Kev available on Kindle. http://goo.gl/hDA0tg
I
appeared in a bustling city, surrounded by aliens of all shapes and sizes, all
of them moving with purpose, never stopping.
When their paths crossed, which they often did, they simply passed
through each other. I heard voices, more
than I could possibly count, all saying the same thing, “Time for work, not for
play,” over and over again.
All
of the buildings in the city rose to amazing heights, all drab green,
windowless and doorless. I watched as
aliens passed through their walls, coming and going, never pausing, all
continuing the chant.
There
were signs everywhere, “Work Now!” “Time
for Work.” “Don’t get recycled.” That sounded ominous.
“Did
you overthrow the dictator yet, Turd Fondler?” said B24ME.
“I
just got here.”
“That’s
no excuse. Get to work.”
“Where
is the dictator?” I said.
B24ME
didn’t answer.
Someone
or something tapped me on the shoulder.
I turned and saw a seven-foot tall, orange, four-armed alien with a
triangular head, three eyes and two mouths.
“Get to work or you’ll be recycled,” it said, before rejoining the
others on their march to who knew where.
Hands
seized me from behind and I blinked out of and then into existence, finding
myself in a small room. Sitting behind a
battered desk I saw an alien, a gray worm-like creature with a single eye, a
beak and tentacles.
“Why
aren’t you working?” it said.
“Um,
I don’t live here. I don’t work here,” I
said.
“If
you don’t live here, why are you here?” it said, its one eye glaring at me.
“Well,
I’m on this show and I have to, hmm…”
“You
have to what?”
Something
told me I didn’t want to answer the question truthfully, but I had no other
answer to give, so I blurted out, “I’m here to overthrow the dictator.”
It
blinked. “So, you’re my
replacement. What are you? Class five?
You look like a class three.
Whatever. I was getting sick of
the job anyway.”
“What?”
“Should
I waste my time finding you a new office, or will this one suit you?”
I
looked around the office again and for the first time noticed that the surface
of the alien’s desk appeared to be covered with fur, purple and orange, fluffy
and soft, that that of a Persian cat. I
noticed that there were no doors or windows and saw a moving picture of someone
being chopped to pieces by some multi-bladed monstrosity. Maybe that was somebody being recycled.
“I
guess this office is fine,” I said.
“Wonderful. Good luck keeping this bunch in line. Not a single dedicated worker in the bunch.” The alien disappeared.
I
reached out and touched the desk, wondering who would have a fur-topped
desk. The desk bit me and said, “Watch
it, you pervert.”
“Uh,
B24ME, I overthrew the dictator,” I said.
B24ME
didn’t answer. I repeated myself a few
times, and then sighed. All I really
wanted to do was go home. Then, I
remembered something B24ME had said about the blue cube. If I asked it to take me somewhere, it would
take me there, or at least I hoped it would.
I
pulled out the cube and said, “Cube, please take me home.” I appeared in my family room, more than a
little confused, immediately went down the street to the bar, ordered a shot of
whiskey and a beer chaser, and sat down to regroup, placing the blue cube on
the bar.
Max
noticed the cube and said, “So, you’re on The Show. Good luck with that, Kev.” This was definitely a dream.
“Anyone
sitting here?”
I
turned and saw a young woman, beautiful beyond my wildest imaginings. She had a smile on her face and green eyes, electric
and ancient.
“No,”
I said. She sat beside me and ordered a
green tea.
“Wow,
it’s been a long time,” said Max to the girl.
“You here to help Kev with his memory problems?”
“Something
like that,” she said.
“Wait,
you know me?” I looked at her face and
into her eyes, no memory of her present in my mind.
“Of
course, I know you, dummy,” she said.
The
word dummy struck a chord with me. I had
been called that many times before. “Do
I know you?”
“I
would think so,” she said, holding up her hand.
On one of her fingers I saw a silver ring with an amethyst. I had seen that ring before. I had given it to her, but when? Why couldn’t I remember?
“What’s
your name?” I said.
“I
don’t think I know you well enough to tell you that, Kev.”
I
remembered her, feeling tears streaming down my face. How could I have ever forgotten her?
She
reached out, wiped the tears from my cheeks, and then kissed me. “Do you remember that?”
“I
remember now. Where have you been? I’ve missed you. Well, actually, I forgot about you, but I
think I did miss you at some point. I
think you understand, right?”
“Of
course, I understand. You have time lag,
Kev. You’ve been traveling around in
time so much, you’ve lost most of your memories.”
“I
haven’t been traveling in time. I mean,
I just got back from Neta Nexus Nine, but I don’t think I traveled in time.”
