Drillbot initiated his greetings sequence. “[whir] Nice to meet you, Henry. How are you – CLACK – are you doing this fine day?”
The gourd groaned. “I’m impaled on a drill. How the hell are you?”
Drillbot sighed. He realized that he had initiated the greetings sequence to begin conversation with a friendly sentient being when he should have initiated the greetings sequence to begin conversation with a moderately annoyed and potentially hostile sentient being.
Drillbot took a moment to allow the program to switch over. Then he said, “[whir] Nice to meet you, Henry. You seem at least moderately distressed. Is there anything – CLACK - anything Drillbot can do to help?”
The gourd sighed again. Drillbot wondered for a moment if the gourd knew any other expressions. Then the gourd said, “You can go back in time and not impale me.”
Drillbot allowed his systems to process that conundrum. He remained silent for a few seconds and then said, “[whir] Drillbot has processed that option. He sees the outcome as unlikely, unless Henry can jump between moments in time as well as – CLACK – as well as dimensions.”
“Alas, I cannot.”
“[whir] Then perhaps Drillbot can – CLACK – Drillbot can make Henry more comfortable by removing Henry from his drill?”
Drillbot began to reach his left drill over to knock the gourd from his right drill.
“No! Please! My skin’s been breached! Rot has already begun setting in, and it will increase at an exponential rate if you further expose my insides. Please, whatever you do, don’t take me off your drill!”
Drillbot stared at the large, pathetic vegetable on the end of his drill. Its antennae drooped limply and yet again, without understanding how he could tell, Drillbot understood that the vegetable was frightened. Drillbot moved his left drill away from the gourd.
“[whir] Then Drillbot shall – CLACK – shall not remove Henry. But what can Drillbot do to ensure that Henry – CLACK – that Henry does not rot?”
Henry moaned. Then he said, “Unfortunately, there’s really no cure for my people when the rot sets in. Not unless you can freeze time around me.”
Drillbot smiled his version of a smile. “[whir] Drillbot cannot, but he may know some people – CLACK – some people who can.”
Henry squealed in delight. “Delightful news! I’m not ready to die. I haven’t even sown any of my wild seeds yet.”
“[whir] Then Henry will need to – CLACK – to jump us back to the place from which we just came.”
“That’s not so delightful news. There’s a war going on there, you know.”
“[whir] If anyone can help Henry freeze time, the B.T.T. – CLACK – the B.T.T. can.”
Henry sighed. “I repeat: there’s a war happening there. Your friends in the B.T.T. are about to die. All we’d be doing is jumping into a situation where we’d die, too. I’d rather just rot here with you, if it’s all the same.”
Drillbot’s smile transformed into his version of a frown. “[whir] It is not all the same to Drillbot. Drillbot was removed from the battlefield against his will. Many of Drillbot’s friends are in peril because of his – CLACK – because of his undesired removal. Drillbot can guarantee Henry that Henry will not – CLACK – will not die of rot if Henry does not return us to the field of battle. He will die of violence.”
Henry was silent for a moment. Then he sighed again and said, “Fine. I’ll take us back. I never intended to jump you out of there, anyway. The guy who kidnapped me from my original bond-master tricked me. You’ve just got to promise me that you’ll look after me until we can get the B.T.T. to patch me up.”
Drillbot nodded. “[whir] Of course Drillbot will look after Henry. Drillbot protects his – CLACK – protects his friends.”
Drillbot sensed a feeling of relief and happiness drift from the pale gourd. “Very well. We’ll be on our way,” said Henry.
Then lightning flashed between Henry’s antennae, dangled there for a moment, and launched into Drillbot’s torso.
Chapter 32
SHOWDOWN IN THE MIDST OF REVOLUTION
Alex elbowed his assailant squarely in the bubbled space helmet. The attack gave him just enough respite to save his own life.
Alex reached down and toggled a button on his space suit. It was the one marked Atmosphere Reentry Mode, and after pressing it, a portion of his suit’s power transitioned from operating his respirators to generating a weak force shield that would keep him from burning up in the atmosphere as he fell through it.
