How to Save the Universe Without Really Trying

by John Cusick

  “People have been trying to vaporize me a lot today,” said Lola. Her stomach was making all sorts of impolite sounds. “Spoons? No? They went extinct, or . . . ?”

  “Hold on,” said Phin, twirling on his stool and pressing a big button on what Lola had assumed was the microwave, but was in fact a communication hub for the penthouse’s security system.

  “Well, howdy, buckaroos!” said the flickering cowboy face that appeared on the wall-mounted screen. “Gee whillikers, I hope yer having just the most rootin’ tootin’ day!”

  “Uh . . . hello, Bucky,” said Phin, mortified he’d forgotten to switch the personality settings to something less childish. “Bucky, what’s the current status of your security protocols?”

  “Well, butter my butt and call me bread!” said Bucky, the ultrasophisticated security mainframe. “You know, now that you mention it, partner, all my security protocols have been disabled! Now ain’t that funnier than a donkey in a ten-gallon hat?”

  “They’re disabled?” Phin’s mind reeled so hard it nearly fell over. “Who disabled them?”

  “Sorry, partner. I’m not at liberty to say. But the system’s been down all morning!”

  “This is . . . inexplicable,” said Phin.

  “Is it?” said Lola, who was wondering how rude it would be to just slurp straight from the bowl.

  “Weeeooo, that sure is a ten-dollar word, Mr. Fogg!”

  “Well, turn them back on, Bucky!” Phin felt a rising panic. With the security protocols disabled, they were exposed, vulnerable . . . anything could get in.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, little doggies. Whoever overrode my system put a block on any new commands. The barn doors are stayin’ open!”

  “But why?”

  “Well, can’t says that I know,” said Bucky, “but you could ask the robot.”

  There was a very long, unhappy silence.

  “What robot?” said Lola, glancing around the kitchen.

  “Why, the giant Kill-Robot coming up the elevator. Should arrive at the penthouse in about thirty seconds or so. Golly, he’s a big feller! Got all sortsa lasers and ion cannons and whatnot. And he don’t look too happy neither!”

  Phin looked at Lola. Lola looked at Phin. These were, as is said in old novels, quite meaningful looks. Phin’s meant, You did this, didn’t you, you bear-throttling girl-alien! You’re the scouting party, and now the doors are open and the horribly dangerous world outside is about to get in! And Lola’s meant, You left the door unlocked? That is the most wildly irresponsible thing a person can do! What are you, a child?

  “Bucky,” said Phin, still staring at Lola in a way that made her nearly—nearly—lose her appetite. “Can you scan the Kill-Robot’s subroutines and tell us its intentions?”

  “I sure can, but I don’t think you’ll like the answer!”

  Phin shut his eyes. “Please?”

  “Welp,” said Bucky, making a kind of lip-smacking sound. “I see a whole lotta death and destruction, particularly for any living thing in this penthouse. Yep, yep, there’s lotsa fire and screaming and just a whole buncha kill kill kill. But then, that’s a Kill-Robot for ya! Clue’s right in the name!”

  “What . . . do we do?” asked Lola.

  “I was going to ask you the same question,” said Phin.

  And Lola saw in Phin’s eyes that he was utterly terrified, which made her feel a bit bad for thinking poorly of him. And Phin saw, with almost an imperceptible degree of relief, that Lola was also terrified, and was not in league with the Kill-Robot at all, but instead was a perfectly nice girl-person who was very far from home.

  “All righty, buckaroos,” said Bucky. “I’m just gonna go ahead and shut down until this is all over. Sure was nice knowing y’all!”

  Phin’s brain cycled through everything he’d ever seen or read about similar situations and drew a big, useless blank. Finally, at last, something was actually happening to him and he had absolutely no idea what to do. Lola, meanwhile, was getting ready to run—it had certainly worked so far. But there was no place to run to.

  “Well—” she started.

  And that’s when the penthouse elevator went ding.