She
looked at the blue cube, and her face changed.
“You’re on The Show,” she said.
“Yeah,
I just had to overthrow the dictator on Neta Nexus Nine. I’m dreaming, right?”
“Unfortunately
not.”
“Unfortunately?”
“I
really hoped you wouldn’t get stuck on The Show again,” she said.
“What
do you mean? This was my first
challenge.”
“No,
Kev. This was probably your trillionth,
trillionth challenge. You’re going to
have to find a way to get off The Show or B24ME is going to kill you.”
“Kill
me?” I cried. “How do I get off The Show?”
“I
don’t know, but you’ve done it before, many times, in fact. But, you have never told me how you did it.”
“I
don’t understand.”
“I
know, and I wish I could help you, but the rules are very strict.”
“What
rules? The rules for The Show?”
“No. I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”
I
downed my whiskey, took a gulp of beer and said, “What can you tell me?”
“I
can tell you I love you. Also, I’m
pregnant.”
“You’re
pregnant? Whose child is it?”
“Yours,
you moron.”
I
didn’t remember ever having sex with the girl.
I could barely remember the last time I had seen her. “That’s not possible,” I said.
“You
need to stop traveling in time, Kev, or at least figure out how to do it
without using the black cube.”
I
remembered the black time travel cube.
“But, I don’t have the black cube.
I have the plans for it, but I don’t have it.”
“I
know. You lost it. That’s why you’re stuck in the past right
now,” she said.
“The
past? You have to explain that.”
“Look,
Kev, the present year is three thousand, three hundred, thirty-seven. You keep coming back to two thousand,
sixteen. I’m not sure why, but you keep
doing it. I know you are looking for
something, but I don’t know what. I
can’t tell you any more than that.”
I
tried to think things through. If I had
been traveling in time with the black cube, the black cube I did not at that
time have in my possession, then when did I last travel back in time? From what point in time did I travel back in
time? Where did I leave the black
cube? I wondered if it was tucked away
somewhere in my house. Then it struck me.
If the present year was three thousand, three hundred, thirty-seven,
then I must be over a thousand years old.
How was that possible?
Many
times over the years, I had felt like I was in a dream, and again I had this
feeling. However, part of me completely
rejected the idea that I was in a dream.
While I couldn’t recall anything in detail, I had vague memories that
made at least some of what the girl had said plausible. I said, “So, if it’s really three thousand,
three hundred, thirty-seven, that means I am over a thousand years old. How is that possible?”
She
sighed and placed her hand on my arm.
“You’re much older than that, Kev.
You need to remember. You need to
remember everything.”
B24ME
cut in with, “So, Turd Fondler, I see you overthrew the dictator. I have to say, we gave you an easy challenge,
but thought that might be the best way to bring you back into the game.”
“Shut
up,” I said, not wanting anything to do with B24ME or The Show. The girl disappeared.
“That’s
not very nice,” said B24ME. “We have a
new challenge lined up for you. Are you
ready?”
“No. I don’t want to be on this show anymore.”
“Now,
you know what happens if you quit, don’t you?”
“What? I don’t win a prize?”
“No,
you die.”
“Bullshit. I’m not playing,” I said.
I
appeared in a monstrous, bowl shaped arena, at least a mile in diameter. All around me I saw trenches with greenish
pools of fluid and littered across the arena I saw large, gray and black
boulders, easily twice my height. I had
a gun in my hand, something that looked like a shotgun, but bulbous and orange.
“Welcome
to the re-enactment of the Battle of Bwar Nit,” said B24ME joyfully.
“I
told you I’m not playing,” I said, dropping the weapon.
“Come
on. This will be great for ratings. Look, if you win this challenge, I’ll give
you a break for a while,” said B24ME.
“How
long a break?”
“I
don’t know. I really hope you’ll
play. Killing you will be bad for
ratings, and anyway, this is an easy challenge.”
“What
do I have to do?” I said.
“Well,
you have to win the battle.”
“Who
am I fighting?” I said. I heard shouts
and screams in the background. Was that
fighting I heard?
“Everyone,”
said B24ME.
I
definitely heard the sound of fighting now, and wondered if I was safe.
“Am
I playing right now?” I said.
B24ME
didn’t answer.
I
heard a whining sound as something flew within inches of my head. I jumped into a nearby trench and ducked
down, my feet in a puddle of greenish liquid, liquid that started dissolving my
shoes. I jumped out of the puddle, but
too late. I could feel my feet burning,
so I dropped down and took off my shoes, desperately trying to wipe the liquid
off my feet, a stupid thing to do, the acid now burning both my hands and
feet. I could see the flesh on my hands
and feet burning away. I screamed, only
to find seconds later that I had healed, my hands and feet no longer covered by
that foul stuff.
