The Endless War That Never Ends

by Christopher Brimmage

  The girl began crying. Agent 27142 noted the position in which he stranded the girl so that he could later call in an emergency ship to pick her up. That would have to wait, though, because he needed to keep moving in order to ensure the ultimate safety of the Multiverse.

  He whispered his destination to the gourd and squeezed it.

  “If you insist,” the gourd whispered back in a sad, depressed, monotone voice. Lightning flashed between its antennae and then crashed into Agent 27142, engulfing him. He had never been so happy to hear a gourd speak to him.

  Chapter 13

  A HELL OF A CHANGE

  DRILLBOT FELT A crunch beneath his wheel, which lay across God-Art’s throat. The god tapped in submission against the side of the wheel. His voice came out a barely audible whisper, “O-Okay, Drillbot. You w-w-win. Now get off me.”

  Drillbot rolled backward, freeing the god’s throat from beneath his wheel and allowing the deity to stand. Tire treads stood out red and fresh on the god’s pale neck, which was bent and jutted sideways from Drillbot’s weight crushing multiple vertebrae. The god closed his eyes for a few seconds, and the vertebrae healed themselves with an audible crackle and pop.

  The god stared at Drillbot, rubbing his neck. “By Me, you’re a ferocious thing. Not how I remember you at all.”

  Drillbot’s face contorted in a frown, his mouth-speaker retracting, his eyes vibrating, and his radar dishes wobbling back and forth. “[whir] Drillbot is the veteran general of – CLACK – of a cosmic war that lasted ten – CLACK – ten years and spanned thousands upon thousands of – CLACK – of earths. You were a fool of a mischief god to think you could – CLACK – you could best Drillbot.”

  The god seemed to understand the gesture and returned the frown. The god kicked at the carpet with one toe, leaving a scorch mark in the shag where his toenail scratched against it. The god said, “Ten years? What did that damned blue bear do to me? It’s been far too long since I have been alive, and I am ignorant of far too much.”

  Drillbot rolled forward. “[whir] Actually, more like twenty years for – CLACK – for you. Drillbot fought for ten, and then was stranded for – CLACK – stranded for approximately ten more.”

  The god scowled at the robot. “Twenty years? By Me, I need to make something suffer, or I’m going to explode.”

  The god stalked over to the unconscious occupants of the apartment and drew his dagger with his right hand. He grabbed the leg of the male with his left hand and yanked him up into the air, holding the man so he dangled upside-down. “Wake up, little mortal,” whispered the god. Little visible stars shot from the god’s mouth. They crashed onto the man’s closed eyelids. His eyes popped open. “It’s time for a good flaying,” said the god.

  The man screamed. Drillbot rolled over to God-Art’s side and promptly severed the god’s left arm at the shoulder. The man and the arm crashed to the floor. “[whir] There will be no – CLACK – no flaying here today.”

  The god turned to stare at Drillbot with scorn. Drillbot continued, “[whir] Torture will not replace lost – CLACK – lost time. Drillbot has been gone for far too – CLACK – far too long, too. Drillbot must return to the Blue One’s side to keep the Multiverse safe and atone for – CLACK – atone for his mistakes. The Blue One was left on Earth 55,777. But that was ten years ago, and he must be – CLACK – must be elsewhere now. Drillbot has resurrected you so that – CLACK – so that you can ferry Drillbot across dimensions to find the Blue One. We should initiate our search where Drillbot left the Blue One and look for – CLACK – look for clues.”

  The god retrieved his severed arm from the ground and poked Drillbot in the chest with it. “You can kill me a billion times, robot, but I will never do that blue bastard a favor. And returning a machine such as yourself to him would be the biggest favor he could ever hope to receive.”

  Drillbot raised his drills to God-Art’s face, “[whir] Killing you a billion times can be – CLACK – can be arranged. You will take Drillbot to initiate the search at once. Or you will – CLACK – or you will suffer Drillbot’s wrath.”

