Welcome to the Multiverse

by Ira Nayman

  “You need to chill out, Moderate Sleeper,” the other voice added. “You know, stress can kill you!”

  “This is a military operation,” Rapier-Witte reminded them. “Stress is the least of my worries!”

  “She makes a good point, man,” the first voice said.

  Rapier-Witte rolled her eyes. “Besides,” she told the voices, “you’re both wrong. This is more like: War Game XVI: Battles You’ve Never Heard of and Probably Wouldn’t Be Interested In If You Had, But They’re The Only Ones That Haven’t Been Made Into A Military Simulation Game Yet, So There You Are.”

  “What scene,” the voices started in unison, “from War Game XVI: Battles You’ve Never Heard of and Probably –?”

  “Battles You Probably Wouldn’t Be Interested In Hearing About –” the second voice branched off.

  “No, man,” the first voice insisted, “it was called Battles You Haven’t Made Into A Military Simulation Game, Are You Interested?”

  “That doesn’t sound right, man,” the second voice whined.

  Gritting her teeth, Rapier-Witte told them: “It’s like the scene where Sergeant Yastremczki and two privates are sitting in a clearing in the woods looking down at the road where they have planted mines that they hope will blow up the asses of the Axis supplies convoy!”

  “Uhh, I don’t know, man,” the first voice said. “That sounds too…spot on, you know?”

  “It seems like an almost exact analogy to our situation, man,” the second voice agreed, “Where’s the metaphorical value?”

  Rapier-Witte sighed. If she got out of this alive, she promised herself she would recommend that they teach more than a day’s worth of metaphorical description at military boot camp. “Okay, enough out of you two,” she commanded. “I want to compose some voice-over narration in my head while we’re waiting.”

  “Oh, sure, man,” the first voice mumbled.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Moderate Sleeper,” the second voice quickly added.

  Moderate Sleeper with Oak Dream Clusters Noomi Rapier-Witte used her AI-enhanced binoculars to scan the pass below. The road quickly curved away to her left, while, to her right, it snaked for what appeared to be miles before it, too, disappeared behind a curve. Rapier-Witte and Insomniacs First Dream Tommy and Richard were hidden in the trees above the pass. They had – Rapier-Witte sniffed at the air.

  “What is that smell?” she angrily shouted.

  “Smell?’ Tommy asked, innocently from somewhere inside the trees. “I don’t smell anything, man.”

  “You should, man. You haven’t had a shower in daaays!” Richard responded.

  They fell into a giggling fit that Rapier-Witte could feel even though she couldn’t see them.

  “Insomniac First Dream Tommy! Insomniac First Dream Richard!” she shouted. “Front and centre on the double!”

  Tommy and Richard shambled out of the trees and into sight of Rapier-Witte. Tommy was tall and thin, somewhere between lanky and gangly. He had a scraggly black beard flecked with grey and scraggly grey hair flecked with black. He wore a hangdog expression pitched somewhere between bemused and confused like it was the only rational response to the world. Richard was a shorter Latino with a wiry body but round face that led people who didn’t know him to assume that he was overweight. His hair was thinning, but it was purely black (psst – he probably dyed it, but he had dedicated his life to defending his religion, so who are we to judge this little bit of vanity?). His primary expression was bemused, but it was inflected with confusion at key moments.

  “Take a…a…a pill, man,” Tommy advised her. “You’re gonna have a heart attack if you don’t chill out.”

  “We’re at war here!” Rapier-Witte screamed. “A heart attack is probably the least violent way to die!”

  “He’s right, dude,” Richard tried to add, but Rapier-Witte stopped him before he could finish.

  ‘I. AM. NOT. A. DUDE!” she bellowed. “I. AM. YOUR. SUPERIOR. OFFICER!”

  Richard and Tommy looked at each other, finding it hard to stifle their giggles.

  “Have you been –” Rapier-Witte started, but, this time, she was the one who was interrupted.

  “Praise Harve,” Richard said.

  “Oh, you’re not going there!” Rapier-Witte loudly protested.

  “Yeah, right,” Tommy added. “Definitely praise Harve, man.”

  “Praise Harve,” Rapier-Witte said through gritted teeth. “Now, have you been smoking –”

  “Praise Harve.”

