Ginder shook her head and said, “But this isn’t an adventure. It’s not some story for children. It’s a war. And I understand battle strategy better than anyone—at least better than anyone on my home reality—and we must set those explosives first in order to accomplish our mission. All other wins are bonus points. I vote for the Communications Vault.”
Arturo frowned. He had faced enough supervillains to agree with Arthur Artter’s logic. “I agree with Arthur. Every instance where I haven’t stopped the diabolical weapon first, it’s come back as a huge problem later.”
Ginn Yis frowned. “Then we are at an impasse.”
Arturo shrugged. “No. You and Ginder go with Artkins and set the explosives in the Communications Vault. Arthur and I will steal the weapon and then meet you on Floor 65. If we don’t make it within five minutes of setting your bombs, go on without us.”
Artkins nodded. “May The Binding hold you together, and may it also hold you up for success.”
Arturo shrugged. “Right back at ya.”
He then crawled forward, within moments finding a grate that opened onto an elevator shaft. He kicked it open with his heel and listened to it clang atop an elevator car stopped on the first floor. He hopped atop it and began pulling on wires, intending to use his hyper-genius understanding of technology to override the elevator’s controls. He groaned in annoyance when the wizard boy waved his wand and said something that sounded like Floorius Sixty-Fivius.
The elevator car jerked into motion and stopped just below floor sixty-five. The doors to the floor popped open, and Artkins, Ginder, and Ginn Yis scrambled from the top of the elevator car, through the open door, and onto floor sixty-five. Arthur mumbled a spell that returned them to their proper heights, and then waved his wand again, this time saying something that sounded like Topius Floorius.
Arturo watched Artkins, Ginder, and Ginn Yis disappear around a bend in the hallway as the elevator car jerked upward. Alarms blared all around, and the frantic arachnid-intuition erupting across the back of his skull made him wish he had never run into these four other deus ex machinas.
*
Now regular-sized, Arthur floated on his broomstick beside Arturo. “You ever felt anything like this heat?’ asked the boy wizard.
The Forge was hotter than anything Arturo had ever experienced. The heat smacked him in the face as soon as he stepped from the elevator shaft into the adjoining hallway. The next hottest place Arturo had ever experienced was encountered during the brief, wonderful time in which he had been dead. He had floated atop clouds next to thousands of singing cherubs. He befriended one of them named Popooti, who showed Arturo the edge of heaven where he could see down into the depths of Hell. The air from that view was hot and humid and hurt to stand near, but it felt like a small candle compared to the Forge at the top of the Olympus building.
Arturo frowned at the memory of his afterlife, remembering how he had just grown accustomed to the idea of being dead and had made friends and had felt at peace, only to have that all ripped away from him when he was resurrected and shoved headlong into an infinite war. He had felt a gnawing emptiness in the pit of his stomach since returning, a feeling so numb and cold that not even this forge’s heat could melt it. This emptiness screamed through his guts like Kassandra of Troy, warning him to abandon this war and return to the overwhelming peace of his afterlife. But he bit his lower lip and took a deep breath and refused to succumb, as he refused every time the desire threatened to overwhelm him. When he first began superheroing, he had made a vow to protect those weaker than himself, and he did not intend to break that vow by giving up now.
“I said, have you ever felt anything like this heat?” asked the boy wizard once more. “It’s like you were lost in your own head there.”
Arturo shushed the other boy harshly, and immediately felt bad about it when he heard a soft, hurt sigh emanate from the boy. Not bad enough to remark on it or apologize, mind you, but still a little pang of guilt.
Arturo glanced around at his surroundings. The fluorescent lighting that had emanated from floor sixty-five during the brief stop there stood in stark contrast to the dark grays and flickering flames from torches placed in sconces high upon the walls. Arturo crept silently and upon reaching the end of the hallway and passing under an arch, peeked around the corner into the Forge proper.
