by James Riley
“I know how to travel between stories now, Owen,” future Owen said, quickly shutting the page before the dragon could eat them. “And I can teach you to do it too!”
THIS CAN’T BE REAL. OWEN CHOOSES TO DANCE AROUND RIDICULOUSLY, JUST TO PROVE WE CAN STILL DECIDE THINGS.
Turn to page XXX.
WOW, THE SPELL REALLY DID WORK, DIDN’T IT? WE DON’T REALLY HAVE A CHOICE.
Turn to page 143.
Munich in the year 4120,” Kara said, grabbing Owen’s hand and hitting the bracelet.
They jumped forward in time, only to appear in the middle of nothing. Everything was just blank, a white world absent of anything, just like the space between stories.
“Wait, what happened?” Kara said. “The time bracelet says we’re in the correct year, but this can’t be the same place.”
What did this mean? The world was just . . . gone. Had Nobody split the fictional and nonfictional worlds, and this was the result?
“Something’s very wrong,” Kara said.
“It sure is,” said a voice, and they whirled around to find Dolores with several robed guards. She immediately touched Owen and Kara on the neck, and they both collapsed to the ground.
The last thing Owen heard was Dolores’s voice getting farther and farther away. “Bring them, but keep them asleep. The Countess doesn’t want them to wake up before she disposes of them.”
Readers, turn back now! This is the . . . the wrong . . .
And then everything went dark.
So time is moving backward,” Kara said, pointing at the lava flowing upward. “But how did we get here? And where is here exactly?”
From the top of the mountain Owen could see a vast jungle laid out before them. As the lava retreated back up toward a large fissure near where they were standing, it revealed what looked like a path leading . . . somewhere. A few pterodactyls flew lazily through the air in reverse, their tails leading the way as they reverse hunted. He watched as one vomited up a small lizard of some kind, held it in its mouth for a moment, then dove with it backward to the ground, and deposited it there safely before reversing its dive back into the air.
“This is going to be odd, isn’t it,” he whispered to himself.
“Which is pretty much our normal, huh?” Kara said, bumping him with her shoulder. “After the lava all goes back into the volcano, let’s go check out that path. Maybe it leads back to the air lock?”
Owen nodded, having no idea what was going on. How could time be moving backward all around them, but they were still living forward? Was this really the outside, or was it just made up to look that way? Charm would have been able to figure this out in a matter of seconds. Why couldn’t Nobody have thrown the half-robotic girl in here with him?
As the last of the lava climbed up the mountain, leaving uneven rocks in its wake, something began to sizzle next to them, right in the lava’s path. As they watched, a metal signpost unmelted out of the lava, and slowly rose into the air. Scorch marks gradually disappeared, leaving behind the words TAKE ME in large letters.
Great. Like that kind of thing never got Alice in trouble in Wonderland.
“I guess we take it?” Kara asked, waiting until the lava had cleared the sign before yanking it out of the rock. The fully restored sign still didn’t look very new, and the words were faded into the metal as if from weather. Owen sighed. Maybe it’d become less weathered as they continued on, if time kept being all ridiculous.
“So what, now we just try out the path?” he asked, not liking their options.
“Yes, and fast,” Kara told him, pointing at the pterodactyls. “I think we’ve been spotted. Though it’s a bit hard to tell, since that one’s flying toward us backward.”
She was right, one of the largest dinosaurs was soaring right at them tail-first. “Run!” Owen shouted, and followed Kara down the rocky mountainside.
Keeping their footing turned out to be a lot harder than it looked. The entire volcano was now covered in loose gravel and rocks, and half the time it felt more like they were sliding or surfing down than running. Even worse, as they got farther down the mountain, the pterodactyl began to dive, looking to land right in the same spot they were heading for.
“Hold up!” Kara shouted, and braced herself against the rocks, trying to slow her progress. Owen grabbed her arm, and together they slid to a stop just as the creature’s tail came flying right for them. The dinosaur snapped its jaws just in front of Kara’s lead foot, then abruptly changed direction and took off into the air backward, shrieking loud enough to send a chill through Owen.
