by S. G. Wilson
“The same time Meticulous creates an elevator that can travel between dimensions, dozens of dimensions just happen to converge on this world. And not just the boring Earths the elevator can reach, but really wild ones. Places almost unfamiliar to us.”
On the street, a pumpkin carriage straight out of “Cinderella” crashed into a giant nuclear submarine on wheels. Traffic ground to a halt. Cars, hoverbikes, kids in pogo-stick boots, and floating-manta-ray riders started honking and shouting.
Resist had to raise her voice over the crowd. “Too much of a ruckus. I like to keep a low profile. We’d better leave.”
“As in, leave together?” I tried not to sound too hopeful.
Resist grunted in the snottiest way imaginable. “I can’t shake you, so I guess I’m stuck with you.”
Resist hurried me past a delivery person adjusting the straps of her jetpack and a parent group pushing strollers with furry yeti babies inside. Compared to them and everything else we saw on the way (roller-skating samurais, a “dirt spa” for plant people, a Toe Clippings “R” Us store), we didn’t stand out in the slightest.
A few blocks later, we came to a boarded-up Star Trek Wars Cantina and slipped inside. The place combined Star Wars and Star Trek in bizarre ways. Statues of Darth Spock and Captain Kirk Skywalker greeted us at the door. Posters of Wookiees in Klingon battle gear and Vulcans in Stormtrooper armor lined the walls. The tables were shaped like spaceships that merged parts from the Millennium Falcon and the Enterprise. Tattered old menus featured items like Beam Me Up Yoda Soda and Kirk I’m Your Father Focaccia.
Up on the stage, under a banner reading MAY THE WARP BE WITH YOU, two Mes traded punches. One of them wore a teal terry cloth one-piece jumpsuit with a wide collar and gold chains. The other sported clown makeup and denim coveralls with oversize leather boots and a Stetson hat. Motor and Hollywood watched from the sidelines. They sat next to a Me covered head to toe in a white lab suit, a filter mask, noise-canceling headphones, and thick plastic gloves.
Resist jumped up on the stage and broke up the fight, such as it was. Noticing her, Motor turned around and toasted me with a stale breadstick. “We were worried sick!”
Hollywood gave me the cold shoulder, barely glancing my way. “But not worried enough to go back out there and risk our necks.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Motor. “Once we stumbled in here, these guys wouldn’t let us leave.” He pointed to the Me in the jumpsuit. “That’s Disco Me. And the other one is Rodeo Clown Me.” He turned to the Me next to him. “And this is Sensitive Me. They’re the Missing Mes!”
Sensitive sneezed into a tissue.
“Don’t worry,” Disco explained. “He’s not contagious. He’s just having a reaction to pomegranates.”
Motor nudged Hollywood in the ribs. “We wouldn’t know anything about that!”
Hollywood glared at him.
Resist cleared her throat for attention. “Disco and Rodeo Clown, that was an okay attempt at self-defense, but I need to see more progress at this point. And why were you just sitting there, Sensitive?!”
All you could hear through Sensitive’s mask was some sort of muffled whining.
“No, that’s where you’re wrong,” said Resist. “See, this was your fight. Every fight is your fight! You should have joined in!”
Rodeo Clown tightened the knot on one of his oversize shoes. “But that wouldn’t have been fair. Especially since Sensitive Me gets overwhelmed when he has to touch people.”
Resist glared at them. “You think Meticulous cares about fair?”
Nobody answered.
“We have to get our hands dirty if we’re gonna have any chance of stopping Meticulous,” she continued.
Hollywood scratched his puffy ear. “Stopping Meticulous? Are you crazy?!”
“This is for the good of all Mes!” said Resist. “For the good of all dimensions! Did you see what it’s like out in Earth Zero?”
Hollywood pressed his fingers to his swollen temples. “Caught a glimpse. Still have a headache from it.”
“The Rip, they call it?” said Motor. “How did it all happen?”
I told him what Resist had told me. Motor looked more and more upset the longer I went on. By the time I finished, Motor had gone as white as a Silly Me in mime makeup. “This can’t be a Me’s fault, can it?”
