SEVERE REPAIR: BOOK ONE
A Science Fiction Novel by Frank Edward Nora

"An Interdimensional Universe Of Characters On The Chaotic Edge Of The End Of Everything"

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2004 by Frank Edward Nora

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Published by Frank Edward Nora

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First Edition: November 2004


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CHAPTER 1
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"It's time I told you all something about Yellowhaus," Chamomile said, walking to the far side of the meeting table. She wore a light-yellow martial arts outfit.

Sulfur let out a single cynical snicker.

"What does it matter now?" he said. 

Chamomile sat down.

"I guess it's back to Hell for me!" the devil girl Lemon said, leaning on her pitchfork.

"Me too! Me too!" the mad dog guy Canary yelped out.

The huge, furry, yellow beast Buff jumped up and grabbed a bar on the ceiling, swinging. "I don't think you have anything to worry about, Canary. You'll get there one way or another."

"How! How!" Canary yelled, swinging his chain around.

"There's something you all need to know about Yellowhaus," Chamomile said softly but firmly.

"What?" Sulfur asked, fashioning and solidifying a grim reaper figurine out of the mists surrounding his body. He wore yellow combat fatigues.

"Hey, I know that guy!" Lemon commented brightly.

"C'mon everybody," Buff said, still swinging. "So what if it's not us saving the day this time? We can't save the world every time. The Libertine A-Wave needs some practice anyway!"

Chamomile looked up at Buff, a deadly serious look on her face. 

"The Libertine A-Wave are all dead."

Buff paused in his swinging, then continued, saying only "Oh."

"Now how could that have happened?" Sulfur asked.

"Look all of you!" Chamomile said loudly, standing up. "I know we're used to this sort of thing, but there's something you have to know! Yellowhaus is a lot more than just our base of operations. It's an ancient... vehicle."

"Is that why we never had a Yellowhausmobile?" Lemon asked, smiling broadly.

Chamomile looked down, trying to hold in her frustration, a dull, dead feeling covering her whole body. Then she looked up and spoke, the beginnings of tears in her eyes.

"I never told any of you because I didn't think it was important. But Yellowhaus has the ability to move between worlds, between universes. And it... and..."

The four others were silent.

"...it has a... a safety mechanism. Whenever a world is about to... end... it gets ready to transport away, automatically. And... and when we were just coming in, I noticed that... that the worldend autotransport had activated itself."

Chamomile was now openly weeping, a sight none of the others had ever seen from their leader.

"Yellowhaus will transport away from this world in about 40 minutes," she said.

"So what does this mean?" Sulfur asked.

"It means," Chamomile said, nodding and looking up, "that the world will end in 45 minutes. Universe O'Riley will finally get his way."

"No way!" Canary yelled. "Come on team! Let's go kick his celestial ass! Come on!"

"Yeah!" Lemon shrieked. "Let's go teach this guy a lesson he'll never forget!"

"I'm ready to cause some major damage!" Buff exclaimed as he jumped down to the floor.

Chamomile shot out a spirit-energy fireball that exploded against the back wall, narrowly missing Buff.

"You don't understand," Chamomile said. "The mechanisms within Yellowhaus are not reacting to a possible end of the world. They are detecting a definite, inalterable end to our world. If we had any chance of stopping O'Riley, the mechanism would not have activated!"

"So that's it?" Buff asked. "After everything that's happened, this is the way it ends?"

"Where do we get to go! Oh boy!" Lemon asked brightly.

"What?" Chamomile asked, taken by surprise.

"Where will Yellowhaus take us? To another world like you said?" Lemon asked.

"I don't know. As far as I know, we should get to a safe place in another world, but I have no way of knowing where that might be. Kimberly only gave me a rough overview before she... departed," Chamomile said.

"Shouldn't we try and save some other folks?" Buff asked.

Chamomile turned away.

"There's not enough time. All our communications are out, and as you know, our hovercrafts are shot."

"But there's a town near here. We could at least save a few people," Buff said.

Chamomile turned to face him.

"They have no idea what's happening! Why should we ruin the last few minutes of their lives--especially with the injustice of only being able to save a few of them! Besides, there's not even enough time for that!"

"We should at least try," Buff said.

"Why?" Chamomile said. "It's all over! We just happen to be incredibly lucky! It's not our fault. So let's just start getting prepared for what we might encounter in the next world. Or rather, the alternate world we're going to--hopefully not the next world yet."

"Yeah!" Lemon said. "What's gonna happen to Hell if the world ends? Isn't Hell part of the world?"

"Well Lemon, I'm not sure, but I believe that O'Riley seeks to destroy everything, Heaven and Hell included," Chamomile said.

"I see," Lemon replied, a little shaken. Then she brightened and said "No more Hell! No more Slaverceth! No more responsibilities! Yipee!"

"Yeah, yippee! Yippee!" Canary echoed.

"I still think--" Buff started.

"--look Buff!" Sulfur interrupted. "I admire you as the only moral voice on our team, but truly, it's over. What would you do, separate people from their friends and relatives, and thrust them into an unknown new world? How could they make a decision such as that in a few seconds? Letting them die in peace is far more humane."

"I'd still like to save a few people," Buff said, looking down. "But Chamomile is right. There's not time."

"Heh heh, look!" Canary said, crouching down and cupping his hands together.

"What?" Sulfur asked.

Canary made an explosion noise and moved his hands apart.

"The world blowing up! The world blowing up!"

Chamomile rolled her eyes.

"Okay everyone! Pay attention! Back to reality! Anything that's outside the Haus has to be brought in--only the Haus itself and everything inside will be transported."

"There's not much stuff out there. We brought most of it in when it rained last week," Sulfur said.

"My bike's out there," Buff said.

"Okay. Lemon, go out with Buff and get his bike. The rest of us will continue preparations inside," Chamomile said.

"Okay, c'mon big boy," Lemon said to Buff as they headed for the elevator. 

Soon, the two were outside in the yard of Yellowhaus.

"So where is it?" Lemon asked.

"I think it's over by those trees," Buff said, pointing. 

They walked about a hundred yards to the edge of the woods and found Buff's enormous bicycle on its side on the ground.

"Okay, get it and let's go in. I don't like it out here. Too quiet," Lemon said.

"You're probably used to the sounds of souls being tortured day in and day out!" Buff said, picking up his bike.

Lemon smiled.

"And oh, what a sound it is!"

The two began to walk back.

"So now you'll never be Queen of Hell."

"Who gives a damn?"

Then, suddenly, a sound of thunder split the sky.

"What in--" Buff began, but stopped as he saw a figure fall from the sky and land with a thud on the ground.

"Who is that?" Lemon asked.

"Dunno. Looks like one of The Libertine A-Wave, maybe."

The two walked forward, and the red-and-black clad figure began to stir.

"Sure! That's Colonia the Sword! You know, from Libertine A-Wave. Right," Lemon said.

"Oh yeah... but I thought they all died!"

"Maybe it's a trick! Maybe it's O'Riley's doing!" Lemon said, pointing her pitchfork forward.

Colonia the Sword lifted himself up into a sitting position.

"Yellowhaus!" he struggled, out of breath. "It's all over... only one left.. have to help... help stop... O'Riley."

"Think it's really him?" Lemon asked.

"Yeah. I mean, why would O'Riley bother with this sort of charade when his victory is at hand? It's gotta be Colonia. He can teleport, you know," Buff said.

"I guess," Lemon said. "Colonia! Whattaya doing man? The world's gonna end in about a half-hour! Hey, guy?"

Colonia fell back to the ground, barely conscious.

"Can ya bring him in Lemon? My hands are full with this bike."

"No problem," Lemon said, and she poked her pitchfork under the collar of Colonia's jacket and lifted his limp and unconscious form.

"So we did save at least one person," Buff said.

"If you wanna call him that."

"Oh, he's a person. Maybe not a human being in exact terms, but a person nonetheless. I mean, am I a person? Are you?"

"I guess you're right Buff. It's just--isn't this guy a sword?"

"Yeah, he was some god's sword. But he had a life power all his own."

"Nice," Lemon said.

Inside, Chamomile and the others were busy figuring out how to airtight a portion of Yellowhaus in case the atmosphere of the alternate world was unbreathable. Then Buff and Lemon came in with the bike and Colonia the Sword.

"Look what we found, Chamomile!" Lemon said, smiling, her little fangs sparkling in the fading sunlight.

"What the--it's one of The Libertine A-Wave!" Sulfur exclaimed.

"I thought they had all died," Chamomile commented as she approached, "but it makes sense that Colonia might have escaped with his teleportation power. But how did he know to come here?"

"And did O'Riley follow him?" Sulfur wondered.

"Aw," Lemon said, dropping Colonia gently onto a table, "me and Buff figure O'Riley is too busy destroying the universe to care about any of us."

"That may be," Chamomile said, turning toward an instrument panel, "but I hope everyone's in, cuz I'm sealing Yellowhaus."

With that, she pulled a lever and a loud chime echoed throughout the structure. 

"Nothing will ever come into or go out of Yellowhaus in this world ever again," Chamomile said.

"What do you mean?" Buff asked.

"Another of Yellowhaus's many secrets. Reality seal. It takes Yellowhaus slightly out of phase with the current world, thusly still allowing observations but preventing any passage in or out," Chamomile said.

Suddenly Canary began whooping and hollering by a window.

"Look!" Sulfur said. "Out the window! It's Universe O'Riley!"

All five rushed to the bay of windows and saw the horrific form of Universe O'Riley hovering in the middle of the yard, pointing at them.

"Damn!" Buff said. "Are you sure we're safe? Are you sure he can't follow us into the other world?"

"I believe we're safe," Chamomile responded. "Look."

O'Riley raised his other arm and made both hands into fists. Soon, a massive windstorm overtook the area, getting more and more powerful each second. Before they knew it, trees started to uproot and fly away, as the ferocity of the storm grew.

"It's totally quiet in here," Sulfur remarked.

"That would make sense," Chamomile responded. "Only visible light can pass back and forth between in here and out there. No sound."

Buff continued staring at O'Riley for a few moments, then suddenly tackled the other four, knocking them all to the ground.

"Close your eyes!" he yelled, still on top of them.

"What the fuck!" Canary yelped.

"Stay down and keep your eyes closed!" Buff yelled, his enormous voice echoing through the silence of Yellowhaus. "Visible light! Don't you get it? He could mind control or even kill us with his power. Pulses of hypnotic light! He could have shut our hearts down in a blink! He could have made us do anything!"

Suddenly, violent pulses of light began to flicker from outside, barely perceptible by the five, their eyes tightly shut. 

"Damn that O'Riley!" Chamomile yelled. "Have to opaque the windows! Have to get to the control panel!"

"Keep down!" Sulfur yelled. "Shield your eyes! If you can see the light even a little, he could get through with his power!"

"Damn!" Chamomile yelled.

"I'm over here!" the five heard a weary voice say from within the room. "On the table! It's me, Colonia the Sword, from Libertine A-Wave. I have eye protection on. Tell me where to go and I can close the windows.

"Shit," Chamomile muttered. "Okay Colonia! You're right by it! Just get off the table away from the sound of my voice!"

"Got it!" Colonia yelled.

"Now--" Chamomile began.

"--what if he's under O'Riley's control? How can we trust him?" Buff yelled.

"We have no choice, Buff," Chamomile answered. "Now Colonia, walk forward and to the right. You should feel the counter there. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Now, move to the right along the counter and you'll feel a dome shape."

"Got it," Colonia answered after a few seconds.

"Okay, that's it," Chamomile said. "Feel for a ring. It's on the upper-left of the panel. Just pull on the ring. It's the only ring there."

The intensity of the pulsing light increased. A few tense moments passed.

"I can't find it!" Colonia yelled.

"Damn!" Chamomile exclaimed. "Okay, feel for a lever, then--"

"--I got it! The ring! Just pull?" Colonia said.

"Yes! Pull it! Just pull it!" Chamomile responded.

Suddenly it was dark.

"Whew!" Buff puffed.

"Get offa me you throw rug!" Canary yelled.

"Someone get the lights!" Sulfur yelled.

"You called?" Lemon asked, as the room was bathed in the hellish yellow glow of her pitchfork.

"Great. But can we get some real lights?" Sulfur said, getting up.

"I'll get 'em," Chamomile said, already on her feet.