“It’s hunting us backward,” Kara said. “Somehow its time line is still connected to ours. We’re going to have to be really careful.”
Owen watched as the pterodactyl flew away, apparently not interested in taking another shot. Or wait, it wouldn’t be another shot, it’d have been a first shot? Maybe? His brain began to pound just trying to wrap his head around it.
They reached the bottom of the mountain without any further incidents and slowly approached the path. The jungle covered so much of the land that it was impossible to see more than ten or so feet down the pathway, so anything could be out there.
“Do you hear that?” Kara asked, holding up a hand to stop him.
He paused, and could just make out some kind of metal crunching noise. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound particularly friendly. But the jungle surrounding the volcano was far too thick to make their way through, so the path seemed like the only option. “Sounds like we’re going to regret this challenge,” he said to Kara. “Ready?”
She forced a smile and led the way along the path. Just a few feet after the volcano disappeared behind them, they saw the source of the metallic noises: a Tyrannosaurus rex was slowly uneating TIME-R.
Kara pushed Owen out of the way behind a tree, then looked back around the bend. “That’s so disgusting,” she whispered. “I hope this didn’t happen because I said it should!”
Something began to beep, and Owen pushed up next to her to see. The T. rex had just put back into place a piece of TIME-R’s head, and the robot’s eyes had lit up. It seemed dazed still and was repeating a phrase over and over. “SOMERSVILLE. HOUGH STREET. JUNE FIRST, 2054. ONE THIRTY-FIVE P.M. SOMERSVILLE. HOUGH STREET. JUNE FIRST, 2054. ONE THIRTY-FIVE P.M.”
“What’s it saying?” Owen whispered to Kara.
She shrugged. “A date and location important to it, maybe? Could be when it was first built?”
Owen went cold. “Or maybe when it founded the TSA.”
Another backward bite, and the robot’s head was now completely restored. It stopped repeating the phrase, then seemed to see the dinosaur slowly uneating it for the first time. “THIS IS UNEXPECTED,” it said.
“I think the T. rex is almost done eating him,” Kara said. “Or almost to the point where it started. There’s just a leg missing now.”
And as she said it, the dinosaur regurgitated up a robot leg, attaching it back into place.
“HUMANS,” TIME-R shouted at them. “IF I UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE, I SUGGEST YOU NOW COME OVER HERE. HURRY!”
Uh, what now? Join him in getting eaten? There was no way that was going to happen!
DO WHAT THE ROBOT SAYS!
Turn to page 358.
UM, GO TOWARD THE DINOSAUR? THAT’LL GET OWEN KILLED. JUST STAY THERE AND WAIT!
Turn to page 186.
I’m going to distract that thing,” Kara said, readying herself to run back the way they’d come. “You find the exit code, okay?”
“What?” Owen said. “There’s no way—”
“I’ll be fine!” she said. “Whatever happens here will be reset at midnight. Now just go, okay? I’m not letting you get hurt if I have any say in the matter!”
With one last look, she turned to run back toward the T. rex.
Then she froze as soon as her hand left Owen’s.
In spite of everything, he had to smile at that.
He grabbed
her hand again, speeding her time back up. “I’m pretty sure that’s not going to work.”
“Oh!” she said, staring at his hand and turning bright red. “Um. Right.”
“Any other ideas?” Owen asked.
HAVE KARA SUGGEST THAT THEY CROSS THE RAVINE JUST AHEAD.
Turn to page 214.
There was no loud, pounding thought that answered his request, so Owen had no idea if the readers had even heard him. Unfortunately, Kara didn’t seem to be having much luck as she kept pushing symbol after symbol on the time bracelet.
He gritted his teeth and turned away so she couldn’t see him, then stared out at the nothingness, hoping he was looking readers directly in the eye.