The Forge rose so high into the air that its ceiling disappeared from view, with a new furnace opening up every dozen or so feet along the wall. Floating robots shaped like basketballs with hands dangling from three-foot long tentacles worked the furnaces like an assembly line: robots painted green zipped from furnace to furnace pumping bellows, robots painted red retrieved molten metal from the furnaces in gigantic steel buckets, pouring the contents into molds shaped like the infamous disintegration guns that had wreaked such havoc on the blue and pink armies. Blue robots with mallets in hand floated from mold to mold, whacking and shaping the cooling metal. Robots colored yellow and holding funnels in one hand and little sacks overflowing with white lightning in the other moved about the completed molds and stuffed the lightning into the guns’ barrels. Finally, white robots collected the completed guns onto hovering pallets and pushed the pallets out of view toward the back of the Forge when each pallet was full. Arturo found himself staring in awed silence at the scene until Arthur elbowed him and brought him back to his senses.
In the center of the room stood a long, metal table. Near the table rose a set of bellows the size of a house, with a robotic cyclops behind it continuously pumping the bellows up and down, stoking the bright flame just to the side of the table. Surrounding every square inch of the table lay weapons and armor, all stylized so brilliantly that Arturo had never seen such fine work, not even from the Mad Blacksmith in his own rogues’ gallery. A man wearing light blue robes was leaned over the table. Arturo estimated that he must be at least fifteen-feet tall with a beard nearly half as long as he was tall, the bushy hair bound by leather straps into a shaggy braid that had been tossed over his shoulder. The man hammered over and over again on a black blade. Sparks flew into the air with each wallop, and Arturo looked in awe at the man’s thickly muscled right shoulder.
Arturo knew without needing to ask that this would be the weapon they sought. The architecture of the entire forge seemed directed toward this table. Arturo had experienced enough evil lairs to know that was a general sign to indicate this was the final boss within such a stronghold.
Arthur dabbed at the sweat on his forehead with his scarf and whispered, “I’ll handle him. I’ve faced plenty of giants and trolls and evil wizards that were so powerful we weren’t even allowed to say their names. That guy’ll be no problem for the greatest boy wizard ever. You get that blade he’s working on while he’s distracted, and you run. I’ll catch up.”
Arturo nodded. Arthur nodded back, then jerked up on the handle of his broomstick and rode it high into the air. He aimed his wand down at the giant man hammering away at the black blade. “Ringoria Bindellimus!” he called. Mighty shackles of light dropped from the wand and clanged closed around the giant’s wrists and ankles.
The giant did not deign to look up from his work. He shrugged his shoulders. “Cosmic entities are so predictable,” he muttered in an annoyed tone, his voice booming across the vast expanse of the Forge. “I take it that the foul blue creature has convinced you that you’re the last hope for the Multiverse? You are a greater fool than you look.”
Before Arturo could react, the giant pointed his mallet toward Arthur Artty. A beam of fire launched from its end. Arthur waved his wand and screamed “Shieldito Maximorimus!”
A shield of blue light formed around the boy, but not before fire engulfed him and burned him until nothing remained of him but a black skeleton trapped inside a boy-sized shield made of blue light, which fell to the ground and collapsed into an untidy pile of dust. The giant lifted a gun from a rack on the wall and walked over to the pile of bones. Just as he fired a disintegration bea
m into the midst of Arthur’s remains, Arturo sprang into action.
With his right hand, Arturo flung a ball of web at the giant’s head. It smacked into the back of the giant’s skull and pushed it into the wall, sticking it in place. With his left hand, Arturo shot a second string of web, snatched the blade with it, and pulled it over to himself.
The giant’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Ha! Ha! Ha! Looks like the bear sent more than one plaything. That is a pleasant, less-predictable surprise. I hope you are ready to die, too.”
The giant pulled at the webbing on the back of his head with his mighty hands. Matted clumps of hair and web tore from the giant’s scalp, and he was soon free. He stared at Arturo, his tongue flittering out of his mouth to dance across the roots of his long, gray beard. The giant turned and blew into a small pipe that hung from the wall near him. All the robots working the factory stopped their work, picked up disintegration guns, and turned toward Arturo.