"You're all very lucky," Colonia said, taking the opaque goggles off his eyes. "He was going for the kill, not mind control or hypnosis or anything like that. You were right when you thought he would shut your hearts off--that was his intention."

"So what now?" Buff asked.

"Well, he can still see Yellowhaus," Chamomile said, turning the lights on. "But other than that, he can't make any contact with it."

"So will he be able to follow us?" Buff asked.

"No," Colonia said. "He's locked into this world. There's no turning back for him now. He has to go through with it--destroying himself in the process. But we've defeated him in a little way--he'll face his doom knowing that he failed to destroy everything."

"That's a comforting thought," Sulfur commented.

"Well everyone," Chamomile said from the control panel. "We transport in 26 minutes. All we can do now is wait."

"Yeah," Sulfur said.

"It's creepy, knowing that guy is right outside!" Lemon said with a shiver.

"It's creepy with you in here! Whoop!" Canary said.

"Roll over, boy," Lemon said.

Canary growled at Lemon with a smile.

"So Colonia," Chamomile said, looking the fellow over, "how'd you manage to escape from our friend Mr. O'Riley?"

"It's a long story. For now, let it suffice to say that two of my teammates sacrificed themselves that I might survive to tell the tale."

"But how did you know to come to Yellowhaus?" Chamomile asked.

"I had suspicions about this place. Call it 'weapon's intuition' if you will. I just had a gut feeling you could help us. And as it turns out, you're at least helping me, and maybe through me Libertine A-Wave can live on."

"Well friend," Chamomile said. "We're happy to have another ally on our journey into unknown territory. Let's just hope our flight lasts more than 25 more minutes."

"Indeed," Colonia said. "So we are off to another world then, really?"

"Really," Chamomile said.

"Hmm," Colonia said with a sigh. "The adventure continues."

"Except," Sulfur cut in, "all our friends and relatives, and everyone we ever knew, will be dead and gone."

"Oh Sulfy! Don't be such a party pooper--this is fun!" Lemon said.

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CHAPTER 2
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Sitting in his room at the Supbam Hotel in Agoopish as Bright (the thing that passed for the sun here) was rising, Daptin Gone didn't want to make the phone call.

He ran his hand through his long green hair and leaned back in his chair. His mind was wandering, seeking avenues of thought engaging enough to justify delaying the call. He looked out the window at the city below, at the people starting to throng, at the weird hospitals in the distance, at the unpredictable Tuhalont River.

He'd been in a hospital once. Cringing, he recalled in vivid horror the terminal illness he had had, and how he somehow beat it, and that Glorious Place, and how things hadn't seemed to be working quite right.

He mulled over the matter, as he had done so many times before. This whole superlife of his, which seemed to casually annihilate the infinite suffering of his miserable diseased state. Crushed it like stepping unknowing on a little spider.

The miracle cure that people didn't like--they thought he'd been faking it. Escape down to Baskonontana, to college in Gullia Fair. Recruited into a dimension-hopping company of weirdoes, Overwhelm Associates. And then introduced to these cities, these hidden Avert Cities... and Agoopish was the one he called home.

It all started in that Glorious Place...

Such a wonderful day, such an excellent location. Walking up the grassy hill, perfect sunlight and breezes, Daptin saw the rock and the fox on top of it, jumping off. Near the rock was a blackboard with the words "Here is Canyon" scrawled across it.

The little red fox trotted toward Daptin and said, "You're late. Oh so very late."

Daptin stopped. Fox approached and sat.

"I knew you were still here," Fox said. "Sit, and I'll let you know what you missed."

Daptin slowly sat down in the grass, mind racing, all so familiar. It was the beautiful smell in the air more than anything else.

"We're so far along," Fox said, shaking his head. "So few left."

Daptin took a deep, deep breath and smiled in recognition. He knew Fox, somehow. The furry fellow was familiar.

"And I'll be departed myself before the next Time," Fox continued. "So few left."

"Who?" Daptin asked, his voice sounding unusually rich.

Fox sighed.

"Twenty-five, including you and me."

Daptin took a moment to think about it.

"Twenty-five?" he asked, dumbfounded. 

"Yes, and all of you were so far scattered that we only found you two Times ago. The absolute bottom of the well. All that's left."

Daptin tried to remember more, but couldn't.

"All the others have departed, returned to their Lives," Fox continued. Then, looking up at Daptin. "Who will find it?"

Daptin met Fox's eyes and was struck with the little fellow's deep aura of being.

"It?" Daptin asked.

Then something happened. The beautiful environs disappeared, and Daptin was back in his bed at the hospital in his native country of Arctica. He'd been there, asleep, before Fox had somehow called him into that other world. It had just been a few minutes earlier, by his reckoning.

Daptin panicked as the pain of his Hizzings Disease returned in a massive wave of horror. There was a game show on the TV as he looked over at his roommate, Tag, who was sleeping. The pain made Daptin angry, and he tried to get out of the bed, but he only managed to nudge himself a little and get light-headed.

Half-conscious, Daptin saw a nurse walk into the room and emit a shocked "What?"

She ran from the room, but her exclamation woke Tag, who looked over.

"Holy crap! How'd you get back, man? We thought you did yourself in. Where've you been?"

Daptin struggled to form the words through dry lips.

"How long... have I..."

"What, three or four days? I dunno. So where you been?"

"I don't... know... for sure."

"Huh. Well the police will sure want to talk to you. They grilled me for a couple of hours, y'know, man. They thought your family or maybe your girlfriend took you away and helped you commit suicide the easy way, man. Without a judge."

"No," Daptin managed.

"Well you have a lot of explaining to do, Daptin, my man."

Daptin grunted.

How frustrating it was, being strong and healthy one minute and so weak and pathetic the next.

The nurse returned with a security guard.

"Look!" she said, pointing at Daptin.

"What the--everything's hooked up. The machines--who set them back up?" the guard said.

"Nobody!" the nurse said in her irritating nasal voice. "Nobody here, anyway. Maybe whoever took him away put everything back?"

"Well, we can figure all this out later. The police are on their way," the guard said, looking quite glad to have something interesting happen on the job.

"Should I call his family?" the nurse asked.

Daptin wished she would just shut up.

"No--let the police take care of that. We don't know who's involved," the guard said.

"Okay," the nurse said, as she approached Daptin's supine form.

"Can you hear me?" she asked.

"Yes," Daptin managed.

"Do you know where you are?" the nurse said.

"Hospital."

"That's right. But where were you?"

Daptin couldn't stand that voice so close to him.

"Leave... me alone."

"We'll leave you alone once we figure out what in the name of Locket is going on," she said, hovering over him.

Then she removed the covers from Daptin and began examining him.

Daptin couldn't stand it, the misery of being taken care of by such an idiot. But he knew how to escape. Somehow, he knew.

"Here is Canyon," Daptin said with some difficulty.

Instantly, the world shifted. and Daptin was standing in a room with a window, looking out onto Canyon.

He was back in his regular clothes, and healthy again, as he had been with Fox. He looked around the room, which was carved out of rock, and saw a number of tables and comfortable-looking chairs, along with an opening in one wall leading into another room.

From outside, which was sunny and beautiful, he heard a distant "Hahoo!".

Daptin moved to the window, looked out, and saw someone approaching from below. Soon, he saw it was a young woman flying up toward the window. He backed away, and a moment later she approached the window and hovered there for a moment.

"Yes!" she exclaimed, and did several backflips in midair.

Daptin stood still as the pretty girl flew into the room, landed, and stood before him. She was short, with long, full blond hair, and a wonderful, whimsical blue-and-white outfit.

"You're the one who didn't make it. Did you see Fox, then?"

"I did," Daptin said.

"Cool! What do you think about it?"

"Um, I think, uh, it's pretty good, I guess," Daptin managed.

"Good. Do you remember me?"

She did look familiar, but Daptin couldn't place her.

"Sort of."

"Well, you seem familiar, but likewise, I don't quite remember. My Lifename now is The Tracy Taciturn. What's yours?"

"Daptin. Daptin Gone."

"Pleased to see you again, Daptin."

"Uh, same to you, Tracy."

Tracy looked out the window.

"I love flying. It feels so good to be doing it again. Can you believe we're all that's left? Well, except for Fox. But he's leaving. That means we have a chance to make up for our rotten lot in Creation."

"Is anyone else here?"

Tracy turned to face him.

"Oh, just one other. The rest are off in search of the it, I suppose. They must know what they're doing, unlike us."

"Yeah."

"Assuming you came here like me to get a handle on what's going on."

"That's a reason."

"Cool. So how much do you remember?"

"Not much."

"Well, that's alright. Deskerhilm seems to know everything. He should be up in a while--doesn't fly you know. Do you?"

"I'm not sure."

"Wanna try? It's great. Please, you must."

"Okay, what do I do?"

"Well, I guess, you could just jump out the window, but that wouldn't do if you're not a flyer."

"I'd fly, but only in one direction--down."

"True. So why don't I carry you along, and you can let go if you feel your Flight."

Tracy approached Daptin, and put her arms around his waist. Before he could react, she flew out the window upside down, holding Daptin on top of her. They soared out over Canyon and Daptin took in the majesty of the place for the first time. And he enjoyed the tight embrace.

"What do you think, Daptin?"

Daptin wasn't at all apprehensive. In fact, he began to feel his own Flight.

"I think I can do it," he said.

"Shall I let go?"

"No, not yet. Let me get a good hold on it."

They flew for a few more minutes, swooping and speeding all around Canyon. Then Daptin made fists and felt his Flight fully. Without a word, Tracy let go, and Daptin felt an amazing rush as he took over and was himself flying.

He soared all over Canyon and frolicked with Tracy for a long time, laughing and hahooing all the way.

Brilliant and vague. Daptin had a sense of memory, an existence before the Daptin Gone incarnation. Growing up in the suburbs of Arctica... then struck with disease just as he should have started sowing his teenage wild oats. And now the mega-glorious flying, and he knew for sure it wasn't just a dream.

The frolic was for hours, then they had to head back.

Flying next to Tracy toward the Palace in the Wall from far down Canyon where they'd flown, Daptin was struck with the irony of it all.

"I tell you, I spent so much time coming to terms with death, from the first diagnosis to my present state. So much denial, so much agony. For everyone, my family, my friends, my girlfriend. And I didn't even know. Well, I hardly knew, about all this. And now, flying... with you and everything... in this Highworld, it seems so..."

"Sounds like a pretty nasty disease, that one you have."

Daptin laughed.

"Hizzings Disease. Yeah. Still don't know how I can cure it."

"Deskerhilm will have the answer," The Tracy Taciturn said. "Fox knew Deskerhilm was beyond most of us, that he wouldn't want to get involved in it. Knew he'd help those of us who needed it."

"And out of the 24 left, or 23, I guess, we're the only ones who need help? The 21 others know what they're doing?"

Tracy shrugged as best one can while flying.

"Maybe they don't, but also don't want to seem too anxious for help."

"What were they like, the others?"

"Oh, a mixed lot. Most were human. Some were--well, some were beyond description. 44 Times is a long time, especially for those prone to mischief and wandering from the Path."

"Yeah."

Tracy picked up speed and Daptin matched it easily. They were going so fast that they couldn't hear each other when they tried to speak, so they didn't.

The Sun was setting as they reached the Palace and flew into the same room Daptin had arrived in. Deskerhilm was waiting for them. 

He looked up from the book he was reading and greeted them. Daptin was a little shaken at Deskerhilm's appearance. He was a very short, stocky creature, with a barely humanoid shape. He was a brown-gray color, and his skin resembled a cross between rock and reptile. His face had an ancient, calm look to it and vaguely resembled a toad. He had an air of might about him, but also an air of patience and benevolence.

Suddenly, the strange little fellow held up his hands and backed away from the two.

"No! No! Cannot be!" Deskerhilm said, and like a video camera falling off a table, the world collapsed.

And it was back to the hospital, where the scandal began. Daptin yowled in pain, thought he was gonna die any minute. But an hour later he was in a peaceful sleep. A day later he was fully cured.

The memory of Canyon was still there, but blurred. And saying "Here is Canyon" from then on gave him a strange buzzing feeling, but didn't transport him. It felt like a signal blocked.

A signal blocked... a signal blocked...