Hey, everyone out there. I know we didn’t get off on the right foot. You tried to control me and make me do things that I didn’t want to do, and I . . . well, I never did anything to you. I get that if you believe what Nobody says, that nonfictional people control you somehow . . . well then, you probably don’t like me much. But please, don’t take that out on Kara. And doubly don’t take that out on Bethany. She’s half-fictional herself, and she’s done nothing but try to find her father. And look what happened when she did. Please. Help us here, and send me back to Bethany, and I’ll promise to tell every single nonfictional writer exactly what they’re doing. I’ll start petitions, I’ll e-mail the president, whatever it takes! Just please . . . help us?
He squeezed his eyes closed, hoping that when he opened them, the bracelet would be fixed, and they’d be on their way to the present, at which point the readers would rip a page in space in front of him between stories, and he could step back into the world of Jupiter City to find Bethany. Please? Owen thought one last time. Then he took a deep breath and opened his eyes.
“Wow, I think I made it worse,” Kara said. “That’s unfortunate.”
Oh, GREAT. Thanks a lot, readers! You’re a huge help all around. So now you’re trying to kill me and one of your own fictional people? Perfect. Hope you’re enjoying this, Nobody. Because these readers are being worse than authors ever would be. At least authors give their characters a way out of hopeless situations!
“There might be a way out, though,” Kara said, looking off in the direction of the big bang. “It could kill us even faster if it doesn’t work, but what’s a few extra minutes of life worth, anyway?”
“Um, a lot?” Owen said, wondering how long he could survive in the vacuum of space if he just let go of her hand right now and took his chances. “What’s the idea?”
“I can’t get us moving forward in time again, not without stopping the bracelet for a few minutes to reset it,” she said. “And we wouldn’t last ten seconds out here, let alone long enough for it to reboot.”
Okay, yikes. Ten seconds was definitely worse than a few minutes. Owen tightened his grip. “So what’s the idea, then?”
“What if I make us go backward even faster?”
“ . . . Faster.”
“Yeah!” She actually seemed excited by this. “As fast as we can.”
“You want to send us hurtling toward the big bang, where we’ll get crunched into nothingness, dying instantly . . . quicker.”
She shoved her shoulder against his. “You must not see the benefits of the plan.”
“Not really, no.”
“Well, to be fair, I’m not entirely sure there are any,” she said, which didn’t really help Owen’s growing feeling of dread. “But here’s the thing. If we can get going fast enough, I think we can use our momentum to catch the big bang’s event horizon like a whirlpool, and have it shoot us out the other direction. Which in this case might be nothingness.”
“Nothingness?!”
“But,” Kara continued quickly, “there are theories that other realities existed before the big bang. Some people even think that a previous version of humanity eventually became evolved enough to create a universe itself, and that’s what the big bang was. So if we can just pass through into that universe, we could be okay!”
“I heard a lot of ‘theories’ in there,” Owen said, his knees starting to shake from terror. “Why did the time bracelet have to break, huh?” He turned his head out to space. “Seriously! Why couldn’t whoever’s in charge here just let you fix the bracelet? Or even just have a spaceship come along and save us? There are literally an infinite number of possible ways we could have been saved, and yet, somehow we’re still going to die. Does that seem fair to you people?!”
“I can see you’re busy ranting, so I’m just going to try it,” Kara said, and hit a symbol. Instantly, the stars began flowing toward the big bang even faster, and the universe started to darken.
“What? No!” Owen shouted.
“This is our only chance, Owen,” Kara said, quickly tapping a symbol a few more times. Time sped backward now too fast for Owen to even see individual stars. It was like hitting warp drive in every movie or TV show ever, just lines of light all heading in one direction . . . toward the big bang.
“We’re heading into nothing,” he yelled at her. “Nothing means that there’s nothing there. There’s nothing in nothing! And once we’re in nothing, we’ll be nothing!”
She gave him a sad look. “At least this way there’s a chance. And if it doesn’t work . . . then I guess destiny isn’t as all-powerful as it seems.”
What? Wait a second. “That’s what this is about?” Owen said.
