Cyborgia

by D. M. Darroch

  “You believe me?” asked Angus. He was relieved. He knew his story was far-fetched, and if Billy hadn’t believed it he’d have had zero chance with anyone else.

  “Dude, two things I know for sure: One, open laptops and full bathtubs don’t mix and two, Angus Clark doesn’t lie. If you tell me you invented a World Jumper that transports you to parallel worlds, then the only question I have is: Can I see it?”

  “It’s under my pillow.”

  Billy reached under the pillow and pulled out the modified barcode scanner. He whistled and began pushing buttons.

  “Hey! Watch it!” Angus snatched it out of his hands. “That’s how you get yourself zapped into another world. Trust me, I’ve done it. Not fun ... well, not entirely fun.”

  “What was it like riding a mastodon?”

  “Awesome.”

  “Were you afraid the lion would eat you?”

  “Nope.”

  “How big was the sloth poo?”

  “Huge. Now, can we start working on the experiment? This has already taken up way too much time. Dad will be home soon, and then Mom will call up for dinner, and you’ll have to go home. If we’re going to do the experiment, it’s got to happen now.”

  Angus had spent the last hour telling Billy all about his travels and precisely no time trying out the grand plan he’d developed during science class when he was supposed to have been taking notes.

  “Sure. What do you want me to do?”

  “First, I have to replenish the baking soda. It’s running low after that last trip.”

  Billy hadn’t noticed the small box of baking soda on Angus’s desk. It was camouflaged by the innards of several disassembled Splerf guns, mechanical pencils, trading cards, piles of books, and socks.

  “What’s the baking soda for?” Billy peeked over Angus’s shoulder.

  “It helps to create the charge,” said Angus as he sprinkled a light dusting inside the battery compartment. “It reacts with the moisture from the operator’s hand. Locked and loaded.”

  He closed the back of the World Jumper and looked around. “Now where’d Sir Schnortle go?”

  “I haven’t seen your cat since I got here,” said Billy.

  “Shhh,” said Angus.

  Billy stopped talking. Angus clamped his eyes shut and wrinkled his brow in concentration.

  “What ...” began Billy.

  “Shhh!” Angus repeated and held up a finger.

  Billy listened. At first, the lawnmower of one of the Clark’s neighbors drowned out all other sounds in the late afternoon. But as he continued to focus on the sounds inside Angus’s room, he perceived a faint, low-pitched rhythm.

  Angus’s eyes opened. “Hear it?” he whispered.

  Billy nodded.

  Angus walked to the closet and slid open the doors. He stood on tiptoe and reached high over his head. Billy heard an irritable “Murr” and Angus stepped out of the closet holding the fat orange cat. The cat blinked sleepily and yawned.

  “He was snoring in the closet,” explained Angus needlessly.

  “What do we need him for?” asked Billy.

  “We don’t need him, only his collar,” said Angus.

  He sat on the bed and rested the cat on his lap. He gently unbuckled the crystal collar from Sir Schnortle’s neck and dangled it from the end of a mechanical pencil. “It’s got crystals, see?”

  The cat stretched, rubbed its neck against Angus’s arm and purred gratefully.

  “Neat,” said Billy reaching for the collar.

  “No, don’t touch it. It may already be too late. I hope she left a heat signature behind.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Angus stood. “Remember how I told you about Ivy’s alter ego? My friend who lost her body in her world and jumped into animal bodies?”

  “Yeah. She was a wolf.”

  “Exactly. When we were in the prehistoric world, the world with the cave of fluorite, we discovered that the crystals capture the energy of nearby artifacts. That’s how we found our way back here: The crystals picked up the energy from my tool belt. The World Jumper translates that energy, or the heat signature, into coordinates. I programmed the World Jumper with those coordinates to get home.”

  Billy bit his lip. “I guess I kind of understand. I think. But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Well, it suddenly came to me in science class. The cat is an artifact. Wouldn’t the crystals absorb Sir Schnortle’s energy?”

  “Maybe. But why is that important?”

  “I’m hoping that, since Ivy was in Sir Schnortle’s body, some of her energy rubbed off on him, and maybe some of it got trapped in the crystal collar.”