Back in the present and the hotel room, Daptin was shaken out of his musings by the sound of a massive explosion in the distance. From that weird bomb test place? Maybe. But now, he just had to make the call.

Had to make the call... picking up the phone as confused memories danced in his head... home from the hospital and totally healthy... they all thought it was a hoax, that he did it for symapthy and to go on his "end journeys"... he had to leave his homeland of Arctica... he went south, to Baskonontana... to Thatterine College in Gullia Fair...

The end journies... a great four months... the grand tour of Arctica, paid for by willing donations from his hometown... folllowed by two years of evil disease. How could they think he had faked it...?

Dialing... dialing...

He heard the phone ringing on the other end as he twirled the cord around his arm. Out the window of the suite, he saw morning dawning over Agoopish. This had to be the most way-out phone call ever made, being that it crossed the boundaries of no less than five worlds. 

"Hello?" came the unfamiliar high-pitched female voice on the other end of the line. 

"Uh, yeah. This is, uh, Daptin. Can I talk to Eb?"

"Mr. Traipse is in a meeting at the moment... tee hee," said the voice, giggling.

"What? A meeting? What time is it there? Tell him it's Daptin, he'll wanna talk to me."

"I'm sorry," said the gleeful, sing-song voice.

"Look, this is a very long-distance call, and I have to talk to him. Page him or something, y'know? It's like really important."

"Chee hee hee!" 

"Now wait... who is this? Huh? Let me talk to Diorama or Bliss, or anyone!"

Daptin heard more tittering and the phone being dropped. In the background, he heard some people talking loudly, but he couldn't make out what they were saying.

"Shoulda known not to call Greatwall at midday," Daptin grumbled to himself as he stood up and walked over to the window.

He surveyed Bright continuing to rise up over the diverse buildings of midtown Agoopish. Far below he saw hordes of denizens going about their mucky lives. Soon he'd be out there too. Mucky too? Not very. He knew this would be a fun day.

"Damn," Daptin muttered.

He walked over to the TV and switched it on, turning the sound all the way down. On the screen was an extreme close-up of a bearded fat guy, making all sorts of goofy faces at the camera. He'd seen the show before--a whole half-hour of this guy's silly expressions, accompanied by cacophonous polka. Another example of Adlai Blankablark's lack of firm footing in reality. Daptin wasn't the only one counting the days till Earth cable TV would be piped into Agoopish. They already had it in the free city of Boltpike, so the only barriers left were political. But he was sure Agoopish would get it before the other god-ruled cities, Ocpadusk, Blamnoom, and Felptash.

A commotion like the sound of banging pots and pans came across the phone line, and Daptin was about to hang up and try another Overwhelm Associates number when he heard the phone being picked up. 

"Yes. Hello. Hello?" came the voice of Eb Traipse.

"Hello," Daptin said.

"Yes, who is this?"

"It's Daptin! Daptin Gone. Remember me?"

"Oh, yes. Hold on a second, would you?" Eb said. Then, raising his voice, he said, "We can't have this! Tell them to keep it under control! I'm not kidding! Mr. Fife will not be happy! ...Daptin?"

"Yeah."

"How kind of you to call. We half thought you were dead or working for Thewsike by now."

"No. I'm fine. But, like first, what the hell is happening over there?"

"Oh. Well, don't spread it around but we have a faery problem here. A lot of them are running amuck all around here. You know we can't have this."

"How the hell'd they get there?"

"I'm afraid Ms. Arcomany is to blame. She uncovered a faeryland on Barley Sine Earth and a troop of the buggers stowed away in her cloak."

"That was a faery on the phone before?"

"My god they're answering the phones now! Letevs will have my head!"

"I'm sure Treyess will own up to it."

"That's not what I'm worried about. It's been a few hours and none of our anti-faery protocols are succeeding. This breed is respectably robust."

"Hmm. Well, I'm glad I'm not there."

"Where are you, by the way, my dear boy?" Eb said.

"Um. I, uh, I'm around, y'know, around the Alley, the general Red Alley area kind of place, y'know."

"You sound like you're calling from right next door."

"I, uh, wouldn't go that far, Eb."

"Heh heh. So what do you have to say for yourself? You're in violation of about a baker's dozen company policies. You're not working for Thewsike, are you? Please tell me you're not."

"No, I'm definitely not like anywhere near working for the Unreal Sixty-Four."

"So what are you up to?"

"I, uh, I've just been hanging out on the Alley. I've been pretty fed up with Overwhelm lately. I mean, I know scheduling's a thing, but almost twenty months and I still don't have bridging? I mean, huh, I'm convinced you guys just didn't want to see me able to bridge. And I mean, if you don't want to teach me, fine, but just come out and say it. And all the bullshit coming out of Greatwall is just, like, really weird. No one believes you guys anymore. What the hell is Fife's problem? We all know Overwhelm is military, so why's he trying to hide it so much, from his own warriors?"

"Daptin, I know where you're coming from, but you know I don't make the decisions around here. You could learn to bridge anytime if you took the initiative. Now, let's cut to the chase, now. Are you coming back or not? And are you working for anyone else? Bestroystraw? Rogues?"

"No no no, none of that. I'm just taking a break, whether you guys like it or not."

"Will you be back?"

"Yes! Yes, I will be back. Just, it won't be for a while. That's why I called. I don't know if I'll be welcome, but I will be back, but not for a while."

"Like how long a while?"

"Like, I don't know. Like a few more weeks, a month. I don't know."

"Okay Daptin. We don't want any trouble. Our main concern is loyalty. We understand if you need a break, but you could have called sooner. But if you have had another offer or any contact from another company, I advise you to tell me now, since I'll find out sooner or later anyway."

"No Eb, it's just a break, and I haven't called cuz I've been pretty pissed-off, that's all. I will be back, but I don't know exactly when. But it might be like a month or at most like two. Okay?"

"Alright Daptin. You know where I stand. I hope to see you back here soon. You're not the only one feeling the strain around here. And Daptin, do you have a number where I can reach you?"

"Um... I'm not sure if I can give you this number--hold on."

"Well do you have a number of someone who can then get in touch with you? In case of emergency, you know."

"I know, I know. Um, I guess I can give you this number. It's the switchboard at a hotel I'm staying at. I uh..."

"Which hotel on the Alley is it?"

"Um, it's like not exactly on the Alley, but real near it, um."

"Which Earth is it on?"

"Look, I better not give the number out. You have the number at my apartment and I have a machine there. Just call there if you have to."

"Okay Daptin. I hope to see you soon. You are okay, aren't you?"

"Yes! I'm fine. No problem."

"Well, take care."

"Bye bye," Daptin said as he hung up the phone and looked over the buildingtops at the distant Agoopi hinterland.

Eb wasn't such a bad guy, but Overwhelm Associates was a really annoying company to work for. Daptin totally wanted to quit, but he had the legitimate fear of losing contact with all the friends he had in Aconck. Maybe this was why they never taught him bridging--the art of travelling between Earths--to keep up the pressure to remain loyal, to keep him needing the bridging services the company could provide. It made some kind of sense, that the ability to cross over into an alternate Earth was not something they'd be overly eager to share.

--------------------------
CHAPTER 3
--------------------------

"A year?" Lemon screeched, an abstract cosmic wonderland drifting by outside the window behind her.

"Please," Chamomile said, cringing and holding her finger to her ear. "There's no need to shout. You'll burst all our eardrums."

"Okay! I'll be quiet! But a year! We have to hang out in here for an entire fucking year?" Lemon said, not much quieter than before.

"Okay," Chamomile said, turning to an information screen. "As you know, Kimberly only gave me an overview of Yellowhaus's systems, but from what I'm seeing here, our flight time, or whatever you want to call it, will be something like 410 days."

"Great," Sulfur said. "You gave us the impression we'd be instantly transported to another world, and now this? Talk about a letdown!"

"Sulfur!" Chamomile said. "Would you rather be dead like everyone else? Wake up! I don't think you've absorbed this yet--the world is destroyed. Everyone is dead."

"Yeah but still, five minutes into our journey and we find out this. What's next? I mean, do we even have enough food? Oxygen? Supplies?" Sulfur said. 

"You underestimate Yellowhaus," Chamomile said. "That kind of stuff is no problem. All you guys getting along for a year--now that's a problem."

"Hey! We can spend some quality time together!" Canary said.

"Shut up," Lemon said.

Suddenly, Colonia the Sword moaned.

"What's wrong, Colonia?" Chamomile asked.

"Oh dear--this is not good," Colonia said, looking very pale. "This is not very good at all."

"What is it?" Buff asked.

"I was afraid of this," Colonia said, a look of panic beginning to spread across his face. "The god who granted me my humanity, Crinim--he's gone. It was his power that allowed me to assume human form. I never worried about it, huh, you know--Crinim was immortal. He was never supposed to die. Now this--"

There was a loud cracking noise and Colonia jolted backwards, his hands moving to a position straight against his body, and a blank look appearing on his face.

Chamomile jumped forward and grabbed Colonia before he fell backwards. But it was no good--she could feel Colonia shrinking and hardening with every passing moment.

"Someone help me!" she yelled.

Buff approached Chamomile.

"What can I do?" he asked.

Chamomile felt a sharp pain in her hands and reflexively let go of Colonia, now halfway back to being a sword. He fell to the ground with a dull clang.

"We can't do anything," Chamomile said. "He's just another casualty of O'Riley's madness."

"Well--he'll still be conscious, won't he?" Sulfur asked. "I mean--he was conscious as a sword, no?"

"Who knows!" Canary yelped. "I like it how he's transforming! It's cool!"

"Shut up, you heartless idiot!" Buff yelled at Canary. "If it was you, you wouldn't think it was cool!"

"I agree with Canary," Lemon said, putting her arm around Canary's shoulders. "It's cool."

"Don't listen to them," Buff said. "They're just trying to annoy us."

"They're succeeding!" Sulfur quipped.

At this point, Colonia was in the final stages of returning to sword-form.

"Let's just hope he retains his mind," Buff said gently.

The five members of Yellowhaus watched helplessly as the transformation became complete, and Colonia was a sword once again.

"At least he's a nice-looking sword," Lemon commented.

"You're such a monster!" Chamomile yelled at Lemon. "Why did I ever let you join this team in the first place?"

"Cause I'm so cute!" Lemon said.

"Yeah. That was it," Chamomile said sarcastically.

They waited silently for a moment, all staring at the sword.

"Should we--I don't know--pick him up?" Buff asked.

No one answered.

"Can he talk, do you think? As a sword?" Chamomile said.

"As far as I know, from the legends," Sulfur said, "those intelligent swords and spears and stuff could only communicate if someone was holding them. You know--telepathically or something. I don't know."

"Well, I guess I'll touch him and see if he can talk to me. Sound good?" Chamomile asked.

"I guess it's all we can do," Buff said sadly.

Slowly, Chamomile knelt down and touched her right hand to Colonia's hilt. She had a look of intense concentration for a moment, then spoke.

"He's definitely here. His thoughts are jumbled--I guess from the shock of the transformation--but he seems okay. Wait--I'm getting something--'sorry, need time to recover, give me time'."

No one spoke.

Chamomile closed her eyes and concentrated.

"Okay," she said. "I told him we'd let him rest and recover. Let me ask him if it's okay to move him... Yes... He says it's okay. Alright. I'll put him on the counter here."

With this, she gingerly took Colonia by the hilt and lifted him to the countertop, keeping him parallel to the ground at all times. When she set him down, she breathed a sigh of relief.

"At least he's still with us," Buff said.

"Thank goodness," Chamomile said, frowning in thought, narrowing her eyes, and carefully examining Colonia. He was a most exquisitely-crafted weapon, she thought. She had a flash vision of the thrill of using such a sword in battle, contemplating the notion of adopting him as her primary weapon. But she pushed back these thoughts. Too selfish...

"That was cool!" Canary yelped.

Buff strode over to Canary and grabbed the mad dog guy, holding him up in his massive paws.

"Shut up, man!" Buff boomed. "You're such a stupid jerk! I'll tear you apart!"

Canary thrashed about wildly, white froth foaming out of his mouth.

"Put him down!" Chamomile yelled. "We're in for a long ride! We have to learn to get along! Please Buff--you're the one I was depending on to keep the peace."