  God-Art tossed the severed arm at Drillbot, and when it was in midair, it transformed into a python the length of a football pitch. Before Drillbot could react, the python wrapped round and round Drillbot, binding him in place. It hissed in Drillbot’s audio receptors, and Drillbot sighed.

  God-Art guffawed. “And this is why people should stop underestimating mischief gods. You think you’ve got the upper hand, and then we use our severed appendages to turn the tables on you.”

  God-Art patted Drillbot on the head and continued, “No, I will not be helping you return to the blue bear. I’m going to find the pink bear and finally gain eternal cosmic power.”

  “[whir] That will never work. You don’t know what the – CLACK – what the pink bear is capable of.”

  God-Art ignored the robot and strummed his chin with the fingers on his remaining hand. “But first, we need to find your creator, the mundane version of me. He was a beacon for those stupid bears, and I reckon that’s not something that simply fades with time.

  “Besides,” the god continued, “As I was dying from the blue bear’s effects on my body, I made a promise to myself that your creator would not escape my wrath once I resurrected myself. After we have located him, I am going to murder and resurrect him enough times to feel satisfied, and then I’ll force him to help me become all-powerful, and then I’ll wipe him from existence.”

  It was Drillbot’s turn to laugh. “[whir] Ha. You’ll never get the chance. Drillbot accidentally killed him approximately ten years ago, and now his corpse is – CLACK – his corpse is drifting across the Multiverse at the rate of one reality per hundredth of a second. Good luck – CLACK – Good luck locating him.”

  God-Art stared at Drillbot and grinned. “Well, boyo, you just made my life much easier. I thought we would need a prolonged search to find the sluggard. I know exactly where he’ll be now.”

  And with that, God-Art stared into Drillbot’s telescopic eyes. The god’s pupils transformed into a pair of skulls-and-crossbones transfixed with flames. In Drillbot’s peripheral, he noticed the background shifting and transforming and growing darker.

  God-Art finally broke eye contact, and when he did, Drillbot found that he was standing in a dark cave that sloped sharply downward. Flames flickered from torches set every few feet in sconces on the walls. When Drillbot looked to his right, the tunnel sloped upward, but it seemed to stretch on forever. He zoomed in his telescopic eyes and could see no end to it.

  God-Art tugged on the python’s tail in such a way that it twisted Drillbot to face the descending path. Drillbot noticed that God-Art had grown a new arm. He raised his eyebrows like he expected Drillbot to comment on the development. Drillbot refused, instead watching in silence the reflections of flickering flames in the god’s eyes.

  God-Art finally grinned and loped downhill. Drillbot followed.

  The pair traveled ever downward. The cave walls grew closer together. Drillbot soon found himself needing to duck. He powered on his drills. He would make this tunnel wider and taller to give himself more room.

  God-Art laughed. “I know what you’re thinking. And it will not work. First, you are bound by my enchanted python, so you couldn’t free your arms to drill even if you tried with all your might. Second—and most importantly—there are magical properties at play here. You could widen this tunnel by a million miles with your fancy drills. But it will matter not, for it will still appear this same size to you.”

  God-Art did not wait for Drillbot to reply, instead tugging him along on the python-leash until they reached an arched stone gateway. The arch was decorated with carved reliefs of humans undergoing numerous different types of torture. Above the arched gateway was inscribed the words Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate, which Drillbot’s processors translated into binary, which this author has translated into English: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

  God-Art put
an arm around Drillbot and admired the arch for a few moments. Then the god called out in a cheery singsong voice, “No need to worry about abandoning hope, old chap. You’ve got the benefit of having me with you, and I’m an old acquaintance of this place. So, c’mon! Let’s go to Hell!”

  Chapter 14

  HOME IS WHERE THE HELL IS

  NORMAL-ART LAY NESTLED in a cleft of mud at the bottom of the marshy river Styx. He stared up through the black water at the tortured souls on the river’s surface. Though they were forever engaged in a bare-handed fight with one another, each soul seemed to have carved out its own little personal space up there, which the soul never left. It was a weird microcosm within this section of Hell.

