My Favorite Band Does Not Exist

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  "You have traversed the Gauntlet of Realities," explained Scrier/Eurydice. "In so doing, you prepared yourselves for this union. You shed much of what was weighing you down."

  "Idea, you are no longer afraid of being controlled," continued Scrier/Eunice. "Reacher, you are no longer limited by fear of failure. At last, you both are ready to merge your strengths and usher in a new era by restoring the Chain."

  "Stand together and focus your thoughts," said Scrier/ Eurydice. "It will happen."

  Just then, Deathcrave swung his broadsword. Idea and Reacher leaped away, barely avoiding the hissing stroke of the heavy blade.

  A second later, it whisked back at them, again barely missing as they jumped away. Deathcrave paused, sword loose at his side, and sized them up, then grinned. He jammed two fingers between his lips and let loose a shrill whistle.

  Six knights in crimson armor charged out of the surrounding woods, swords and maces and shields raised high.

  "Now we'll have some fun, hey?" Deathcrave slashed the broadsword through the air as he marched toward Idea and Reacher.

  Reacher nervously looked around as the knights closed in from the fringes of the clearing. In a moment, he and Idea would be completely surrounded. Johnny Without's shape-shifting body might provide some kind of defense or escape, but it would be unpredictable at best.

  His heart pounded. Looking up, he saw that Scrier/ Eunice and Scrier/Eurydice were melded together almost down to their waists. With a furious howl, Halcyon hauled back his glowing sword and hurled it at them like a spear. The blade shot upward like a missile, its point racing toward the middle of their merged bodies ... but it never struck its target. When it got to within a few feet of the Scriers, it melted away in midair, falling back to the ground as a shower of shimmering metal rain.

  The clanking of the crimson knights grew closer. Reacher turned just in time to evade another swing of Deathcrave's broadsword.

  Then, he reached out a hand toward Idea. "What do you say?"

  "Unite, huh?" said Idea.

  "It might be our best chance right now."

  Snarling, Deathcrave unleashed two more swift swings of his sword, driving Reacher and Idea back several steps closer to the approaching knights.

  "Are you in or out?" Reacher asked. He could hear the crimson knights closing in around them.

  "In!" Idea grabbed ahold of Reacher's arm.

  Immediately Reacher felt his body change. He focused his thoughts on the process as much as he could with Deathcrave still swinging away and the knights clattering in from all sides.

  Looking down at his arm, Reacher saw that Idea's hand was already melting into it.

  He also saw the ground fall away from him just as Deathcrave was taking another swing. As their bodies fused, he and Idea floated upward, out of reach of the broadsword. A heartbeat after they left the ground, the crimson-armored knights stampeded onto the very spot where they had just been standing.

  "Something just occurred to me," said Idea as his upper arm merged with Reacher's. "This must be Chapter 64."

  Reacher relaxed. To his surprise, the only thing that he felt from the uniting process was a tingling warmth and an all-over tugging sensation. "Like Youforia's song 'Chapter 64'?"

  "I was afraid I'd die in Chapter 64," Idea said. The merging process was speeding up; he and Reacher were joined at the shoulder.

  "Just like the guy in our song," said Reacher.

  "This must be it." Suddenly, Idea and Reacher rushed together, becoming a single body from the neck down. "But I'm not afraid anymore. I accept it."

  "Good for you," said Reacher.

  "This is when I die," said Idea, just as his head began to melt into Reacher's. "This is Chapter 64."

  Then there was a final tug, and one guy drifted in the sky where two had been.

  A girl floated over to him and lightly kissed his forehead. Her hair was half blond and half jet black. Her features were a combination of Eunice's and Eurydice's—an upswept nose, sharp cheekbones, round chin, full lips.

  "I don't know about Chapter 64," she said softly, stroking his face. "But I can tell you the next chapter of your story will have a very happy ending."

  THE new guy floated in the blazing orange sky, bobbing gently on an errant breeze. His eyes fluttered open at the touch of Eunice/Eurydice's lips against his.

