by Rob Dircks
“No. That was our old motto. The new motto is ‘Shit’s crazy. Don’t ask.’”
“Got it. Well, if I had to guess, I’d say this is one of the shortcuts Tesla was talking about. Okay, you first.”
“No dude, be my guest.”
“How about ladies first?”
Meg pipes up. “Bobo wants to go first, don’t you boy?” She nudges Bobo into the elevator. No plummeting to death? Good. Everybody gets in. The door closes.
“Wait. No buttons?”
Immediately the elevator plummets at a zillion miles an hour. We’re all pushed to the ceiling, screaming (except for Bobo, who’s digging this).
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!
I yell to Pete over the screaming of the elevator car cables, “I’M SORRY!”
“FOR WHAT?”
“FOR NOT TELLING YOU WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!”
And on cue, the elevator slows to a gentle halt.
We slide to the floor. Silence.
“For not telling me WHAT?!”
So much for sucking it up and keeping my mouth shut.
“Listen, dude. It’s bad. If we don’t get to Tesla soon, some nasty shit is going to happen. Something big is unravelling. Like multiverse big. And fast.”
I’m trembling a little I guess, because Pete grabs my shoulders and steadies me. He smiles. “Well, then I guess we’ll have to take a faster elevator from now on, not this slow piece of shit.” And I smile back. And again Pete has made the end of it all so much better. I exhale. Thanks, dude.
Meg stands up first. “So does the door just ope-“
Ding!
The door opens.
This is NOT a shortcut.
17
I Finally
Went To
Church
(Sort Of)
From: Chip Collins
To: Julie Taylor
Date: June 4, 2015 5:43am
I finally went to church (sort of)
Hi Julie,
The elevator door opens, and it’s really dark. And quiet. And musty. Incense burning. As our eyes adjust to the lack of light, we can make out the inside of a church, or temple or something. Tapestries and candles hanging on the walls. Right in front of us is a huge altar. And beyond that, the floor…
…is moving?
Wait. It’s not the floor. There’s something covering the floor, alive.
Hold it together, Chip. Don’t shit in your pants, Chip.
It’s people. Or something. Very orange. They’re prostrating themselves, bowing low toward the altar and us.
Then they slowly rise. Probably a hundred and fifty of them. Their eyes are all whites. And glowing. They’re moving toward us.
“HOLY SHIT!! SORRY, WRONG FLOOR!! DOOR CLOSE!! DOOR CLOSE!! GOING UP!!”
We’re pounding all over the walls of the elevator, hoping we’re pressing some invisible buttons. Meg must hit the right spot because the door starts to close.
But just like real life, some idiot sticks his hand in and stops the door from closing at the last second. I try to push the orange hand back out to let the door close, but it’s too late. The door opens back up. A bright orange dude with a diaper on and white glowing eyes is standing six inches in front of us. I whisper to Pete. “Okay, NOW we’re all going to die.”
Click. Clack. Click. Cuk-cuk.
Huh? What’s making that annoying sound?
Click. Clack. Click. Cuk-cuk.
Wait. It’s Orange Dude. He’s making the sound with his mouth. Just standing there. Not moving, just clicking away. Like he’s waiting for a response.
“Meg, you’re the smart one. Tell him we’re lost.”
“N-n-n-n-n-…”
She’s freaking out. I guess she’s not used to crazy shit happening every five seconds. So Pete takes the lead. “We are humans. From another dimension. We mean you no harm.” Orange Dude squints at Pete.
Click. Clack. Click. Cuk-cuk.
“Whatever. Your turn, dude.”
I clear my throat. “Clickety-friends! Clackety-peace-be-with-you. Cluck-cluck, click.” I’m smiling as broad as I can and nodding while Pete rolls his eyes. But Orange Dude is mimicking my smile and my nod. I whisper again to Pete, “It’s working!”
So I figure let’s get the hell out of here while the gettin’s good. “Okay, so we’ll be clickety-going now, clackety-bye-bye. Thanks for the clickety-warm welcome, folks.” I motion to Meg and she slowly presses the invisible door-close button. The door starts to close.
CLACK!! CLACK!! CLACK!!
Uh-oh. Orange Dude is not happy. He draws a knife from the back of his diaper, pulls opens the door again, points the tip of his knife right at my eye, and motions for me to exit the elevator.
Cuk-cuk! Click. Clack. Click. Cuk-cuk!
We all shuffle out of the elevator r-e-a-l s-l-o-w. And as soon as Meg passes the doorway, she crumples and falls.
“Meg!” Pete rushes to her, and about ten orange dudes pull their knives and surround him and go to grab her. But they don’t know Pete.
“STOP!!”
The dudes freeze in their tracks. “She’s weak. Her body’s not used to this gravity. I’ll carry her. BACK OFF.” And Julie, Pete talks the universal language when he’s like this – they totally get him and back off.