Alex’s assailant—who Alex recognized from classified briefings and from past time-loops as Agent 27142 of the B.I.T.—must have realized what Alex was doing, because the cretin used one hand to turn on his own Atmosphere Reentry Mode while simultaneously jerking his other hand forward in an attempt to toggle off Alex’s button. Alex knocked the offending hand aside, but the force of his block sent him spinning away from Agent 27142.
Alex wished for a moment that he had been subtler about activating his own field. If he had, then maybe Agent 27142 would have burned up and this fight would have been much easier. Alex pushed the missed opportunity from his mind and concentrated on the fight at hand. Once he gained his bearings and stopped his spin, he noticed that Agent 27142 was diving straight toward him.
Alex decided to lure Agent 27142 into a false confidence for this incoming attack, so he feigned losing control of his fall by flopping his arms out to his side and kicking his legs and shrieking in terror. He waited for Agent 27142 to close the distance between them and take the bait. However, Agent 27142 stopped his dive toward Alex, instead leaning backward and shifting his momentum to move away from Alex. Alex frowned. His acting must not have been as good as he intended.
Alex shrugged. Since Agent 27142 was not going to fall for his trap, Alex stopped pretending that he had lost control of his fall. He and Agent 27142 stared at one another. Agent 27142’s eyes were full of rage. Alex’s, however, were full of serenity9, and this mismatch of rage versus serenity was just how Alex liked it. For rage would eventually fumble out of control, while serenity would maintain control until it eventually struck a lethal blow.
Alex’s and Agent 27142’s force shields glowed completely red as the earth loomed closer and closer. It grew harder to breathe as more power from Alex’s respirator shifted to his force shield. The pair continued staring at each other. Alex grinned, and it seemed to only enrage Agent 27142 further. Soon, Alex noticed that Agent 27142’s shield was no longer glowing quite so red and hot. This meant that the pair had finished falling through the atmosphere.
Alex reached up and toggled a button on his suit. It powered off his force shield, allowing power to return to his respirator and other basic functionality. Agent 27142, however, did not do the same. He instead converted the power from his shield to his jetpack. He launched at Alex, fury etched across his face. The sudden conversion of power to the jetpack made the man so fast that Alex had no time to react or dodge out of the way. He sighed and prepared himself for impact, knowing that so long as he prevented a deathblow, he would eventually gain the upper hand.
Agent 27142’s fists slammed into Alex’s gut. Alex rolled with it as best he could to dampen the impact. It helped, but he felt the breath knocked from him, nonetheless. As Alex reeled, Agent 27142 gripped him in a bear hug and squeezed. Alex gasped for breath. Agent 27142 squeezed harder. Little colored specks began appearing around the edges of Alex’s vision.
Alex responded with a pair of punches to Agent 27142’s kidneys, but because Agent 27142’s arms were wrapped around him, he could get little momentum behind the punches. He tried smacking his bubbled helmet into Agent 27142’s. This affected the assailant not at all, so Alex brought his knee up to strike Agent 27142’s groin.
Agent 27142 attempted the exact same move at the exact same time, and they only accomplished cracking their knees into each other. Agent 27142 released Alex from the bear hug, and both opponents instinctively reached down to rub the pain from their
knees.
Alex saw an opening and punched at Agent 27142’s gut. Agent 27142 dodged and grabbed Alex’s arm just above the wrist with his melted hand. As it happened, Alex glanced at his opponent’s face and saw Agent 27142 grimace in pain. Agent 27142 noticed Alex staring at his face, so he punched Alex in the bubbled helmet with his free hand. Alex grinned as an idea popped into his head. Agent 27142 had just fumbled by revealing his weakness. Serenity had won Alex the day, Agent 27142 simply did not know it yet.
Alex used his free hand to grab Agent 27142’s melted hand. He squeezed with all his might. Agent 27142 released his grip on Alex’s wrist and screamed in pain and fury. Agent 27142 lashed out with a kick, but Alex did not release the melted hand. Instead, Alex rolled with the kick, spun through the air, and used his momentum to twist Agent 27142’s arm behind his own back. Alex, now behind his assailant and gripping his assailant’s arm in place, wrenched upward. He paused for a brief second to reach around and turn off Agent 27142’s jetpack. Then he went back to wrenching.