  6

  IF YOU ASK THE engineers of the Quazinart Home Appliance Company, they’ll tell you it took decades to perfect the All-in-One D-Lux Home Kitchen Suite. Countless late nights, false starts, dead ends, missed anniversaries and children’s softball games, and then, at last, breakthroughs. It was a work of aesthetic and technological genius, that all-in-one kitchen. A masterpiece of convenience and efficiency. The Sistine Chapel of the home-goods world.

  But it only took two point five seconds to destroy it.

  Phin and Lola cowered behind the counter as fire and destruction roared around them. Ballistic missiles and searing death rays pummeled the walls. The floor shook; chunks of plastic and wiring fell from the ceiling. Smoke choked the air.

  “Attention, victims!” bellowed the enormous Kill-Robot (which, by coincidence, was itself part of the Quazinart Home Destruction and Mayhem line). “Show yourselves or be obliterated!”

  “What does it want?” Lola shouted over the roar.

  “I think that’s obvious,” said Phin.

  They were huddled shoulder to shoulder. Phin clasped a wooden spoon that had tumbled from a smashed pantry cabinet. Lola cuddled the bowl of baked beans, which she’d grabbed without thinking and now clung to for dear life.

  “Well, it’s clearly here to kill you,” said Phin.

  “Me? It’s your apartment!”

  “But nothing’s ever tried to kill me before,” shouted Phin. “You already had someone try to liquefy you today! I’m just noting a pattern is all.”

  Lola had to admit he had a point, but she wasn’t ready to concede.

  “Hey!” she shouted in the direction of the Kill-Robot.

  “What are you doing?” Phin shouted. Nothing he’d ever read on the subject of surviving Kill-Robot attacks involved casual conversation. “That’s not . . . Don’t talk to it!”

  Lola waved him off. “Hey! Kill-Robot! Yeah, I’m talking to you!”

  The hail of ballistics ceased. The quiet was deafening. Dust and debris settled through the air like snow.

  “What?” said the Kill-Robot.

  “We’re just trying to figure out which one of us you’re here to kill,” said Lola.

  “Kill-Robot is designed to kill all!”

  “Yeah, we get it,” she called. “And I mean, you’re doing a great job. But you must have been sent here to kill one of us, right? I mean, you don’t just go around getting in elevators and killing whatever’s at the top, do you?”

  The Kill-Robot would have liked to do exactly that, but in this case, there had been explicit instructions. The Kill-Robot’s processors whirred as it tried to sort out the quickest answer. It was not designed for thinking. It didn’t like it. It wanted to get back to the smashy-blasty part.

  “Well?” said Lola.

  “Kill-Robot was sent to kill Phineas T. Fogg, son of Barnabus and Eliza Fogg!”

  “Ha,” said Lola with a smug smile. “I told you.”

  “Great,” said Phin. “I feel much better now.”

  The interlude over, the Kill-Robot began firing again. The floor-to-ceiling unbreakable windows shattered, letting in a howling wind from outside. The gale whipped the apartment into a frenzy. Large fissures opened in the ceiling, threatening to crack at any moment. The counter they were hiding behind was getting critically close to losing its structural integrity.

  There was nowhere to go, there was nowhere to hide. Lola closed her eyes and prayed for a commercial break. She would have settled for a To be continued with a Next time, on Lola’s Life . . . ! But no such luck.

  Lola tried to think, and decided that if she were going to die, she shouldn’t die hungry.

  She snatched the wooden spoon from Phin’s hands.

  “What are you doing?” said Phin.

  And then, with a slig
htly demented look of triumph, she said, “This.”

  Lola took a big, heaping, steamy bite of baked beans.

  And everything went BOOM.

  And Now a Brief Aside on the History of Baked Beans

  If you are reading this book sometime in the early twenty-first century, chances are you have no idea how special baked beans are.

  You may think they are merely one of the most delightful side dishes ever invented, a sumptuous blend of savory and sweet, perfect on their own or with hot dogs or barbecue.

  And you would be almost completely wrong. For baked beans are, in fact, one of the most miraculous things in the universe. Whether by fate or chance, this simple snack holds the secret to faster-than-light travel.

  How it happened was this.

