How to Save the Universe Without Really Trying

by John Cusick

  Phin listened.

  “Almost a thousand years before you were born, a perfectly ordinary girl stepped into an X-ray machine at an airport security check, and something remarkable happened. She was thrown centuries into the future. But the moment she left, an energy signature radiated out into the universe, an energy signature that very few beings would recognize. After many hundreds of years, it traveled all the way to a distant dimension, apart from our own . . . where it was detected by some very powerful and malevolent entities. These beings are known as”—Teddy paused for dramatic effect—“the Phan.”

  “The . . . fan?” said Phin. “Like”—he waved his hand, stirring a light breeze—“like . . . oscillating? Three settings? That kind of fan?”

  “No, not fan. Phan,” growled Teddy, running low on his near-infinite patience. “With a P and an h.”

  “Oh,” said Phin. “Okay. Go on.”

  “The Phan knew—”

  “Wait,” said Phin. “Why do they call themselves that?”

  “It’s . . . no one knows,” growled Teddy. “That’s just what they call themselves, all right?”

  “Fine,” said Phin. “Sure, okay. No need to get grumpy.”

  Teddy rubbed at his fuzzy temples. “Now where was I . . . ? Oh yes.” He resumed their stroll. “The Phan knew that a being who had traveled through time would possess something they desired.”

  “What’s that?” asked Phin.

  “A secret,” said Teddy. “Knowledge so powerful it could unravel the fabric of reality itself.”

  “Oh,” said Phin, thinking he was keeping up but not quite. “So what’s the secret?”

  Teddy glared at him. “I don’t know. It’s a secret.”

  “Oh,” said Phin. “Right.”

  “For centuries the Phan plotted, making themselves ready for the day the girl would rematerialize at some point in the future. Using their influence, they set up a special organization, the Temporal Transit Authority, to monitor all of space for the day the girl appeared.”

  Teddy paused to pluck a possible dandelion from the possible ground and brought it to his button nose.

  “Hold on two microseconds,” said Phin. “If Lola is so special, why did the Kill-Robot come to kill me? Or was that just an unbelievably huge coincidence?” Thinking he had Teddy dead to rights, he added, “That sounds very improbable.”

  “Quite possibly,” said Teddy, unflustered. “But you see, Phin, the Phan need you as well. Or rather, they need something you and your family possess. To gain access to Ms. Ray, the Phan will need to bring themselves across to our dimension. And to do that, they will need a gateway. Or rather, a network of gateways powerful enough to bridge the gap between their dimension and ours.”

  “Hypergates,” said Phin.

  “Almost certainly,” said Teddy. “And I’m afraid that’s not all. They’ve enlisted the aid of a very nasty person. A person who can give them access to those hypergates. A person with something to gain by the hostile overthrow of the Fogg-Bolus Corporation.”

  With a flourish, Teddy blew on the dandelion, releasing its seeds. They floated and dipped, and then began to do something very un-seedlike. They rearranged themselves in a distended circle in the air just above Teddy and Phin. The air inside began to shimmer, and an image resolved itself.

  The image was of an Arbequian, with upsetting little teeth and a pair of unflattering spectacles. He sat behind an oak desk that was far too large for him, before which stood two Temporal Transit Authority Bog Mutants who seemed to be delivering some kind of report. The Arbequian was half listening, staring out the window, steepling his little fingers. He could not have looked more evil.

  “Goro Bolus!” said Phin.

  “Yes,” said Teddy. “Your parents’ partner and thirty-three-percent shareholder in the Fogg-Bolus Corporation.”

  “I knew it!” said Phin. “I knew that guy was up to no good. I should have told my parents. They should have listened to me! And now . . . and now . . .” Phin thought he might hyperventilate. “I’d like to pass out now,” he said.

  “You already are,” said Teddy. “Passed out, that is.”

  “Then I’d like to pass in. As quickly as possible.”

  Teddy took Phin by the shoulders lovingly—that, or he was preparing to give Phin a headbutt.