  Normal-Art was currently spending eternity in the Fifth Circle of Hell, in which those guilty of Sloth are punished by being thrust under the waters of the Styx to drown for eternity while those guilty of Wrath forever tread water on the surface of the river, fighting one another. The view from down here on the riverbed had at least been entertaining at first, since the fighting above him reminded him of some sort of action movie writ mundanely small. But as the years toiled on, the show grew more and more tiresome as he watched the exact same “movie” play over and over with the exact same ending.

  Further, the dialogue was terrible. The wrathful men and women constantly yelled their own names and deeds to the wind as though people around them should be impressed. Normal-Art thought this was funny at first. Now he wished they would just shut up.

  The most notable of these culprits was the one who occupied the space in the water directly above Normal-Art. He shouted of his own name, Filippo Argenti, and a story about himself at least three-dozen times per day—to which Art and every single soul buried in the riverbed around him consistently shrugged in confusion, having never heard of the fool and not caring to learn about him. From what Art had surmised from the portions of Filippo’s yelling that he had been unable to ignore, Filippo was a Florentine politician from the 13th century whose political party did something important.

  The only changes up there on the surface occurred when a new sinner was tossed into the water by the lead guardian of the Fifth Circle, the angry and sullen Phlegyas. Soon after each new sinner’s arrival, he/she would either be caught in the endless cycle of fisticuffs on the surface or would sink to the bottom and land somewhere in the mud. Either way, it was different and exciting for a short time—especially when the new sinner brought news of the outside world, particularly if the news described plots of a television show that took place after Art had been whisked away by God-Art on his fateful adventure so long ago. And then the excitement would fade, and tedium would replace it once more. Based on the number of television seasons that newcomers had described over the time that Art had been down here below the surface of the Styx, about ten years had passed outside of Hell since Normal-Art’s death, and thus about twenty since his departure from his couch with the god.

  It was going to be a long and boring eternity, so Normal-Art sighed, and as he did so, the sullen expression escaped his lips in the form of a gurgling bubble that drifted up to the surface of the marsh above. The gurgling bubble tickled the feet of the damned Florentine politician, Filippo—who had actually been quiet for the first time all day, which meant he had finally fallen asleep. The bubbling woke him and he at once yelled his name, his deeds, and then launched into a new assault on his neighbors, which he promptly lost—as he always did.

  As boring as this existence was, Normal-Art could not really complain. There were a lot of worse places in Hell he could have ended up. He had heard rumors from some of his fellow slothful sinners that there was a Circle of Hell where people marinated in a pond of human excrement. Though this water was definitely not the cleanest in which Art had ever swum, and though he constantly gagged on the water’s sulfuric flavor and felt as though he were in a constant state of drowning, at least he resided in water. His sympathetic thoughts went out to his fellow damned souls who were drowning somewhere in feces, and he thanked the gods for small favors.

  Normal-Art had spent his first few years underwater finding a comfortable niche at the bottom to call home. He spent time getting to know his neighbors and watching the show above with them. Since they were incapable of talking below the water, they mouthed words to each other, and after a couple years, Normal-Art became pretty adept at reading lips.

  Normal-Art found the best company down here in the Pit consisted of the demons and monstrous guards. Over the years, Art had befriended most of the ones stationed down here in the river, unlike most of the other sinners around him—who behaved rather spitefully toward the demons and monsters because of all their torturing. Art had long ago learned that most of Hell’s guards did not love to torture and maim, but they lived in a torture-based economy, and they had families to feed. Thus, they tortured the damned as needed, but their hearts were generally not in it.

  Art noticed a pale object in his peripheral moving swiftly through the water, and his mind jostled to attention as one such monster approached. “Hey, Art,” said a merman with shaggy green seaweed for hair. The merman had pale green skin, a noseless-but-otherwise-humanoid face with gills at his jawline, bulbous fishy eyes, a slender torso, and a lower half that looked like the slick, scaly body of a catfish. The merman held a golden trident in his webbed right hand and waved his other hand at Art. “Sorry I can’t chat just now, but I’m on duty and it’s two days ‘til month’s end. No hard feelings, but I gotta skewer you good and proper to meet my quota, OK? I’ll talk to you tonight at poker.”

