Ginny nodded at Drillbot. “Well, I guess we should get moving,” she said.
Chapter 36
WRONG PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME
Normal-Art stopped by Officer Yardish Groveland’s station to retrieve his equipment for the upcoming mission, after which he returned to the bridge. He sat on one of the benches at the back of the room. He was so excited at the prospect of finally returning home after this stupid battle that he had actually read the mission briefing dossier that Captain King Solomon had provided. This would finally be the last leg of his mission, after which he would be free to return to his couch.
Soon, the B.T.S. Unicorn Husker would be unfreezing time on Earth 55,777. This would occur at a moment seconds before God-Art was destined to arrive with the kidnapped Older-Art in tow. The B.T.T.’s primary objective was to capture the cosmic bears—a convoluted scheme where the Landing Crew would wrest from Hephaestus’ grasp the black onyx saber that the god had created, stab the bears with it, and remove them from Earth 55,777.
Normal-Art’s job during the mission was to assist the Landing Crew in its secondary objective: rescuing his older-self from God-Art. This plan involved setting a trap before the god appeared at the location at which God-Art would be appearing. Since this location was atop the Olympus building, it thus lay simultaneously amid the warring pink and blue bears and in the place where Hephaestus was destined to enter the fray. It sounded especially dangerous.
Normal-Art glanced out the view screen. The B.T.S. Unicorn Husker was floating in a manufactured time bubble inside the universe of Earth 55,777. According to the briefing, this bubble allowed the ship and its crew to sit within the reality without suffering the time-freezing effects of the Stasis Bomb. However, the manufactured time bubble could not be maintained for long before it would melt, and if that happened, then the ship itself would become frozen in stasis just like the reality surrounding it. Thus, time was of the essence, and it was vital to get into position before Captain King Solomon used the technology aboard the ship to cancel the effects of the Stasis Bomb that were currently blanketing the entire reality.
Normal-Art smirked. Floating in the blackness of space just above Earth 55,777 were more cosmic threats than he cared to count. He noticed a creature that looked an awful lot like a colossal green man with dozens of squid-like tentacles dangling from its chin. He noticed a pale man with what looked like thousands of nails stuck in his head. He noticed an enormous glowing stiletto heel with purple lightning emanating from its toe. He noticed a bunch of pixelated eight-bit cartoon characters. He noticed a dozen humanoid creatures who were all sitting atop winged horses and all wearing rainbow-colored suits of helmetless medieval knights’ armor. Their skin glowed golden while their lips glowed red and their hair glowed blond.
He could have sat there noticing weird creatures for the rest of his life. But Captain King Solomon stood up and said, “Arthur, why are you here on the bridge?”
Normal-Art did not realize that the Captain was speaking to him, at least not until the Purple Shirt sitting on the next bench walked over to him and elbowed him.
The Captain repeated himself, to which Normal-Art replied, “My name is Art.”
Captain King Solomon sighed. He gestured around himself and said, “Do you not notice anything missing here, young man?”
Normal-Art shrugged. “Not really,” he replied.
The Captain slapped himself on the forehead. He said, “You are the densest man I have ever met. Did you read your briefing dossier?”
Normal-Art jumped to his feet in excitement and exclaimed, “This time, I totally did!”
Normal-Art began reciting the plan to Captain King Solomon. When he arrived at the part about the Landing Crew jumping planetside to set a trap for God-Art, the Captain stopped him.
“Arthur, who was listed as part of the Landing Crew?”
Normal-Art closed his eyes to concentrate. He answered, “Ummm, Alex. Ginny. 29333. Drillbot. Bagoo. A bunch of squads of Purple Shirts. Oh, and me, of course.”
Normal-Art opened his eyes. Captain King Solomon stared at him with cold eyes. He gestured around himself once more and said, “Yes, and other than yourself, do you see any of the people that you just listed here on my bridge?”
Normal-Art frowned. “Well, no.”
Captain King Solomon crossed his arms and said, “That’s because they are all down at the Jump Chamber ready for transport down to the planet. Exactly where the briefing dossier told them to be.”