BTW, My Really Official Explanation on the Meg Thing:
Meg was fine in her own gravity. And fine in the ITA, walking and lifting things no problem. So I’m thinking the ITA somehow allows you to travel the hallway as if it were your own environment. Gravity, air, light, whatever, it adapts to your sense of normal. (Normal! Ha!) But in another dimension, you’re at that environment’s mercy. Pete liked this explanation, and told me maybe I’m not such an idiot after all.
Pete picks up Meg, and Orange Dude herds us all around the front of the altar, to another round area with a low circular table in the middle. More of the orange dudes, knives drawn, sit us on benches at the edge of the round area, and prepare some chains.
This isn’t going to happen if I can help it. As they start to chain our ankles to the table pedestal, I slowly get my hand into my backpack and fumble for the Shogun. Fuck. General Dickhead took it. Okay, Plan B. I make a quick nod to Pete. He nods back.
“GO!!”
We bolt for the elevator, him carrying Meg and me carrying Bobo, ripping free of the dudes trying to hold us.
We’re gonna make it!
From: Chip Collins
To: Julie Taylor
Date: June 4, 2015 5:43am
Re: I finally went to church (sort of)
Hi Julie,
Well, we don’t make it. Eight orange dudes block the elevator door, knives drawn. Pete tries to barrel through, but it’s no use – there’s just too many of them, and they’re too strong, even for Pete. They pile on (why don’t they just kill us? we don’t even wind up with a scratch), drag us back over to the benches, and chain us up good. We can move around a few feet, but we ain’t going very far now. I glare at Orange Dude.
“Hey, you! So what the fuck do you want?”
Click. Clack. Click. Cuk-cuk.
He points to three painted images on the floor, surrounding the table:
Image 1: Three figures walking through a doorway, with a bunch of clouds and shit around it. There are orange dudes wailing, very afraid.
Image 2: One of the figures is bent over a low table, beheaded. (Oh shit, I’m starting to see where this is going.)
Image 3: The same figure, head magically reattached, now glowing and floating and smiling. All the orange dudes are praising him and dancing.
“Uh, Meg. I don’t like the look of this. Your take?”
She’s still weak, but looking more like normal over-confident Meg now. “I b
elieve whoever walks through that doorway must offer a sacrifice. If the person sacrificed is able to resurrect from the dead, he is proven to be their messiah. My guess.”
“But we can’t do that! My head doesn’t go back on like that!”
“You didn’t ask me for a happy ending. You just asked what it meant.”
“Next time remind me to ask for a happy ending instead.”
Pete shuffles in his ankle chains right up to Orange Dude’s face. He’s making all kinds of hand gestures, pointing, etc. Lots of clicking and nodding going on. He shuffles back over to me and Meg. “I think if one of us takes the test and fails, which we will, the sacrifice is complete, and the others are set free. I think. They don’t seem to be wanting to kill us all, I think they just want their messiah. I’ll do it.”
Me and Meg both protest.
“No. I’ll do it.”
“No. I’ll do it.”
I’m not letting him be the hero again. “Come on, Pete. Look at the situation. You finally found someone for you that’s actually smart. She needs you and you need her. And we all know that the odds are slim that I’ll ever see Julie again. And I got you into this shit to begin with. And if there’s anyone better equipped to rescue Tesla and figure this whole thing out, it’s you. You and Meg.”
Pete’s shaking his head. “Don’t be stupid. I have to-“
I grab his arm. “PLEASE, dude. You have been my courage this whole time. You’ve covered my ass for years. Let me cover yours. Let me pay you back. Once. You deserve it. Please. Besides, it’s your birthday.”
Pete laughs, but he’s got the beginning of a tear in his eye. And Meg’s got one running down her cheek. I reach down and wipe hers away.
“Meg, I was just giving you shit because I was jealous. You’re a peach. Take care of my friend here. He’s the best.”
Pete leans down too, and we all share a little hug.
“Oh, by the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you, dude – you know how you could never figure out what happened to your signed Derek Jeter baseball? Well me and Julie were having a catch with it, and it kind of went out the window. We tried to run downstairs to get it back, but a dog ran off with it. So, mystery solved, right?”
“Just shut up, dude.” And he hugs me a little tighter.
Orange Dude breaks up our sweet little goodbye, and I raise my hand. He leads me over to the table, and bends me down, so my face is touching the stone. God, would it kill them to heat this thing up a little? It’s freaking cold!
I can see out of the corner of my eye, a bigger one of these guys raising a pretty bad-ass sword. He brings it down slow, to make sure he’s got the right angle on my neck. He raises it again. I close my eyes.
Julie, please forgive me. I really did love you.
From: Chip Collins
To: Julie Taylor
Date: June 4, 2015 5:43am
Re: I finally went to church (sort of)
Hi Julie,
Holy shit. So I’m about to be beheaded, with zero chance of being the stupid messiah these idiots are hoping for. Sorry to dash your hopes, morons.
My eyes are closed shut, waiting for impact.
Then I feel something else.
Fur.
Bobo. He’s on me. What the fuck?