  And a wave of pure joy rolled through him. He'd kissed her before, but it had never felt like this. It had never felt so good, so totally perfect. Like something in a dream.

  Pulling back, she held his face in her hands and gazed at him, smiling. "You're beautiful." She kissed his forehead, his eyes, his nose, his cheek. "The way you were always meant to be."

  "So are you." He smiled back at her. He turned his head one way, then the other, kissing each of her hands.

  She frowned a little, looking concerned. "How do you feel?"

  "Strange. But good." How else could he describe it? He had the memories of two people in his head, yet somehow he was one. Idea and Reacher had ceased to exist as separate people—had died, in a way—but it felt perfectly natural. It felt right.

  As if this was what he'd been waiting for all his life. His lives.

  He pulled her close and kissed her again.

  The new guy glanced down at Halcyon as he screamed and shook his fists with rage. He looked very small from so far up. "He can't hurt us?"

  "Not anymore." She grinned. "He'll be swept away in the Restoration."

  "So how do we do it, exactly? How do we put the worlds back the way they're supposed to be?"

  "Follow my lead." Eunice/Eurydice kissed him again on the lips. "As always."

  "Then what?"

  She frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "Will we stay like this? The way we are now?" He spread his arms and gazed down at his new body. "Or will we change again?"

  "We will always change," she said. "But you will never again be broken in two. You will live one life in one body, experienced from one point of view."

  "What will that life be like?" he asked.

  "Something altogether new. Better than you can imagine."

  "Will I remember any of this?" he said.

  "Yes. Only you and I will remember." She tipped her head and narrowed her eyes. "Unless you'd rather not?"

  "Don't you dare." He hugged her tight in the dancing light of Halcyon's energy blasts splashing harmlessly from below. "Don't you dare make me forget you. Forget us."

  She pushed her fingers through his hair—half black, half white, split down the middle—and whispered in his ear. "Are you ready? Really ready?"

  He smirked. "What if I'm not?"

  "Then ... nothing. Nothing changes. He wins." She hiked a thumb at Halcyon. "And the worlds go on as they are now—fragmented, chaotic, incomplete."

  He thought about it for a long moment. "How hard will it be?"

  She shrugged and nodded. "I won't lie to you. It'll be pretty intense. After all, we're talking about setting the entire Chain of Realities right again."

  Idea Deity might have run away because he felt like she was trying to control him. Reacher Mirage might have been too afraid of failure to try to restore the Chain. But together, after all they'd been through, there wasn't a doubt between them.

  They'd triumphed over the things that were holding them back. Now there was nothing they couldn't handle. Nothing he couldn't handle.

  "I'm ready," he said. "Bring it on."

  "I love you," she whispered, and then she took his hands. "Let's do this."

  Slowly at first, they started spinning and rising. Down below, Halcyon screamed harder, but his voice just got further away.

  "Reach out with your mind," she said. "Focus on the world around you. Be aware of every bit of it."

  He did as she said. He heard the wind, saw the writhing red trees, felt the heat of the sun. He tasted the dust in the hot, dry air, smelled the ozone from Halcyon's energy blasts. He tried his best to hold all these sensations and more in his min
d, to be aware of it all at once.

  "Now look deeper," she told him. "Push beneath the surface."

  He tried. Grimacing, he concentrated on piercing the layers he could detect with his senses. He strained to break through and connect with whatever lay underneath.

  But he couldn't find it. "Nothing. I'm getting nothing."

  She squeezed his hands. "Relax. I'll show you the way." Then she leaned forward, tipping her forehead against his. "Open your mind to me."

  He wasn't quite sure how to do that, but he tried. He imagined his brain was a flower, and then he pictured its petals opening wide.

  Suddenly there was a burst of light inside him, and he felt her presence in his head. There was warmth, and wisdom, and power, and love. Then he felt her do something, and there was movement. Like the sun rising over the horizon, the true face of the world of Fireskull's Revenant rolled into view.

  Underneath the clutter of sights and sounds and smells and tastes and touches lay a glittering filigree of light, an intricate pattern of countless swirling strands in a state of constant shivering flux.

