Kev

by Mark A Labbe

  “No.” Had the girl overheard my conversation with Aputi? Possibly. If she had, did she suspect me of taking it? And what of Aputi? Did he really want to save the universe or did he have something else in mind? I didn’t know whom I could trust, but I knew I loved the girl. Would she really try to end the universe?

  “Well, he did and if he gets his hands on that cube bad things are going to happen.”

  I wanted to fess up and give her the cube, but I held back, convinced that I should at least get Aputi to train me in its use before making a decision.

  “You didn’t tell me my birthday is in three days,” I said.

  “Oh, Aputi told you?”

  “Yeah. Do you have something big planned? You can tell me, because I’ll probably forget.”

  The girl laughed, but I could see concern on her face, and I wondered if she thought I knew what they had planned for me on my birthday, if Aputi’s claim was true.

  That night, Aputi and I went to the bar. I told him I had found the cube and had put is somewhere safe. I asked him about the time he had planned on wiping out most of humanity and he said he believed, at the time, it was the only way to save the universe, and then told me that I ended up destroying the universe by making a wish (Aputi wasn’t terribly clear on this point) and then Bri, a name I didn’t remember, and the Proth Sphere recreated the universe.

  “So, if the universe ends, won’t Bri and the Proth Sphere be able to recreate it?” I said.

  “No, Kev. If your nightmare destroys this universe it will not be recreated. If you fully remembered your nightmare you would know that.”

  “How do you know my nightmare?”

  “You told me all about it after you had it. Trust me, this is a no win situation without the yellow cube.”

  “Then teach me how to use it. I just need to manipulate the Proth Sphere’s matter, right? How hard can that be?”

  “Where is the yellow cube?”

  “Somewhere safe, I assure you.”

  “Who had it?”

  “That doesn’t matter. Now tell me how to use it.”

  Aputi eyed me for a moment, then said, “You press your thumb down on the side with the black circle…”

  “Wait a second,” I said. “The cube I found has no markings.”

  “Oh, really? Then the one you found is the water-breathing cube. You’re going to have to keep searching.”

  In my confused state, I forgot my conversation with the girl. I pulled the yellow cube out of my pocket and said, “So, this will let me breathe under water?”

  Aputi’s hand shot out and grabbed the cube. He immediately disappeared, and I knew, in that instant, I’d been had.

  I returned home and admitted my blunder. The girl froze, a look of absolute horror on her face. “We have to find Aputi,” she cried.

  “Well, where is he?” I said.

  “He could be anywhere. I knew we never should have befriended him, but you insisted and…we have to find him. Now.”

  In the next two hours, the girl took me to a number of Aputi’s haunts. We found no trace of him.

  “Maybe he went to Vermont,” said the girl, teleporting us to my home in Vermont. Standing ten feet away from us, I saw Aputi holding the yellow cube, a blissful smile on his face. In that instant, the entire universe transformed into a giant, unbelievably stinky cesspool.

  We were knee deep in filth, assaulted by a smell that could not be described, a smell I could barely tolerate, a strong urge to barf taking hold of me.

  “What do you think?” said Aputi. “Nice, isn’t it?”

  “Give me the cube, Aputi,” shouted the girl.

  “Absolutely not,” said Aputi, disappearing.

  I had been responsible for turning the entire universe into Aputi’s idea of paradise. At that point, the girl told me Aputi was a Bladrithian, a species that lives in filth. Long ago, he had been cast out by his brethren, banished from his home. The girl assumed this was his attempt to get back in their good graces.

  “We have to find Clive,” said the girl.

  “Why?”

  “You need to connect to the Proth Sphere.”

  “I’m not connecting to that thing. That will end the universe.”

  “Oh, you remember that nightmare? Crap. Well, we have to get the sphere to Bri somehow.”

  The girl teleported us to what used to be Clive’s house on Uthio Minor. Clive stood on top of a heap of fish bones, a baffled look on his face. The sphere hovered nearby.

  “It was Aputi,” said the girl.

  “That bastard,” said Clive.

  “We have to get the sphere to Bri somehow.”

  “No way,” said the sphere. “Bri has to apologize before I’ll go back to him.”

  “Who is Bri?” I said.

  “The sometimes co-creator of the infinite universes,” said Clive.

  “Well, that clears everything up, now doesn’t it?” I said.

  “You have to go back to Bri and fix this,” said the girl to the sphere. “And you have to give me back the yellow cube when you do.”

  “What needs to be fixed?” said the sphere. “Seems like Aputi did a pretty good job cleaning up the joint. Anyway, I’ll only do it if Bri apologizes.”

  “For what?” said the girl, Clive and I at the same time.

  “He knows what,” said the sphere with the voice of a hurt child.

  “Kev, you’re going to have to talk to Bri,” said the girl.

  “Why me?”

  “Because Clive and I can’t talk to him.”

  “Why?”

  “Rules are rules, Kev,” laughed Clive.

  “What the hell does that mean? Anyway, where is Bri?”

  “I’m right here,” said a voice inside my head, a child’s voice, full of joy and hope and everything else you might find in the voice of a hopeful, joyful child.