Buff dropped Canary down roughly. Canary's body was limp, and he laid there with his eyes staring into nothingness and his tongue stuck out.

"Oh no," Buff said quietly, stepping back.

"You killed him!" Lemon yelled, pointing her pitchfork at Buff.

"Oh come on!" Chamomile moaned. "He's just faking it! He always does that!"

They all looked at Canary for a few more moments, then the madman burst out laughing.

"You fucking jerk," Buff said, turning away.

"Okay, come on people!" Chamomile said. "We have to get our act together! Sulfur, Buff--come with me--we have to go down--way down--into the depths of Yellowhaus. I want to corroborate this 410 day reading. Okay? Lemon--you keep an eye on Canary. Keep him away from Colonia! I mean it!"

"No sweat, chief," Lemon said, saluting.

"I hope not," Chamomile said, descending a spiral staircase with Buff and Sulfur.

Lemon smiled and nodded, and Chamomile looked back one more time to check on things.

"Man, I'm so tired," Canary said, still on the ground. "I'm gonna take a nap, wake up from this crummy dream. Grumble, grumble."

Canary then curled up into a fetal position and smacked his lips a few times.

"Pleasant dreams, doggy," Lemon said, a sly smile crossing her face. "And while those party poopers are gone, I have a nice little spell which might help Swordie here. What a nice devil I am--always saving the day!"

Lemon then walked over to the counter, grabbed Colonia, and lifted him up before her.

"Okay there fella!" Lemon said, sensing Colonia's confused thoughts. "You'll be all better in a minute--thanks to Doctor Lemon!"

The devil girl set her pitchfork aside, and lifted Colonia up higher with both hands. Then she began uttering a spell in her native Infernal tongue. Almost instantly, Colonia was surrounded with a shower of jittery, multicolored sparks.

Chuckling with glee, Lemon set Colonia on the ground and backed away.

"Lemon!" Chamomile yelled from the stairway. "What are you doing?"

Lemon turned, surprised, wearing a mock-innocent, "uh-oh" look.

"Oh hi Chamomile! I thought you were..."

Chamomile did not look happy.

"...uh," Lemon continued, "you know! Going downstairs with the boys, uh..."

"What did you do!" Chamomile yelled, jumping forward.

"Just, y'know, trying to help!"

Just then, the shower of sparks grew into a spectacular storm, swirling and filling half the room. A deep, resonant, bass rumble began to rhythmically beat.

Lemon backed away, then turned and ran to the stairway, kneeling beside Chamomile.

"I know this looks bad, but believe me--I did it with the best intentions!" the devil girl said.

Chamomile said nothing, but watched, transfixed, as the maelstrom of sparks slowly began to coalesce. Soon Sulfur and Buff were back, running up the stairs.

"What is it?" Buff yelled.

Chamomile looked down and held up her hand. Then she looked back at the mystical display, where the sparks were now definitely in a human shape.

"See?" Lemon said. "I did it! I did it! I healed Colonia! I brought him back!"

Chamomile looked at the devil girl, wondering whether to thank her or strangle her. She thought again of how cool it would have been to have an intelligent sword, but she put that selfish though aside.

"Look!" Lemon shouted.

The sparks quickly died down, revealing a supine form, definitely human, but...

"See?" Lemon said. "My spell worked!"

Chamomile stood up and moved forward a little, to get a better view.

"Wait a minute," Chamomile said under her breath. Then she moved forward a little more. "Wait a goddamn minute!"

"What?" Lemon asked, trying to look innocent.

The sparks and rumblings were totally gone now, as Canary began to snore loudly. Chamomile slowly walked forward.

"Oh come on," the leader said. "Son of a bitch."

Lemon got up, and started toward Colonia also.

"You gotta be kidding!" Chamomile said.

"What is it? What is it?" Lemon asked, walking forward.

"Look for yourself!" Chamomile said.

Lemon looked at Colonia, who while still unconscious, turned over and faced the two.

"Crap," Lemon said.

Colonia was now a cute devil girl--horns, fangs, voluptuous body, pointed tail--the works. The former sword looked vaguely similar to her previous human manifestation--black hair, tattoo on cheek, etc. But that was pretty much where the comparisons ended.

Chamomile gave Lemon a look--a look which said more than words can say. Lemon smiled innocently, revealing those dangerous fangs.

"Um--at least he--uh--she--isn't a sword anymore!"

Chamomile didn't say anything.

"I didn't know! My 'grant humanity' spell always worked fine on other things! How did I know he'd decide to go and look like he could be one of my sisters?"

Chamomile still didn't speak.

"Oh it's not that bad! You know one of me isn't enough!"

"Lemon," Chamomile said, striving to remain calm. "You should have consulted me first. Does the fact that I'm the leader of this team mean anything to you or Canary?"

"Um, yeah. To me at least. I don't know about Canary," Lemon said, then in a more animated manner, "But I just couldn't wait! I had to try my spell! All I wanted to do was save the day!"

Chamomile sighed.

"Okay Lemon. You will be the one to explain to Colonia exactly what has happened to him--er--her."

"No way! Not me!"

"Lemon--that's an order," Chamomile said, then turned away. "If my orders mean anything to you anymore."

Lemon was silent for a moment, but then she spoke.

"Oh, okay. Aye aye, captain. I'll do it."

Chamomile looked back at Lemon.

"Thank you."

Lemon waited a few moments, then asked, "Why'd you come back, anyway?"

"Because, I had to write down some information from the main screen. Which I guess I'll do while you explain your little stunt to Colonia--it looks like... she is coming to!"

Colonia moaned and opened her eyes.

"Dear goodness, what is this?" she said, holding her hands up in front of her face and sitting up a little. They were slender female hands, with wicked sharp fingernails.

"Lemon?" Chamomile said, looking over from the screen.

"Oh okay!" Lemon said, kneeling down beside Colonia. "Um--Colonia? Um--there's something, I, uh, have to tell you. You know how you--well, how you turned back into a sword? Well, I mean, I know you're gonna be upset, but when, uh, when the others went downstairs, I, uh, I tried a little spell on you, you know, to bring you back to being human? Well it worked--pretty much. I mean, you're back, but, you know, the way these things go..."

Colonia looked down at her gorgeous female body with a puzzled expression on her face, then she stared right at Lemon.

"Um," Lemon said. "I kind of cast the spell on you and you kind of, um, took on, um, some of my physical, um, characteristics."

"Some?" Colonia said, in her new, sultry, devil girl voice.

"Well, maybe more than some. Maybe a lot."

"Maybe all," Colonia said.

"Hey, at least you're not a carbon copy of me!" Lemon said brightly.

Colonia stared at Lemon.

Lemon bit her lip. "I'm sorry. I can try and reverse the spell if you want."

"No," Colonia said, easing her expression a little. "I'd rather be this than a blind, deaf, and dumb hunk of metal any day."

Lemon sighed and laughed a little, and Colonia sat up. Buff and Sulfur exchanged glances, at a loss for words.

"You don't know what it was like, being a sword again," Colonia said, tears welling up in her eyes. "It was the most horrible pain. I couldn't bear it. I hated being a sword! I swore to never go back! And now--and now---you've saved me!"

With this, Colonia embraced a shocked Lemon.

"Thank you so much," Colonia said.

"Uh, no problem! Glad to be of assistance!" Lemon said, sticking her tongue out at Chamomile across the room.

Colonia eased her embrace and backed away from Lemon.

"You really saved my life," Colonia said. Then she gave Lemon a little kiss on the lips. "I'll get used to this body."

Lemon smiled and sat back.

"Hear that everybody? I saved the day! Me, Lemon! I did it! What would you all do without me?"

Buff and Sulfur didn't answer, but continued staring at the stunning beauty of this new Colonia, disturbing and dangerously delightful thoughts running through their minds.

--------------------------
CHAPTER 4
--------------------------

Ah, the wavy day today, the day of lust in the breezy hills and woods, the rain before and the bus ride after. Steamy talk and amazing car crashes in the dull evening, the formula for happiness tested in weird ways. Never before such a meandering of the emotions, never again the fragile entity of a simple drizzle. The slam in the face of an air conditioned room, a couch and a television cauterizing the vulnerable opening moves of a flower of earthy innocence.

She looked down.

The confusion of the good day, she sighed. Wonderful incision ignition, but stunted. Stunted under the swift heavy thumb of the matter-of-fact. A glimpse into a remarkable existence, but snuffed and abandoned.

Tavmatey Numblem was the girl here, and she was on the couch and the TV was warming up. She had just returned from a little sojourn into the country, a little excursion with her friends. And there were so many new feelings and so many expectations, that now, back here, she felt robbed, even violated. That the promise of the pungent day was smashed was a sorrowful and stunning complication. 

Solace? Solace in fantasy?

No. Not this time. It had been too close. All of her dreams and desires revealed chessboardlike on the hilly terrain--this was no passage. This was a sign, an indication. This vision, having fallen apart so enthusiastically, must contain more meaning. 

A bad TV show came into view. Tavmatey pounced upon the set and shut the damn thing off. But not like a cat--rather, like a great clumsy moron. She crouched, holding the TV set for a moment, and regretted her ungainly private motion. 

So the time was at hand to decide. So it would only be a few moments until she passed into the next sequential state, until she put the picnic out of her mind enough to go on to another subject. But in that instant--how could another subject be as urgent and delightful as this?

So she got up and grabbed a lamp from the table and turned it upside down. This, she declared to herself, was the symbol of the meaning of the picnic. As long as it was inverted, she would have to mull over the significance of the outing.

So she lounged on the couch in the invert light, and she bathed in the angles of force of her seething intelligence.

Now Tavmatey was not exaggerating things. No, today was certainly a day of great import. Her past visions of lust and ecstasy, of the spiritual and physical merging with mud and the grass, of the ideals of intellectual freedom and artistic flights of genius. All of these were there at the picnic, and now it was ended, but she needed to continue it. The only problem was, that while the group as a whole seemed to work in terms of her ideal vision, she could not see any of the individuals really grasping or representing her design. What was to be designed to craft a good continuance? She wondered.

The day was gone. It was night.

As a gnat flies into the corner of your eye in the summer, and your blink annihilates it, and you feel its cold corpse clinging to the edge of your eyelid, and you wipe it away, and you're momentarily away from where you are, having dealt with the gnat, that was in a way what she felt the day had done to her. Obliterated her.

Now it was sex. The lust of earthy sex that excited her mind. But the sex she'd had up till now was anything but lusty and lurid. It was drunken and tense and with stupid boys. Dummies, emotional midgets, true bastards and bastards in the making. Shallow coreless automatons, who were just about worthless. 

She bemoaned the fact that she had to judge some people without value. Indeed, her ideals spoke of all people being equal and having equal worth. But in reality, and quite honestly, this was not the case. Some people were very excellent, with all sorts of value, but others were stupid and childish, and not on the way to getting any better. So Tavmatey had to admit that her ideals of pure equality were indeed hogwash. 

No, she thought, most people are not very excellent. Most people are jerk-offs. But there were the cool people. People who really felt and really thought and really experienced life and who really interacted with the roller coastings of existence. But these were few and far between. But this was not the main problem.

No, such cool people could indeed be sought out, and relationships with them nurtured. But the problem was that the picnic was gone, and Tavmatey knew not how to resurrect it at 10 PM on Sunday night. 

We hate bad people and we like good people and we love those people who aren't really good or bad. Don't be busy being clever, experience life. But this maxim sucks, see, this credo to experience life is a lot of bull. You need lots of money to experience life. And a job drains your life from under you. So not that many people can experience life.

That notion that you can do anything you want as long as you put your mind to it--that was also a false statement. You can't do anything you want. Most dreams are unattainable, no matter how hard you try. For most people, they're simply unqualified and unable to achieve, so they put their energy into adaptation and resignation, so that their failure doesn't taste so bitter. So that they can live with the Arctic stings of a life's defeat. And Tavmatey knew she was headed there herself. And she knew that naught but dumb luck could save her. So the phone rang.

It was the bastard dumb luck calling, to deliver that which she so yearned after. The delivery would be quite massive and complete, and she would be thankful, yet screwed, but would gain wisdom in the long run. For what was to be delivered was not so much pure as it was gritty and dirty, as was life. But it was better than most other courses available that month. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

"Hello?" Tavmatey answered.

"Hi," answered the awesome sex kitten Sleap. "I have the coffee."