“It has to be some side effect of the elevator!” said Resist. “What else would it be?”
“Have you talked to the scientists here?” I asked.
Sensitive mumbled something, and Disco nodded in agreement. “We’re trying to keep a low profile. If any of the locals ever figured out a Me was behind the Rip, there’d be hell to pay.”
Motor looked sick. “What about deaths?! How many people has the Rip killed?”
Resist pounded a nearby table so hard a tray of C3-Picard cups tipped over. “No reported deaths, but so many lives have been uprooted! That’s why we have to stop Meticulous! If we can get others to join us, we can free all Mes from his tyranny! Then we can force him to come back here and fix this place too!”
Hollywood whistled. “You sure are angry for a—” He caught himself before saying more.
The Missing Mes put their hands over their mouths in unison. Sensitive mumbled something that Disco translated: “Uh-oh!”
Resist gave Hollywood her most threatening look yet. But rather than lay into him, she turned to the Missing Mes. “I need you three on guard duty. Those Viral Mes could end up finding our base this time. You know where to go.”
Disco, Sensitive, and Rodeo Clown didn’t look happy with their new orders, but none of them was willing to complain about it to Resist. Once they’d shuffled off, Resist turned back to Hollywood. “So I’m angry for a what, exactly?”
Hollywood’s inflated face shook like a bobblehead. “Look, I’ve got nothing against guys wearing dresses or whatever. But since you’re a Me, it’s just confusing. I mean, does this mean I’m really a girl too and I just don’t know it yet?”
“Since you’re an idiot, am I an idiot?” said Resist. “Since Motor’s a wuss, am I a wuss?”
Motor turned the familiar Me shade of red and stared at the floor.
“Hey now!” I said. In truth, though, I’d wondered the same thing about my own potential for wussiness since meeting Motor.
“Can it, Average!” said Resist. “You’re the most confusing one of us all! How did you keep up with me when we escaped together? And how did you get over the wall? Only I can do that move!”
“What are you, jealous he’s more athletic?” Motor said.
“I’m just concerned he’s taking steroids or something,” said Resist. “Not even the Fit Mes could have pulled off what you just did out there.”
“Well, I had a little help.” The words I needed were slow to arrive. “You see—”
“He has superpowers,” Motor finished for me. He described how I’d kicked his mobility cart across the hall, and all the other things I’d done. Even I had to admit they sounded impressive listed together like that.
“Great Caesar’s ghost!” said Hollywood. “I only now realized: Average is All of Me! Just like the legend says!”
Resist made a fart noise with her lips. “As if. You actually believe that nonsense?”
Hollywood shrugged. “Why not? We could use an All of Me right about now.”
“I never went in for this All of Me business before,” said Motor. “But if he does exist, I’d rather it be Average than anybody else.”
Motor and Hollywood looked so hopeful I couldn’t burst their bubble by telling them they were completely wack. No way was I some sort of legendary Me. Still, it was nice to be thought of as special for once in my life.
“But you’re supposed to just be…average!” said Resist.
Hollywood laughed. “Yep, she’s totally jealous
!”
Something snapped in Resist. “I’ll show you something to be jealous about!” She took a step toward Hollywood, pounding her fist in her hand. He scurried backward, but he didn’t get far. A Me who hadn’t been there a second before now blocked his way.
Meticulous.
Meticulous didn’t move a perfectly postured muscle as he stared us all down.
“Run!” Hollywood stumbled backward, nearly tripping over a life-size cardboard cutout of Jar Jar Borg.
“Relax,” said Resist. She walked up to Meticulous and waved a hand at his head. Her fingers passed right through. “It’s only a hologram.” She nodded to a holo-projector propped up on a broken video game called Phaser Saber Duel.
Once she pointed it out, I couldn’t miss the blank look on Meticulous’s face and the stillness of his body. He was nothing but a projection of light.
“Sensitive hacked into the holo-communication relay at the hotel a while back,” said Resist. “This is the latest transmission to come through. He’s projecting his image all over the hotel, and we’re picking it up here too.”