  Angus walked to his desk and lay the collar beside the World Jumper.

  “I still don’t get what’s so important about that.”

  “Well, if the energy, the heat signature, is still there, the World Jumper could translate it into coordinates. I could follow her and bring her back.”

  “Why would you want to do that? Isn’t one Ivy enough for any world? We’ve already got one here. Two might be the end of all of us.”

  “No. My Ivy is different. She’s not like this world’s Ivy at all. And I owe it to her. I told you how she saved my life. If it wasn’t for her, I might never have found my way back home. I have to help her get home, too. And help her get her body back.”

  Billy thought about this. “Okay. I kind of get that. But Ivy hasn’t been in Sir Schnortle for almost an entire day. Won’t his energy have replaced hers?”

  “That’s what I’m worried about and why we have no time to lose. Every moment we wait, her energy will dissipate. The heat signature will fade. We know the crystals will have Sir Schnortle’s signature—the signature of our world. If there’s even a trace of her in that crystal, I think I can isolate her energy from Sir Schnortle’s, kind of like an equation. Crystal energy minus Sir Schnortle energy equals Ivy energy. That’s what I hope. At least, I have to try.”

  “But if you do that, how will you get back here?”

  “Easy. I already figured that out, remember? Those coordinates are already programmed into the World Jumper. The coordinates of the other worlds are there, too.”

  “So you could send me to visit BP and be a pirate?” Billy grinned. “Sweet.”

  “Trust me. You would not like it there. The food is terrible. But, anyway, back to my experiment.”

  “You’re no fun.” Billy scowled. “If you won’t let me use your World Jumper, why am I here?”

  “Well, when I leave, the alternative me from the world I go to, my alter, will take my place.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “Why do you think I told you my story? In every world I’ve been to, you’ve been there, too. Or, I mean your alter has been. You and I are best friends in every world. I figure my alter will be happy to see you here when he arrives, and you can explain everything to him, just like I explained it to you.”

  “You’ve only been to two worlds. What if I don’t have an alter in the world you’re going to? Or worse, what if I do and you and me are arch enemies? How do you know this plan will even work?”

  “I don’t know, but if it does, you’ll have to explain it to me. I mean, you’ll have to explain to the other me why he’s here and not there. In his world. Oh, I also wrote everything down in my notebook. Where is it?” Angus rifled through the papers on his desk.

  “Do you mean that?” Billy pointed to Sir Schnortle, curled up and snoring again on Angus’s bed. “I’ll get it.”

  He reached beneath the fat cat and pulled, extracting Angus’s red notebook. Sir Schnortle groaned, stuck out his tongue, and rolled over on to his back.

  “That’s it. If my alter has any questions, let him read that. I wrote everything down, how it works, where I’ve been, everything. Any questions?”

  “Yeah. When will you be back, and what do I tell your parents?”

  “I’ll be back as soon as I find Ivy. Probably an hour or
two. Definitely before bedtime. And don’t tell my parents anything. They’re treating me weirdly as it is. All you have to do is fill in my alter. Make sure he knows what’s going on so he doesn’t blow it. All he’s got to do is act normal at dinner with my mom and dad, take a bath, and come back to my room. Easy. He can’t possibly get me into trouble in that amount of time.”

  “Yup. Seems easy enough.”

  Angus strapped on his goggles. He didn’t really need them for this test, but protecting his eyes had become a habit. “Good, now, let’s see if this works.” Angus pointed the World Jumper at the cat.

  “Dude! What are you doing? Are you going to zap the cat?”

  “No. I’m making sure I’ve got the right reading for him. Then I can compare it to the collar.”

  Billy darted around behind Angus and watched Angus pull the trigger. A red light glowed on the cat’s orange fur and the coordinates 2BE01B appeared on the display.

  “That’s it?” asked Billy. “I thought it would be more exciting.”

  “I didn’t do anything yet. I’m only checking Sir Schnortle’s energy,” said Angus. “Give me the notebook a second.”

  Billy handed him the science notebook, and Angus rifled through the pages until he found his coordinate list. “Yup. That’s what I thought. His energy reading is totally the same as the coordinates I plugged in to get home. Now, let’s see what the collar says.”

