by S. G. Wilson
“You can set your MeMinder to auto,” said Resist.
“True, daddy-o,” said Juvenile Hall. “I can manage for you. And I’ll be close by in case something comes up.”
“So, do you accept?” I said.
In answer, Prez took off his MeMinder and tossed it to Juvenile Hall. “We never back down from a challenge on Earth Zero. There’s just one thing.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“Let’s do it outside,” said Prez. “That way I can keep a better eye on Meticulous and his invisible friends who’ve been sneaking around the missile launcher out there.”
It seemed only fitting that yet again, I’d been busted by a MeMinder.
The advanced scanning equipment built into Prez’s MeMinder had detected Meticulous and his team of Mes at the missile launcher. The CoverMe rings had begun to wear off anyway, and the Mes started reappearing in pieces: the ruffles of Meticulous’s shirt, Ren Faire’s ponytail, Troll’s pointy ears, Mobster’s pin-striped butt. That’s how we found them when we filed outside.
“I was so close!” Meticulous said as Acupuncture and Cowboy pulled him out of the Stitch. He’d stuffed himself into a full-size compartment within the device. I hadn’t even realized there’d been room for a person in there.
Meticulous recognized my confusion. “It’s bigger on the inside,” he said as Acupuncture brought him over to us. “One of the magical modifications None of Me made.”
“Don’t worry,” Prez said. “We’ll leave this impressive piece of technology on the launcher in case you and your team win.”
Cowboy and Acupuncture laughed like that would never happen. Behind them, Juvenile Hall adjusted Prez’s MeMinder until it popped out a portal for Pool Hustler, who darted through with his parting gift of revolutionary technology.
The Rip raged overhead, but that was nothing compared to the major hissy fit brewing behind Meticulous’s eyes. “See how bad that is?” he screamed to Prez. “It’s gotten worse, not better! You need to let me fix it!”
Prez looked at the sky, and I thought I saw a trace of doubt cross his face. Then it passed and he smiled again. That’s when I realized the truth about Prez. He wasn’t bad. He probably even wanted to be good. But what he wanted above all else was to believe in the lies he told himself.
“It’ll calm down soon enough,” said Prez. “It always does. Teams of five, people. Cowboy, Average, you’re with me. Plus Bollywood Musical and Kabuki Theater, since you’re in the back of the line anyway. Average, choose your group from the batch you came with.”
It wasn’t hard to pick my first three team members: Resist, Motor, and Hollywood were natural choices. But choosing from the lineup of other Mes was as awkward as having to pick a lab partner at school. I knew I had to go with Meticulous so we could modify our plan now that he’d been busted. But how could we function as a team with the least team-minded Me of all?
As Juvenile Hall called up more Mes to send home, Prez pulled his group into a huddle. I did the same.
“I was so close,” said Meticulous, taking his place beside me.
“Why were you inside the Stitch, anyway?” I asked. “I thought you were just supposed to launch it.”
Meticulous wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Oh, just some final adjustments.”
“You’re lying,” I said. “I can tell. The Stitch needs a pilot, doesn’t it?”
“Keep it down!” said Meticulous, glancing over his shoulder. “The Stitch is a tool to fix the Rip, but it has no brain. Not even I could do the programming it would need to function on its own, and there’s too much interference to do it by remote control. Somebody’s got to go up there in the Rip to do the calculations on the spot. Someone with an intimate understanding of the multiverse, genius-level math skills, and nerves of steel.”
Hollywood did a little dance, waving ta-da hands in the air. “That would be me!”
“Dude, not the best time for a joke,” said Resist.
Hollywood’s face fell. “I didn’t think he was serious. You’re really going up there?!”
“That’s suicide!” said Motor.
“Has to be done, mate.” Meticulous sounded like he wasn’t planning anything more serious than a trip to the grocery store. “Listen, there’s no way Prez will let me go, even on the off chance that we win this naff contest. So I need you blokes to cover for me as I make a break for it. When the time is right.”
