by John Cusick
“Welcome, welcome,” it said. It was the owner of the voice who had spoken to Lola a moment before. “We’re so glad you’re here. I’ve just put the kettle on. Everything’s nearly ready. Thank you ever so much for coming. My name is Professor Donut, and on behalf of the Triumvirate of Pong, I welcome you.”
This, thought Lola, would have been the perfect moment for a commercial break. But since this was real life and not a television show, things just went right on happening.
“Please,” said the cat, “have a seat.”
“The cat,” Lola said, who would have thought herself used to this sort of thing by now, “is talking.”
Phin made a face. “And wearing tweed.”
“Ah yes, the suit,” said the cat who called himself Professor Donut. “It is a bit academic I suppose, but then I do have tenure. It so happens I am the preeminent authority on cute fusion and subatomic fur straightening. I still teach a class at Flighty Shiny Thing University. You’ve heard of it, of course.”
“Of course,” said Phin and Lola in unison, though one of them was merely being polite.
Not sure what else to do, they sat. Phin cast a glance at Gretta, then arched an eyebrow at Lola as if to say, Isn’t she going to join us? Lola shook her head as if to say, Just let it go.
“Are you comfortable?” asked Professor Donut. He was eager and anxious to please—two qualities Lola did not normally associate with cats. “We have a selection of herbal and black teas to choose from. No Darjeeling, I’m afraid. You wouldn’t believe the troubles I’ve had with deliveries out here.”
“So,” said Phin, clearing his throat. “Triumvirate implies three. Where’s the rest of the, um, Pongs?”
“Oh, that,” said Professor Donut. “One of them is directly above us.”
Together, all of them, Gretta included, looked up. Helpfully, the spotlight switched off. There was lots of blinking and eye rubbing, and then, with a collective gasp, they saw it.
Suspended above them, nearly the size of the asteroid itself, was a great spherical green orb. It was attached to the walls of the cavern by thousands—millions—of stringy green filaments. The sphere, whatever it was, pulsed with life. A strange phosphorescent glow seemed to emanate from its core. It was massive, ancient, and alive.
And then it spoke.
It spoke without words, without voice; it spoke directly into their minds. It was itself a mind so huge and fibrous its synapses were the size of telephone poles, and its neurons discharged with the force of small electromagnetic bombs. It was the only one of its kind in the universe, and it had been created by beings from another dimension. This thing, this impossible thing, spoke to them. It said . . .
“I—”
And then the kettle went off.
“Oh dear! Sorry, just a moment,” said Professor Donut, and hurried off to fetch it.
“Ah,” sighed the thing above them. “Hmm. I guess . . . I’ll just wait . . .”
The whistling subsided into a gentle hoot, and the professor reappeared carrying the kettle. Lola stood to help him, but he waved his paw.
“No no, please sit. I’m quite all right.”
Lola sat.
With painstaking ceremony, Professor Donut set down the kettle, opened the teapot, poured the water, closed the teapot, hobbled away with the now-empty kettle, and returned a moment later now carrying a fresh plate of scones. He helped himself to one of the spindly chairs, sat, and folded his paws together in satisfaction.
“There now,” he said at last. “Please, continue.”
“All right,” said the voice, its power resonating through their skulls. “Are you sure?”
Phin and Lola exchanged a glance.
“Yes, everything’s set,” said the professor. “Go right ahead.”
“Ahem, okay, then,” said the voice. “I . . . ,” it said, “am Mr. Jeremy.”
33
“THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO, some interdimensional beings known as the Phan became aware of our universe. For a very long time they knew our reality existed, but we knew nothing of them.
“One day a question began to beat in the heart of the Phan, a question so persistent and important it drove them half mad with wondering. And the Phan with their near-infinite intelligence came to believe that the answer to this question lay not in their own universe, but in ours. And so they formulated a plan. A plan to cross between worlds, to traverse the irrational space that separates dimensions, and enter our own.