“Been there, done that, got the shirt, but returned it. No thanks!” called Arturo in response. Then he ran, using his arachnid-intuition to dodge the disintegration bolts from the robots and the beams of fire that sprayed from the giant’s mallet. Arturo bounced from wall to wall, never staying still for more than a fraction of a second. As he sprinted down the hallway, strafing back and forth, he created a makeshift scabbard for the blade out of webbing and slung it across his back. He ran through the open elevator shaft. He stood atop the same elevator car from which he had entered this floor. When he noticed that neither of the cars were visible for the two banks on either side of this one, so he dove down the empty shaft to the right.
He glanced up and breathed a momentary sigh of relief as too many robots simultaneously tried to follow him through the open elevator shaft, and they wedged themselves so that they got stuck. But then the other two shaft doors disintegrated, and Arturo squealed as hundreds more robots poured in an orderly fashion into the shaft above. Below him, light poured forth from the still-open shaft for floor sixty-five. He changed the direction of his dive so that he aimed toward it, and as soon as it entered his reach, he grabbed the top of the open door and flung himself inside, tumbling end over end down the hallway until he crashed to a halt on the far wall.
He rubbed his head where it smarted and quickly gained his bearings. Dozens and dozens of dead B.I.T. soldiers littered the hallway, most of them full of arrows. Arturo heard a familiar voice around the corner, though he could make out no words. He knew the robots would be entering the shaft any second. Arturo desperately needed to ensure the explosives were set and get out of here now that he had his hands on the B.I.T.’s secret weapon.
Arturo rounded the corner of the hallway and stood for a moment in shock. Ginn Yis disappeared in a beam of bright lightning. The two arrows she had nocked and ready to loose clattered to the hard ground. A second bolt of lightning connected with Ginder as she attempted to dive out of its way. She managed to get a shot off as she disappeared into nothingness, but it missed the soldier that had fired upon her.
Meanwhile, Artkins stood deflecting disintegration bolts with his fire-lightning sword. The smoking black outlines on the ceiling indicated that he must have destroyed the turrets that had lined the ceiling, and the screams that ended abruptly at the end of the hallway marked the soldiers into whom he had deflected these latest bolts.
“I got the secret weapon. Did you set the bomb?” Arturo screamed.
Artkins did not look away from his task. “No. The Communications Vault is the next room down. We’re almost there.”
And then hundreds of robots turned the corner behind Arturo. More and more soldiers appeared on the opposite end of the hallway. Artkins and Arturo were trapped in the middle. The giant’s voice poured forth from speakers in the robots. “This was a good effort, but I must end this charade now. There is too much at stake.”
Arturo’s heart threatened to beat out of his chest. He glanced over at Artkins. He screamed, “This isn’t how it ends. We’re the deus ex machinas in this war! We’re the ones who show up at the end and save everything!”
But unfortunately for these five adolescents who had embarked on this mission—these five chosen ones destined to save their home earths from unspeakable evils—this was how it ended. The robots and the soldiers opened fire, disintegrating the last of the blue bear’s deus ex machinas. Arturo felt every atom inside him seize, like he was experiencing billions and billions of heart attacks at once, all over his body.
This time, Arturo did not return to his afterlife. His atoms spread across the Multiverse, and he experienced an eternity he would never have been able to describe even if given the chance. He saw only blackness, but he felt a tiny window into a nigh-infinite number of realities’ afterlives.
If only he had remained un-disintegrated for a few more minutes, he would have been frozen in time and may not have experienced a death from which he would never return.
Chapter 1
ANOTHER A-MUSE-ING INVOCATION
“SING TO ME, Muse, of the B.I.T. agent whose plan worked perfectly. Sing to me of the man who risked everything to ensure the Multiverse emerged triumphant over the cosmic bears that threatened it,” demanded Agent 27142.
The Muse sat bound upon a small marble altar at the back of the cave, her skin pale olive, her hair downy and brown, her figure supple and lithe, her eyes fierce and glowing purple.
“I shall never sing for you,” hissed the Muse, her voice drifting through the cave like a thick syrup that tickled the ears with delight. She scowled at Agent 27142, so he nodded at the commander of Squadron Ampersand.