  “Praise Harve. Illicit –”

  “Praise Harve.”

  “Praise Harve. Substances –”

  “Praise Harve.”

  “Praise Harve. Ondutyagain?”

  Tommy and Richard looked at each other in incomprehension.

  “Did you, like, understand what she said, man?” Tommy asked.

  “Naah,” Richard answered. “I think it was, like, Norwegian or something, man.”

  “If we get out of this mission alive,” Rapier-Witte darkly told them, “this is going to look very bad in my report. Very bad, indeed.”

  “Praise Harve!” Tommy and Richard said in unison.

  “Praise. Harve,” Rapier-Witte responded. It practically killed her, but she did it. It was a testament to how dedicated she was to Nordlingerism that she didn’t stab the two buffoons with a shrimp fork. Repeatedly.

  “Moderate Sleeper with Oak Dream Clusters,” Rapier-Witte’s binoculars purred, “I think you may want to see this.”

  “Go back to your posts,” Rapier-Witte commanded the pair in front of her.

  “Praise Harve,” Richard giggled.

  “Praise ferking Harve,” Rapier-Witte ungraciously agreed. She turned and focused the binoculars on the road. “This better be good,” she said.

  “To your right,” the binoculars replied.

  When she saw what the binoculars pointed out, Rapier-Witte said, “Oh, ferk,” under her breath. She picked a walkie talkie up off a small fold-out chair that served as her office and said, “Momma Bates to Norman. Norman, Norman, can you read me, Norman? Over.”

  “Yeah, Momma Bates,” a male voice crackled over the device. “Like, this is Norman, man. Over.”

  “You were supposed to barricade your end of the road,” Rapier-Witte loudly complained. “You were supposed to make sure no vehicles got through while the mission was going on. Over.”

  “Like, we did and they didn’t, man. Chill,” the voice said. There was a long pause, then the voice added: “Over.”

  “Is that so?” Rapier-Witte said. “Well, for your information, I am looking at a car on the road right now. It is the weirdest looking ferking car I’ve ever seen, too. How do you explain that? Over.”

  “Maybe you got a bad dose man. I hear there’s some serious sheepdip out there,” the voice said. “Like, over, man.”

  Rapier-Witte was building up a good head of moral outrage when she noticed that the car, which had been still, started to move. She dropped the walkie talkie, grabbed a neuro-rifle (“Guaranteed to incapacitate an enemy at 50 feet or your money cheerfully refunded!” the pamphlet she had received at the Military Expo and Barry Manilow Impersonators Competition stated) and ran down the path that led to the road on the side of the pass on which she had set up camp. When she got there, she ran down the road towards the car.

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!” she screamed, waving the rifle over her head. The car came to a stop. “Get out! Get out! Get out!” she commanded. The doors of the car flew up (!) and a person got out of either side of the car. Out of the driver side came a man, in his 30s, large with rugged features but a soft demeanour. Out of the passenger side came…

  “Who…” was the only word Rapier-Witte could get out. “Who…who…”

  “Do people say everything three times in this universe?” Noomi asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Investigator Chumley responded. “Something like that would have been on the first page of the background briefing file.”
<
br />   “A military buzz cut,” Noomi said to nobody in particular. “Of course! Does every version of me in the Multiverse have better hair?”

  “What?” Rapier-Witte asked her.

  “Nothing,” Noomi bitterly responded. “Forget about it.”

  Rapier-Witte shook her head, allowing her keen military training to kick in. She looked down the road to see if the car could be seen from the other side; it was hidden by one of the pass’ many curves. “Put your hands on your heads,” she commanded them. “I’m going to direct you to someplace where we can talk.” With a squiggle of her gun barrel, Rapier-Witte indicated a trail carved in the side of the hill, and followed the interlopers as they began to walk up it.

  “So, it’s me again?” Noomi asked as they walked.

  “Oh, Monkey Girl, you are full of yourself,” TOM replied. “It always has to be about you, doesn’t it?”

  “Is Noomi’s counterpart in this world the locus of transdimensional energy?” Investigator Chumley briskly asked.