“But they could not break through without aid from our side. And so the Phan made small holes. Tears, if you will, in the fabric of space, too small for them to travel through, but just large enough to influence things here. Little things. Like particles.
“Their first task was to create an army to do their bidding in our world, a species of mutants to act as their slaves and prepare our galaxy for their coming. And so, after hundreds upon hundreds of years, they succeeded in coaxing, prodding, and influencing billions upon billions of tiny atoms into acids, and acids into cells, and then cells into mitochondria, mitochondria into complex synapses . . . and after a long, long time, I was formed.
“I was to be the source of a mutant army for their nefarious Temporal Transit Authority, and so I am, the father of every Bog Mutant, every Jeremy, in the galaxy.”
Lola suddenly remembered something. “When I first arrived,” she said, “a Bog Mutant tried to arrest me. I called him Mr. Jeremy and he said Mr. Jeremy was his father.”
“Correct, child. I am the same.”
“So if the Phan made you,” said Phin, “and you make Bog Mutants—who occasionally try to kill us, by the way—does that mean you’re going to, you know, try to kill us?”
Mr. Jeremy sighed again. This time it was not a sigh of patience, but a sigh of immense sorrow, the sigh of a parent who loves his children.
“The Phan have made slaves of my offspring. Here in my subterranean home there is little I can do to stop them, but I wish my children to be free,” Mr. Jeremy rumbled with righteous and ancient anger. “I have vowed to stop the Phan’s evil at any cost. And so, I sent a message into the universe, a request for help. It was a complex message, decipherable only by the greatest minds in the galaxy. It was answered by only two.”
Professor Donut gave a small wave. “The pleasure was all mine.”
“Together, we formed the Triumvirate of Pong, dedicated to combating the Phan, ensuring they never breach the gulf between dimensions and find the answer to the Question of the End.”
“Ah,” said Phin. “I see,” he added. “I’m not . . . totally getting it.”
“I have a question,” said Lola, raising her hand politely.
“Just one?” said Phin.
“Sorry,” said Lola. “But why is it so terrible if they get an answer to this . . . what was it? The Question of the End?”
“A brain as large as Mr. Jeremy’s,” said Professor Donut, “is capable of a certain degree of foresight. He has foreseen a possible future in which our enemy triumphs.”
“In this future,” Mr. Jeremy continued, “the Phan will ask the Question of the End. And when it is answered, the whole of creation will unravel itself. I have foreseen this.”
Everyone took a moment to take this in.
“What’s the question?” said Phin.
“The question is not important,” said Mr. Jeremy.
“Sure sounds like it is,” Phin mumbled.
“What’s important is who may answer it, for only one person in the universe can. And it is this person the Phan have labored so long and so hard to find.
“The only person who may answer the Question of the End is a time traveler . . . ,” said Mr. Jeremy. “It is you, Lola Ray.”
“Frizhadellus-Corpoilius,” mumbled Lola.
Professor Donut gasped. “My dear! Language!”
“This is why you must leave this space-time, Lola,” said Mr. Jeremy. “Not only for your own sake, but for the sake of the universe.”
“You can send me home?” said Lola.
“Wait,” said Phin, eyes twitching between the cat and the enormous sentient fungus, “Triumvirate implies three—”
“Teddy!” said Lola, cheered to see the mushroom people had propped the old mildewed bear on the seat between her and Phin.
“Ah,” said Mr. Jeremy. “I see our third member has arrived at last.”
On the far side of the red dwarf our heroes now orbited, the Alpha Centauri hypergate turned slowly in space. It wasn’t a very active hypergate, as Alpha Centauri wasn’t a popular destination. At most it was a stopover between other, larger ports. A ratty-looking space station, the galactic equivalent of a truck stop, orbited nearby, its beacons advertising cheap food, hot coffee, and restrooms.
All at once, the hypergate’s portal began to shimmer. Its quantum sauce pulsated and bubbled. Then, with a terrific flash, several hundred heavily armed ships emerged from its depths.