  Angus pointed the World Jumper at one of the crystals on the cat’s collar. The red light glowed for a moment and the display went blank. A moment later, the coordinates CCFF33 appeared. Angus whooped.

  “Is that good?” asked Billy as Angus scribbled frantically in his notebook.

  “It’s excellent,” answered Angus. “Now, if I can remove our world’s energy reading from these coordinates ... subtract the 9 ... that gives me ... hmmm ... check that measurement ... got it!” He looked at Billy brightly. He handed him the notebook. “Read me the coordinates and I’ll plug them in.”

  Billy squinted at the scrawled arithmetic. Angus’s handwriting sure hadn’t improved while he’d been away. He dutifully read out, “FFFF33.”

  Angus tapped on the World Jumper, checked the display, and grinned. “Throw me my backpack. I’ve got some snacks in there.”

  “Anything good?” asked Billy as he poked his nose inside.

  “Hands off!” Angus grabbed his backpack from Billy and slung it over one shoulder. “The one thing I’ve learned is you can’t depend on good food in parallel worlds. Well, here goes nothing.”

  He pointed the World Jumper at himself and disappeared into a puff of baking soda.

  Billy closed his eyes against the flurry of white powder. He choked and felt for the window. He pulled it open and stuck his head out, drawing in large gulps of fresh air. The neighbor’s lawnmower had stopped, and Billy noticed how quiet Angus’s room was. The cat wasn’t even snoring. He turned to see a boy wearing a white lab coat and sterile gloves peering at an alert Sir Schnortle through a magnifying glass.

  His back turned to Billy, the boy blew out a low whistle and said, “This one almost looks real.”

  8

  Alter

  Sir Schnortle whined an irritated meow at having been awakened. He thudded off the bed and ran to the door. After several ineffective tugs at the closed door, the cat turned its amber eyes to Billy and meowed. Billy obliged and opened the door a crack. The cat slid past silently, and Billy closed the door quickly, leaning against it protectively. He crossed his arms and looked at the boy. If it weren’t for the geeky scientist get-up, he would have thought him the twin of his buddy Angus.

  The fake Angus was on the floor, rubbing his face against the carpet. Feeling Billy’s eyes on him, the boy looked up and smiled. He rolled on to his back, stretched out his arms, and closed his eyes. He began to hum.

  Billy snorted. “What a weirdo.”

  The boy hummed louder.

  “I said, what a weirdo,” Billy spoke over the humming.

  The boy stuck his fingers in his ears. “I can’t hear you,” he replied in a sing-song manner.

  Billy approached the prone figure and nudged him with his foot. “Get up.”

  The boy continued humming but opened his eyes and looked at Billy, a bored smile playing at his lips.

  “I said, GET UP.” Billy grabbed the boy’s upper arm and pulled. The boy was heavy and didn’t move, but he stopped humming. Billy sat down on the carpet beside him. The boy pushed up on his elbows and looked at Billy.

  “Remarkable. You look exactly like Billy.”

  “I am Billy,” said Billy.

  “Clearly, I’ve been working too hard, and the combination of guilt and exhaustion have resulted in a delusion.” The boy sat up and pinched Billy.

  “Ouch! What did you do that for, Captain Crazy?”

  The boy reached into his pocket and extracted a two-inch square silver cube. He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and brought it to his mouth.

  “A phantasm has come to me in the original shape of my newly transformed friend Billy Roberts. My fevered mind has created for itself a brightly colored room with images of a most imaginative and adventurous nature.” He stood and walked around the room, examining each of Mrs. Clark’s paintings in turn. “A naval conveyance sporting a flag of a skeletal head. A fear-inducing black feline surrounded by vegetation. Sundry reptilian beasts cavorting in a desert wasteland. The room itself has padding on the floor and on various articles of furniture, perhaps a metaphor for the delicate state of my own psyche.”

  “What the heck?” said Billy. “Dude, you are seriously cracked.”

  “The phantasm assails me with remarks of an insulting nature.”

  Billy pushed himself off the floor and faced the boy. “Angus says he’ll be back in an hour, two tops. All you have to do is go with it. Don’t act weird.”