  "I see it now!" Even as he said it, he couldn't quite grasp the entirety of what he saw. It was too big, too complex, too everything. Parts of it were impossible for him to see at all, as if they extended into dimensions beyond the ones he could comprehend.

  "It's the shape of the Chain." Her voice was hushed, as if even she were in awe of what she saw. "An echo of the pattern of the worlds as they once were, and could be again."

  His breath caught in his throat. He could not look away from his mind's-eye view. "It's beautiful."

  "All we have to do is retrace the pattern throughout the existing, shattered Chain."

  "Is that all?" He let out a nervous chuckle.

  She squeezed his hands tighter. "Follow me." She kissed him. "Do what I do."

  A flicker of old fears bubbled up from deep within. "What if I can't handle this?"

  "Trust me." She grinned. "You're a natural."

  "All right." Glancing away from his mind's eye, he looked around. The two of them were still spinning and rising. They were so high in the sky that the buildings of Johnny's and Fireskull's kingdoms were tiny shapes, the people too small to be seen.

  With her mind still linked to his, she spun them faster in the bright orange atmosphere. "Hold on, my love."

  He felt her mind stretching, reaching out in all directions, pulling him along with her. The filigree pattern of the original Chain clung to them as they whirled, the glowing strands wrapping around them like thread on a skein.

  They twirled across the sky, reeling in the imprint of a billion billion worlds, times, dreams, stories, songs. He felt it gather around them like a butterfly's cocoon, light as gossamer although it was infinitely complex and concentrated, a map of something too massive to be mapped.

  When they had enough of it, they stopped spinning. The two of them drifted aloft for long moments, bundled up together in their shelter in the sky, feeling it pulse around them. They laughed as it twinkled and sparked and sang, talking to them in millions of images, thoughts, and languages.

  Then, she pressed her lips against his. As they kissed, she helped him reach out with his mind and take aim in all directions, fixing his sights on all points in the Chain.

  It was like aiming at every drop of water in the ocean at once. It was almost too much for him; he was drowning. But then a wave of calm swept through him, and he was in control. He felt like this was what he'd been born to do, what he'd waited all his life for.

  The cocoon quivered, straining to break free. They held it there a second longer, making sure their aim was true.

  And then they let go of it. The pattern burst outward in a big bang of blinding radiance, sizzling through the damaged Chain, instantly repairing it.

  In the heart of the explosion, the guy who'd once been Idea and Reacher and the girl who'd been Eunice and Eurydice floated in each other's arms, locked in an intense kiss. Then, the blast wave folded back in on itself, and they were gone, washed up on the shore of a new reality.

  "HELLO?" said the young man at the entrance as the rickety door swung open. "Johnny Fireskull?"

  Two young women crowded behind him, peering into the steamy darkness of the shanty barroom. "Is he in there?" the ponytailed brunette said in a half whisper. "You see him?"

  "Johnny?" The other girl, a blonde with pigtails, raised her voice over the sounds of the jungle, calling into the barroom. "We're from California."

  Of the five grimy men in the room—four sitting at the bar and one standing behind it—not one looked up at the visitors' arrival.

  "Let me see," said a guy behind the first three newcomers. "I can't see."

  "Okay, kids," said another voice, a woman's, from outside the shanty. "What did I say about respect?"

  Suddenly everyone fell silent. The four visitors crowding the doorway moved to either side, clearing a path.

  The woman walked between the parted young people into the barroom. "It would be a shame if you came all the way to the heart of the Amazon and got sent home without a glimpse of the greatest rock legend in the world."

  The woman looked and sounded older than the other four visitors, who were all in their late teens. She was tall and slim and wore a khaki shirt and pants with her backpack and hiking boots.

  The color of her hair was split down the middle, blond on the left side and jet black on the right.

  "Sorry, Eureka." The guy who'd first opened the door wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his arm. "We're just excited."

  "It's been a long trip," said the ponytailed brunette.

  "I can't believe we're finally here!" the blonde chimed in.