  Sometime in the twenty-fourth century, just as humanity was making its first tentative, awkward contact with other species on other planets, Phineas Fogg the First, Phin’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, was the owner of Fogg’s Space Haulage and Trucking. Fogg’s ships were some of the fastest ever built, but on the galactic scale, they moved at a snail’s pace. Even his speediest vessel, the Jules Verne, only traveled 99.7777 percent the speed of light, which meant with pedal to the metal it would reach Alpha Centauri, the star nearest our own, in just under five years.

  “Too snuggling slow,” Fogg would growl, as this was an era when snuggling briefly became a very dirty word, for reasons the chronicler won’t go into here.

  So Fogg set out to develop a way to blip instantaneously across great distances. Rather than building faster ships, he conceived of portals in the fabric of space, allowing ships to pass from one star system to another in the blink of an eye. He called his invention hypergates.

  But there was a problem. In every test, in every experiment, the portals were too unstable. Their wormholes would warp, wobble, and collapse. “Like trying to build the Lincoln Tunnel out of lemon custard,” Fogg spat and flicked his own nose, which in his time was a very rude gesture.

  Then, one night, something wondrous happened.

  Fogg was alone in his lab. It was late, and he was tired. At the end of his rope, and with dangerously low blood sugar, Fogg went to the pantry for something to eat. Finding a can of humble baked beans, he heated himself a pot on a Bunsen burner and sat down to enjoy a steaming bowl.

  Legend has it that when Fogg stood to fetch a ginger ale from the refrigerator, he knocked over his bowl, spilling its syrupy contents all over his model hypergate. “Snuggling snuggle snugs!” Fogg spat. “Maximum snuggles to the whole universe!” he bellowed, and flicked his nose so hard it sprained.

  But then something happened. The hypergate twitched. It hummed. The beans began to swirl, to churn and bubble, and with a terrific blast of light, a portal opened.

  Fogg watched in amazement.

  The portal held.

  It was one of those happy accidents that pepper the history of human achievement. By knocking over his baked beans, Phineas Fogg the First had created instantaneous interstellar travel.

  Later tests revealed that the makeup of baked beans, the interplay between liquid syrup and semisolid bean, the blend of acids and lipids, of salt crystals and protein, was precisely the perfect substance for stabilizing wormholes. “All this time I wanted a quantum solution,” Fogg told reporters, “when what I needed was a quantum sauce.”

  Fogg partnered with the galaxy’s biggest supplier of baked beans. This happened to be Bolus Foods, a culinary canning company located on the planet Arbequia in the Oomy-Ummy Quadrant of the western arm of the Milky Way. And so the Fogg-Bolus Hypergate and Baked Beans Corporation was born. Within ten years, massive hypergates a mile wide were erected above all the most popular and important planets, and by the time Phineas the First retired, there wasn’t a known species who didn’t use his hypergates on a daily basis. Fogg-Bolus had united the galaxy with fast, safe, affordable travel.

  As a food item, baked beans remain popular as ever. They are still spicy-sweet and sumptuous. Some now claim they can detect a slightly infinite aftertaste, a tickle on the tongue of other worlds, and an unfortunate aftereffect of gas giants. But still baked beans are eaten with delight by thousands of species across the galaxy, just as they should be.

  And so this is why when Lola Ray, whose DNA tingled with quantum energy left over from her journey through time, took a bite of that most unusual and unique substance in the universe . . .

  . . . everything went BOOM.

  7

  THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION.

  Incredible, mind-churning white light.

  Then there was darkness.

  Phin really didn’t want to open his eyes. He was certain he was dead, and if he could still feel things like the pounding in his temples and the aches all over his body, he figured the afterlife wasn’t going to be a picnic. Better to stay flat on his stomach with his eyes shut for as long as possible.

  “Phin,” said a voice, a deep and burly voice, a voice of infinite wisdom and compassion. “Phin, get up.”

  “Nope,” said Phin. “No thank you. I’m fine here.”

  What did he remember? A Kill-Robot, Lola eating a big spoonful of baked beans. Then the blast, a white light that obliterated his senses. And now this. Just pain, a voice, and the smell of lilacs.