Normal-Art stared at his feet. He muttered, “Oh. Guess I must have skimmed that part.”
Captain King Solomon sighed. “Yes, you must have. Now get down there. I’m removing the stasis effect from this reality in exactly five minutes. If you ever want to get home, you better be teleporting planetside with your colleagues when I do so.”
Normal-Art leapt to his feet. He scrambled out of the bridge and was halfway to the elevator when he realized he did not know how to get to the Jump Chamber. He ran back to the bridge and asked for a guide.
He made it to the Jump Chamber just in time.
He arrived on Earth 55,777 panting and out of breath. As he looked around, he came to the conclusion that he hated this place just as much as he did the last time he saw it.
Chapter 37
ANOTHER TWELVE-PLUS DECADES DOWN THE DRAIN
Older-Art had known that God-Art was going to kidnap him during the battle above Earth 8,669. He vaguely remembered the incident from when he was in the position of his younger-self. But he did not have prior knowledge as to what was destined to happen to him between his kidnapping and the upcoming confrontation on Earth 55,777. He quickly learned that this period was worse than he possibly could have imagined.
“Just a few more decades,” said God-Art. “Almost there.”
For the billionth time in the last minute, cold overwhelmed Older-Art. He wished he could shiver. He wished he could moan. He wished he could shift his position to something more comfortable, or at least move his arms to plug his ears so he would no longer have to listen to God-Art speak. He wished he could do anything at all. But he could not.
He thought back to that terrible day when God-Art had snatched him from the battle above Earth 8,669. His body attempted to shudder. Nothing happened.
God-Art, in phoenix form, had tackled him from behind. Older-Art felt a sharp crack in his spine. He screamed. Lightning filled his vision. He floated in the colorful-and-colorless expanse between realities. He vomited, and the remnants of his breakfast caked the inside of his bubbled space suit helmet.
Older-Art had screamed again. God-Art ripped the helmet from Older-Art’s head. The god tossed the helmet away. Older-Art watched it tumble end over end out into infinity. Older-Art refused to look into the deity’s eyes. Instead, he looked at the gigantic cockroach sitting atop the god’s head. It was using one leg to hold onto a bolt of lightning. Its others were gripped tight to God-Art’s scalp, somehow not catching fire despite the god’s flaming hair. It removed one foreleg from the god’s scalp to wave at Older-Art. Older-Art timidly waved back.
Due to the motion in God-Art’s fiery hair and the way Beverly’s antennae seemed to be fluttering in some imperceptible wind, Older-Art realized that they were zooming through the expanse between realities at an incredible speed. Older-Art wondered for a moment how he was keeping pace with the pair, since he was not holding onto God-Art, and he felt nobody holding onto him. He glanced down and noticed God-Art’s hand was gripping his lower right leg. He wondered why he had not felt it. As a matter of fact, he also no longer felt the constant tickling vibration from the Pulsar Boots on his feet. He shrugged.
After being dragged behind Beverly and God-Art for what seemed like days, Beverly finally let go of the lightning bolt. It flashed off into the distance and disappeared. She flapped her thin wings a few dozen times to slow the group’s momentum.
They floated near a ball of crackling energy that looked like a sun made from rainbows. Carrier-cl
ass B.I.T. ships continually appeared in flashes of lightning and flew into the ball. Equally large ships continually appeared from within the energy ball, only to disappear into bolts of lightning that launched from their prows.
Beverly rubbed her forelegs together, creating a chorus of creaks and croaks.
“I see it, thank you,” God-Art said to Beverly. The god turned to Older-Art. He pointed at the ball of crackling energy. “That’s the entrance to Earth 55,777. Home of the B.I.T.”
Older-Art nodded. “I figured as much. So, let’s get this over with. Go on in. It’s not like I can do anything to stop you, anyway.”
God-Art furrowed his brows. “You can’t seriously think it’s that easy.”
Older-Art shrugged. “Who cares what I think? You love your own voice, so you’re going to tell me why it’s not that easy whether I want to hear it or not.”