He could tell by Agent 27142’s body language that the man was screaming, and he could tell by the force with which he was wrenching that something in Agent 27142’s arm was about to pop. He could also tell by glancing downward that the surface of the earth was closing fast. Alex noted Herceg Novi in the distance. He knew based on their trajectory that they were going to crash somewhere in the middle of the city in less than a minute. He noted how mundane the city looked now that the Infinity Vortex was gone.
Alex’s grin widened. He twisted so both his feet and his opponent’s feet were pointed toward the incoming city. He pressed a button on his suit that read, Gentle Landing. Dozens of marigold balloons launched from the back of his suit and inflated into spheres as large as the stallion upon which Alex rode into battle during his natural lifetime. Alex’s fall was jerked to a sudden halt. His grip on Agent 27142’s arm meant that Agent 27142 was also jerked to a sudden halt, but a halt where all the force of gravity and momentum was focused through the arm that was wrenched behind his back. It was like Alex had suddenly been granted the ability to wrench with a force multiplied to an exponent far higher than his understanding of math allowed him to calculate.
Alex felt the pops that he was seeking in Agent 27142’s arm. And then he felt even more pops as the arm ripped free from its socket and from every tendon and ligament that held it in place.
The sudden loss in tension in Agent 27142’s arm caused Alex to lose his grip. Agent 27142 slipped from his hands. He careened down toward the buildings far below. His arm dangled uselessly at his side. Alex did not think it would have been possible considering how much pain his opponent must have been experiencing, but Agent 27142 managed to reach up with his uninjured arm and restart his jetpack just in time to spin himself into a controlled crash through the roof of an old, Gothic-style cathedral.
Alex piloted his balloons to land gently on the street nearby. As he landed, he pressed a button on his suit and the tethers holding the balloons in place were cut. The balloons floated away toward the horizon.
Alex stared at the cathedral into which Agent 27142 had disappeared. He had enough experience working in the B.T.T. to know that Agent 27142 would be far from dead, and just as far from defeated. Alex was not stupid enough to follow the deadly bastard into the cathedral where he would almost certainly be waiting to spring a trap, so Alex instead leaned on the wall of a little coffee shop across the street and waited.
After a few minutes, he looked at the chronometer he wore on his wrist. He realized it was almost time for a third party to enter this fray. He removed his bubbled helmet, set it on the ground near his feet, and smirked.
Not long after, Alex heard Agent 27142’s frustrated curses drift out from the hole he had left in the roof of the cathedral.
*
Alex watched as Agent 27142 kicked open the wooden door to the old cathedral. Alex did not bother to stand fully upright. Instead, he continued leaning against the wall of the coffee shop, smirking with a level of nonchalant arrogance only present in those raised as the heir to an empire.
Agent 27142 stalked out of the threshold of the cathedral. He was still in his space suit, but his bubbled helmet was shattered and broken. He pointed a pistol at Alex shaped like a numeral eight, holding it in his good arm while his other dangled uselessly at his side. Alex recognized the make. It was a Wells Class B Gun, a model designed long before Alex had entered the B.T.T.’s service. It was more commonly referred to as a Timeflow Gun, and it could only legally be issued to medical-class ships or to high-ranking medical officers aboard major vessels in the B.T.T. fleet, like Doctor Randy, the Chief Medical Officer on the B.T.S. Unicorn Husker. More commonly it could be found illegally stowed aboard freighter-class transport ships with trade routes that took them through areas where attrition rates were high and replacement crew was scarce. The gun was an amazing piece of technology, but scientists in the B.T.T. had discovered that excess use of it creates bubbles at the end of time. When these bubbles pop, they cause the end of the Space-Time-Multinuum to move to an earlier date while simultaneously sending chaos drifting backward across the Space-Time-Multinuum. Thus, most of these guns had been taken out of commission, and the remaining guns were scarce enough that Agent 27142 could have raked in a fortune if he were to sell this one on the black market.
Alex grinned. He knew the third party would be appearing soon, so he needed to stall, if only for a minute or so. He said, “You know, you lucked out when you stole the ship that you stole. Most don’t have that make of gun aboard. It’s an antique. You could use it to reverse time and heal your arm. Or you could use it to travel to a particular point in the Space-Time-Multinuum. You could even go back in time and fix what you messed up. All you have to do is toggle those settings and point it at yourself.”
