Welcome to the Multiverse

by Ira Nayman

  In summation, according to his neighbours, Gauguin di Presto was a combination of Gandhi and the Son of Sam.

  One thing all of the witnesses did agree upon, however, was that Gauguin di Presto had no interest in or knowledge of the workings of Dimensional Warping™ technology. This was corroborated by the fact that no information on the technology was found in his apartment or on any of the data storage devices that were found in his home. This being the case, one of the pressing questions of the investigation must be: what the hell was he doing playing around in the guts of a Home Universe Generator™?

  * * *

  The next day, Noomi was playing RoadBlox on her PDA when Investigator Chumley entered the Investigations bullpen. When he reached her desk, he leaned over and said under his breath, “Noomi, in five seconds, I’m going to have to yell at you. Don’t take it personally.”

  She was just able to get out “What?” when Investigator Chumley stood straight up and bellowed, “REMEMBER WHO IS IN CHARGE, HERE! I’M THE LEAD INVESTIGATOR, NOT YOU! I CALL THE SHOTS! AND, DON’T YOU FORGET IT!”

  Investigator Chumley leaned over again and said, “Now, please bow your head in submission and nod a couple of times.”

  “Do I –” Noomi started, but Investigator Chumley cut her off.

  “I would consider it a personal favour.”

  Noomi slowly dropped her head and nodded in what she hoped was an appropriate display of contrition.

  “Fantastic. I owe you one,” Investigator Chumley quietly stated. “By the way, you did a great job at the crime scene yesterday. You asked all the right questions and figured out exactly what our next moves should be. You’ve got good instincts – you’re a natural for this job!”

  “Thanks!” Noomi enthused.

  “Now, remember: look of contrition for the next few minutes.” Investigator Chumley straightened up again and loudly told her: “I’M GOING TO THE LAB TO SEE WHAT THEY’VE COME UP WITH! I’LL SHARE THAT INFORMATION WHEN I GET BACK!” Then, seeing that this wasn’t assertive enough for his audience, he added: “IF I FEEL LIKE IT!” and, sensing a more positive attitude in the room, left.

  Noomi didn’t know what to make of this encounter. When she dared to look up, she noticed that the other investigators in the room who dared to look back were smirking at her. Boy’s Games, she dismissed it, and went back to killing blocky opponents in 1980s-style graphic environments.

  What happened: The night before, Investigator Chumley had been sitting at his usual table at The Elliptical Garter Snail, one of a transdimensional franchise of traditional Ethiopian pubs that included The Elliptical Pygmy Pony, The Elliptical Wombat, The Elliptical Aardvark, The Elliptical Deveglonian Slather Ferret, The Elliptical Lemur, The Elliptical Firefly and, of course, The Elliptical Mexican Jumping Rhinoceros. The Elliptical Animal chain tended to be a hangout for police officers, firefighters and freelance chiropractors. Investigator Chumley was sitting alone at his usual table, eating his tension bouillabaisse with soda angst crackers and picking out amusing errors in the latest issue of The Alternate Reality News Service when a deep voice boomed, “Investigator Crash Chumley.”

  Investigator Chumley looked up to see one of his colleagues, in a manner of speaking, standing over him.

  “Investigator Brett Blurp,” he coolly responded.

  Investigator Chumley had never been close to his colleagues, loosely defined; Investigator Blurp had always struck him as the sort of person who would fill in crossword puzzles with random letters so it wouldn’t look like he was too stupid to be able to finish them.

  “Rumour around the bullpen,” Investigator Blurp sneered, “is that there was an…incident at your crime scene. Rumour in the bullpen is that some peahen rode you like a cheap bronco ride at a kiddie circus!”

  “I…I’m sorry?” Investigator Chumley, not quite grasping the metaphor, responded.

  “You certainly are!” Investigator Blurp roared. Investigator Chumley noticed that the other investigators, who had a table of their own at some distance from him, were laughing. They all wore identical black leather jackets and had rolled up their sleeves at precisely the same angle. Investigator Chumley couldn’t decide if they were used to wearing uniforms from work or if they just shared a chronic lack of imagination.