I
saw movement out of the corner of my eye.
To my right I saw a yellow, four-legged alien, a centaur-like creature
with three eyes and two arms that were more like tentacles than anything else,
pointing a gun at me. It pulled the
trigger, the gun exploding in its hands, disintegrating its body. Not good, I thought, thinking about my
discarded weapon, not wanting to pick it up for fear that it might explode in
my hands if I fired it.
Another
alien appeared in the same place, gun aimed at me. It fired, and it too exploded. What was going on with these guns? I noticed that the pools of green liquid were
becoming larger, encroaching on my space. Not wanting to get burnt again, I climbed out of the trench and made my
way toward the far edge of the arena, hoping I wouldn’t encounter more armed
aliens. At one point I got too close to
one of the boulders and received an alarming shock. I made a note to myself to stay away from the
boulders and out of the trenches, but realized that I would have no cover if I
did that.
Three
more aliens confronted me, one of which managed to shoot its weapon without
exploding. The shot missed, and the
second shot killed the alien when its gun exploded in its hands. Not long after, I made it to the outer wall of
the arena and stopped to catch my breath.
I didn’t see anyone around me and hoped I might get through this without
further injury.
The
sounds of fighting gradually died down and finally stopped. I looked around, wondering if the battle had
ended, and if, by some stroke of luck, I had won.
“B24ME,
did I win?” I said.
“Not
yet,” said B24ME.
“How
many are left?”
“Now,
why would I tell you that?”
“Oh,
come on. Just tell me.”
“Fine. There is one other.”
“Where?”
“You
don’t want to know.”
I
turned around and saw a female looking humanoid with silver skin and white eyes
pointing a gun at me.
“Look
what I have here,” she said. “Where’s
your gun?”
“You
fire that thing and you’ll die,” I said, hoping that was true.
“Maybe,
maybe not. It hasn’t exploded yet. So, should I kill you now or have a little fun?”
“Define
fun,” I said, looking for somewhere to run.
“Oh,
maybe I could just shoot your legs off.
Not a fun way to go, but it would be entertaining for me.”
Her
name was Via Blath and she was the reigning champion of the re-enactment of the
Battle of Bwar Nit. I didn’t know that
at the time, but B24ME later told me. He
also told me that the participants in the battle were all inmates at the Geta
Celsion Penitentiary, a prison for tax evaders.
“What’s
your name?” she said.
“Kev.”
“What
kind of name is that?”
“My
kind of name.”
“Stupid
name, really. Were your parents mentally
challenged?”
I
was sick of this challenge, sick of being on The Show, and even more sick of
having people make fun on my name, something I did clearly remember. I lunged forward and tackled Via, knocking
the gun out of her hand. She immediately
threw me off, sending me hurling against one of the boulders, a boulder that
gave me the shock of my life. I
scrambled to get up and run away, but she was on her feet, weapon in hand
before I could make my escape.
“You’re
pretty tough for a tax evader.”
“What? I’m not a tax evader.”
“Well,
then what are you?”
I
didn’t know what to say, so I said, “I don’t know. I’m on this show and I have to win this
battle.”
“Oh,
you’re on The Show. Do you know what
happens if I kill you?”
“No,
what?”
“I
get to be on The Show.”
“Well,
I hope you enjoy it. It will be your
death,” I said.
She
pulled the trigger and the gun exploded, killing her instantly.
“Good
work, Turd Fondler,” said B24ME. “Are
you ready for your next challenge?”
“You
said I could take a break. I want to go
home.”
“Fine,
go home. I’ll give you a couple of
hours,” said B24ME.
I
pulled out the blue cube. “Cube, take me
home.”
When I arrived home, I noticed someone had redecorated
my family room. All of the blood and
filth had been wiped away, the carpet replaced, and new furniture put in
place. A beautiful painting of the girl
hung on the wall. On my new coffee table
I found a note that read, “Big improvement, right? XOXO.”
It had to have been the girl. Of
course it was the girl.
I sat on the couch and turned on the TV, thinking this
would be a perfect time to do absolutely nothing.
“Why aren’t you looking for the girl?” said a
voice. I turned and saw an old man
wearing a parka, shorts and flip-flops.
“Where have you been?”
“Um, who are you?” I said.
“You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?”
“Forgotten what?”
“The end of the universe. You have to find the girl and get me the
yellow cube.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking
about.”
“Kev, have you been time traveling again? We’ve been over this about fifty times now,
you time-lagged moron.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Aputi, you dolt!”