  “Phin, the very fate of the universe is at stake,” said Teddy. “You must keep Lola from falling into the hands of Goro Bolus and the Temporal Transit Authority. If she does, all of us are doomed.” He squeezed Phin’s shoulders tighter. “The both of you must get off this planet and as far away from Earth’s solar system as you can.”

  “But, but . . . ,” Phin stammered, a sudden hollowness eating at his gut. “I’ve never been off Earth. I’ve never even left my apartment!”

  Teddy’s eyes narrowed, his soft, fuzzy mouth set hard. “Old friend, your life has been leading to this. You have taken an interest, Phineas, in the world outside your door, and now you must use that knowledge to fulfill your destiny.”

  The hollowness in Phin’s stomach didn’t disappear, but it was joined by a second feeling. A sort of warm, tremulous wave, which moved up his spine and into his heart. It was the feeling of someone believing in him, someone trusting him, someone relying on him. It was the feeling of getting exactly what you’ve always hoped for—and it was terrible.

  “Teddy,” said Phin, “do you know . . . will we make it?”

  “Probably,” said Teddy, “not.”

  And with that, someone pinched Phin’s nose so hard, he woke the heck up.

  8

  “OUCH!” SAID PHIN, SITTING bolt upright in what was left of his kitchen. “Ow ow ow!”

  “Wake the heck up!” shouted Lola. She’d been shouting it over and over and had such a good momentum going, it was hard to stop. “Wake up! Wake up!”

  “I’m up!” said Phin, rubbing his sore nose “I’m up. I’m up. I’m . . .” He was up all right, and right back where he didn’t want to be. The air was thick with the scent of ionized particles and melted plastic. “I think I’d like to pass out again.”

  “Well, you can’t,” said Lola. “We have to get out of here!”

  Phin glanced around, surprised not to be under fire. “What happened to the Kill-Robot?”

  The Kill-Robot in question lay sprawled on the linoleum, its red eyes dark. Small hisses and clicks emanated from its metallic shell.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” said Lola. “I ate the beans, and there was this big flashy explosion, and whatever it was knocked you unconscious and shut down the Kill-Robot, apparently.” Lola glanced over her shoulder at the slumbering battle machine. “But according to Bucky, it’s rebooting and will be back online in—”

  “Two minutes and thirty seconds, ya’ll!” chimed Bucky.

  “He’s been doing that like once a minute,” grumbled Lola.

  Suddenly Phin snapped to attention as if someone had slapped him. “The elevator!”

  “Has been disabled!” Bucky said cheerfully. “As have all delivery shafts and maintenance ports.”

  “We can’t get downstairs,” said Lola, who’d learned all of this while Phin was unconscious and didn’t want to go through it all again.

  “I know what to do!” said Phin.

  With a plucky snap of his fingers, Phin leaped to his feet and dashed into his bedroom. Lola didn’t think it would be much safer in there but followed nonetheless, casting a wary glance at the dormant Kill-Robot, which seemed to be twitching more than it was a moment ago.

  What she found in the bedroom did not reassure her. Phin was in the corner, throttling his teddy bear. Teddy’s head bobbled back and forth on his thick neck.

  “Talk to me, you stupid bear!” he shouted. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do!”

  “Um,” said Lola.

  “Let’s play a game!” said Teddy.

  “Two minutes until Kill-Robot reboot, cowpokes!” offered Bucky over the penthouse’s public address s
ystem.

  “Phin?” said Lola.

  Phin dropped to the floor, defeated. Teddy flopped onto his side, his friendly expression unchanged.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Phin said.

  “Okay, well,” said Lola, “neither do I. So at least we’re on the same page there.”

  “Lola, you don’t understand.” Phin got to his feet and began to pace. “I had a vision! Teddy said my whole life had been leading to this. That I’m supposed to save the universe.”

  “He . . . did?” said Lola, eyeing the stuffed toy. On top of everything, the one person who seemed to be on her side had gone totally bananas, which was pretty much on par with the rest of her day. “And how are you going to do that?”