They were Sun-Liner security drones—sleek, silver, and deadly, heeding the supposed distress call of a vessel that had refused to confirm its Vessel ID number. The fleet emerged from the hypergate in tight formation. It flew in a deadly arc, buzzing the space station, and firing a few shots across its surface just for the sheer bullying fun of it.
Then, like birds in a flock, the drones swerved as one and turned toward the small, unremarkable asteroid floating nearby, the planetoid classified as Satellite B.
A distress signal was emanating from the sunnier side of the asteroid, and as the drones drew closer, the space castaways who had teleported there hours before cheered to see their rescue boats approaching. The drones, soulless automata tasked with obliterating anyone foolish enough to steal from Sun-Liner Space Cruises Limited, grumbled to each other. They’d hoped there’d be something here to kill, but this looked like a boring old rescue and recover job.
“ATTENTION, PASSENGERS AND CREW OF THE VESSEL SS SUNSTAR,” the drones broadcast in their cold, robotic voices. “PLEASE CONFIRM YOUR VESSEL ID NUMBER OR BE OBLITERATED.”
The people on the surface of Satellite B radioed back that if the drones would just hold on a minute, they’d find the captain and go ahead and confirm that number.
“YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO COMPLY,” the drones added helpfully. “WE CAN ALSO CONNECT YOU TO THE CUSTOMER SERVICE SECURITY DRONE ARMADA, WHICH WILL BE HAPPY TO HELP YOU RESET YOUR ACCOUNT AND/OR YOUR MOLECULES.” As one, they powered up their weapons systems, taking aim at the crowd of three hundred or so rich folk huddled together around their pop-up emergency tents and lanterns. “TEN. NINE. EIGHT . . .”
The surface radioed back. They had the captain, who mercifully remembered their Vessel ID number. It was sixteen-oh-seven-nine-two-B, for the love of God.
“OH, FINE,” the drones spat. “HAVE IT YOUR WAY. VESSEL ID NUMBER CONFIRMED. WE NEVER GET TO HAVE ANY FUN.”
While all this was going on, another ship had slipped unnoticed through the hypergate. It had hidden itself in the security drones’ slipstream and now peeled away, following its own course around the dark side of the asteroid. It descended through the upper atmosphere, gray and unassuming, and landed by some nasty-looking boulders at the exact coordinates its automatic pilot had been given.
The little ship settled, its exhaust stirring the dust around its landing gear. A hatchway opened, casting light out into the night. A ladder descended.
A figure lowered itself carefully, gingerly, onto the planetoid’s surface.
It looked around.
It took a few hesitant steps out from under the canopy of the ship’s hull. It looked around again.
It checked its personal tracking device. The coordinates were correct.
It scratched its head.
The figure, just trying to be thorough, jogged all the way around the ship, peered behind some boulders, peeked under some rocks, then climbed to the top of a stony outcropping to gaze out over the barren wastes of Satellite B.
It called out, “Hello!”
There was no answer. The person it had come to collect, and her prisoner, were gone.
“Oh, come on!” it called, its voice echoing into the spooky distance.
The figure glanced over its shoulder at its shuttle, and then, with a heavy sigh, it began to jog across the tundra, just a small wobbly creature in a Temporal Transit Authority uniform that was a size too big.
34
TEDDY, THE THIRD AND final member of the Triumvirate of Pong, did not suddenly look around at them and say hello.
He did not light up his bubble pipe, wink at Phin, and say something jolly, like, “Well, my boy, we’ve certainly come a long way, haven’t we?”
He did not move at all, but everyone waited in hushed silence as if he might.
“It’s good to see you,” Professor Donut said at last, patting Teddy on the leg. He smiled at the rest of them as if to say, Well, isn’t this nice? All of us here together?
“Um,” said Phin, “are you all . . . crazy? He’s just a stuffed bear!”
Lola shifted uneasily in her seat. She was fond of Teddy, but he was, as Phin said, just a stuffed bear. She’d been taking all of this very seriously and now wondered if their hosts were barking mad.