“Oh. Sorry,
don’t remember you, but I tend to forget things. So, what is all this about the end of the
universe?”
“If you don’t get me the yellow cube, the universe
will end. You have to find the girl.”
“What girl?”
“The girl with the yellow cube.”
“Oh. What’s her
name?”
“Now, if I knew that I would find her myself. Only you can find her.”
“Well, how am I supposed to find her if I don’t know
who she is?” I cried, annoyed as could be.
But then, I remembered. The girl,
my girl, had the yellow cube and under no circumstances whatsoever was I to
give Aputi the yellow cube. However, my
memories of Aputi were vague at best.
What exactly would he do if he had the yellow cube? It had to be something bad.
“Look, just find the girl and get me the cube.”
“And if I say no?” I said.
“Then you die.”
That didn’t sit well with me at all. “What?
You’re going to kill me?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to the police,” I said.
“It won’t do a bit of good. Anyway, if you don’t cooperate, I won’t honor
our deal.”
“What deal?”
“I agreed not to kill any more people until you get me
the cube.”
Aputi disappeared.
I vaguely remembered Barry telling me that something
like six hundred thousand people had exploded recently, and wondered if this
had something to do with Aputi. If it
did, then hadn’t he already broken whatever agreement we had?
Flustered and a little frightened, I went back into my
workroom to check my messages on my communication device, hoping that would
help me take my mind off things.
Scanning my messages, I found one from the girl, “Meet
me at the Lost Hope Hotel on Riddent.”
I pulled out the blue cube and said, “Cube, take me to
the Lost Hope Hotel on Riddent,” and appeared on a balcony overlooking a mile
high drop into a vast sea. To my right I
saw two aliens, both purple and four-legged, with yellow eyes, arms with
pincers, and mandibles protruding from their egg-shaped heads.
“Well, we’re never going to make our numbers for the
quarter, Blurp,” said one.
“I know. What
is the point in living if we can’t make our numbers?” said the other.
The two aliens jumped off the balcony. “What the hell?” I shouted, as I watched them
disappear in the distance.
“It happens,” said the girl, now standing beside me.
“They just killed themselves.”
“This is a popular spot for suicides. Weddings too.
You and I were married here,” said the girl.
“We were?”
“Yeah, beautiful ceremony. All our friends were here. Of course, three of them killed themselves,
but let’s not dwell on that.”
“Aputi was at my house. By the way, thanks for redecorating.”
“Anything for you.”
“Anything?
Then, maybe you can tell me what the hell is going on.”
The girl laughed and kissed me. “Rules are rules. So, do you want to make love?”
“Right here?”
“No, dummy. In
our suite.”
“Oh, right. Okay.”
Some time later, lying in bed, my arm wrapped around
her, I said, “Have I mentioned Aputi before?”
“He wants the yellow cube.”
“Yeah. He says
he is going to kill everyone on Earth if I don’t get the yellow cube for
him. I think so, anyway. You have it, right? He says he is going to
kill me too if I don’t get it for him.”
“I doubt he’ll kill you, but I’m sure he’ll kill
everyone else.”
“Really? How do
I stop him?”
“Well, he is a Bladrithian, so he is hard to kill, but
if you went back in time far enough and found him, you might be able to kill
him.”
“Kill? I don’t
want to kill anyone. There has to be
some other way to stop him.”
“You could ask him nicely.”
“Not helpful.
You know, Barry at the bar said something about Canadians killing
thousands of people in the same way Clive was killed. I think Aputi had something to do with that.”
“Duh, Kev.
Aputi is the mastermind. He’s
already killed six hundred thousand people.
I’d be willing to bet he is killing the rest as we speak.”
I stared at the ceiling, trying to wrap my mind around
things, but found my thoughts too jumbled to organize. I felt hopeless and small. I turned to say something to the girl, but
she had disappeared. I wanted to scream.
“Well, hello, Turd Fondler,” said B24ME. “Was the break long enough for you?”
Ignoring B24ME, I got up and put on my clothes, then
left the room and went down to the hotel lobby.
I found the hotel bar and went inside, had a seat and ordered a green
tea for reasons unknown, having no memories of the odd characteristics of green
tea.
“We have an excellent challenge lined up for you,”
said B24ME.
I didn’t respond.
“Do you want to know what it is?”
“No.”
“Oh, okay, a surprise then.”
I appeared in a large, hot, and extremely dry warehouse. In front of me, I saw a table, and on the
table an array of weapons, including a machine gun, a throwing star, a sword,
and something that looked vaguely like a squirt gun. I saw a red dragon appear on the other side
of the warehouse. It had to be at least
fifty feet long. It wasn’t moving.