Agent 27142 scowled. “Oh, I should absolutely listen to you,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Because you definitely have my best interests in mind. I’ll go ahead and take my eyes off you to look down at my gun. That sounds really smart!”
Alex shrugged. “I wasn’t lying about the gun’s functionality,” he said. “But you’re right. The moment you went to change the gun’s settings, I would’ve pounced.”
“I know. I didn’t rise as high as I did in the B.I.T. because I’m an idiot.”
Alex spat on the ground. “Could’ve fooled me. We should both be on the same side, but you attacked our ship unprovoked, and you raided the B.T.T. headquarters for no reason.”
Agent 27142’s scowl deepened. He said, “No, I did not attack you unprovoked. I attacked you to avenge myself on my escaped prisoner and the murderous robot that he created, both of whom are Multiversal outlaws that you have been harboring. And I only raided your headquarters out of desperation to save the Multiverse. I had no other choice. My escaped prisoner set in motion a course of events that would have eventually led to the Multiverse’s destruction. I halted that possibility by freezing the B.I.T. home reality in time, and with it the cosmic forces that threatened to overwhelm the Multiverse.”
Alex’s grin widened. He said, “Please. You really think the cosmic bears were going to cause the destruction of the Multiverse? Son, the B.T.T. protects all of time, and frankly does your job by protecting space, too. We’ve already prevented the destruction that you fear. All you and I are doing now is working out the number of casualties on the metaphorical cosmic abacus.”
Agent 27142 looked puzzled. “Wait, what do you mean? You already fixed the bear problem?”
“The B.T.T. eats cosmic bears for breakfast,” said Alex. He then pointed to his right, in the direction of the street that led to the edge of the city and eventually into the wilderness surrounding Herceg Novi. “Though if I were you, I’d be less worried about cosmic bears that’re thousands of realities away and more worried about the mundane bear-creatures that’re headed this way right now.”
Agent 27142 resisted looking for a moment. But squishing sounds emanated from th
e direction in which Alex pointed, and he soon glanced down the street to see what was causing them. As Agent 27142 looked away, Alex leapt into the air, kicked Agent 27142 in the face, and then used his jetpack to blast up to the top of the eight-story tall building that housed the coffee shop on its bottom floor.
Thousands of bearopi flooded into the city. Their tentacles were each shaded a different color of the rainbow, and each tentacle had a different cute animal formed on its end. Two creatures led the pack as they rushed down the street on which Agent 27142 now lay. The first had a cute bunny growing from the end of its green tentacle. The second had a human in a designer suit growing from the end of its yellow tentacle. The suited-human-tentacle was chanting into a megaphone: “Re-vo-lu-tion! Bear-o-pi! Bear-o-pi! Freedom for all! Food for us!”
The marauding bearopi roared with excitement at each syllable. They smashed property with their tentacles and ripped citizens apart with their claws and teeth.
Agent 27142 gasped. He used his jetpack to launch up onto the same roof as Alex. As soon as he landed, Alex leapt forward and kicked the Timeflow Gun out of Agent 27142’s hand. It tumbled end over end and landed at the edge of the rooftop.
Agent 27142 screamed, “What are you doing? These beasts are going to overrun the city! They’re going to kill us! We must stop them first, and then we can finish our fight.”
Two bearopi clambered up the walls of the building and pulled themselves up onto the roof. Slaver dripped from their mouths. Alex grinned. “No, we mustn’t,” he said. “I already know how this bearopi revolution is destined to end.”
Lightning flashed behind the pair of approaching bearopi. A sound that reminded Alex of one of the demonic motorcycles he had encountered on Earth 89,053 roared over the cacophony of the revolting bearopi on the streets below. The torso of one of the bearopi exploded outward and blood rained upon Alex and Agent 27142. From out of the explosion came Drillbot, his left drill held out in front of him to guide his dive through the chest of the bearopus. Drillbot landed on the roof, rolled, and faced Agent 27142. Alex’s grin widened. His third party had finally arrived.
And Now, Time Travel Page 29