God-Art shrugged back. “True.”
“Well, get on with it, then,” said Older-Art.
God-Art pointed toward the energy ball. “It won’t be so easy because we’ve got ourselves a good dozen or so decades to wait before the battle occurs that will bring the cosmic bears here. Entering Earth 55,777 right now would do naught but draw unwanted attention to ourselves.”
Older-Art frowned. “Wait, what? A dozen decades?”
God-Art shrugged once more. “Give or take a few.”
Older-Art felt like crying. He bit his lower lip. “How is that possible?”
God-Art smirked. “I keep forgetting how stupid you are. I should really try and remember before I next speak with you.”
Frustrated, Older-Art tried to kick the god with his free leg. But his leg must have been asleep or something, because it refused to cooperate. He grunted in anger.
God-Art seemed not to notice. He continued, “The battle from which I abducted you took place long before the battle on Earth 55,777.”
“Huh?”
God-Art sighed. “Beverly moved us across space to get here. But she has no control over time. I captured you just after the successful conclusion to my Montenegro Bay Convention. I showed up on your doorstep for the first time just over a century after that. I was dead for a couple decades before I resurrected and went on that absurd journey with Drillbot to rescue you from one of your reality’s ridiculous hells. So, if we assume Earth 55,777 was frozen at the exact moment you were killed in the battle that takes place there, that means your death occurred sometime in the decades that spanned the time I lay dead and dormant inside your disgusting apartment. That is the earliest point at which the B.T.T. might unfreeze the B.I.T. home world. But that timing is the best-case scenario, so I would tack on another couple decades to the estimate just to be safe.”
“Huh?”
“Look, it’s quite simple: we’re now in the right place for the next part of my plan, but we’re at the wrong time. And the right time won’t be here until approximately twelve decades from now.”
Older-Art frowned. “But I’ll be dead by then.”
God-Art nodded. “And now you comprehend the problem. I need you alive as bait for the cosmic bears. But don’t worry. I’ve got a solution.”
God-Art wormed his head around to stare into Older-Art’s eyes. Older-Art tried to look elsewhere, but no matter where he shifted his eyes, God-Art moved in front of them. Soon, Older-Art’s eyes were unavoidably locked into the black pupils of God-Art.
The blackness began swirling and whirling and shifting. Soon, Older-Art lost all concept of his surroundings. He found that he now stood atop an icy crag. Snow fell so hard around him that he could see nothing beyond a few feet in front of him. He tried to scream in terror, but clumps of snow fell into his mouth. Other than the Ninth Circle of Hell, the clumps were colder than anything he had ever experienced. Rather than melting, they grew and multiplied and forced their way down his throat. His entire body became frigid. His entire world glossed over in sudden icy whiteness.
And then the vision disappeared, and Art was back in the colorful-and-colorless expanse between realities. But something was wrong. He was much colder than he had been before experiencing the vision. His view was clouded with icy blueness. He could not blink. He could not move his arms. He could not move his legs. He could not move anything.
Older-Art panicked. He tried to scream, but he could not. He tried to run, but he could not. He could not even breathe.
God-Art’s voice seemed to echo all around him. God-Art said, “Do not panic. I have simply frozen you in a magical block of ice to preserve your body and keep your spirit encased within it. I will stand vigil through the next dozen-or-so decades. I will watch as the cosmic bears attack the B.I.T. I will watch as Earth 55,777 is frozen in place. And I will watch until the B.T.T. eventually appears to unfreeze it so that its timestream can continue flowing.
“See how the rainbow-colored energy ball marking the entrance to Earth 55,777 is in continuous motion and does so much crackling?” continued God-Art. “Well, when this reality falls victim to the Stasis Bomb, all of that will freeze. Those B.I.T. ships you see entering and exiting would be able to go in if they wanted to, but they wouldn’t be able to exit. When the freezing happens, I’ll have to pay extra-close attention, because at the first sign of the energy ball beginning to move again, it will be time to strike. I will then free you from your personal cryo-stasis, and I will have Beverly bring us near the place where she detects the strongest version of us. That will be the blue bear. And the pink bear will be somewhere nearby. We will then snatch the Pink One when they are distracted by your presence, and I will obtain from it immeasurable power.”