The commander turned her upside-down by her ankles and dipped her head into a bucket of water. He held her there until she began thrashing, and then pulled her out so she could inhale a quick breath, and then shoved her back in. This process repeated three times before she yielded. The commander turned her right-side up and sat her back down upon the altar.
The most beautiful melody that Agent 27142 had ever heard began pouring forth from the Muse’s lips. She sobbed between notes, but the notes filled the cave, and Agent 27142 wished he could listen to the song forever. He was overcome with a strong urge to create, to sculpt, to paint, to write, to make love. As he glanced about, he recognized similar emotions in his soldiers, two of whom were now squatted on the cave floor and drawing in the dirt with the barrels of their Scatter Guns. The Muse formed words in harmony with the tranquil melody ululating from deep in her throat, words that formed pictures in Agent 27142’s head of his own exploits and his plan bearing fruit and the Stasis Bomb saving both the B.I.T. and the Multiverse.
Agent 27142 bit the inside of his lip to suppress his new creative urges. He knew he had the internal willpower to resist them, but he did not have the same confidence in his underlings. He needed to provide them with focus, or they would never finish what needed to be done here.
He walked to the three lowest ranking members of Squadron Ampersand, a female about seven-feet tall and two males both barely under six-feet tall. All three stared at Agent 27142 with clouded eyes. “Do you have anything with which to plug your ears?” asked Agent 27142.
When the three shook their heads, he frowned. “Very well. Can any of you read lips?”
The female raised her hand, though she was visibly fighting against her pupils turning to watch the Muse. “Aye, sir,” she muttered. Her voice trickled in slow, barely audible bursts like it had caught some sort of wanderlust and was dancing farther away into the distance with each passing second. “Took the course from Agent 5569000 as part of extended basic training.”
Agent 27142 nodded. “Then while you can still hear me, I want to thank you in advance for your sacrifices. I need you to ensure that the Muse sings continuously about our raid’s success, but I can’t have you distracted by her. Now get on your knees, all three of you,” he ordered.
The three knelt. Agent 27142 retrieved from his holster one of his brass pill-shaped devices. He pressed the button on the d
evice and three little spikes poked out of its bottom. He walked to each of the trio in turn and pricked them in each of their ears. Each stifled moans of pain as their ears melted off their heads. However, once their ears disappeared in puddles of gore, the glassy looks in their eyes disappeared, and they seemed in control of their wills once more. He disarmed the device and returned it to the tiny pouch on his holster, where it joined the multitude of spare pill-shaped devices that he kept there, since they were easy to lose in battle but always necessary to have on hand. He pointed to the Muse. The female agent tapped the other two agents on their shoulders and gestured for them to hold the Muse ready for torture. She then stood staring at the immortal’s lips, her eyes never wavering from her duty.
Agent 27142 nodded in satisfaction. He walked over to the tentacle-armed squadron commander and asked, “Did your soldiers finish the search of the cave? Did they locate our primary targets?”
The squadron commander nodded. “Aye, sir. Just received word from one o’ my soldiers. The targets were found through a small tunnel under the Muse’s altar. Apologies it took this long to find ‘em. There’re tunnels hidden all throughout this cave. It’s like an ant farm. Except instead o’ ants, a bunch of the tunnels end at the lairs o’ some kinda murderous demigod originatin’ from what appears to be the Greek mythological pantheon, or at least what we would call the Greeks on many realities in the charted Multiverse. We lost three soldiers in the search. Follow me this way, sir.”
The squadron commander led Agent 27142 around the large marble altar, its façade decorated in reliefs of ancients engaged in the arts—poetry and dancing and singing and painting. All along the cave wall, Agent 27142 noticed small circular holes bored into the rock. Flickering flames danced into view from the depths of some of them, though most sat shadowy and dark. He could have sworn he heard growling drifting up from a few, and from one of them floated the grotesque sound of teeth chewing upon bloody flesh.
The Endless War That Never Ends Page 21