  “By rescuing you,” said Phin, taking her by the shoulders much as Teddy had done with him moments before in the Probability Field.

  Lola blinked, stunned for several reasons. “O-oh. Thank you, Phin.”

  “But first we need to get off this planet.”

  “Okay,” she said in a less misty-happy way. “Wait a minute, what? How?”

  “Fellas?” said Bucky.

  “Show yourselves, victims!” came a thunderous robotic voice from the next room. The sound of reinvigorated ion-cannon shots began to pound the walls. “I will find you!”

  “We’ll need a ship,” Phin was saying. “And a hypergate to get us out of this solar system. Also snacks. Should we bring snacks?”

  A blast from an ion cannon blew the wall behind them into chunks.

  “Phin,” said Lola, “I think before any of that, we need to escape this room!”

  “Escape?” said Bucky. “Well, heckfire and horny toads, why didn’t you say so?”

  And with that a door in the far wall slid open, revealing a perfectly good escape pod.

  9

  THE ESCAPE POD WAS on the large side for an escape pod, but that’s still not very big. Phin and Lola clambered into what amounted to the rear hatch. Inside were two rows of seats facing a transparent view screen, much like a windshield. Below were the controls and steering wheel. It all reminded Lola of something, but she didn’t have time to think what.

  “What are you doing?” Lola asked Phin, who was fishing in what amounted to the glove compartment.

  “I’m looking for a manual.”

  “You don’t know how to fly this thing?”

  “I didn’t know it existed until a second ago!” Phin snapped. “Although I did a whole analysis last year about how there was almost certainly a hidden compartment in my room. I gotta say, feels pretty good to be vindicated—”

  “Phin!”

  “Oh, look! There’s an on switch.”

  Phin turned a small knob on the control panel, and the escape pod hummed to life.

  “Allow me entrance, puny targets!” the Kill-Robot bellowed from the next room, along with a lot of other nonsense about burning, flaying, and boiling them alive.

  Something nagged at Lola’s mind—apart from the obvious imminent death. “Are we forgetting something? Oh! Wait!”

  “What? Where are you going?” Phin called.

  To his horror, Lola leaped out the back hatch and disappeared into the smoky chaos of his room. Before Phin had the chance to scramble after, Lola clambered back aboard, lugging someone behind her by the mildewed paw.

  “I thought we shouldn’t leave him,” she said, positioning Teddy in the back seat.

  “Teddy!” said Phin. “Lola, I could kiss you, but that would be incredibly gross.”

  With a flourish Phin yanked a lever on the dashboard and the rear hatch snapped shut. At that same instant the Kill-Robot smashed into the bedroom behind them. The rear window of the escape pod was swathed in a constellation of red laser sights.

  “Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!” said the Kill-Robot.

  “What are you waiting for?” said Lola, as Phin was clearly waiting for something.

  Phin was looking through the windshield at the far end of the escape pod’s launching track, where the emergency breakaway wall was all that separated them from open sky and safety. He cleared his throat, a small sound, barely audible in the cacophony.

  “Have you ever wanted to do something your whole life and then when you get the chance to do it, you’re not so sure?”

  At least, this is the very meaningful and vulnerable thing Phin would have said if Lola hadn’t reached around him and smashed the big red button marked JUST GO.

  With a tremendous roar, the pod exploded out of its dock and burst, wheeling and reeling, into the sunlight far above the wastes of New Jersey. It spun, twisted, dipped, got its bearings, and then rocketed straightaway toward the Hudson River and the stratosphere beyond.

  “I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life . . . ,” thought the little escape pod.

  Phin and Lola were too busy screaming in delirious, utterly mad relief to think anything at all.

  Part 2

  The Moon Has a Ball Pit

  10

  LOLA SETTLED INTO THE back seat as the escape pod hurtled through the sky. Her muscles jumped and twizzled, but, by degrees, she caught her breath. The thrum of the engines was soothing, and soon they’d left the wastes of New Jersey far below and were arcing gracefully into the clouds. From the window she saw the new cities of Earth stretching up and down the eastern seaboard, glad that whatever had happened in New Jersey—that Great Pork Fat Meltdown or whatever Phin had called it—at least spared the rest of the planet.