Older-Art tried to reply, tried to say something sarcastic about God-Art’s supervillainous monologue where he detailed all the components of his plan, but he could not.
Instead, he was forced to listen as God-Art continued speaking. “While we wait, let us pass the time with a story. I’ll tell you about the time I was frozen in a block of ice. My older brother was particularly annoyed with me that day, and he thought that if he murdered me and caused my father to drink my remains, I might stay dead. So, he lured me to th-”
Older-Art stopped listening. He wished more than anything else that he could die and finally be free of the stupid, inane god. Instead, he floated in silence, nothing but a prisoner inside a block of ice. He hoped the upcoming decades would pass quickly. But he did not get his hopes up too high.
*
Older-Art wondered if he had gone insane or if he had died again and this was, in fact, some sort of hell. God-Art was still droning on with the same story over a hundred and twenty years later—long after the Stasis Bomb had frozen time on Earth 55,777. He was describing every rock and every flake of snow and every other tiny detail that flittered into his mind. He was flitting listlessly into other stories embedded within the current one he was telling. And he was just now about to start getting frozen by his brother.
“The water oozed across my left foot,” said God-Art. “I felt a creeping tingle in my little toe. It felt like the time when I went swimming in the Serpent Sea and received a bite on my foot. My extremities tingled and then they puffed up, bright and swollen and purple. The swollen foot reminded me of the time I traveled to the Gumdropbear Forest and ate from the fruit of the Boysenberry Bubble Tree. The fruits were bright and swollen and purple, and their taste flooded my mouth with red syrupy goodness. This was a problem, you see, because eating the fruits was forbidden to anyone except the natives. So, the natives attacked. And one pinned me down wi-”
Suddenly, God-Art halted his tale. He pointed toward the frozen ball of rainbow-colored energy and said, “Look!”
Older-Art could not turn his frozen head to look, but luckily for him, he was already turned in the correct direction to see. His heart exploded with relief and happiness. A familiar, humongous, striped dirigible appeared. Older-Art noted its name in bold purple block letters written out on its hull near the engines: B.T.S. Unicorn Husker.
He had never experienced joy on
this level. The B.T.T. had finally arrived. The B.T.S. Unicorn Husker would finally be unfreezing time on Earth 55,777. God-Art could finally finish his nefarious scheme. Everything might finally be done in a few minutes’ time, and Older-Art might finally get to go home.
A thin, yellow bubble appeared around the B.T.S. Unicorn Husker. Solid rectangular prisms of light extended from the bubble surrounding the ship and crashed into the motionless energy ball that marked the entrance to Earth 55,777. The rainbows disappeared in a small section and The Unicorn Husker flew into it. The Unicorn Husker disappeared.
God-Art screamed out in joy, “Only moments to go now!”
The god turned to Older-Art. He muttered some words in a language that Older-Art did not understand. And then flames leapt from his fiery hair and landed on the ice that surrounded Older-Art. It spread and fully surrounded the block of ice that imprisoned him.
For the first time in over a hundred years, Older-Art felt warmth. It felt good. The ice cracked and melted. His organs heated and began working once more. He experienced his heart beating for the first time in so long that he had forgotten how it felt.
The ice sloughed from Older-Art and he screamed his own cry of joy. The fire returned to God-Art’s head. Older-Art grinned. But then his body began tingling. It had been frozen in place so long from the ice that as feeling returned, it was overwhelming. Needles seemed to prick him everywhere except for in his legs. He screamed in pain.
Then he fainted.
*
Older-Art woke to find God-Art dragging him by the right leg. He glanced up from God-Art to Beverly, who was perched on God-Art’s scalp, gripping a bolt of lightning with one leg and God-Art’s scalp with her others.
And Now, Time Travel Page 32