“That’s what it’s always about,” Kara whispered, and grabbed his arm with hers, holding it tightly.
Owen growled in frustration. “Fine. I hope that anyone out there who can see us right now feels very guilty about all of this!”
“You and your nonfictional stuff,” she said, giving him a smile as the lines of light outside began to wink out, with fewer remaining each second. From thousands to hundreds, to just dozens. Then five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Finally, the last line of light sped past, and that was it. There was only blackness.
And then a wall of pure nothing came rushing toward them, encompassing all of existence. A wall that didn’t even look like the blackness of space, it was just . . . the end of everything. Just like in that Kiel Gnomenfoot book. “If Kiel survived it, maybe we can too,” Owen whispered.
“Who’s Kiel?” Kara asked, and Owen felt her hand tremble.
“Someone I wish were here right now,” Owen told her. “You know, for what it’s worth, I really don’t want to die.”
Kara nodded, not looking at him. “You have no idea how much I agree with that. It’s my fault, Owen, I know. It’s always my fault. I can’t escape it.”
The wall of nothing drew closer, and Owen closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. I’m so sorry, Bethany. I did my best to get back to you, but time travel is just the worst. I hope someday you get to read this, and maybe you can track down all the readers who sent us in this direction and throw them into a Pick the Plot book. Would serve them right.
“Here it comes!” Kara shouted, and Owen began to scream. Kara joined in, then reached out and hugged him close as the wall of nothingness slammed into them with the force of all reality.
And after that, there was only nothing.
UH-OH. LET’S MAYBE GO BACK AND TRY THE FUTURE ROUTE INSTEAD.
Turn to page 206.
WAIT. IS THERE ANYTHING IN THE NOTHINGNESS? LET’S JUST TAKE A LOOK.
Turn to page 230.
The Jupiter Hill Observatory topped what Owen assumed was Jupiter Hill, where it looked like a war had occurred. The ground was ripped up all over the place, and a large broken crystal shield seemed to be embedded in the dirt so deeply that the construction crews fixing things were removing it with a crane.
“Sorry, kids, this is a hard hat area only,” said one of the construction workers as they approached. “Observatory is closed until we get things cleaned up here. Shouldn’t be more than a day or so.” He grinned. “This actually isn’t even that bad. Did you see the invasion of the atomic universe two years ago? Tiny people, bu
t wow did they pack a punch. Only took us a week to rebuild the entire city, but those were some long nights!”
“We really need to get in there,” Owen said, looking around for another entrance. “Isn’t there some way we can sneak by?”
The man laughed and ruffled Owen’s hair in a way that did not help his mood at all. “Nice try. I like your gumption, especially in front of the young lady here.” Kara blushed, and Owen raised his hands to object, but the man continued, “Like I said, it’s a hard hat area only. And safety is our number one concern.”
“So . . . can we just put on hard hats, then?” Kara asked.
He stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. “Looks like you found a loophole, miss!” He grabbed two hard hats from a box next to the entrance and handed them over. “Now, be sure to keep those on while you’re in there, or I’ll have to escort you out. And keep an eye out for that crane, will you? We’ve dropped Rock ’n’ Roll’s crystal shield a few times now. A lot heavier than it looks, and it looks plenty heavy!”
Owen sighed as he put on the hard hat, then led the way up the battlefield toward the observatory door. The climb up the hill actually was more treacherous than it looked from below, given all the craters in the dirt and various leftovers from superpowers. But the construction workers seemed to know what they were doing, flattening the land back down and laying sod over it. Comic book cities got destroyed all the time, so it made sense that someone would have to rebuild them. Probably good work for a construction company.
They kept moving and were approaching the entrance to the observatory when Owen stepped on something squishy. He lost his balance and tumbled to the ground as the squishy thing spoke up. “Hey! Watch where you’re stepping!” said . . . whatever it was.
Kara reached down and helped what looked exactly like a person made of dirt stand up. The dirt faded away, leaving an annoyed-looking man in some sort of military camouflage.