to attempt bluffing a trickster god. We see right past such pathetic charades. I not only accuse thee of being mortals, but of being some of the most foolish mortals to have ever existed. Thou thought thee could step thy profane feet inside this sacred place without being noticed? Thy doom awaits thee for this trespass, and thou only hast thy foolishness to blame.”