At the edge of the common yard, Juvenile Hall made steady progress getting the line of Mes into their portals home. There must have been sixty left by now, not including the fifteen or so Mes we’d brought along when we’d crashed the party. Above, the Rip raged. Nash was surely gathering his army. At this rate, against these odds, Prez would never get everybody home in time.
“Okay, we’re ready,” Prez announced. “I think the Remember Me Challenge will be the most fitting today!”
The line of Mes cheered.
“For the new folks, it’s simple,” continued Prez. “We draw from a list of key childhood memories that all of us share. Then the two teams act it out. The crowd favorite wins. Let’s get ready!”
“By the way,” said Meticulous. “I nominate my former assistant as team captain.”
“Yeah, real funny!” said Hollywood.
“I’m serious,” said Meticulous. “You know acting.”
“Totally!” I said.
Hollywood looked for confirmation from Resist and Motor, who didn’t hesitate to agree.
“I won’t let you down!” said Hollywood, getting weepy.
“Oh please,” said Resist. “Don’t make me regret agreeing to this.”
From the audience, Ren Faire shouted, “Huzzah, Hollywood! Thou shalt prevail!”
Hollywood slammed his fist into his tender palm and didn’t even wince. “Let’s do this!” he said.
Aqua Aerobics Me stepped between the two teams and pulled a slip from the wads of paper in his swim cap. “The first memory is: ‘Saying Goodbye to Mom and Dad on the First Day of Kindergarten.’ Go!”
With scary precision, Prez’s team assumed their roles and took their spots for the scene. Cowboy as the teacher, Acupuncture as the assistant teacher, Kabuki Theater as Dad, and Bollywood Musical as Mom. Prez played the six-year-old version of us, throwing himself into the role, tears and all. “I don’t wanna go!” he cried. We all remembered shouting those exact words, and he captured all the fear and pain and embarrassment that went behind them. Every Me on the field who was watching started crying, including us.
“How are we gonna compete with that?” Resist said between sniffles.
Wiping away his tears, Hollywood sized up the lawn before us like a coach looking over a playing field. “We can’t compete, but we don’t have to. Just follow my lead.”
He assigned us our parts and we took the lawn-stage. As Young Meade, Hollywood started bawling, but he went way overboard into tantrum territory, throwing himself on the ground and kicking his legs. A few Mes chuckled.
“This is a shambles!” Meticulous whispered to me. “Get ready. I’ll make a run for it.”
After writhing around some more, Hollywood lifted his head and turned to the audience. Everyone expected to hear “I don’t wanna go.” Instead, they got: “I think I peed my pants!”
The crowd erupted in laughter. Even Prez and his team cracked up. Ren Faire started clapping, and soon every Me joined in. Hollywood invited us to take a bow with him.
“I guess comedy’s not so bad after all,” Hollywood whispered to us.
As the laughter died down, Aqua Aerobics returned to the spot between our teams. “We’ve polled the audience and the results are in. We have a tie!”
“Well done!” said Prez. “Let’s draw again and try another.”
“Or not!” shouted Meticulous. “You really think we should be wasting our time with the �
��Third-Grade Spelling Bee Humiliation,’ the ‘Full-Body Poison Ivy Disgrace,’ or the ‘Barfing on the Dental Hygienist Fiasco’? The fate of entire Earths is at stake!”
As if to help make his case, the Rip filled the whole sky now, blasting lightning all over the place.
“Actually,” Hollywood whispered, “I have some killer ideas for the ‘Barfing on the Dental Hygienist Fiasco.’ ”
Everyone else went quiet as Prez thought things over. The only sound beyond the thunder was the pop of portals as Mes made their way through the line.
Finally, Prez spoke. “I still say the Rip will calm down soon enough. But since Meticulous is so obviously waiting for a chance to make a break for it and launch his device, let’s settle this now. I propose something more definitive: the OrigaME Challenge. One of you goes up against me. The best origami wins.”
The rest of the team nodded at me, including Meticulous. Suddenly, I felt a little less bad about myself.