--------------------------
CHAPTER 5
--------------------------

"Now Canary, tell me more about your home life."

The luscious devil girl Lemon sat in a chair, legs crossed, hair done up in a bun, with glasses on, and writing notes down in a little pad.

The wild dog fellow Canary was lying down on a little couch next to Lemon.

"Mommy spoiled me doc, what can I say?"

"Don't you have any gruesome, shocking, nightmarish memories to tell your doctor now, Canary?"

"Um... nope!"

"Now how do you expect me to psychoanalyze you if you had a good childhood! Hah?"

Canary sneezed a nasty sneeze.

"You're the doc, you tell me. Arr arr arr!"

Lemon lifted the glasses off her nose a little and stared at her patient.

"Well now! Finally some progress! An unexpected burst of animal aggression!"

Just then, Chamomile came into the room. Colonia the Sword, in her new devil girl form, followed.

"Oh, now what the hell are you doing now?" Chamomile said impatiently.

"Psychoanalyzing Canary to find out why he's so crazy," Lemon said with a smile.

Chamomile looked away, took a sharp intake of air, and bit her lip. "Lord, give me patience."

Lemon's eyes locked with Colonia's and there was a vital spark between them. Colonia smiled and motioned with her head and eyebrows toward another part of Yellowhaus.

"Lemon," Chamomile said, bending over to pick up a mess of scattered magazines on the floor, "we still have well over a year before we reach our destination--could you please try and have some consideration for the rest of us?"

Lemon eyed Chamomile's athletic, graceful form. Adorned with her loose yellow martial arts clothing, Lemon appreciated the contrast between the beauty and the deadliness of Chamomile. She liked Chamomile, even if she did so enjoy taunting her.

"If I cure Canary from his craziness, that'll help us all, boss," the psychoanalyst devil girl said.

Canary yowled wildly.

Chamomile stood up and threw the magazine back on the ground.

"I mean it! Please make an effort to clean up after yourself and make yourself useful! "Chamomile said. "I know you want to help people, and that's commendable, but don't do it at the expense of others!"

Lemon gave Chamomile a salute.

Chamomile gave Lemon a grimace, and then turned and left.

Lemon turned to Colonia.

"What a grouch! She has to learn to calm down!"

"Maybe you can psychoanalyze her, too," Colonia said with a sexy smirk.

"I wish."

"So when you're done with Canary there, think you can help me out? There are a lot of peculiarities, being a devil girl. I never imagined. I don't know how you deal with it."

"Oh, I'll be more than glad to assist you--just let me finish up with the carpet here."

Canary went limp, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, panting.

"He sure is nuts," Colonia said.

"Yup. And that's what I aim to fix!"

Just then, a big snore came from Canary.

"Asleep again!" Lemon exclaimed. "Is it narcolepsy, or just plain laziness? I must investigate further! But all in good time."

Lemon got up and crossed the room to Colonia.

"Come on sister. We have much to discuss."

Lemon led Colonia by the hand. Soon they came to Lemon's room. It was an eclectic mix of cushions, gold and brass decorations, paintings from Hell, and a few torture devices.

"Like it?" Lemon asked.

"You know, I think I do," Colonia said slowly, sitting down on a sofa. Lemon sat down next to her.

"Now Colonia, I know what you must be going through. Being a devil girl is a tough business. But you're lucky--I'm here to help!"

"Yeah--it seems like being a devil girl might be rather great, it's just these feelings, these images, these urges..."

Lemon held her fingers to Colonia's lips.

"Shush. First things first."

Colonia nodded.

"Now," Lemon said. "The first thing we have to work on is your name. 'Colonia the Sword' just won't do. Too dull. What other names have you been known by?"

Colonia frowned in thought and looked away.

"You know--I don't know. I guess I've been called a few things in my time. I was forged as Colonia, but one of my owners called me Becamman the Stordred."

Lemon shook her head.

"He said I was his insurance against marauders from the hills. Huh. That was a long time ago," Colonia said.

Lemon smiled.

"Insurance... his insurance... that's it! Insurance! That's a fine devil girl name! How 'bout it, sister?"

"What--to change my name to 'Insurance'?"

"Yeah--isn't it great! Has a real nice feel to it! Very sinister, yet very alluring at the same time--exactly as you want it to be!"

"Hmm..."

"Give it some thought. Give yourself a minute."

Colonia nodded and though about it.

"Well?" Lemon said after a few seconds. "Whattaya think? Is it you, or is it you?"

"Um, I think it could work..."

"Yeah! There you go! I, Lemon, Princess of Hell, hereby dub thee 'Insurance'! Congratulations!"

Insurance raised her eyebrows and gave Lemon a sarcastic look.

"Well, I guess I can live with that. Insurance. Huh. At least it'll help me get farther away from my past, from being a cold shaft of steel, from the pain of living like that."

"That's the spirit, Insurance! Get into your new life! Oh sister, we're going to have such a wonderful year together in Yellowhaus as we near our destination! I have big plans for you!"

"I hope I can live up to your expectations."

"You will, Insurance. You will."

--------------------------
CHAPTER 6
--------------------------

Keepy came into computer center. The warmth of the place was a little euphoric in contrast to the snowstorm seen through big windows. And the smell of distant fireplace fires recent to her, her hair pure white, the college was almost empty.

A funny-looking guy with long hair was talking on the phone. He was the only other person in computer center, and he was at the admin desk.

"I think feBDA beta 4 came closest to replicating that function," he said. "No, no man, I don't know what they're thinking with beta 5, it's way too ambitious. Yeah they're never, never... yeah they're never gonna keep at it long enough. No. I mean even the substances routines, wood types, and fruit... and the basic shapes... shopping..."

Keepy was sad and felt some computers. The other her was miles away, the one from yesterday. And she knew there were snowflakes that wouldn't hit the ground tomorrow.

"Yeah Vipe, yeah let me go. I got a customer. And yeah, I totally agree about the stop-motion characters, there's like no way, y'know? Later."

Keepy looked at the guy and kinda smiled. His T-shirt had silly cartoon characters on it, faded. She would have had the goth look except she never wore black. Her heart was heavy, and almost crying she took a deep breath and shut her eyes for a few seconds.

"Computer center seems weird, so empty," she said.

"I know, but that's the way I like it. I got a lot of projects I want to work on while it's still Jan Term, and just look at all the free computing cycles all around us! I think I'm gonna try and make the longest number ever, using like every single computer. Well, the longest number to have arithmetic functions perfomed on it, that is."

"It sounds cool."

"Yeah well anyway, is there anything I can help you with? Didn't you... didn't you used to come in here a lot, like back in September, October?"

"Yeah. A lot of my friends were into some of the games here."

"Did you ever play bgBDA? I thought I saw you playing it a couple of times. That's my version of BDA. BG, Burchard Gnake, my initials. I don't even know how it started, but everyone names their BGA clones with their initials."

"So you're a programmer?"

"Well yeah, y'know, I do spend a lot of my time with that. I've actually been working on my BDA again over the past few weeks, but I think I'm gonna kinda lay off it for awhile. It's just a pointless obsession."

Keepy cocked her head.

"What's the deal with the whole BDA thing anyway? I heard that a couple guys programmed it like 12 or 13 years ago, but they lost the original program? And what does it stand for... something disaster something?"

"Beautiful Disaster Area. It was like the best game ever. I actually got to play the original, in my freshman year. But then the summer between my freshman year and sophomore year the Froc-E4 that it was on finally gave up the ghost. And that was that. And then it was that next year that everyone started to really try and remake it, to remake it perfectly. But I really don't think it's ever gonna happen."

"So what, that was it? The only copy of it was on that computer, and the computer just broke?" Keepy asked.

"Yeah, I wish it was that easy. No, the uh, the way the original programmers made it, it was a kind of self-modifying code. It was like, every time someone played it, the actual program itself changed. That's what was so great about it. But over the course of time, the program became so radically different that there would have been no way to derive the original from the modified. And that's what was so cool about it. Just such a primitive computer, and like you'd play these characters going through these worlds, and there would always be new things, new discoveries. I remember when I was playing it, I got into this whole fairy tale, nursery rhyme kind of place, and everybody said that in ten years, no one else had found it. And I have the transcripts to prove it."

"Transcripts, huh?"

"Yeah. Anyway I mean, can I help you with anything? Did you want to get onto one of the computers?"

"Nah, I don't want to take computing time away from your giant number."

"Ah come on, one computer's not gonna matter."

"Well, okay... Burchard was it?"

"Yeah y'know, Burchard, Burch, B, whatever."

"Well hello Burch," Keepy said, and shook hands with him. "I'm Keepy Hawkfossil. And I think maybe I want to take another stab at that game of yours. If I remember correctly, I think I liked it."

Burchard regarded Keepy. She seemed so sad, she seemed on the verge of tears again. They locked stares and Burchard was honestly compassionate.

"Or maybe," Keepy said, accepting the compassion, "I just need to... I just, I just have to talk to someone."

"Well, sure," Burchard said after a pause. "I mean, definitely. You want to go over to the lounge, like over there, y'know, we could talk... not like I have a lot to do here."

But Keepy hesitated, a complex expression on her face.

"Are you okay?" Burchard asked.

"I'm okay. Let's go sit down."

They walked over to the lounge, with some comfy orange couches, and a good view of the snow coming down.

"Gotta love that snow," Burchard said.

"Burchard I... I have to ask you something before we start talking. I just want to know what you... what you think about your future. How do you feel about it?"

"My future? Well, I mean, I'm a senior, and I'll be outta this place in a few months. I'll probably be heading home and... look for a job. I'm really excited about computers, y'know, a career in computers, because they're advancing at such a geometric rate. In a few years the computers are just gonna... dwarf... dwarf all the computers of today. So I really want to get into a good place, work on all the cutting edge stuff. I don't know, that's what I really want."

"And Burchard, do you... do you have a girlfriend? Here, or back home? Anyone special to you? Are you close with your family? Do you have really good friends here that you think you'll keep in touch with? Or friends from home that you have kept in touch with?"

Burchard's eyes widened as he considered the question.

"Uh, that's... I don't know. I do have a girlfriend, but I don't know if I want to spend the rest of my life with her. My family's okay. And I have friends. But what is this all about?"

"Look Burchard, I want... I want to be very honest with you about this. I have a story, my personal story, to tell you. But by telling you I'm going to be putting you in a terrible position. I don't know. I don't know if it's terrible but... but I just have to talk to somebody about all this. It's driving me crazy."

Burchard reached out and touched Keepy on the arm. It was a compassionate touch, not a sexual advance type touch, and he made sure his body language conveyed that.

"What is it, what's driving you crazy? Come on, how bad could it be? Just tell me... I give you permission, whatever bad situation it'll put me in. Come on."

She looked up at him. Definitely a goth thing going on. She was short and slim and tragic. Young face, but not-so-young eyes. The eyes made Burchard slightly scared for the first time in the encounter.

She put her index finger sideways between her lips and squeezed, looking intensely toward computer center. She finally shook her head and sighed and faced Burchard.

"Okay, I'll tell you. I know I'm gonna tell someone eventually, so I might as well get it over with. Burchard, you are looking at a time traveller. A time traveller who's not very happy."

"What?"

"A time traveller. I'm a time traveller. You don't have to believe me, I could easily demonstrate it to you. But I'd rather not. So just, just hear me out. I just want to tell someone what I'm going through."

"Look, hey, I'm open to new ideas. I'm really, I've been really into time travel kind of ideas and all that. Don't worry. Just go ahead, it's no problem. I'm glad to help."

"Okay. Okay, I'll tell you. The world is going to end at 4:22 PM and 32 seconds. That's less than 5 hours from now. At that time, the world will just disappear. I know, cuz I've seen it happen. I've seen it twice. The first time, it turned my hair white. White all over. The second time wasn't as bad. I guess I just knew what to expect."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How could you know when the world was gonna end? If you were there, if you saw it, why weren't you destroyed too?"

"That's not the way it was. I... can feel time... it's hard to explain, but I can feel forward and back, future and past. And soon after I got my power, I realized there was a problem. Because I realized that I didn't feel anything past 4:22 PM on this date, Monday, January 12, 1687."

"So you... time travelled to investigate?"