  Normal-Art sighed and mouthed back, “No problem, Mava the Horribly Wicked.”

  The water drowned Art’s words, but Mava the Horribly Wicked understood him, anyway. The merman nodded. Normal-Art bit his lower lip as he watched the trident dart toward him, and he screamed as it stabbed into his torso. It did not bite in deep, not nearly as deep as when Mava the Horribly Wicked’s cousin was on duty, who was one of the few demons that seemed to experience euphoria when he tortured the souls of the damned.

  A few demonic mermen and mermaids patrolled the area below the water’s surface. They were assigned to torture the slothful and sullen. Mava the Horribly Wicked was Normal-Art’s favorite of the lot. After about the third or fourth time Mava the Horribly Wicked had been on guard duty after Normal-Art had been tossed into the Styx, Normal-Art had struck up a conversation with this gaoler, though the conversation was mostly one-way, since Art could only manage to mouth his words.

  Over the years, Art had learned that Mava the Horribly Wicked had dreams of being a pop singer. Mava the Horribly Wicked even let Art hear some of his music, which had not been all that impressive, if Art were being honest. Art had also learned from Mava the Horribly Wicked some of the secrets to dealing with the guards to reduce his discomfort: so long as Normal-Art sighed and acted like the water was causing him distress when the demonic merpeople patrolled their routes, he would not get stabbed unless it was near the end of the month and the merpeople needed to meet their puncture-quota. Normal-Art had grown incredibly adept at sighing and moaning anytime a merperson swam anywhere in his general vicinity, and he found himself being stabbed much less often than his neighbors.

  Further, as he spent more and more time down here, he developed ways to entertain himself. Amongst other things, he and the sinners near him had plucked some of the wild seaweed that grew from the riverbed and created playing cards from it. They had a secret poker game going for a good half-year before Mava the Horribly Wicked caught them.

  Rather than punishing them, the merman had grown excited, for he had been searching for a regular game for some time. Ever since, the merman brought a pack of cards and snacks down on Wednesdays when his shift was over. It had at first been just Normal-Art and Mava the Horribly Wicked and a couple other of the damned souls playing, but it had since grown into a big social occasion in this Circle of Hell. A few of the demons from other Circles had even begun attending, including a minotau
r named Gertrude, a harpy named Randolph, a centaur named Brownie, a crawfish-demon named Red Red, and a giant fish-demon named Glub Glub.

  One day, Normal-Art realized that his circle of friends was much larger in Hell than it had ever been in the land of the living, and though Mava the Horribly Wicked and his ilk tortured him every now and then, they only did so out of obligation, and as soon as their shifts ended and Art’s soul healed itself again, they were all back to being friends.

  Thus, even though the show above him had grown stale and boring, Normal-Art grew more and more fond of his life in Hell. And that’s why he cursed the day it ended.

  Chapter 15

  INTO THE INFERNO

  God-Art held the tail of the python and led Drillbot on it like the robot was a dog on a leash. They passed beneath the arched gateway and into the hopeless realm of the damned.

  “[whir] These bindings are completely – CLACK – completely unnecessary,” said Drillbot. “Drillbot will not run away or attack you, not when we might be able to save former-master-Art. Drillbot did not realize this was an option when – CLACK – when Drillbot came to find you.”

  God-Art looked over his shoulder at Drillbot and smirked. “I’d like to believe that, but I like guarantees a whole lot better.”

  Once through the gates, the tunnel twisted downward at an even steeper decline. The tunnel eventually ended when it intersected a gigantic cave. Though the cave’s ceiling lay high overhead, something about the slope of the ceiling maintained the sensation of crushing claustrophobia. Drillbot’s internal sensors noted that carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide levels were dangerously high in here. If Drillbot were in the presence of mortal humans, he would warn them to leave at once or face the ravaging effects of poison gases in their lungs.