Recovered from his fear, Hollywood rushed up to the hologram, swung his butt around, and farted in Meticulous’s face. Everybody laughed, except for Resist. “It’s about to speak!” she said.
Holo-Meticulous came to life, the familiar self-satisfied look on his face again. “My fellow Mes, it’s time for me and my assistants to leave you for a spell. You see, the elevator is a bit knackered, so I’m trying to build a new and improved one on a different Earth. The way the first elevator travels between our worlds is a little…grotty. All that going up and down between Earths has made a right botch job of the fabric between our dimensions. Only a few more trips in this old bucket and the portals to your Earths may collapse all at once.”
“Sounds like Earth Zero times one hundred,” muttered Resist.
“My new elevator will fix this problem. Once it’s complete, we can travel the multiverse again without fear of mucking it up. We’ll even be able to go beyond Earth Ninety-Nine. But the testing may take days, so you’ll have to hang tight here. Travel back to your Earths is hereby suspended.”
We four Mes gasped all together.
“He wouldn’t!” said Motor.
“I overheard the Virals talking about some sort of plan,” I said. “I never imagined this!”
Holo-Meticulous kept talking, oblivious to his audience. “That’s right, mates. Vast new corners of the multiverse will open to us. Countless new Mes for us to welcome as brothers. But in order to reach these places, I need you to play a key role in this second phase of the Me journey by waiting here.”
“I don’t believe this!” said Hollywood.
“I do!” said Resist. “He doesn’t care a lick about other Mes!”
Holo-Meticulous kept going. “You won’t have to stay cooped up in this hotel, though. There’s an entire world beyond the Janus. It’s not ‘the Void,’ as your amusing rumors would have it. Rather, it’s Earth Zero, and it’s a brilliant place.”
Hollywood ticked off a string of “gadzooks” and “fiddlesticks,” and he didn’t even apologize.
“In the meantime, my assistants have joined me for a final ride in the old elevator before I shut it down. But don’t worry. I’ll be back before you know it with a new and improved elevator, and a bold new era for all Mes! Ta for now!”
And with that, the hologram blinked out. Anger welled up in my throat so thick I couldn’t swallow it down. “How could a Me do this to another Me?!”
Motor sank his forehead into his palms. “The longer I’m at Me Con, the less I understand about any of us.”
“This whole idea of a new elevator sounds fishy to me,” said Resist. “Hollywood, you worked as a little toady for Meticulous. Did he ever say anything about this?”
The swelling in Hollywood’s face had gone down just enough to let him pout like I might have at age three. “I was his personal assistant, not his toady! And no, he didn’t mention any plot. But I figured he had something cooking. He was always tapping away at this one MePad I was never allowed to touch.”
That reminded me of the flash drive in my pocket. I pulled it out and tossed it to Resist. “I found this in Meticulous’s office. It was shoved in a hidden holo-projector. Maybe there’re notes or something worthwhile to see on it.”
Hollywood looked even more hurt than before. “You mean you stole that right under my nose?!”
I patted him on the shoulder. “I’m sure you were a fine assistant, in your own way.”
Resist turned the drive over in her hands. “Wait, you actually went to Meticulous’s Earth?!”
“Long story.”
Resist plugged the drive into the projector. It whirred for a minute, then shot out the hologram of a classic laboratory with test tubes, beakers, scales, and random machinery all over the place. A younger and somehow less serious Meticulous fussed over a big metal box with a dish-size hoop mounted on top like some kind of antenna.
Hollywood flicked a finger at Holo-Meticulous’s nose, but it passed right through.
“This must be his holo-journal from a few years ago!” said Motor.
“That looks about right, judging by the haircut,” said Hollywood, fluffing his hair. “That’s the slipshod work of Jason at Stylish Scissors Hair Salon. Remember him? Horrible fudging place, if you’ll excuse my language. Can’t believe Mom took us there. As soon as I got my hair done by a real stylist on the Baker’s Dozen set, I never went back!”