I open my eyes. Bobo is laying on top of me, blocking the guy with the sword. So the guy tries pushing him off with his foot, clicking and clacking at Bobo. But he’s not budging. Bobo leans his face down to mine, so our eyes are literally an inch from each other, and for the first time, I really see them. They’re huge. His eyes go on forever, and there’s a message coming out of them:
I DO THIS.
“No.”
I DO THIS.
“I said no.”
TRUST.
Huh? Am I going crazy? I’m talking to myself! Get the fuck off me, Bobo! Pete and Meg are yelling, but I only see their mouths moving. I can’t hear anything. I’m dizzy. Bobo pushes me to the ground, off the table. Puts his face to the stone.
I stumble to my feet. But before any of us can rush to stop it, the sword comes down on Bobo’s neck.
He’s gone.
Bobo’s dead.
From: Chip Collins
To: Julie Taylor
Date: June 4, 2015 5:43am
Re: I finally went to church (sort of)
Hi Julie,
Bobo? Little buddy? I jump on Orange Dude and start beating on him. “YOU KILLED MY FRIEND, YOU ORANGE SON OF A BITCH!!!” And he’s letting me go to town, punching him in the face, and he’s not lifting a finger. He puts his knife away, and kneels down. Pete finally pulls me off him, and Julie – the dude is crying. Not because I’m hurting him (I’m not), but because it didn’t work. He didn’t get his messiah.
He killed Bobo and didn’t get his messiah. Now they’re all moaning and wailing.
“Good. That’s what you get for killing him, you stupid fucks! Cry your eyes out!”
And poor Bobo’s laying there in pieces. Goddamnit. I mean, I know we put him directly in harm’s way a lot, and I didn’t even think about it because he’s pretty much indestructible, but I never really thought he’d actually DIE. Bobo doesn’t die, right?
And he didn’t deserve it. He was always happy. And loyal. And in the end, he was the one who put it on the line for the rest of us. What a stand-up guy. A hero.
So of course now I’m weeping over his dead body, and Meg comes over and whispers to me, “You were about to do the same thing for Pete. That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.” And she kisses me on the cheek. And that just makes it harder, because I didn’t get to make it right with Pete – in fact, I’m pretty much responsible for all the misery he’s going through. We’re all going through. Fuck. Poor Bobo. I’m really sorry, dude. Can you forgive me too?
Meanwhile, Pete’s been hand-waving and nodding with Orange Dude (that total dick), and I guess confirms that we’re free to go. The sacrifice has been made. But we stick around while they wrap Bobo up in a shroud, like a little mummy. It’s kind of cute (I can’t believe I just said that, but it’s true). They take him to the back of this temple, and there’s a big wall of drawers, like a mausoleum.
They lay him onto an open drawer, and chant something in their click language (mental note: I now know the answer to the question ‘what is the most annoying sound in the universe?’). I’m covering my ears, and sniffing back tears, we’re all pretty broken up. Orange Dude slides the drawer shut. Boom. Done.
They release our chains, and the three of us shuffle back towards the elevator. We walk inside, turn around, and in perfect unison – give them the finger.
Meg says, “It’s a special occasion.”
The orange dudes look blankly at our gesture. The door closes.
“This sucks.”
Meg puts her hand on my shoulder. “Yes, Chip, it does. But you said yourself, we have very little time, so we’ll have to mourn later. Let’s honor Bobo by getting to Tesla before it’s too late.” She turns around and around, looking up and down. “There must be some way to control this elevator… here!”
On the back wall, there’s a little indentation. Barely noticeable. But just the right shape to fit the bottom pluggy-looking thing on the INController.
“Bingo.” Pete places it onto the indentation, and immediately the INController starts humming and lighting up.
“Okay, it’s got this dimension’s data. We were only off by a few million. Which, in terms of infinity, is pretty close. Let’s recalculate the route.” Meg presses some buttons, and the elevator sounds like it’s starting to gear back up to a zillion miles an hour.
“Wait. What was that?”
“What, dude?”
“A knock. On the door.”
“No. We’re moving, that’s all.”
And then the elevator rocks into gear, and zigs and zags all over the place, at break-neck speed for a solid minute (hour? year?), until I feel my stomach emptying itself into my mouth. But I hold it back, and tha
nk God it comes to an end. The elevator stops. Ding! The door opens. Another hallway.
“Okay, we’re getting closer, dude. A few more shortcuts, and we’ll be there. You want to write to Tesla and let him know about our daring rescue mission?”
“No. Wait.”
“Wait what.”
“Just wait. Give me a second.” They’re now both standing in the hallway, but I’m still in the elevator. Pete’s tapping his fingers. Meg’s tapping her foot.
“Listen, something’s not right. There was a knock at the door back there.”
“No there wasn’t. It was the elevator moving.”
“How do you know? You an ITA elevator technician now?”
“Dude. I know you’re upset about Bobo. We all are. But we have to move forward. You told us we didn’t have a lot of time. And we’re standing here wasting more right now.”
“I know, I know. Sorry. But we have to go back.”