  Eureka Armslength smiled and nodded. "I can appreciate that. But remember, show respect. Follow my lead."

  She shouldered out of her backpack and put it on the floor, leaning it against the wall. Turning, she spoke in the direction of the four men sitting at the bar.

  "Johnny," she said. "I bring pilgrims from afar. Of the many who try to find you every day, these four musicians are the first in six months to succeed."

  The men at the bar shifted. Two of them sipped cans of beer, but no one turned around to face Eureka and the pilgrims.

  "They have solved the mysteries, passed the tests, and remained united," Eureka continued. "They have proven themselves worthy."

  One of the men at the bar drained a soda and crushed the empty can in his fist. He tossed the crushed can into a trash bin and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his denim shirt.

  Then he turned around on his rickety wooden barstool and smiled.

  He looked as if he were in his thirties, about the same age as Eureka. He was broad-shouldered and fit, but with a slight bulge of belly swelling the black T-shirt he wore under the unbuttoned denim overshirt.

  The purple smudge of a star-shaped port-wine stain occupied his right cheek. A patch of three moles arranged in a triangle occupied the left.

  He took off his hat, revealing hair that was two different colors, split down the middle—black on the left side, white on the right.

  The four teens gasped in unison when they saw his face.

  Eureka gestured at the man with the two-toned hair. "This is Johnny Fireskull," she said solemnly.

  Johnny chuckled. "And who are my guests today?"

  Eureka waved her four charges into the barroom. They lined up inside the door, and Eureka went to the first one on the left.

  "Sarah Overnight." Eureka placed a hand on the brunette's shoulder. "She's a bass guitarist."

  "Nice to meet you, Sarah," said Johnny.

  Sarah beamed and shuffled her feet self-consciously.

  Eureka went to the next in line, the young man who'd first opened the door. He was tall and thin, with ebony skin and shoulder-length dreadlocks.

  "Unwise Parable." Eureka touched his arm. "A drummer."

  "Nice to meet you, Unwise."

  The young man nodded and smiled. "You'll never
know how great it is for me to meet you."

  Eureka moved on to the guy who'd been stuck outside when the others had crowded the door. "Stray Gonestar," she said. "Keyboardist."

  "My pleasure, Stray," said Johnny.

  Stray was heavyset, with orange stubble on his scalp and a triangular red goatee on his chin. Sweat ran down the sides of his round face in the hot, humid barroom. "Same here, Mr. Fireskull," he said with a little bow.

  "And Grief Neverwait." Eureka placed her hand on the shoulder of the blond girl with pigtails. "Lead guitar."

  "Nice to meet you, Grief."

  Grief couldn't stop smiling. "Thanks for having us."

  "Thank you for coming," said Johnny. "Thanks for going to so much trouble to get here."

  "No trouble at all," Stray said ruefully, and everyone laughed.

  "Really?" Johnny chuckled. "Then, maybe we need to make it harder."

  The four teens emphatically shook their heads and said that no, he didn't need to make the trip any harder.

  Johnny got up from his stool and walked over to stand in front of the pilgrims. For a moment, no one said anything.

  "It's always like this." Johnny rubbed the back of his neck. "A little awkward, right? I mean, you were never a hundred percent sure you were going to find me, were you?"

  "There was never a doubt in our minds," said Stray, and the pilgrims all laughed.

  "Well," Johnny said, "I'm not dead." He spread his arms wide. "And you're among the handful of people in the whole world who know it."

  "I still can't believe this," said Grief. "It's like a dream or something."

  Johnny slid his hands into his pants pockets and rocked on the balls of his feet. "Tell me about it," he said, smirking at Eureka.

  "Can I ask you a question?" said Unwise, adjusting his dreadlocks.

  "Fire away."

  "It's probably the same one you get asked a lot," the teen said. "Why did you do it?"

  "Do what?" Johnny asked. "Drop out? Fake my own death?"

  "All of it."

  Johnny smiled. The star-shaped port-wine stain on his cheek dimpled into a crescent. "Love the music, hate the strings attached. It's pretty much that simple."