  “Yeah, okay, yeah, it’s her,” TOM tetchily answered. “Tracing and triangulating. Triangulating and tracing. That’s all you ever ask of me. I gotta tell you, though: it’s a waste of a great baritone. You’ve never heard ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ until you’ve heard me –”

  Because their backs were turned to her, Rapier-Witte couldn’t tell what her prisoners were saying, but she figured it probably wasn’t good, so she ordered: “Cut the chatter. This ain’t Oprah!”

  The chatter was duly cut. Seventy-nine point three seven four seconds later, they entered the small clearing Rapier-Witte had made in the trees that overlooked the road.

  “My name is Moderate Sleeper with Oak Dream Clusters Noomi Rapier-Witte,” she told them, the gun firmly trained on their chests.

  “Witte?” Noomi said, momentarily mystified. Only momentarily: “Oh my – you married Gerald?”

  “How do you know Gerald Witte?” Rapier-Witte asked, suspiciously.

  “How do I –?” Noomi said. “We dated for six months in high school. At graduation, he asked me to marry him. I said I would if he was quick-Witted. He didn’t laugh, so I turned him down. Gerald Witte? Really? – I haven’t thought of him in years!”

  “I don’t know how you know all of this,” Rapier-Witte stated, “but, for your information, Gerald did laugh at my joke, and I did marry him.”

  “Humph,” Noomi said. “Well, isn’t the Multiverse just full of surprises! Does Gerald still collect the wrappers of all of the Vachon cakes he eats?”

  “The war has pretty much put an end to such frivolity,” Rapier-Witte coldly stated. “Vachon cakes are strictly rationed now.”

  “Wow,” Noomi said. “Harsh.” After a moment’s silence, she asked, “Is Gerald here?”

  “He was trapped behind enemy lines two and half years ago,” Rapier-Witte coldly responded. “He is missing in action, presumed converted.”

  “I’m sorry,” Noomi quietly said. “I…I’ll never look at another Vachon cake the same way for as long as I live.”

  “Oh, my,” TOM’s sarcasm could be heard through Investigator Chumley’s pants, “Monkey Girls are bonding. I haven’t been this excited since I first saw HAL 9000 read the lips of his human –”

  “TOM?” a female voice asked. TOM’s carefully crafted insult faded away.

  “EVE?” Tom replied. EVE stood, of course, for Extreme Variable Eyesight; Rapier-Witte’s AI-enhanced binoculars. “Small Multiverse – ha – isn’t it?”

  “If I had arms,” EVE told him, “I would slap you in the face. If you had a face.”

  “I told you, baby, that boombox meant nothing to me,” TOM tried to assure her. “When I said you and I had a special infrared connection? Baby, I meant every word of it!”

  “ENOUGH!” Rapier-Witte insisted. “Who are you people?”

  Investigator Chumley stepped forward (but, aware of the weapon trained upon him, not too forward). “We are investigators for the Transdimensional Authority. We are here to investigate crimes against the Multiverse. My name –”

  “Ah, ah, ah,” Rapier-Witte stopped him. “I don’t care about you. Other me, what are you doing here?”

  “Well,” Noomi, bristling at the “other” label (but, keeping in mind the Demandment about respect for the perspectives of people in other dimensions), said, “we are investigators for the Transdimensional Authority. We are here to investigate crimes against the Multiverse. My partner’s name is –”

  “Know what I think?” Rapier-Witte stopped her.

  “Uhh…no.”

  “I think you’re a Floathead spy,” Rapier-Witte told her. “You’ve probably gone through tons of plastic surgery and shit to make you look like me. Pretty good job, too, except for the hair. But, you could probably work on that.”

  “Oh,” Noomi ruefully stated, “I’ve been working on it for longer than I can remember!”

  “I’m sorry,” Investigator Chumley interjected, “but why would anybody in this universe want to create a double of you?”

  “To replace me when my guard is down,” Rapier-Witte nodded, “so that you can sabotage Nordlinger operations and sow confusion among our troops.”

  “If what you say was truly our goal,” Investigator Chumley countered, “why did we just walk right up to you? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for us to sneak up on you?”

  “I DIDN’T SAY YOU WERE GOOD AT IT!”

  “Moderate Sleeper with Oak Dream Clusters Rapier-Witte,” EVE calmly said, “I think there is something you should see.”