“Okay then, I accept,” I said.
“Good!” said Prez. He turned to Juvenile Hall. “My MeMinder, please? Sorry, everyone, I’ll just need it a moment, and then we can get back to the portals.”
Juvenile Hall tossed him the watch, which Prez slipped back onto his wrist.
“Let’s have a seat, then.”
Prez used his MeMinder to summon a sheet of 3-D printer paper, which he folded into a small round table and two padded chairs in no time flat.
If he was trying to intimidate me before an origami-folding contest, then mission accomplished.
I took a seat at the origami table Prez had made for our origami duel. It might have been comfortable if I hadn’t resented him for being able to fold it in the first place.
“Now, then,” said Prez, pulling a sheet of crisp, clean paper from the stack that Pool Hustler Me brought him. “The idea of the OrigaME Challenge is we fold something near and dear to all Mes.”
I nodded, running my fingers over my sheet to get a feel for the paper.
We waited for the signal from Pool Hustler, then got to folding. Right out of the gate, Prez whipped together a perfect paper replica of Mr. Fartz—the beloved stuffed-toy version, not the creepy devil assistant version.
“Nice!” I said. And I meant it. His rapid-fire fingers had moved so quickly, I’d totally missed how he’d done it. He had better origami skills than I did, and he might even have been able to fold an ouroboros if he’d put his mind to it. None of the origami in my repertoire could compare to his take on Mr. Fartz. But then, they didn’t have to. I’d chosen to make the most familiar origami I knew, and I’d finished it with ease.
In front of Prez I placed an origami octopus, no better or worse than the others I’d made over the years.
“Looks great,” said Prez, with the grace of a winner. “But I’m not so sure it meets the criteria of a thing all Mes love. We can put it to a vote, but I’m afraid this might just disqualify you.”
“That’s cool,” I said. “I wasn’t playing to win.”
And that’s when the octopus came alive. I’d switched out Pool Hustler’s parchment for the last piece of scroll paper from Meticulous’s stash. Everyone screamed as the creature quadrupled in size and slid across the table to wrap its long, wriggling arms around Prez.
“Now!” I said.
Meticulous bolted for the Stitch as my friends sprang into action. Resist charged at Cowboy; Hollywood went after Acupuncture. Motor hung back, drawing runes on his MePad as he muttered an incantation over the screen.
I reached across the table for Prez’s MeMinder, hoping to tear it off his wrist. But even engulfed in the arms of an octopus, Prez managed to switch on his MeMinder’s 3-D origami printer. He folded himself a giant pair of scissors. With a few well-placed snips, my octopus fell apart in a pile of lifeless confetti. It didn’t matter—Meticulous had made it to the Stitch and hopped inside.
With just a few more taps and some fast folding, Prez made a giant falcon that flew from his hands, growing in size as it sped toward the Stitch. Swooping down, it snatched Meticulous out of the Stitch by his shoulders and hauled him upward. Meticulous raged, squirming so hard that he fell from the bird’s talons and plopped on the ground, passing out cold.
The Mes in line grumbled. If they were like me—and they were—the Mes didn’t enjoy seeing any of us treated this way. The flashing bolts shooting down from the Rip didn’t do much to ease their concern either.
“Not cool!” said Juvenile Hall. Acupuncture and Cowboy nodded in agreement.
Prez called for silence, but nobody listened, so he had to stand up and raise his voice even higher. “Everyone, please, this was an unfortunate mistake! Now, let’s everybody line up, and I’ll get some more portals going. Remember, one at a time. It’s all my processor can take.”
Lightning struck the spot just in front of Prez, knocking him off his feet. Mes started to panic, running all over the place. Above, the Rip looked ready to tear the sky in half.
“Motor!” I yelled over the storm. “Whatever you’re planning, now’s the time!”
Nodding, Motor drew the final rune on his screen and said his last incantation. A white light beamed from his screen straight to my MeMinder X. The watch shuddered on my wrist as a glowing hologram popped out. It was Dad, or at least some weird robotic version of Dad. With a blank, emotion-free face, he looked from the Rip raging above to Prez’s MeMinder. “This is not a good deed,” he said.