  “Bri, we have a situation here,” I said only to Bri.

  “You mean the giant cesspool. Not pretty. So, how can I help you?”

  “You need to connect with the Proth Sphere and fix this.”

  “I’m not connecting with that bastard. He needs to apologize first.”

  “Apologize for what, exactly?”

  “He knows.”

  “Oh, come on, Bri. Would you just do it?”

  “No way. Why don’t you connect to him? You can fix this.”

  “Not without ending the universe,” I said.

  “Are you sure about that? You know you don’t have to give the sphere all of your dreams and nightmares.”

  “Look, I only remember one nightmare, no dreams, so if this works the way I think it works, then I really can’t do much, now can I?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Rules are rules, Kev.”

  “Would you just connect to the damned sphere, please?”

  “Make it apologize.”

  “It wants you to apologize.”

  “For what?”

  “How should I know? It said you would know.”

  I turned to Clive and the girl. “Pain in the ass. I don’t know what they’re fighting about.”

  “Kev, just make them do it,” said Clive.

  “Sure thing, boss. You going to tell me how to do that or do the rules prohibit it?” I growled.

  Clive whispered something in the girl’s ear and she whispered something back in his. They turned to me and the girl said, “What’s your favorite number?”

  “What?” I suddenly felt faint, the smell of this place truly overwhelming me, and thought I might throw up. I looked around us, piles of bones and other refuse for as far as the eye could see. I wondered how many diseases we had been exposed to, and also wondered how other beings in the universe were faring.

  “What’s your favorite number, Kev?” repeated the girl.

  “I don’t know. Thirty-seven,” I said.

  The girl and Clive looked at me expectantly.

  “What?” I cri
ed, as I dropped to my knees and threw up on top of a pile of rotten grapefruits and oranges, which sat next to a pile of rotting carcasses of some unknown creatures.

  Clive came over and helped me back up. “What does thirty-seven mean to you, Kev?”

  I felt myself gagging and turned away from Clive to avoid vomiting on him. The spell passed and I said, “I don’t know. I like it. It’s the twelfth prime if you don’t count one as a prime, thirteenth if you do, but I don’t count one as a prime, for some reason I don’t quite understand right now. Anyway, it’s important for some other reason, I think. Have I ever mentioned it before?”

  Clive looked at the girl briefly and she nodded. “Kev, what do you think about jelly donuts?”

  In that instant, a number of things became clear, not the least of which was the fact that there were only thirty-seven possible types of jelly donuts in the universe. Why did that matter? I also remembered how to get Bri and the Proth Sphere to interact with each other when they were having a spat, which they often did. What I didn’t remember was that the last time Bri and the Proth Sphere had a spat it was over how many possible types of jelly donuts should exist in the new universe, and that I had been witness to this event an event that ultimately led me to wish that they would stop fighting and recreate the universe.

  I brought Bri and the sphere together with a wish, and in that instant saw a flash and then nothing.

  Surth Beta

  I saw a flash in the dark. Thunder sounded, and then another flash lit up the sky. I felt sand underneath my feet and heard waves crashing on the beach.

  Behind me, I saw lights, so I turned and approached what appeared to be a bar, sitting just off the beach. Standing behind the bar, I saw Brok. When had I last seen Brok? I thought Clive and I had been at the bar recently. Was that in a different universe? I couldn’t tell.

  I remembered a few things in that moment, like who I was and where I was. I remembered Clive, the girl, Ruby, and my children, now five of them. I remembered Aputi, but did not recall him changing the universe into a giant cesspool. I had a vague recollection of having some vague concern about Clive and his intentions with respect to me, something about a sphere. Maybe the sphere was Clive’s, something he was going to use against me, but for what reason I did not know.

  Brok served me a green tea. “You look like you have something on your mind, Kev.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Is this a new universe?”

  “Most likely,” said Brok. “Big improvement over the cesspool, don’t you think?”

  “Cesspool?”

  “Never mind. So, what’s going on?”

  “Brok,” I said, remembering the game and wondering if the rules would prohibit Brok from answering my question. “Why is Surth Beta important to me?” I didn’t know why I had thought of that. However, I suspected there was something on Surth Beta that could help me figure things out, something that would help me get my memories back.

  “Why don’t you go there and find out?” said Brok.

  “How do I get there?”

  “What’s your favorite number? Crap. Don’t tell anyone I said that. Please, forgive me. I wasn’t thinking.”

  Hadn’t someone asked me that recently? What did thirty-seven have to do with Surth Beta? In that instant I appeared on Surth Beta, or so I thought.

  Surth Beta, to a well-traveled Earthling would appear to be much like the red light district in Amsterdam. However, this red light district on Surth Beta, the entire planet, was home to an industry known as mind fusing.

  Mind fusing can take many forms, from mood alteration to complete personality transformation, memory recall to memory storage and replacement, and a wide variety of other things.

  I looked around and saw signs and heard voices calling out. I heard someone shout, “Become one with Garth Nader, infamous serial killer.” Another shouted, “Engage with Ceeli Jool, chess master and class eight mind.”