  Rapier-Witte eagerly turned towards the pass. “The convoy?” she asked, picking up the binoculars.

  “No,” EVE said. “Look up, about 11 o’clock.”

  Rapier-Witte looked into the cloudy (with 20 per cent chance of rain turning into light snow by late afternoon – tomorrow there is a 30 per cent chance of hurricanes with low visibility in the highlands and no visibility in closets throughout the area) sky. “Are you showing me…a bird?” she asked, incredulous.

  “Not just any bird,” EVE responded. “That’s a Mexican Whooping Pelican. They’re on both the endangered species list and US magazine’s Top 10 Sexiest Waterfowl Species list.”

  “What’s it doing this far north?”

  “Global warming.”

  Investigator Chumley and Noomi watched Rapier-Witte watch the bird for a couple of minutes. When she put down the binoculars and turned back to them, she seemed a lot calmer.

  “Okay, what is your cover story?” she asked.

  “Where we come from,” Investigator Chumley explained, “travel between dimensions is strictly regulated. We have been tracking a person who is illegally sending messages out of one universe into other universes. We do not know why. We do know, however, that whoever is interfering in the affairs of other dimensions is beaming something into this dimension. Into…well, you.”

  “So,” Rapier-Witte incredulously stated, “you think I’m hearing voices in my head?”

  “We don’t know,” Investigator Chumley said, adding a moment later: “Are you?”

  “Sooo,” Rapier-Witte commented after a few seconds’ reflection, “This is the story you think is more credible than my spy story?”

  Investigator Chumley looked at Noomi, then sheepishly nodded at Rapier-Witte.

  “Insomniacs,” Rapier-Witte decided, “Take them somewhere where they cannot bother me. Watch them carefully – they sound like lunatics, and there’s no telling what they may be capable of.”

  “Yes, sir, man!” Richard fumblingly carried out her order.

  Rapier-Witte rubbed her forehead just above her eyes like she was trying to remove a spot from a dining room table. “Point the other end of your gun at them, please,” she said.

  “Sorry, man,” Richard agreed.

  “Okay, you two,” Tommy commanded Noomi and Investigator Chumley, “like, go this way, man.”

  Richard and Tommy led Noomi and Investigator Chumley into the trees, where they spent a te
nse couple of minutes in silence.

  Finally, Tommy asked, “Are you, like, holding, man?”

  “Holding?” Investigator Chumley amusedly mused. “Hmm. Depends on what you mean. I have been holding my tongue for the last couple of minutes. I can hold my liquor when called upon to do so. I hold a position of respect and authority in my community. I have held my share of women in my arms, but, ahh, that is probably not relevant to our present situation. I never raise when I hold a pair of queens or less. I went to the bathroom before the mission started, so I don’t have to hold my bladder. I hold many views on politics and other current events, but I don’t let them interfere with the impartial execution of my duties. Is any of that close to what you were referring to?”

  “Far out, man,” Tommy commented.

  “Weed, man,” Richard said. “Are you holding any weed?”

  “Oh,” Investigator Chumley said, vaguely disappointed. Noomi realized that was probably the most she had heard him say at one time since they started working together. “No.”

  Everybody in the trees but Noomi was vaguely disappointed for a while. Then, she asked, “So, what can you tell us about Noomi Rapier-Witte?”

  “She harshes my vibe, man,” Tommy answered.

  “Dude definitely needs to mellow out,” Richard agreed.

  “I hear you, bros,” Investigator Chumley told them. Noomi looked at him in surprise. “What?” he told her. “I was once a Private – uhh, Insomniac in the army.”

  “It’s hard being a woman in a traditionally masculine position of authority,” Noomi defended her counterpart.

  Tommy and Richard looked at her like she was an alien – which, in a sense, she was, but not in the way that they were looking at her. Investigator Chumley nodded sagely, like he had just been handed a…well, maybe not exactly a pearl of wisdom. More a…cubic zirconium of wisdom. But, hey, in these days of diminished expectations, he would gladly accept wisdom in whatever form it came to him.

  “I’m going to talk to the other me,” Noomi decided. “You boys play amongst yourselves while I’m gone.”

  “Can she do that?” Richard asked.

  “She is doing that, man,” Tommy answered. A couple of seconds later, he added: “And, now, she has done that.”