“Sadly,” intoned Mr. Jeremy, “no, we are not insane. Would that it were so. It would make everything much simpler.”
“I’m afraid our friend here,” said Professor Donut, indicating Teddy, “is under what you might call a spell.”
“A spell?” said Lola.
“You might call it that, but you’d be wrong.”
“Oh.”
“What he’s under would more accurately be described as a transformative hyperstasis transfiguration. It’s a very fascinating branch of the cute sciences.” The professor patted his paws together, hoping someone would ask him to explain it.
“Someone turned him into a bear?” Lola tried.
“Not quite,” said the professor. “He’s always been a bear. Someone transformed him into a stuffed bear, and that someone was me.”
“But why?” said Lola.
“It was necessary to keep an eye on dear Phineas here,” said the professor. “The three of us knew the day would come when Eliza and Barnabus Fogg would have an offspring, and that offspring would be crucial to the fate of the universe. And so, one of us volunteered to stay close to the boy, to watch over him while safely disguised so as not to arouse the attention of the enemy . . . to be nearby when the moment was right to tell Phin all he needed to know.”
“But he didn’t,” said Phin, standing in a fury. “He didn’t tell me all I need to know! I mean, clearly! He hasn’t done anything! He’s just been sitting there!”
The professor shook his head. “Though his outward appearance may appear inert, I assure you Theodore has maintained a psychic link with you for years.”
“Phin,” said Lola, reaching for his hand. “Are you okay?”
Phin was scowling. He was visibly shaking.
He felt lied to, manipulated, and used. He felt swept up in something he had no control over and he felt that the universe had unfairly put him in this position. His favorite bear was not at all the person he’d imagined him to be but was rather a total stranger. And so were these people, this Triumvirate of Pong. And so, after all, were his parents. All of them benevolent strangers. Who did not trust him with the truth, with his own life, with anything.
He felt as if the world had just patted him on the head and said, There, there, be a good boy and do what we say. And he had had quite enough.
“I’m out!” he said, and threw up his hands and walked away into the gloom of the cavern. Whether he was out in the sense of out of the conversation or out of the room, or whether he was out of this interdimensional-save-the-universe situation, was unclear. But they all watched him go in stunned silence—except for Teddy, who just stared at nothing at all.
And except, of course, for Lola.
“Phin, wait!” she said, getting to her feet. She felt a tender paw on her hand.
“I think Mr. Fogg would prefer to be alone just now,” said Professor Donut. “This is a lot to take in.”
“Mmm,” said Mr. Jeremy. “Perhaps Ms. Ray would like to see how she will return home.”
Lola’s universe grew very still. Part of her yearned to chase after Phin. But home. She’d come a long way to go back where she started. Her family. Her mother. Her father. Her sisters. McDonald’s and Netflix and chocolate-covered espresso beans. Everything perfect and imperfect about her normal, long-lost life.
“Show me,” she said.
With quiet compassion, Professor Donut took Lola by the hand and gently led her away from the table, the end of his cane clicking against the stone.
Then it was quiet.
The walls dripped. The warm breeze rustled in the corners. The planets turned.
Then Gretta, whom everyone seemed to have forgotten about, cleared her throat.
“So,” she said, gazing up through her glasses at the planet-sized fungal core suspended above her. “Hi Dad.”
35
EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT THE power of cuteness. What you may not know is that cuteness is one of the five fundamental forces of the universe—in fact, it is the most powerful.
For centuries, scientists have harvested the power of cuteness to fuel spacecrafts, solve complex calculations, and even create pocket universes so small they literally fit in your pocket. It is said that a hundred baby chicks, a newborn bunny, and an infant dressed as a pumpkin can, with the proper equipment, create a bomb so powerful it would destroy the entire galaxy. Thankfully, this theory has never been proven, as in every experiment, researchers became so distracted by the cuddliness of their subjects that nothing ever got done.