“So, Turd Fondler, the name of this game is, ‘is it
real or is it not?’”
“Wonderful. How
do I win?”
“All you have to do is get one answer right and you
move on to the next challenge. Are you
ready?”
I eyed the dragon, reasonably certain I would have to
determine if it was real or not. What
would happen if I made a wrong answer?
“What if I’m wrong?” I said.
“We’ll surprise you.
So, in front of you is an Urethan Wyrm.
Over fifty feet long, this fire-breathing monstrosity has been
responsible for countless deaths on countless worlds. Tell me, is it real?”
I paused. The
dragon looked like something out of a storybook. I noticed its wings seemed far too small for
its body. “Can it fly?”
“Indeed it can,” said B24ME.
“Using what?
Magic? Those wings aren’t big
enough.”
“Is it real or not?”
I figured B24ME had a way of reading my memories and
had pulled this thing from there, so I said, “Not real.”
“Wrong answer, I’m afraid.”
The dragon started moving, turning its head to look at
me. It took a step forward then started
flapping its wings, bringing itself into the air, a long gush of flame erupting
from its mouth. With alarming speed the
dragon bore down on me, shooting more flames from its mouth. I grabbed the machine gun off the table and
fired wildly at the beast, to no effect.
The dragon roared, now much closer to me, and inhaled deeply.
I remembered the blue cube, pulled it out and said,
“Cube, take me home.” Nothing happened
and the dragon breathed out, engulfing my body in flames. I screamed, my clothes and flesh burning off,
and fell to the ground. Moments later, I
healed. I got up, now naked, and looked
at the dragon.
“I’ve never seen that happen before,” said the
dragon. It breathed in again.
I looked at the remaining weapons, now focused on the squirt
gun. Water. Fire.
I grabbed the gun and fired just as another burst of flame erupted from
the dragon. The second the water touched
the dragon, it disintegrated.
In front of me, a floating yellow sphere about the
size of a volleyball appeared.
“This is the Proth Sphere,” said B24ME. “If you connect to it, it will make all of
your dreams and nightmares come true. Is
it real or is it fake?”
“So, wait. If I
guess it isn’t real and it is real will all my dreams and nightmares come
true? What will happen if I get the
answer right?”
“Is it real or is it fake?”
I took an inventory of all of the dreams and nightmares
I could remember, remembering few dreams, but many nightmares. The worst nightmare was one in which a giant
nozzle sucked up the entire universe.
How on Earth could this sphere make that nightmare come true? What if it could? I figured it was safest to say it was real so
I would have some chance of escaping from experiencing all of my horrible
nightmares, thinking if it weren’t real it would not be able to make that
happen. “It’s real,” I said.
“Sorry, Turd Fondler, it is not real. Do you really
think there is something that can end the universe based on your nightmares?”
“Well, I don’t know.
Maybe. So, what happens now?”
“I just got word from our producer. We are going to simulate what it would be
like if the Proth Sphere was real. Of
course, only you will get to experience that.”
Without warning, I felt something connect to my mind,
and then for what seemed like an eternity, I relived every nightmare I had ever
had, this simulation so real that I thought it was really happening. The only good thing I experienced was a long,
happy life with the girl, but of course it was just a simulation. Oddly enough, I didn’t experience my
nightmare about the end of the universe.
The horrors ended and I collapsed, breathless and terrified. Once I recovered and picked myself up, I
said, “What’s next?”
A little red cube appeared, floating in front of me,
unmarked in any way. I had seen that
cube before. What was it? Where had I seen it?
“What is it?” I said.
“We don’t know.”
“Then how do you know if it is real or not?”
“Trust me, we know.”
I had nothing to go on other than my memory of seeing
it before so I said, “It’s real.”
“Right you are, Turd Fondler. Now take it.
It’s yours.”
“What if I don’t want it?” I said, thinking it
possible that this thing would do something awful if I took it.
“Take it, or you lose the game.”
“If I lose the game will I have to go through any more
challenges?”
“If you lose the game we will kill you.”
I grabbed the red cube out of the air. “Can I go home now? I’m getting really sick of this.”
“Folks,” said B24ME.
“We’re going to take a commercial break.”
I picked the blue cube up off the ground and said,
“Cube, take me home.”
Back home, I put on some clothes and then headed out
to get a much needed drink. As I
approached the bar I noticed something on the ground. I drew closer, now able to see that this was
the skeletal remains of a human. Well,
mostly it was just a skeleton with bits of flesh hanging off of it. Surrounding the skeleton I saw flesh
splattered everywhere. Thoughts of Clive
ran through my head.