"Yes. I did. The, y'know, ending was about 8 years in the future from where I was. I had perfected a way of being in two times at once. Just two times superimposed. I practiced a lot. I figured, if I passed into the nothingness, or whatever it is, I'd still be anchored to that other time, so I could pull back. So that's what I did. And that other me, who I was over 30 years ago, will be performing that experiment in five hours, about 200 miles from here."

"What, here?" Burchard asked.

"Yes. Here. This time. I did it. I waited... I was so scared. And then, the clock at 4:22:31... and right when it should have gone to 32, it happened. Void. Nothingness. Cold. Emptyness. Loss. I was there for less than a second. But it took me weeks to recover. And my hair turned white, just like that."

"So wait a minute. You're saying that this event is going to occur... today?"

"Yes! That's what I'm saying. That's why I'm so sorry I told you."

She reached forward and held his upper arms, and started to cry. He awkwardly and slowly moved into a hugging position.

"It's... okay," he said.

"No it's not. If I hadn't told you, you would have just disappeared and never knew it. Or maybe you'd just keep going, maybe it's just me who can't get past that point. I don't know, I just don't know. I'm so lonely... and I have to go back in time again... set up a new life for myself again..."

"Now wait, wait," Burchard said, and broke the hug, pushing her gently away. "What do you mean, set up a new life? If you're a time traveller, why not just travel through time forever. There's gotta be more than enough to, y'know, explore."

"I do! I do do that. But a lot of stuff about past times is disturbing. Violence and bad smells, and lots and lots of fucking assholes. I'm telling you, people are real assholes in the past. Don't get me wrong, I like visiting the past. But I like living in the present, in these days, the eighties. But once 4:22 finally came the first time, for real, I had to say goodbye to everyone I loved. All my friends, my family, everyone. I couldn't just go back to my life in the past, because I was already there. If I went back, there would be another me there. And I'll do anything not to be around another me. It's creepy, it's just wrong. I wouldn't do that to myself, to my family. So I had to go back, start a new life for myself. New friends, new loves. But I stay close to 4:22. I stay close. I should go back farther, but I don't like living in those times. I like these times."

Burchard's mind was racing.

"But why not... why not bring everyone back with you? I mean, can you transport other people?"

"Yes, yes. One at a time, but I can do it. But that's not the problem. The problem is, I have no idea if the world ends for everyone at 4:22, or if it just ends for me. There's no way I can know. I cannot personally get past 4:22 PM on January 12, 1687. But I can't say for sure that the world is ending for everyone else. So to tell people about it, take them back in time... it may be depriving them of a true, rich future."

"Wow, I see what you meant when you said it would put me in a bad situation."

"I'm so sorry."

"No... you know, it's weird. I remember reading that with BDA, if it was played every day, it would inevitably crash in mid-January this year. Yeah like, every time the program self-modified, it writes to a portion of the disk. So when it inevitably ran out of room, the disk would crash and the program would be completely destroyed. But they said it would be around this time, mid-January. Of course, the computer died three years ago, from other causes. But that is just too weird. Unless..."

"Unless I'm making all this up. I know, I know."

"No no no, no, I'm not saying..."

"I tell you, I don't know," Keepy said. "I'm 52 years old, and I still don't know. I don't know if it's just me."

"52? What the hell are you talking about? You're not 52. There's no way."

She smiled at him, tears streaming down her face.

"I didn't expect that it would happen like this. But time itself, maybe, is repulsed by the thought of time travellers. Won't touch people like me maybe. I haven't aged a day physically since I started time travelling. And you know what? I'm not a 52-year-old woman. I'm a 22-year-old woman, who's just happened to experience 52 years. And, I assume, hundreds and hundreds of more years to come. Wow. I can't wait."

"I can't really process this," Burchard said. "How exactly do you do this time travel? How did you get this power?"

"I really don't want to talk about that now. I just want to say that... I'm tempted to face the end again. Try and hold on for more time. Maybe it's just a few seconds of void that I need to get through! There's no way to know. But if I could get through it... I'd get back not just one, but four separate lives, one of them being here at Thatterine College. But I have to get past 4:22..."

"Keepy, let me tell you something. If you really are a time traveller, I have to say that all my life I have wanted to travel through time. If you want someone to go with you, to help you, I would go without any hesitation, even if it meant throwing away my entire future, I would go. I mean I think you might know this, I mean... my game... it deals with time travel a lot. Is that why... is that why you chose me to talk to?"

She breathed heavily and stared at him and was thinking deep.

"Keepy," Burchard said, "if this is true, the whole time travel and everything, it's like what I always wanted. If it's not true, then you're just misguided and everything will be fine. But the worst thing would be if you don't take me with you, and I flash out of existence knowing I could have been a time traveller."

"I'll be honest. I was looking for someone like you, maybe subconsciously... but someone smart, someone who could help me, potentially. Help me get past 4:22."

"Keepy, if you can take me back in time, let's do it. Let's just do it right now. I'm ready, willing, and able. Let's just do it."

"Okay," Keepy said, and she touched Burchard's hand, and in an instant it was 40 years earlier.

--------------------------
CHAPTER 7
--------------------------

Sleap sat at her new desk figuring out her new signature. At the top of the sheet of paper she had done a number of her old "Sleap Drassy" signatures, and now at the bottom she was trying to figure out how to make "Sleap Jankels" look good. She couldn't. No matter how she tried it, it never even looked remotely correct.

She'd just gotten married to Jean two weeks earlier, and had returned from their dizzying honeymoon that morning. She thought of Jean, who was taking a shower, as she kept writing "Sleap Jankels" over and over again. What was she doing with her life? It didn't matter, she thought. At this point, you have to go along with it for a few years, you made the choice, you said yes, you have to give it a chance. The doubts seemed perfectly natural to her. They didn't bother her.

But Jean Jankels--there was something about him, a side of himself he revealed on the honeymoon, that...

BASH! BASH! BASH!

Sleap looked up, shocked. Someone was bashing the door down. She started to get up, but stopped, thinking better of it. 

BASH! BASH!

Her mind was racing.

KERASH!

The door was down. She should run to Jean, warn him. Did he still have the gun from the honeymoon? She didn't know.

She heard a man yelling orders. The door next to her was almost closed--she gently pushed it shut.

She could hear the voices distinctly now.

"The Helloid scanner's goin' nuts!" a husky voice roared.

"In there!" a man with a deep voice yelled.

"That's it!" a woman said. "It's in there!"

She heard the bathroom door being kicked open.

"It's in the shower! Babel, the Exorsault better be ready!" the husky voice yelled.

"It is!" the woman yelled back.

"Here goes!" the guy with the deep voice said.

Then a sound came to Sleap ears which blew her mind apart. A shrieking wail, that made fingernails on a blackboard seem like a church bell. It was pure pain, pure horror.

The shriek continued but it was joined by a weird sort of deep bubbling noise, eerie and pronounced. She couldn't believe that at some level she found these sounds enjoyable.

After a few moments of these noises, which seemed really like forever, there was a dull pop, followed by the sound of liquid splattering on the bathroom floor.

"One less demon," the husky voice said.

What had happened? Was Jean being attacked by a monster and these people saved him? It seemed the logical explanation. Slowly, Sleap opened the door and peered out. An Asian man covered in equipment and reddish gooey stuff looked over at her.

"Miss?" he said in his deep voice.

Sleap stared at him, unable to move or speak.

"What a mess!" she heard the husky voice say from the bathroom.

"Better this one mess than the multitudes this guy would've slaughtered," the woman said.

"You said it," the husky voice mumbled.

The Asian man looked from his cohorts, back to Sleap, then back to his cohorts again.

"Uh, guys. There's a lady out here."

"Huh?" said the husky voice, as its owner came out of the bathroom, a large man with a full beard and mustache, likewise covered in equipment and gore. He regarded Sleap.

"How were you related to that thing in the shower?"

"What thing?" she asked.

"The demon."

"What about my husband?"

The large man looked down. The woman came into view behind him.

"The only thing in that shower was a demon," the woman said, a grim expression on her cute face, her long black hair fouled up with red junk.

Sleap looked over at her desk and slowly nodded her head. 

"That would explain a lot," Sleap said dreamily.

"Ma'am, we're sorry," the Asian man said.

Sleap just looked at them, a complex expression on her face.

Suddenly, a beeping sound started going off, and the large man looked at something on his wrist.

"Demon attack at the Farzound Shopping Center!" he exclaimed.

"Oh no!" the Asian man said. "How could they have found out? What if they..."

"Come on! We have to get there fast!" the large man said, and the two men started running out. 

The woman started after them, then paused, and turned to face Sleap.

"I know this must be terrible for you, and I wish we could stay, but the fate of the whole continent is at stake!"

Sleap made a "yeah, right" kind of confused sneer.

"Here--take our card. Give us a call if you need any help!"

Sleap took the business card and nodded.

"Have to get to that shopping center!" the woman said.

Then the woman ran out, and the stench of the pile of demon remains started wafting across Sleap's nostrils.

She looked down at the card.

"Demonbane, Inc." it read. "There's no demonic problem we don't have the solution to!"

Huh.

Jean was a demon. She had married a demon. Now he was a pile of smelly guts on the bathroom floor. How did those jerks expect her to clean it up? Did she have to call the police? What about Jean's family--did he really have any? Or were they all demons too?

Before she would think any more of the consequences of this event, she moved back to her desk and wrote her signature, "Sleap Drassy" in a large and undeniable manner across all the little attempts at "Sleap Jankels".

Suddenly, a blast of hot air hit Sleap, and she looked over into her new bedroom. It was now full of smoke and lightning, with a horrible orange light visible in the distance. Slowly, three figures could be seen approaching through the mist. 

Somehow, Sleap was unfazed by this. Her apathy shocked her, as she stoically glanced at the approaching figures. Then a thought shot across her mind--act normal. Act like you should. Don't let them know. Don't let them know you're unimpressed.

So she started acting. She got up and put her hands to her mouth in fear, as if she were trying to let out a scream but was too scared to. She moved toward the door, but it immediately slammed shut. Big surprise, she thought.

The three figures were getting closer now. She regretted that she couldn't get a better look at them, as she was trying her best to seem panicked, banging on the door and crying for help.

"Heretic," a cold, haywire, monstrous, calm voice shot out.

She turned and sank to the floor, her back to the door, trying her best to sob uncontrollably.

The three figures were in the room now. The main figure was a tall humanoid being, covered in levels of leather and chains, but a few openings around the face and hands suggested deerlike origins. The other two figures wore brown cloaks, and had deformed pitch-black faces partially visible.

The three were still hovering as they approached Sleap.

Don't let them know!, she continued to think. This is fantastic! What fun! At some level, she wondered why this should seem enjoyable. Really, it shouldn't.

The central figure raised its hand and pointed a leather-clad finger toward Sleap.

"Filthmate. I accuse you of heresy."

Sleap looked up at the ridiculous creature, biting her tongue to keep herself from laughing.

"Who... who are you?" she said, wishing it sounded more convincing.

"I am Infernal Accuser Zefzec. You will accompany Infernal Hosts Slarb and Winti to Hell."

"No!" she wailed out.

But she let the Infernal Hosts approach her, each taking an arm. They lifted her up, and they all started hovering back into the rotten orange light. She felt exhilarated.

As they drifted lightward, one of the hosts looked over at her. Yeah, maybe she had stopped her "being-frightened" act too soon, but it was too late for them. And she could have just gone into shock or something, that could explain to them her lack of fright. Going to Hell would be somewhat overwhelming for a normal person. But wasn't she normal? No.

The special effects of the transfer to Hell were pretty good. Horrible sights, smells, and feelings. Pretty bad. Meant to beat even the most stalwart humans into senselessness and submissiveness. Sleap hardly batted an eyelash. To her, it was pathetic.

Finally, they approached a plateau, where Infernal Jailors were waiting to take her into custody. She only had to be transferred into their hands and she could stop the charade. But she had to remain convincing until then, because the Hosts still had the power to take her back. Once in the hands of the Jailors, though, she could cut loose.

This was a part of her that had been suppressed for a long time. But it felt good to have her true nature back. And she knew she'd enjoy her stay in Hell.

The Accuser drifted to the Jailor and began conversing with him in an Infernal tongue. The hosts stopped well back, waiting for the sign. After a minute of two, the Accuser wiggled his thumb, and the Hosts approached.