  By now she’d figured out what the interior of the escape pod reminded her of: it was almost exactly like her mother’s old Volvo station wagon—right down to the worn leather seats and the Christmas-tree-shaped air freshener dangling from the rearview telepathic interface. She remembered the last time they’d all driven together as a family—to take Papa to the airport. She remembered the ride back, Momma behind the wheel and very quiet, and her sisters, who were too young to understand anything, screaming and fighting and laughing. She remembered thinking how very much she wanted to be alone right then. Just to be by herself and miss her papa without anyone needing anything or asking for anything.

  Now she was truly alone, and she missed them all so keenly the back of her eyes stung.

  But just then the little escape pod shuddered and lurched, and they broke through the cloud cover. The deep black of space closed around them like a great pair of wings, and out the window, the sky became brilliant with stars, a cookies-and-cream swash the likes of which she’d never seen from the ground. She was in space. She was in space. And all at once the wonder and terror of where she was and what she was doing flooded her veins, and she let out a wild laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Phin.

  “Nothing, it’s just . . . ,” she said, feeling a bit embarrassed. Lola cleared her throat. “Have you ever seen the show Dimension Y?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  Of course no one would remember a television show that must now be centuries old. She swallowed.

  “It’s just,” she said, “whenever they showed outer space it was always just this flat black plane with stars. I never realized it was so . . .” Lola searched for the word. Big wasn’t it. Three-dimensional was closer, but not really. She stared out the window at the void into which they were rushing—not a black matte backdrop but a swirling ocean of light and dark, navies and indigos, and pink-yellow-blue planets hanging like teardrops.

  It was just . . . everything.

  “Sorry,” she said, catching herself. “This must be like an everyday thing for you.”

  When Phin said nothing, she glanced at his profile.

  “Not exactly,” he said.

  He was seated in what Lola would have called the driver’s seat, though the pod seemed to be steering itself. A tablet rested on his lap, and whatever he was doing looked complicated. Charts and tables swirled on the tablet’s surface, illuminating Phin’s features, spooky in the gloom.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

&nb
sp; “To Luna. We can use the hypergate there to get as far away from Earth as possible.”

  “What’s Luna?”

  Without looking he pointed out the window toward the silvery wedge floating off to their left.

  “You mean the moon?”

  This time he looked up, his expression one of utter astonishment at just how stupid she was.

  “It’s not the moon,” Phin spat. “It’s a moon. There are billions of planets in the galaxy, Lola, and most of them have moons. You can’t go around calling Earth’s moon the moon like it’s got some kind of special privileges.”

  She sat back, stung. After a long, smoldering silence, she said, “You know, hey, where I’m from it’s called the moon. And,” she added, “where I’m from, people don’t act like jerks just because other people don’t know things that there is no possible way they could possibly know.”

  She’d told him good—as the oldest of three siblings, she was excellent at arguing.

  Phin did look a bit stunned, but he gathered himself. As an only child, Phin was excellent at disregarding any opinion other than his own.

  “Well,” he said, “you might be interested to know that while you’re back there gawping, I am trying to chart a route for us. Which should be easy, but all I’ve got is this stupid little tablet, and the reception out here is practically zero, and if I were at home with all my stuff and a decent Extraweb connection I could do it in a snap! But because I’m here and my home has been destroyed and stuff, it’s a whole heckuva lot trickier, especially when I have to pause every ten minutes to explain things to an under-evolved, know-nothing, temporal pain in the neck like you!”

  The silence that followed was practically volcanic.

  “You haven’t been to outer space before, have you?” said Lola.

  “As it happens . . . no,” he finished meekly.

  Lola crossed her arms and smirked. “I knew it.”

  Phin turned on her. “Well, what is it, then?”

  “What is . . . what?” said Lola.

  “It,” said Phin. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”