I raced into the bar to get help, but was horrified to
see the remains of at least twelve people on the floor, the entire bar covered
with bits of flesh and effluent. On the
television above the bar I saw what looked like a newsroom with the remains of
some unfortunate soul sitting behind a news desk. Aputi had killed everyone. I let that sink in.
“Welcome back, folks.
We’re here with Turd Fondler. He
has just discovered that Aputi wiped out the human race. Well, he might have saved three million, but
who knows?” said B24ME.
“Not right now,” I said, trying to keep myself calm,
but doing a lousy job of it.
“Oh, come on, Turd Fondler. There isn’t much you can do about it now.
Let’s move on to the next challenge, shall we?
We’ll take you somewhere nice and help you take your mind off of things. In fact, we are going to send you to
beautiful Gamma War, a wonderful tropical paradise orbiting a rather nasty
black hole.”
I appeared on a beach on Gamma War. I saw a nearby star hovering over the horizon
and two moons up above. Around me on the
beach I saw many diverse aliens, all of them naked. Off the beach I saw a building with a sign
that read, “Tourist Information.”
“Okay, B24ME, I’m here. What’s the challenge?”
“Sorry, Turd Fondler.
We seem to be having technical difficulties. We’ll be right back.”
A pale blue alien with orange eyes and a cigarette
dangling from its lipless mouth approached me and said, “Sir, this is a nude
only resort. You are going to have to
disrobe.” Had I seen this alien before?
Not knowing what else to do, I removed my
clothes. The alien, now satisfied, left
me standing naked on the beach. I sat
down on the sand and cried.
Maybe and hour later, I looked up, noticing the sun,
still hovering over the horizon. How was
that possible? It hadn’t moved at all. Maybe this planet didn’t rotate. But, if it didn’t, wouldn’t that wreak havoc
on the environment? I had no clue.
I got up, grabbed my clothes and pulled the blue cube
out of my pocket. “Cube, take me home,”
I said. Nothing happened.
The only building I could see was the tourist
information building, so I went there, hoping they could direct me to a bar.
The inside of the building contained a desk, a chair
and a squid like alien sitting on the chair.
“Can I help you?” it said.
“Where’s the nearest bar?”
“Singularity Bar on Ceretus Isle. Step to the side and close your eyes, or not. What does it matter? We’re all going to die anyway.”
I stepped to the side and closed my eyes, not wanting
to get into a philosophical discussion with a squid. I heard a popping sound and then the sound of
voices, many voices. Opening my eyes, I
saw a crowd of aliens all sitting around a large bar. One of the aliens, a tall orange creature
with four arms and a triangular head approached me.
“Why didn’t you stick around on Neta Nexus Nine?” said
the alien. “The whole planet has fallen
into chaos.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They don’t have a dictator now, so nobody is doing a
damned thing. They’re all going to die.”
I did remember Neta Nexus Nine and overthrowing the
dictator, and in that instant felt a twinge of guilt. I had never thought what might happen if I
overthrew the dictator and then left.
“I didn’t know,” I said.
“What’s your name?”
“Kev.”
“What kind of name is that? Were your parent’s mentally challenged?”
“No. What’s
your name?” I said, annoyed.
“Bok Choy.”
“You know, on my planet that is a type of food,” I
said, still a little irritated.
“Yeah, well, on my planet, I am a type of food, but
let’s not dwell on that. So, are you
going to go back to Neta Nexus Nine and fix things?”
“What could I possibly fix? I have no clue how to rule a planet. They need to find someone else. Look, I really need a drink.”
“I can tell.
Here, let me get you something,” said Bok Choy.
Bok Choy went up to the bar, and soon returned with a
glass of greenish liquid, handing it to me.
“I have a question,” I said. “How come I can
understand what you’re saying and what everyone else is saying? On Neta Nexus Nine I could read all the signs
and understand every word spoken.”
“Oh, well, most civilized places have translation
fields. Much easier than learning new
languages,” said Bok Choy.
“Oh, why doesn’t Earth have that?” I said.
“Earth isn’t terribly civilized, now is it?” said Bok
Choy.
I took a sip of my drink and heard children laughing
and playing, realizing in that instant that I was drinking green tea. A voice cut in, “Hello, Kev. Welcome to The Diving into a Black Hole Experience. You are going to experience the thrill of
being consumed by the giant black hole that lurks nearby. This is a fully interactive experience,
although there isn’t much you can do other than scream and flap your arms
about. Of course, there will be nobody
to hear your screams, and all the arm flapping is rather pointless.”
“Can I have a different experience?” I said.