  “No, I meant that I didn’t quite grasp your metaphor,” Investigator Chumley explained.

  “Oh. Metaphor-impaired, are we?” Investigator Blurp continued. “Let me help you out. After your performance at the crime scene, you should have been redder than a beat that had just eaten a chilli pepper after finding out that its wife had slept with a rutabaga!”

  Investigator Chumley thought about this for a couple of seconds. “Noooo,” he eventually said, “I’m afraid I don’t understand that one either.”

  “Oh. Ah…well…” Investigator Blurp, not expecting to have to go three insulting metaphors deep, faltered. “We’re talking about your performance at the crime scene.”

  “Yes, I caught that.”

  “It was like…” Investigator Blurp gamely continued, aware that the eyes of his colleagues were upon him, “you were being…controlled…in the way that somebody who should be in charge is…umm…you know…”

  “Controlled?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So,” Investigator Chumley summed up, “you are questioning my masculinity because I let Investigator Rapier ask questions?”

  “Yes!” Investigator Blurp gratefully responded. “That’s it! That’s exactly what I’m saying!”

  “Well,” Investigator Chumley politely said, “thank you for that second-hand assessment of my job performance. I will take your thoughtful input into account in all of my future work endeavours.”

  “Well, okay. You do that, then.” Investigator Blurp went back to his table, where he was greeted with much high fiving and slapping of the back. Investigator Chumley went back to reading The Alternate Reality News Service. He nodded absently to himself. He never really did understand the concept of male bonding, but he knew he had just been subjected to it.

  * * *

  An hour later, Investigator Chumley returned to bullpen. Sitting down at his desk, he started, “Okay, it looks like we’re finally getting some…” but trailed off when he sensed that the other investigators in the room had an inordinate interest in what he was saying. Standing, he told the room, “Look, I’VE ALREADY ESTABLISHED MY ALPHA MALE BONA FIDES! If you have nothing better to do, can you PLEASE STOP LISTENING IN ON MY CONVERSATIONS TO SEE IF I AM RECEIVING THE PROPER SUBMISSIVE ATTITUDE FROM MY PARTNER!”

  There was general mumbling, but everybody in the room went back to whatever they had been doing to avoid work.

  “So,” Noomi, excited, asked, “What did Tech Support find out about the Home Universe Generator™ we found at the crime scene?”

  “They haven’t figured out what the modifications were supposed to do,” Investigator Chumley answered.

  “Oh.” Disappointed, but still game, Noomi asked, “Well, did the coroner find anything unusual about the body?”

  “Not so far,” Investigator Chumley told her.

  “So, do you have any news?” Noomi asked, her enthusiasm dimming.

  “Xenia Zaifman in Data Collection and Interpretation and Technical Support says hi.”

  “Oh. Umm. Hunh. Thanks.” Noomi’s enthusiasm was going out faster than the red light in a dying Terminator’s eyes.

  “I know things are going slowly so far, but don’t be discouraged. Every transdimensional incursion leaves unique traces of the machine used. We just have to wait for the guy who was on the other end of the Gauguin di Presto interdimensional communication to try again.”

  Noomi had to admit that she was enchanted by this pseudo-scientific jargon. “But, what happens if he doesn’t try again?”

  “Oh, they always try again,” Investigator Chumley assured her. “Whatever was going on in that room has the feel of unfinished business.”

  Noomi nodded. “Okay. So, wh
at do we do in the meantime?”

  Investigator Chumley looked around the room to see if anybody was listening and, satisfied that nobody was, quietly said, “I hate to ask this, but, could you get me a coffee?”

  Chapter Four:

  Noomi Is Not In This Chapter

  “MOOOOM!” daughter Jessica Cornflake screamed. “Bart is saying mean things about me on Facebook again!”

  “I AM NOT!” son Bart Finkleheimer shouted. “And, anyway, every word of it is true!”