  The boy yawned and spoke into the cube. “The phantasm attempts to engage me in conversation.”

  “In case you were wondering, that is acting weird.” Billy said. He tilted his head and looked at the boy. “So, listen, okay? And stop talking into that thing.”

  “My micro-recorder.”

  “Really? Can I see?”

  The boy placed the cube in the palm of his hand and inclined it toward Billy. “That’s the smallest recorder I’ve ever seen!” Billy reached for it, and the boy closed his fist protectively around it. “Careful! Don’t touch. It’s very sensitive, and all my files are on it.”

  The boy held the cube to his mouth. “The illusion is becoming stronger. I am beginning to interact with it.”

  There was a knock on the bedroom door, and Mrs. Clark poked her head in. “Dinner will be ready in ten minutes. Billy, are you staying?”

  Billy threw a glance at the boy who was staring at the ceiling and whistling to himself. “I think I’d better,” he said.

  “Okay, honey. Be sure to call your mom, okay?” As Mrs. Clark left the room, closing the door behind her, the boy began to chuckle to himself.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Billy.

  The boy spoke into the cube. “The illusion continues to gather strength. A vision of Mother appears to me speaking of ‘dinner’.”

  “Okay, seriously dude. You’ve got to pull it together. You only need to act like Angus for a few hours.”

  The boy held the cube to his mouth. Billy flung his arm out and knocked the cube from the boy’s hand. “My micro-recorder!” He dove to the floor, but Billy had gotten there first. Billy held the cube up, taunting the boy. “Okay weirdo, it’s mine now. Listen to me! I’ll give it back if you’re a good boy.”

  Billy jammed the cube into the pocket of his jeans.

  “Careful! You’ll break it!”

  “I thought I was just an ‘illusion’. How can an ‘illusion’ break your precious recorder?”

  The boy stared at Billy, his studied indifference slipping away. He threw himself on to Angus’s superhero comforter and curled into a fetal position. �
�That’s it. I’ve lost my mind. I’ve worked too hard for too long, and I’ve cracked.”

  Billy rolled his eyes, drew a deep breath, and sat down in Angus’s desk chair. “Dude, would you listen? I’ve been trying to explain everything to you since you arrived.”

  The boy moaned and squeezed his eyes shut.

  “You are seriously the most annoying of all Angus’s alters. BP and Gus were fun, at least. Would you look at me? I’m not an illusion. I’m real. You pinched me. I grabbed the recorder from you. You’re lying on Angus’s bed. That’s real. You saw Angus’s mom. She’s real. And pretty soon, we’re going to be eating Mrs. Clark’s dinner. You can’t eat an illusion, right?”

  The boy opened his eyes and regarded Billy. “You do have a point.”

  “So my buddy Angus, the guy who lives here in this room, who looks like you, but isn’t a weirdo ... well ... not in a bad way ... he followed a ... let me think, what’s it called? Oh yeah. He followed some ‘heat energy’ to another dimension? Is that it? No, wait. He calls them ‘worlds’.

  “See, there was this girl ... she’s a girl in our world. A really annoying, goodie goodie girl. But ... like, she’s not annoying when she’s in animals. Or something. She’s kind of annoying, but Angus sort of likes her. Anyway. Somehow she was here, and then she wasn’t. She vanished. But Angus thinks he knows where she went. And that’s why you’re here.”

  The boy sat up and grinned at Billy. “That was completely incoherent.”

  “Dude, it totally wasn’t.”

  The boy jumped off the bed and hooted. “You made absolutely no sense whatsoever.”

  “Dude, I so did. Angus went to your world. You came here. Duh.” Billy was thrown off balance as the boy ran at him. He embraced Billy, thumping him on the back.

  “You are not an illusion! You are completely real!”

  “Duh. That’s what I’ve been saying.”

  The boy paced the room, running his hands through his hair, until it stood up all over his head. Now, he truly looked like Angus.

  “Any illusion created by my mind would have been intelligent. Your thorough lack of rationale and complete and utter confusion leaves no doubt in my mind. You are, in fact, Billy Roberts. This is, in fact, my reality. And somehow I have been transported to an alternate world. The question remains, how is this possible?”