“Absolutely not,” said the voice, as I launched into
space and circled around the backside of the planet, heading toward a black
spot in space, around which I could see the distorted light of stars.
I wondered how I could breathe in the vacuum of space,
but thought it best not to ask, lest my guide turn off the field or whatever it
was that protected me and kept me from freezing and suffocating.
The black spot in the sky grew quickly, soon filling
my field of vision.
“You are now crossing the event horizon,” said the
voice.
I started feeling my body being pulled in different
directions, subtle at first, but soon uncomfortable. Soon after that, I started to feel pain, pain
that soon reached an unbearable level.
“Can we stop?” I screamed.
“Almost there.
Don’t worry about the tidal forces.
Sure, they are going to rip you to pieces, but you’ll make it through,”
said the voice.
My body ripped in half, and looking down I saw that I
had somehow stretched. Under normal
circumstances this would have been my death, but I lived on, the pain
absolutely unspeakable. I screamed and
cried, flapped my arms around madly, praying for the end. My halves divided and then those divided as
well. This continued until I was
nothing, no body, only thought. I felt
no more pain.
“Destination reached,” said the voice.
Light returned, and I found myself in Singularity Bar
in Barrow, Alaska, sitting across from Aputi.
He didn’t acknowledge me, instead, reaching into his pocket and pulling
out a small, brown cube of some sort with a yellow button on one side. I looked around the bar, seeing a handful of
people, and then back at Aputi.
“Time to die,” said Aputi, as he pressed the button
five times in rapid succession. Everyone
in the bar except Aputi and I exploded.
The scene shifted and I found myself looking at Bok Choy.
“Which one did you get?” said Bok Choy.
“Which what?”
“Which experience?”
“Oh, I don’t know.
I got sucked into a black hole,” I murmured.
“And after that?”
“I think I saw Aputi kill everyone on Earth,” I said,
wondering if I could go back in time and get the brown cube from Aputi, or at
least destroy it.
“Aputi?” said Bok Choy.
“Yeah, he’s an Inuit or a Bladrithian. I don’t know which. But, he killed everyone on Earth,” I said,
vaguely remembering enough to say that.
“He’s a bad guy,” said Bok Choy. “There is no telling what he’ll do next.”
“Wait, you know him?”
“Yeah, well, I think I do if we are talking about the
same Aputi. I’ve known him for years
now. I don’t know what he has planned
for Earth, but I bet it isn’t good.”
“Well, he wants me to find some yellow cube. He said he was going to use it to re-engineer
the humans he didn’t kill so he could save the universe,” I said, starting to
remember things.
“The yellow cube.
So, it’s real?”
“What? Oh, I
don’t know. I guess so or he wouldn’t be
looking for it.”
“Do you know what that thing can do?”
“What?”
“It can manipulate matter. If Aputi had that he could do more damage to
the universe than you could ever imagine.”
“Well, I’m not going to give it to him. I have to go back in time and stop him
somehow, but I’m stuck on this show and don’t get many breaks. Anyway, I don’t have the black cube, so even
if I do get a break, I have no way of going back in time and stopping him.”
“Don’t worry, Kev.
You’ll figure it out,” said Bok Choy, patting me on the shoulder with
two of his hands. In that moment, I felt
like Bok Choy knew more than he was letting on.
I wanted to ask questions, but somehow knew asking questions would not
lead to enlightenment.
Bok Choy and I talked for hours, and I learned much,
but nothing that really helped me understand my own situation. In that time I had two more green teas and
two new experiences, The Induced Seizure
Driving Experience, and The
Auto-asphyxiation Experience, two rather terrifying experiences to
have. After each, I had what I’ll call a
follow-on experience, in which I witnessed some event in history, an event
somehow connected to me. The first was
my wedding on Riddent, and the second was of me telling the blue cube I wanted
to go to a workshop that had all of the parts necessary for building the black cube.
In that experience I appeared in the workshop, constructed the black cube and
then pressed the little blue button on it five times. For a brief moment, I knew everything,
absolutely everything, but the moment passed and I returned to the real world,
lacking infinite knowledge. However, I
knew that I must build the black cube.
Bok Choy left some time later, and I decided to stay
at the bar. Satisfied that I had had
enough green tea to last a lifetime, and in the mood for a screwdriver, I
motioned to the bartender, a gray-green biped with two heads and eight arms,
and asked if he knew how to make a screwdriver, a reasonable enough question in
a universe that appeared to be completely unreasonable.
“Yeah, sure,” said the bartender. “Who doesn’t?”
“I mean a screwdriver like they make on Earth.”