Holo-Meticulous smiled at us. “This is experiment number twelve in my attempt to penetrate the barriers between dimensions! I’m most chuffed!”
“He almost sounds like a nice kid,” said Motor.
Holo-Meticulous flipped a switch on the box, and arcs of electricity danced inside the hoop. Then the machine burst into smoke and flame. He swore up a storm and hurled equipment off the table.
“Maybe not such a nice kid after all,” I said.
The projector jumped ahead in time to show other failed experiments that gave Holo-Meticulous just as many hissy fits.
“I could watch him fuss and fume all day,” Hollywood said as Holo-Meticulous stomped yet another flawed edition of the hoop to bits. “But we might be here awhile.”
“Controls!” Resist shouted. The projector beamed a holographic remote-control pad right at her fingertips. She tapped the Forward button, and the hologram skipped ahead, past an experiment that literally blew up in Holo-Meticulous’s face.
“Rewind that!” said Hollywood. “This is worth it after all!”
“Let’s try this instead.” Resist sped the journal forward to show Holo-Meticulous a little older and a lot more frazzled. The new hoop he’d built looked smaller and sleeker and stood on its own without the clunky box. “If this doesn’t work,” he said, eyes bulging, “I don’t know what I’ll do!”
“Pardon my French, but sheesh!” said Hollywood. “What a drama queen!”
Holo-Meticulous clenched his fists and tightened his jaw. “I can’t fail! I swore I’d restore Mum’s reputation. This has to work!”
“What’s he going on about?” said Resist.
“His version of Mom died,” I said.
Hollywood’s puffy mouth drawbridged open. “He never told me that!”
Motor looked queasy again. “How did she die?”
“Wish I knew,” I said. “Or maybe I don’t wanna know. I’m not sure which.”
Everybody nodded, too freaked out to say anything else.
Holo-Meticulous switched on the hoop, and an electric current crackled inside. “Yes! Yes!” The current turned green, the same shade as the light behind the elevator buttons—and, come to think of it, the Rip too.
Holo-Meticulous reached out to grab the strands of energy with his bare hands. At his touch, the beams of light bent and
twisted like pipe cleaners. He leaned over the hoop to work with the stuff, blocking the view. Though I couldn’t see what he was doing, the movement of his arms from behind looked familiar somehow.
“How’s he doing that?” said Resist.
“And why hasn’t the lightning fried him?” said Hollywood.
“It’s not electricity,” I said. “It’s something else.”
Holo-Meticulous straightened up, and I could see the hoop again. The energy he’d just fiddled with flashed in a burst of green light. When it dimmed, there was another world inside the hoop. A forest. It was like the view through a window. Meticulous shrieked with joy.
“Cool special effect!” said Hollywood.
Motor looked awed. “That’s no effect. That’s the first portal Meticulous ever made to another Earth!”
Holo-Meticulous was as giddy as a grade schooler showing off his Pokémon collection. We’d skipped ahead in his journal to a scene of him wiring his portal-making hoop into the Janus elevator. “If my calculations are right, the metal shell of this elevator should stabilize those energy fluctuations I encountered earlier! And now that the drive’s plugged into the control panel, I won’t have to adjust it by hand every time! I can just program a different destination for every button!”
“He lost me at calculations,” said Hollywood. “Seriously, what does he mean?”
“Basically, this is where he got the idea to make the elevator a portal to other worlds,” I said.
Holo-Meticulous pressed the Zero button. “I’ve viewed Earth Zero through the hoop, but this will be the first time I—or anyone in humankind—has set foot in another universe. From what I’ve seen, it’s a lot like my Earth, so it’s a good place to start.”
We all tensed up.
“Earth Zero?” said Hollywood. “That’s this world!”
As the elevator in the hologram started to move, a blast of green energy burst through the gaps and the car shook. “What was that?” said Holo-Meticulous.
When the elevator came to a stop, Holo-Meticulous jumped through the opening door in a panic. The holo-camera followed him as he ran through the hotel exit door, where a growing green rip tore the sky open. Then the holo blinked out.