  Mom sighed. Practically before she had conceived her children, she conceived of having children as being a form of penance for sins that weren’t necessarily all that sinful, to her way of thinking, which wasn’t that different from most people’s ways of thinking, she believed, except for certain impulses that she had managed to keep under control, so they could hardly be considered sins, and, anyway, what the hell, such sins might, in fact, be virtues in another, more just reality; but the universe, this universe, the universe she was stuck in, had its own reasons for why things happen and worked on its own inscrutable moral timetable, a timetable you couldn’t get at the bus depot even if you could conceive of it and, being a mere mortal, you probably couldn’t even conceive of it, so what are you going to do?

  “Alright, you two,” Mom said, “what is it this time?”

  Jessica Cornflake looked up from her PDA and said, “Bart just posted a note that says that I don’t know what a Fourier transform is!”

  “Bart, is that true?” Mom demanded.

  “Geez, Mom,” Bart Finkleheimer, slowing his typing on his laptop’s keyboard but not looking up, responded, “how can anybody be expected to calculate the frequency domain representation of a function for signal processing when they think that a Fourier transform means wearing a new mink stole!”

  Mom frowned. “Jess, is that true?” she asked.

  Jessica Cornflake shrugged. Kids these days!

  “Bart, don’t make fun of your sister on Facebook,” Mom commanded. “Jessica, try not to live your life as a series of bad puns that only science geeks will truly appreciate. And, both of you, finish your Noggos™!”

 

  Noggos™ are a brand of breakfast food in the FDA ignored category of suppressive waffles. They contain drugs that ensure that you won’t be hungry for the rest of the day! Stories of people fainting while jogging, bicycling or using heavy farm machinery were deemed by Kellogg’s, the company that made them, apocryphal and, anyway, a small price to pay for the first serious attempt to deal with the nation’s obesity problem using nourishmeceuticals. A grateful nation ignored them.

 

  Jessica Cornflake, 13 years old, had neon blue hair and a wore t-shirt that read, “I don’t know who you are, but you suck!” Pre-emptive aggression was all the rage among teenagers – kids these days! (Although she probably was not aware of it, Mom had a quota of kids these days! thoughts that she had to think if she was to sleep soundly at night. Please bear with her – it’s a phase she’s going through.) While feeding off her social network’s energy, Jessica Cornflake was listening to the clean rock band Close Cap Before Replacing’s current hit, “Always Squeeze From the Bottom of the Tube.”

  Bart Finkleheimer was a year younger than his sister. He had the spiked hair and horn-rimmed glasses of the nerd punks of his generation. (For them, chess club was an opportunity to play a full body contact sport, and if you didn’t come out of math club with some sort of permanent facial scar, you were a loser!) There was something about the intensity of his gaze that kept even Aunt Sophie Auktaukluk, whose freedom with other people’s bodies was legendary, from pinching his cheeks.

  Mom stood by the toaster oven, waiting for the next batch of Noggos™ to unfreeze. The first thing she did when she got the toaster oven home a couple of years ago was disable its personality implant and override all of its automatic functions – Mom was surprisingly handy with pliers and soldering irons, which would have impressed anybody in her family had they chosen to notice – which, of course, they hadn’t – she was not going to be dictated to by her kitchen appliances! Over the counter that divided the kitchen area from the dining area, she watched her children sitting at the table physically next to each other but conceptually in different universes.

  “Morning, everybody,” Dad said as he walked into the dining room. He was tall and thin, with thinning curly brown hair: although he had the look and demeanour of a hawk that was desperate to break the diet its spouse had put it on with a quick rat snack, he had a voice that suggested he sucked on one too many helium balloons when he was a kid and, just like his mother had warned him, his voice had gotten permanently stuck that way. This made Dad, at best, a confusing authority figure.

  “Sit down, hon,” Mom told him. “Another batch of Noggos™ is on its way.”

  As he sat at the table, Dad complained, “Aww, hon, I can’t have any Noggos™ today! You know I have a brunch with Sid Adelman, and if I don’t eat anything, he will take it as a personal insult and decide not to buy into our takeover of Endonniedarko Industries! I’m sorry, but I cannot jeopardize our family’s future just to ensure I get my daily not recommended by the FDA dose of nourishmeceuticals!”