  I saw an odd centipede-like creature holding a sign that read, “Have total recall, know everything (almost).” I approached the centipede and said, “How much for that?”

  “Hey, Kev. How are you? I guess you’ve forgotten again, huh?”

  “Apparently,” I said, trying to remember the centipede’s name.

  “Name’s Flid, Kev. Anyway, it’s free.”

  “I’ve been here before then?”

  “Many times, my friend.”

  “And what do I do here?”

  “Do you see that brain in a vat?” said Flid, pointing at a basketball sized brain floating in a vat of greenish liquid behind a glass window. “All you do is connect with that and you will get your memories back, or at least the memories you had each time you connected to the brain.”

  “Oh. And, you say I’ve been here many times?”

  “More than I can count.”

  “So, then I should be able to get back all of my memories. I’ll do it.”

  Flid led me through a door into the small room that was home to the brain in a vat. He attached an electrode to my temple and left the room.

  “Hey, Kev,” said the brain in the vat.

  “Uh, hey there. Sorry, I have forgotten your name.”

  “I don’t have one. So, what is it going to be? You want everything or would you prefer to just have your memories back?”

  “What’s everything?”

  “All of the memories of all of the beings that have ever connected with me.”

  “How many beings is that?”

  “Well, let’s see. I guess I’ve connected with something like twelve trillion minds.”

  “Could I handle that?”

  “Sure, you have a class nine mind, after all.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That you’re basically a god. So do you want the big package or the little package?”

  “Let’s go with the big package,” I said, forgetting what the brain had said about having a class nine mind.

  “Excellent choice. By the way, you might want to remember to keep all of your memories when you recreate the universe,” said the brain.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will.”

  I felt a jolt as the memories of trillions of beings entered into me. The transfer complete, I pulled the electrode off my head, jumped up and cried, “I’m going to recreate the universe,” thinking that was possibly the best idea ever.

  In all of the memories I had, at least those I had recovered from the brain in a vat, I could only find the Proth Sphere a handful of times. I had seen it myself twice and had the memories of three other beings that had seen the sphere.

  I started with my memories of seeing the sphere. I knew had seen it in my home in Vermont, back in two thousand, nine hundred, thirty-seven. I had also seen it some time back, in the studio for The Show, on the day Clive and I sealed the deal with B24ME, both of us nine years old at the time.

  I teleported to my home in Vermont to the day that I had seen the sphere in my house, but it was not there. I then teleported to the studio of The Show, on the day I remembered the sphere being there, appearing in the lobby of the studio.

  I wondered why I Clive and I would have created this show at such a young age. I wondered what I had been thinking at that time. What had I known? Why couldn’t I remember what motivated me to create The Show?

  Something else bothered me. If I went back to that time, would I see Clive as he was when he was young? If that were the case, wouldn’t he realize that something was up when he saw an older version of me in the studio? The reason that bothered me was simple. I believed Clive might be up to no good and believed that whatever it was he planned on doing had something to do with the sphere. So, if he, presumably nine years old at this time, saw an adult version of me, what would he think? Had he been up to no good when he was nine?

  I had vague memories of playing a game with Clive, also called The Show, a game that led to many injuries. However, that brought me no closer to understanding Clive’s mind. Furth
er, none of the trillions upon trillions of memories I now had gave me any form of clarity.

  I knew Clive, B24ME and the sphere were in a conference room down the hall from the lobby. What would I find when I entered that conference room? Actually, would there be two of me present, older and younger? Had I remembered what the girl had told me, I would have realized that there would be no earlier version of me in the Studio.

  I guess I will explain. If you have been paying attention, which I sincerely hope you have, you would know that I only exist in one point in time at a time. So, if I travel back in time to a place that I have previously been, the version of me that had been there previously will essentially disappear and I will take his place in time, but not in space. To be clearer, I’ll say this. Suppose I travel back to my birth date, back in 1996. The moment I appear at that point in time, the other me, the one being delivered, will disappear. However, I will still have the memory of being born, or at least will have had it at some point before forgetting it like I forgot everything else. I will still be born in some strange way, in a way that everyone who experienced my birth will have remembered. This is because I exist in an infinite number of time bubbles, bubbles that contain my experiences, bubbles that essentially pop when I travel back and forth in time.

  Of course, I knew none of this as I stood there in the lobby and fully expected to see myself when I entered the conference room, something I was going to do quite soon.

  I noticed the walls were covered with photographs, all of me, all of me in various challenges. I saw myself in a pool of acid during the Reenactment of the Battle of Bwar Nit, and saw myself being torn apart by Excretorian ants. Those were challenges I could remember. But, there were many more pictures, pictures of me in deadly challenges, challenges I did not remember. The sight made me slightly ill and more than a little bit nervous.

  B24ME floated into the lobby and stopped in front of me.

  “What are you doing out here?” said B24ME.

  “What the hell is with all the pictures of me?” I said.

  “Do you like it?” said B24ME, clearly amused.

  “They are just lovely, B24ME. I won’t ask how you managed to get these because I know you won’t tell me.”