The Accuser turned.

"Filthmate, you are hereby placed into the custody of Infernal Jailor Hamt."

The Accuser drifted away, and the Hosts took Sleap forward to face the Jailor.

The Jailor, a huge, horned monstrosity, grabbed Sleap's arms with two hands and slapped on restraints with two more. The hosts drifted away.

Sleap was looking down, and felt the gaze of the Jailor upon her. Suddenly without warning, she looked up at the creature--a crazy, intense smile on her face. 

"Hey there Jailor Hamt! How ya doin' today!"

The Jailor grunted and moved back. 

"Oh no ya don't!" Sleap said, walking forward, her bonds dropping to the ground with a clank. "I'm your charge. You're responsible for me. Right, boy?"

"Emergency!" the Jailor bellowed.

Sleap gestured with her right hand and the Jailor doubled over in pain.

"You're correct, you little shit. I am a Looter. And I intend to suck this Hell dry before I'm done!"

"E... emer... emergency..." the Jailor wailed with some effort.

Sleap stretched her arms out and yawned a satisfying sigh. She thought of how glorious it would be dismantling this Hell piece by piece, packing it up, and selling it to the highest bidders.

"Damn, this is fun!" she yelled.

Forty-eight devils surrounded Sleap Drassy, forming the dread Unknowable Curse, a force beyond all reckoning. Sleap was bored. There was work to be done.

"Don't feel bad," she said. "I've done a lot of Hells, and your powers are pretty impressive. You should be proud of yourselves."

Suddenly, 18 satans hovered in a chaos-drive above Sleap, attempting to cut away her identity from 804 levels of existence deep. She felt it, but barely. This got her mad.

"You fellows are quite talented, but this isn't a contest, it's a slaughter. Now be good little farm animals and learn!"

With this, Sleap swung her left arm upward. Immediately, beyond-grotesque wails of the suffering Infernals filled the stale air. The devils were writhing in unbelievable pain on the ground, soon followed by a rain of falling satans.

"Just come here!" Sleap said, annoyed.

After a few moments, a Lord appeared a few yards in front of Sleap--a huge, stately, antlered beast--the number one guy--Lord Ac. He stared calmly at Sleap, smoke and little black balls pouring from his several sets of nostrils, a dull gray flame pulsating around his form.

"Hi guy," Sleap said.

Ac raised his huge arms, then folded them across his chest.

"I assume you want my cooperation," the Lord said, sounding like distant thunder.

"It would be nice. Taking your Hell apart and packing it up would be a lot quicker with the help of your sad little minions."

Ac stared at Sleap, then blew a huge blast of smoke and balls.

"You're so sure of yourself. So vastly more powerful than I. Proud Looter. Already planning to take our Heaven too, I assume."

"I don't do Heavens. Too much whining."

Ac stood still and silent. Sleap rolled her eyes.

"Okay look!" she said, impatiently. "If you help, you're free. If not, you'll be sold into slavery like the rest. And I hope a Lord of your stature knows enough about us Looters to realize we keep our promises."

"Oh yes," Ac said, a smile starting to form on his massive, crooked mouth. "I know about you. So cool--to prey on the predators. Put us in our place."

Sleap frowned.

"If the next two words out of your mouth aren't 'I accept', you're history. Though you'd fetch a high price as a slave, I'll obliterate you right here and now."

"I..." Ac said, his smile widening.

"Come on big boy. You can do it. And think, once you're free you can start building again--who knows--you could have a few good millennia before another Looter comes this way."

"...will fuck you into ground meat and keep you alive like that for a hundred years--after that, I'll just be getting started!"

"Like, wrong answer," Sleap said, making a fist, and fully expecting Ac to be a smoldering smear of protoplasm the next instant. It didn't happen.

"Hahaha--prey on the predator--so cool," the Lord rumbled. "I know how it feels to be so much bigger, and now so much smaller, compared to the glory of you. Maybe you might feel small sometime. Maybe that sometime is..."

Sleap's expression turned to worried, as the hot Hell all around her silently shattered away, replaced by a featureless white void.

"You are now the prey, Looter," she heard the voice of Lord Ac say. "When you chose my Hell to ravage, you chose the wrong Hell. For I am in contact with the Infernal Voc-4-Iopa-9den."

"Huh?"

"You, my friend," Ac said, "will be a fine addition to the Infernal Voc-4-Iopa-9den's Looter Zoo. And here the one is."

Sleap got a sinking feeling. She had long had suspicions of entities more powerful than her kind, but she never expected to encounter one. Now...

Voc-4-Iopa-9den came into view, all around Sleap as she floated in the white void, coming from at least 14 dimensions at once. At first Sleap was absolutely dizzied and zonked by the sight, but soon, a familiar feeling came to her. She was unimpressed. She yawned.

And yet again, she became aware of more and more of herself. She had plans for this Voc-4-Iopa-9den, and the ultimate prize was at hand. But she had to act normal--act like a Looter facing the impossibility of a massively more powerful thing. So she expressed her force, emanating energies which could easily have annihilated the grandest of gods, rising ever more, beyond the point any of her kind would ever have dared, for fear of erasing all of everything. But still she was getting nowhere. 

Voc-4-Iopa-9den was coagulating into something vaguely understandable, but to Sleap, the hyper-ultra-inconceivable thing before her was laughable.

Ac spoke.

"Perceive the impossible, Looter!"

Voc-4-Iopa-9den, definitely more violet than not, somewhat tall and vertical, maybe an arm, maybe a face somewhere, communicated.

"Precious little Looter, you made the bad choice in Ac's Hell, you see."

"I've lived by the sword, so now I'll die by the sword. Fair is fair."

"Spoken like a true Looter. Like all the others in my Looter Zoo. Kmy-7zy-holp3a has a place for you."

Sleap felt energies moving her way, tearing her apart across innumerable axes, transporting her in unlikely ways. It kind of tickled.

Suddenly, she was in a cage in a strangely-lit void. She could maybe see some more cages in the distance.

"Your friend Ac has been rewarded," Sleap heard Voc-4-Iopa-9den say, though the entity wasn't visible. "You, little Sleap, are quite a prize. The four quintillionth Looter in Zoo. Now I can sell Zoo and get that which I desire."

"Whatever," Sleap said. She was slowly getting some idea of what this was all about. She was after something. Voc-4-Iopa-9den would trade her, along with the other 3,999,999,999,999,999,999 Looters, to some other entity, and it was there that she would find what she desired. What a plan, what a fucking plan. It was just dawning on her how much time she'd spent planning this.

"Trade-ingo," Voc-4-Iopa-9den said, coming into view briefly. What followed was a timeless period of hemi-reality, followed by several ages of confusion and anti-nothingness. Finally, there was some semblance of graspable reality, and Sleap found she was still in the cage, but with nothing visible outside. No blackness, no whiteness, nothing. Her eyes were open, but absolutely nothing could be seen beyond her cage. 

She made the heact and rose into her fullness. Resplendent to be full again. And here, in this place. Plan, yeah it was about 900,000 years in the making, so what. She was herself and here in this place, where a Zoo of 4 quintillion Looters was a minor artifact. And out of the 222 octillion artifacts here, but one interested her. She grasped it.

The other entity here, Kmy-7zy-holp3a, screamed in a way only such a thing could scream. She communicated with it as best she could. To her now, it was as a barking dog, this entity so high a Looterkin could have never imagined. She held it at bay without as much as a thought. And she took the object.

She had it. Finally. After so long. She had it. Everything was so clear, of course, everything was laid out before her. And she understood. Oh yes--she understood. And she was happy. And she returned to Earth.

Back in her apartment, Sleap briefly regarded the putrid remains of Jean Jankels, and then snapped her fingers, going back in time a few years. And she strode triumphantly into the living room, setting her prize on a little table. She picked up the phone and dialed it. It rang a few times.

"Hello?" Tavmatey Numblem said from the other end of the line.

"Hi," answered Sleap. "I have the coffee."

--------------------------
CHAPTER 8
--------------------------

"You doin' that mission today, man?" the long-haired Minion Van Hall said as he entered the room.

"Hm?" Daptin said.

"Weren't you gonna do a mission for Cursive Caxopy? Like a secret assignment?"

"Yup. Today's the day. Have to prove our mettle as mortals. You know Fake's coming with me."

"Yeah I heard. So how'd you get in with that Caxopy chick so soon? Me 'n' Martin 'n' Tanner've been busting our balls to start this whole mortal thing going. Y'know man?"

"Well, you guys haven't stayed in Agoopish the whole time like me and Fake have. You have to make a commitment to get things up and running."

"I know. Fake's like totally abandoned her life on Earth."

"I sort of have too," Daptin said with a shrug.

"Yeah. At least there're phones here. If not, it'd be tough."

"Uh-huh."

Minion sat down on a low couch and Daptin walked across the room and opened a closet.

"So Daptin man, I hear you found it with Spanking New Sarah?"

Daptin turned, holding a jacket in his hands.

"What, does everyone know about this now?"

"No man, just like, y'know, all of us. Hear your friend El was pissed."

"She was. Very."

"Were you like going out with her?" Minion asked.

"I spent like a week-and-a-half hanging out with her," Daptin said, "day-in and day-out. It's like, she's a goddess man. Maybe she's not the most gorgeous goddess, but she's pretty damn nice. I was like in torture in wanting her so bad, y'know man? I tried to, y'know, let her know in little ways and stuff. And she seemed into me and stuff, but I dunno. She was just--like she said after she found out--that she wanted to get to know me before getting physical, but I was like, I didn't think it would ever get that far."

"So what happened?" Minion asked, cocking his head and resting his index finger on his temple.

"I, y'know, I started to like not spend so much time with El and sort of met a different group of gods, and me and Sarah hit it off right away, y'know, and she was like totally into it and I was in no mood to resist or anything. So, like, we did it."

"Man! You're the first to find it with a goddess! Man, I'm like--it's like I'm pissed-off man! I gotta do it. I gotta do it."

"It's definitely an experience. Well worth the effort," Daptin said.

"So what the fuck's it like? Are they different? Is it like, y'know... what's the basic situation with it?"

"Uh... it's like being in another world," Daptin said. "I mean, I know we are in another world already, but it's like, I don't know, total bliss, total astral. Like an energy, total ecstasy. Nothing dirty--totally transcendal. It was like the most amazing thing. It's almost... almost like, I dunno, it's so fantastic, but like, it's so great that it's not like sex at all. I mean, it's too involved. I don't know. I'm not saying it's not the best or anything, just that it's not like totally better than with a normal human, y'know, like a regular girl."

"I don't know man. It sounds totally excellent. I don't know. I think I'm getting pretty close with a few of 'em. You know like Holly Scroll Bonnie? She's like so cool."

"Yeah."

"So what's the deal with you and El Flactor Floor? Are you still, like, seeing her?" Minion asked.

"Nah," said Daptin. "When she found out about me and Sarah, she said she didn't want to see me for a while. She said she understood, but that she was still hurt by it. I mean, like, what did she expect?"

"And Sarah?"

"I'm like, y'know, I'm a little burnt from doing it with her. I mean, like I said, it's totally different. I mean, I feel like I almost need a rest. Y'know?"

"Yeah. But like, couldn't it be just her? I mean, couldn't her power mantle have something to do with it? I mean, might it be, y'know, different with different goddesses?"

"I guess. I guess that makes sense."

"I hope I find out. Like I hope I can do like a research paper on it, and like compare all of them," Minion said, chuckling.

"Well there're only a couple of hundred, you know."

"Yeah, but there are three more cities with the goddesses, don't forget," Minion said.

"I know, but we're definitely Agoopi mortals, and the other pantheons probably wouldn't view us with much favor."

"I don't know man. I've heard about mortals who work for gods in all four cities, you know, just to who pays the most."

"Yeah, but no one can trust 'em. It's like, I think you totally have to choose a city. Y'know? It makes sense. So that the gods and goddesses trust you. Y'know?"

"Yeah," Minion said.

Daptin put the blue jacket on and looked at himself in the mirror, running his fingers through his full head of dark green hair.

"I look like a total dummy. I have to look cool to be a cool mortal who goes on cool missions. Right?"

"You look about as good as an Arctican can, Gone."

"Hah hah. Very funny. I thought the Arctican jokes would stop once I gained all this power, but I guess that was too much to hope for."