Robo-Dad flew straight at Prez, who’d just sat up. The Me barely had time to flinch as Robo-Dad disappeared inside his MeMinder.
“You brought the Good Deed Tracker to life!?” I yelled to Motor.
“Not exactly,” Motor yelled back. “Mostly I just gave it more responsibility!”
“This is not a good deed!” yelled Prez’s watch. A monsoon of transdimensional goop blasted from the device and ricocheted all over the common.
As the goop bounced around, it left behind little swirls of glowing energy beside every Me. The whirlpools of green light stretched until they grew big enough for each Me to fit through. The hacked MeMinder had made everyone a personal portal home.
A doorway opened beside me too, and I saw my room on the other side. My real room, from my Earth. Just a few steps and I could go back.
“Get out of here before the Rip explodes!” yelled Motor.
He didn’t have to tell my doubles twice. As bolts of lightning struck the ground around them, the Mes skedaddled through the doorways back to their Earths. Alien Abduction, Monk, Steampunk, Juvenile Hall, the Virals, and all the rest disappeared, their portals blinking shut behind them. Acupuncture and Cowboy paused at their portals, looking to Prez for direction. As a resident of Earth Zero, Prez had no other place to go. He was stuck here without a portal of his own.
Over by the launcher, Meticulous lay in the light of his portal, still passed out. I could tell that Motor, Hollywood, and Resist wanted to leave, by the hungry way they stared into their portals. But they waited to see what I’d do.
Prez and I jinxed each other as we yelled the same words to our friends: “Leave! I’ll be fine!”
With a salute, the Secret Service Mes made for their exits.
My three friends weren’t so quick to vamoose. They stood in front of their portals, gesturing for me to step through mine.
“It’s too late to fix the Rip!” Motor screamed. “Leave! Maybe we can survive!”
“Don’t get any ideas about throwing your life away!” said Resist. “That piece of junk Meticulous made probably won’t even work!”
“Come on!” said Hollywood. “We did what we could!”
They might have said more, but out of nowhere, a glowing green hand appeared in front of each of them and pushed them into their portals. Once they’d stumbled through, the portals popped into nothingness.
My eyes followed the h
ands as they flew back into Prez’s MeMinder.
“You were right!” Prez shouted to me. “The Rip is out of control! I figured you’d never talk your friends into leaving, so I helped them along. I also figure I can’t convince you to go home either!” He nodded toward Meticulous. “But I can give you cover!”
Prez produced another sheet of glowing green paper and folded it into a lightning rod. He shoved it into the ground, then rolled away just as it drew the latest bolt from the Rip. More lightning struck at the rod, drawing the worst of the storm away from the spot where Meticulous lay.
“It won’t last long!” Prez yelled.
Giving him a nod of thanks, I ran for Meticulous. When I reached him, I tried shaking him awake, but he was out cold. I toyed with the idea of slapping him, which would have been more satisfying, but even if I woke him up, he’d still be too groggy to operate the Stitch.
That left only one option.
I ran for the launcher.
I’d barely started when I heard Meticulous chasing after me.
“You’re in no shape to go!” I called to him.
“Like you are?!” he yelled back.
He somehow pulled ahead of me and reached the missile launcher first. As he scrambled up and mounted the Stitch, I followed right behind him.
“No, I’m doing this!” I grabbed him by the shoulders.
Meticulous tried to tear my hands away, but I held on tight.
“Isn’t this a rather extreme way to prove to yourself that you’re not bad?” he grunted.
“Like you haven’t been doing the same all this time?” I said.
I yanked Meticulous backward just as he heaved himself forward, and somehow we tumbled into the machine together.
Slamming into the compartment in a tangle with Meticulous, I learned firsthand that the contraption really was bigger on the inside. As the Stitch shot into the sky, I could take comfort in the knowledge that although we might have been hurtling toward certain death, at least there was room for two.