  Which . . . was a bit weird.

  Phin opened his eyes. He saw green. Not the nasty artificial green of teleport lights and computer screens but the warm, cheerful green of grass waving in a meadow on a breezy September afternoon. He smelled and recognized—though he’d never smelled it before—the end of summer, the first crisp in the air. It was a feeling of promise, of goodness. The smell of a happy life.

  And then, cutting through it all, mildew.

  “Teddy?”

  Phin looked up. He was lying on his belly in an enormous field. His white jumpsuit was covered in dust and scorch marks, but the world around him was pristine and alive. Hills dotted with lilacs and sunflowers rolled off infinitely into the infinite distance. The sky was a perfect blue with one or two wispy clouds. And he was alone, save for his favorite stuffed bear.

  Teddy stood over him. It was an odd thing to see, partly due to the angle, and partly because he’d never seen Teddy standing before, let alone smoking a pink plastic pipe, the kind made for blowing soap bubbles. Teddy stood with one paw on what could be called his hip and puffed away, blowing little pinkish spheres into the atmosphere.

  “Phin, my boy, we don’t have much time,” Teddy said in a voice that was nothing like his usual one. It was the wise and loving voice he’d heard a moment before, but now tinged with impatience.

  Phin hefted his aching form into a sitting position. Somewhere, birds were chirping, but otherwise all was quiet. His ears still rang from the din of the attack, but the Kill-Robot, his kitchen, and the city were gone.

  And so was Lola.

  Phin blinked. “Is this real?”

  “It might be,” said Teddy. “You are standing, or rather sitting, in the Probability Field. Where everything may or may not be. Everything here somewhat is, and somewhat isn’t. It’s only probable, though not likely.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” said Phin. “But I’m with you.”

  “You might be,” said Teddy.

  Phin pushed on. “What happened? How did I get here?”

  “How you arrived is less important than what you must do when you go back.”

  “I’m going back?”

  “Afraid so, my boy.” Teddy blew a few more thoughtful bubbles. “In a moment you’ll regain consciousness back in your kitchen, or what’s left of it. The good news is, that nasty Kill-Robot’s circuits were fried by the explosion, so you’ll be quite safe. At least for the time being. Time being the operative word.”

  Phin rubbed his temples. He had a splitting headache and this conversation wasn’t helping.

  “Phin, look at me,” said Teddy. Phin obliged. “When you return to your world, you will have a most difficult task.
I can’t say whether you will succeed, or whether success is even possible. But you must try. Phin, you must try to save the universe.”

  It took a moment for this to sink in, but when it did, Phin felt a rush, or several rushes—first fear, then confusion, and finally excitement. All this time, all the waiting to join his parents on an adventure, and here he was, being tasked to save the universe! Tasked by a talking teddy bear, but still. He jumped to his feet.

  “Yes! I knew it! I knew I was meant for something great! Oh, this is so amazing. And it totally makes sense. After all, I’m a genius and I’ve read pretty much everything about everything, so of course it’s up to me! Haha!” He did a little dance, which would have been embarrassing if anyone other than Teddy were there to see.

  Teddy scowled and bopped Phin over the head with his bubble pipe, bringing Phin’s jig to a halt.

  “You are not the most important person in the universe, Phineas T. Fogg!” Teddy bellowed. He straightened and cleared his throat. “But. You have just met her. Let’s take a walk.”

  Phin and Teddy began to stroll through the Probability Field. The grass was soft under Phin’s bare feet, so much softer than the carpets in his penthouse. If this was what the outside was really like—so temperate and beautiful—Phin couldn’t imagine why his parents wanted him to stay indoors all the time. He felt a little crinkle in his heart, thinking of them. Something very bad was happening. Someone had tried to kill him and could be after them as well.

  “You’re thinking of your parents,” mused Teddy.

  “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t. It’s just very likely.”

  “Probability Field,” said Phin.

  “Possibly,” said Teddy. “Now listen closely, Phin, because what I’m about to tell you is of universal importance.”