“They’re the same everywhere, Kev.” I hadn’t told the bartender my name.
After three screwdrivers, now quite drunk, I took a
seat at the bar and had a look around, amazed by the diversity of the aliens
that populated the bar. While I had
always believed aliens, for the most part, would be quite different that
humans, I never really imagined how different they would be. Looking at these aliens, I wondered how they
evolved. What conditions led them to
appear and function the way they did? Of
course, I was on a planet with an atmosphere much like Earth’s, so the aliens I
saw were only those that could survive in this type of environment. What would aliens living in radically different
environments? I could not guess.
“Anyone sitting here?” said a woman’s voice. I turned and saw a beautiful blonde with a
stunning body, naked except for a string of pearls around her neck. Had I seen her before, or at least someone
who looked like her? Was she with Aputi
in Alaska?
Carefully maintaining eye contact, I said, “No. It’s yours.”
“What’s your name?”
“Kev. Yours?”
“Ruby.”
“Oh, hi Ruby.”
Hadn’t someone named Ruby sent a message to my communications
device? Wasn’t it something about
intercopulation?
“What are you drinking?”
“Screwdrivers, but I’m taking a break.”
“Tell you what.
Why don’t you have one more and talk to me?”
“Okay,” I said, hoping I wasn’t violating my vows to
the girl in any way.
Ruby ordered a green tea and a screwdriver. After the bartender delivered the drinks, she
held up her glass and said, “To happy endings.”
I tapped her glass and took a sip of my drink, tasting
something strange. “This a screwdriver?”
I said.
“What else would it be?” said Ruby, smiling, a smile
that seemed to convey a warning.
I woke naked in a bed in a room in a hotel on Gamma
War, Ruby by my side, stroking my chest.
However, Ruby had changed, and I found myself more than a little
horrified. It wasn’t just my infidelity
that horrified me. It was also the
transformation that Ruby had undergone.
This was no human, and from what I could tell it was no female, or at
least was…well, she/he/it wasn’t human.
“Did we?” I gasped.
“Five times, tiger,” said Ruby, her smile now that of
some strange demon, a pale red aberration wearing pink lipstick.
“Where am I?”
“At the hotel.
Do you want to do it again?”
“You drugged me!” I cried.
“Well, of course I drugged you. You wouldn’t have come with me otherwise.”
“You violated me.”
“Yes, and you enjoyed every minute of it.”
“I did not.”
“Yes, Kev, you did.”
I jumped out of bed and raced out of the room, went
down to the lobby of the hotel and then out the front door, heading toward the
beach. As I neared the beach I saw the
bar and rushed over to it, grabbing a stool.
On the stool next to mine I saw my clothes and on top of my clothes I
saw the blue cube, a grim reminder of The Show.
“Did you have fun?” said the gray, barrel-headed, eight-armed
bartender, seeing the wild look in my eyes.
“What’s your strongest drink?” I said.
“Green tea, of course.”
“Give me three,” I said, scanning the area for signs
of Ruby. “What was she? He?”
“Oh, that my friend is a Nidian hooker.”
“A prostitute?”
“No, no.
They’re called hookers because the hook in their victims by drugging
them.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I don’t know.
You looked like you were enjoying yourself.”
“Well, next time could you warn me if another Nidian
or whatever gets near me?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Three green teas later I had managed to calm myself
down. Of course, Ruby had appeared while
I was in the middle of my third green tea experience and had her or his or
whatever hand on my thigh, stroking it gently.
I brushed the hand off my thigh and said, “No more. Leave me alone.”
“Oh, come on Kev, it was fun.”
“I’m married.”
“So? She will
never know.”
“Of course, she’ll know. I’m going to tell her. Do you have any diseases?”
“No, but I’m pregnant.
This will be the third humo-nidian child in history. Well, sort of.”
“I don’t believe you.
Wait. Third?”
“It’s true,” said Ruby. “Nidians always get pregnant after
intercopulating.”
“What?” I cried.
“What the hell? By the way, when
are you due?”
The Nidian hooker, now back in the form of the beautiful
blonde, smiled and said, “In about an hour, your time.”
“So, who are the other fathers?” I said, utterly
confused. “Have you been to Earth,
because I’m pretty sure that the girl and I are the only humans to have left Earth.” I wasn’t sure about this, wondering if Clive
had at one point in time left Earth.
“They are all yours,” said Ruby.
“No, they aren’t.”
“Yes, they are.
You just don’t remember.”
“Remember what?”
“You don’t remember how many times we’ve met and how
many times we’ve intercopulated. It’s
okay. I know about your memory problems,
Kev.”
It was at that point that I passed out.