  Actually, Mom thought to herself, I didn’t know that you had a brunch with Sid Adelman, you self-absorbed cretin. You may have told me three weeks ago that you had an important meeting today, but it’s not like you gave me any details, because you never talk about your work, or the latest research on the health risks of nourishmeceuticals, or which politician has been caught with his hypocritical hand up which starlet’s pay-or-play contract or, or, or anything, really, because you think it will upset some delicate thing inside me that exists only in your sexist imagination and, oh, if you only knew, if you only knew, that condescending smile would be wiped off your face faster than…something really fast…really, really, really, really, really fast – and, that’s five reallys, so you know it’s serious – because…because…because…

  “How about an omelet?” Mom asked.

  “Just eggs?” Dad asked.

  “Maybe just a little bit of caffeine,” Mom coyly admitted. “We’ve run out of decaffeinated eggs.”

  “You’ll have to pick some up the next time you do a shop,” Dad told her, a hint of sternness creeping into his balloon voice.

  “Yes, dear,” she meekly responded as she got the eggs out of the fridge.

  “Too much caffeine makes me edgy,” Dad continued. “I almost lost the Frippingler Account because I had had too much caffeine and scrunched a magic marker on a whiteboard. I didn’t even know magic markers could be scrunched. Not the sort of thing you want to learn in a crucial meeting where the fate of the Frippingler Account hangs in the balance, let me tell you! Hunh. Still, if that’s all we’ve got, I suppose that’s what I’ll have.”

  After she made the eggs, Mom watched her family eating breakfast. The kids were focused on their devices while Dad was reading the latest issue of The Alternate Reality News Service. She idly wondered if there were any original jokes left about the nuclear family.

  “Okay, kids,” Mom said as they finished their waffles, “time to strap into your virtual reality harnesses so you can spend the day at Camp Winniminnibagotonka.”

  “Aww, Mom, do I have to go?” Bart Finkleheimer whined.

  “Is there a problem, son?” Dad, setting the paper aside on the table, asked.

  “Nobody wants to spend any time in the environments he creates,” Jessica Cornflake stated. “They’re too weird.”

  “They’re conceptual!” Bart Finkleheimer shouted.

  “Now, son,” Dad admonished. (Think: Ward Cleaver played by Mickey Mouse.) “We’ve talked about this before. If you want to get along with the other children at camp, you’ll have to give them something realistic that they can hold onto.”

  “Representation is dead!” Bart Finkleheimer loudly insisted. “I hate it! Hate it! Hate it!”

  “Don’t wor
ry,” Mom gently told him. “I know this time of your life is difficult, but, when you’re older, you will find people who understand you and the environments you create for them.”

  Dad shot her a ‘not helping’ look. Mom looked down at the hands that were folded in front of her apron. “Son,” Dad stated, “human beings are, by nature, social creatures. If you want to get ahead you have to go along. There is no ‘I’ in team. The lone inventor doesn’t catch the big IPO. You don’t want to end up like your Uncle Ira, do you?”

  Mom looked like she was about to protest, so Dad shook his head at her.

  “I guess not,” Bart Finkleheimer reluctantly allowed.

  “Of course you don’t!” Dad roared. His voice is not something you can describe – you really have to hear it to believe it. “Now, if you two scamps have finished breakfast, I want you to go upstairs, strap into your VR harnesses and learn how to conform!”

  “Yes, sir!” Jessica Cornflake saluted and rushed out of the room.

  “Yes, sir,” Bart Finkleheimer, resigned, said, and walked out of the room.

  “They’re good kids,” Mom observed.

  “Hopefully, they won’t need too much expensive therapy when they’re older,” Dad responded. Finishing his decaf cup of coffee, he rose from the table. Mom came to his side. “Have a good day,” he stiffly said and kissed her awkwardly on the cheek.

  “Thanks,” Mom replied. “You, too.”

  As she walked him to the door, Dad told her: “Oh, I left you the Alternate Reality News Service. There’s an article on fashions on Earth Prime 4-8-3-6-2-5 dash beta that might give you some ideas.”