"And c'mon man, we're not all that powerful yet. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, dude. Now we have to know our place in the scheme of things."

"Oh shut up."

"Just trying to be helpful."

"Well, all I'll say is, I'm no stranger to power, that's all."

"Okay man. We'll see. We'll see how well you do on this mission."

"I'm sure I'll do just fine."

"I don't know. What's the mission all about, anyway?" Minion asked.

"We don't know yet. But they say it will involve going over to Boltpike."

"I was over there before. It's pretty cool."

"Yeah I know. I never went there yet. I see it on TV a lot. I guess I'll be there in a few hours."

"Yeah."

As they said this, Fake Cerquaine walked into the room, a short-haired, keen-looking girl from Spoin 5th, the dorm floor at Thatterine College where Tanner Loblolly, Martin Fovea, and Minion Van Hall also currently lived. Daptin had lived there several years earlier. 

"Ready ready ready for the mission, Daptin?" she asked.

"I'm as ready as I'll ever be," Daptin said, looking back into the mirror and fussing with his hair again.

"You look fine. We're supposed to be able to blend in, remember? No notoriety, no outrageous features. That's why we're valuable to the Caxopys."

"Uh-huh," Daptin said.

"So come on, let's go, it's getting late, and we're supposed to stop by that store on the way there to get some stuff," Fake said.

"I know I know," Daptin said. "I guess we may as well go now."

"Gonna say bye-bye to Sarah?" Fake asked.

"I can't like--this is y'know--I can't believe how everyone is like so into my life. I mean, it is sort of personal, y'know?"

"Daptin," Fake said, "you found it with a goddess. And not just any goddess, but Spanking New Sarah. You know how everyone lusts after her? And you, you go right in and score on the first try."

"What, you lust after her too?" Minion said.

"No stupid, but I know a lot of guys around here who do. And I guess a few women, too."

"Well you said everyone."

"Don't take everything so literally, Minion. I mean, when I call you a total retard I don't mean it like you're really retarded, just that you act like it a lot. Get it?"

"Got it."

"Good."

"Yeah," Daptin said with a sigh. 

"You can tell me all about her on the way to The Caxopy Group. Now let us go," Fake said, bouncing up and down a few times and turning toward the door.

"Yeah," Daptin said, following Fake to the door. "I just hope the salespeople at the store don't like start asking me about Sarah and stuff."

"You knew it would be like this, dude, before you even did it," Minion chided. "You went where no Thatter ever went before."

"We don't know that," Daptin said.

"Well, we'll just have to ask Cursive Caxopy to check her records and see if any Thatterine College student ever had sex with Spanking New Sarah," Fake said, opening the door and stepping into the hallway, followed by Daptin.

"I meant any goddess, not just Sarah the Spanker," Minion yelled after them.

"She doesn't spank, Minion. And I should know," Daptin yelled back. 

"She's just 'spanking new'!" Fake said derisively.

"Whatever," Daptin said as he shut the door behind him.

The two walked down to the elevator bay and Daptin pressed the down button. 

"Let's do it," Daptin said, nodding. "This mission is gonna be wild."

The elevator came and they took it down to the lobby of the Supbam Hotel.

"Oh look, isn't that Well Doctarca over there?" Fake said as they stepped out of the elevator.

"Yeah, that's him."

The god Well Doctarca approached the two on his way to the elevators.

"Hello Daptin," said Well, looking dark and preoccupied in his armor as usual.

"Hi Well," Daptin responded.

Well turned away from the two and faced closed elevator doors.

"What's the matter, Well?" Daptin asked after several moments of silence.

"I've no desire to converse with you," Well said.

"Huh?" Daptin said, surprised. "What's up? I mean--"

"--come on Daptin. We have a mission to go on, remember?" Fake said, pulling Daptin away.

"Uh, yeah. Well, bye-bye Well. Yeah. Well well well, let's not be too rude, shall we? Have a nice day, uh, y'know, like being friendly and all," Daptin said in a clumsy manner as Fake dragged him away. 

Well didn't flinch.

Fake and Daptin left the hotel and headed for the store.

"What was that all about?" Fake asked.

"I don't know," Daptin replied. "I know he got pissed off when I asked him a lot of questions at a party I went to with El the other day, but he was civil after that at the party. I mean--maybe it's this whole Sarah thing. That's probably it."

"You think it was wise to tell him off like you just did?"

"Frankly, I'm not afraid of these goons. They're not all that powerful, in the scheme of things."

"Goons? I think you're getting carried away with yourself. Even the most experienced mortals aren't as powerful as the gods. You know that."

"Well, maybe I'm not just a mortal--or something--y'know?"

"You're full of it," Fake said.

"So what if I am?"

"You have the directions to the store or what?"

"Yeah," Daptin said, reaching into his pocket. "Right here."

After a fifteen-minute walk they arrived at Basement-Wall-Thursday Mortal Supply.

Inside the store, Nashin-Yogo said "I wonder when those two Caxopy whelps will show up."

"Oh, I think they're here now," his assistant Confetti Plura remarked.

And the two walked into the ancient store from the weedy street outside. 

Nashin-Yogo, the tall, long-haired, mustached owner of the store addressed the two.

"Hello. You must be the two come to equip for your first assignment for the Caxopys. I'm Nashin-Yogo and this is Confetti Plura."

Confetti, a woman with short, curly dark hair and a large pair of glasses nodded at Daptin and Fake.

"Yeah hi," Daptin said. "We're uh, Elaine, uh, Elaine Caxopy told us to come over here to get like the stuff we would need for the mission and stuff, but uh--"

"--she said you'd know what we would need and stuff. I mean, we never shopped at a place like this before," Fake said.

"Hmm," Nashin-Yogo said.

"But we certainly heard about this sort of place," Fake added.

"Yeah," Daptin said.

"Well, since Elaine didn't tell me anything about the mission, I can't tell you what to get. Just browse around and see what you like," Nashin-Yogo said.

"And don't be afraid to ask for help," Confetti added.

Daptin and Fake looked around at the huge variety of things and were a little bewildered. 

"Could you, uh, like show us some good stuff?" Daptin said. "I mean, we're running a little late as it is and there's much too much stuff in here to check out right now."

"Yeah," Fake agreed.

"Well, that shouldn't be any problem. Let's see what we have around here," Nashin-Yogo said as he began to rummage around behind the counter.

"Come on up!" Confetti said, and Daptin and Fake climbed the short flight of stairs to the main counter. As they did, they noticed a weird, cloaked figure at the other end of the counter, who they hadn't been able to see before. The stranger looked over at them for a moment, and then went back to browsing.

"Now, I hope you two have some idea of what being a mortal involves. We have to deal with some very, very dangerous things," Nashin-Yogo said dramatically.

"We have some idea of it, but we're not totally familiar with it," Fake said.

Nashin-Yogo nodded as he continued rummaging behind the counter.

"Here's something good!" Confetti said suddenly, holding up a little uninflated green balloon.

"Well, you take care of 'em, Plura, I have to go help you-know-who," Nashin-Yogo said as he walked away toward the strange individual at the other end of the counter.

"What's so good about that balloon?" Daptin asked.

"It's not just any balloon," Confetti said. "It's a slay balloon. Much, much better than an average balloon."

"In what way?" Fake asked.

"Blow it up and pop it, and everything around you will be annihilated."

"Wouldn't that kill you, too?" Fake asked.

"Not at all. There's a safe area in the immediate vicinity of the slay balloon. And as an added feature, the destructive wave is proportional to the degree the balloon is inflated."

"So does it like kill people?" Daptin asked.

"Well, it'll kill killable people, certainly. No problem."

"Well Fake, whattaya think? Pretty useful, eh?" Daptin said.

"Definitely. How much?"

"Oh, you can get whatever you want and put it on the Caxopys' account," Confetti said. 

"Cool! We'll take a lot of 'em," Daptin said.

"One great gross enough?" Confetti asked, holding up a large black box.

"How many is that?" Fake asked.

"I dunno. A lot," Confetti replied.

"Sounds good to me," Fake said. 

"Sold!"

"What else?" Daptin asked.

"Let's see... oh, here's something good," Confetti said as she knelt down. Then she lifted a cinder block to the countertop. It was gray, with two large holes in it, looking a little like the Roman number III, viewed from the side.

"A brick?" Fake asked.

"A cinder block," Confetti replied.

"Does it have any special powers or is it just normal?" Daptin asked.

"Now come on," Confetti said, "at Basement-Wall-Thursday we don't sell regular cinder blocks. No, it's about as intelligent as a dog, and it can fly. Want one?"

"Let me see," Fake said. 

"Okay--cinder block, fly around the room, knock over the green vase, and return to the counter," Confetti commanded.

With this, the cinder block flipped wildly into the air, knocked over a green plastic vase, swung around the interior of the store, and returned deftly to the countertop.

"Whew! I'll take it!" Fake said.

"Sold!"

"I want one too!" Daptin said.

"Sorry, last one."

"Oh!" Daptin whined.

"Don't worry, I have something for you," Confetti said, reaching under the counter and pulling something out to show him.

"Swizzle sticks?" Daptin queried.

"No! They're fucking morons, silly!"

"Fucking what?" Daptin asked.

"Fucking morons! When you break one of the sticks, a stupid fucking idiot will soon show up and befriend you for a few days. Very useful."

"Huh? What good is a fucking moron? And where do they come from?" Daptin asked.

"They can be helpful. They carry things, confuse enemies, test food for poison, y'know. And they're extremely amusing."

"Oh man," Daptin said.

"But they don't like," Fake interjected, "they don't like fuck--like, they aren't called fucking morons cuz they like, y'know, have sex with people, right?"

"Now that's sick. You have a sick mind, girl. Of course not," Confetti said. 

"Well I had to ask, this stuff is so whacked."

"No, they don't fuck but they're quite delightful otherwise. You want 'em?"

"Okay what the hell," Daptin said.

"Sold to the enthusiastic Arctican," Confetti said, pointing to Daptin with a handful of the colorful plastic sticks.

"Thank you," Daptin said.

"What else? What else?" Fake said excitedly.

"Hmm--oh yes. Yes. How could I forget these... these... these..." Confetti said as she rummaged.

"These what?" Daptin asked.

"These... socks!" Confetti said, producing two pairs of yellow socks covered with lavender polka dots.

"Oh, beautiful," Daptin commented.

"Not only beautiful, but distinctive!" Confetti said.

"Huh?" Daptin asked.

"Distinctive time socks. Very, very useful. You know how a clock goes to 59 and then back to zero? Well--not with these socks on. You get to 99 with these."

"What?" Fake asked, examining her cinder block.

"You get to 59, just like normal," Confetti explained. "But then, with the socks on, instead of going back to zero, you get to 60. You have a whole 40 minutes to yourself--no one else around. Distinctive time. Get it?"

"What do you mean no one else? What happens to 'em?" Daptin asked.

"They all go back to zero, while you, if you're wearing the socks, go right on to 60."

"But where are the other people, physically?" Daptin said.

"Every living thing goes right to zero like I said, but inanimate objects all have that extra 40 minutes. And with these socks on, you can too," Confetti explained.

"So it's like time stops?" Daptin asked.

"Sort of, in terms of everyone else. But everything is normal, except that nothing living is there, except sock-wearers."

"Sounds pretty damn good to me! We'll take 'em," Daptin said.

"Cinder block, fly around," Fake said, and with these words the cinder block arose and began to fly haphazardly around the store. 

"Pretty cool," Daptin said. "I wish I had one."

"Well now--uh--what's your name again?" Confetti asked Daptin.

"Daptin. Uh, Daptin Gone."

"Oh! You're the one who slept with Spanking New Sarah!" Confetti said.

"That's him. My name is Fake, by the way," Fake said, jumping down the stairs to chase her cinder block.

"This is, like, nuts. How can everyone know about this so soon? If I'd known, I'd have had second thoughts."

"Yeah right. Come land gently in my hands, cinder block!" Fake said, and the block swung around and landed gracefully into her outstretched hands.

"Whoah! You're pretty heavy!" she said as she took on the weight of the block.

"Look Confetti, forget about this Sarah thing. I want something as cool as the cinder block," Daptin said.

"The socks are pretty cool," Confetti responded.

"Yeah, but there're two pairs. I want something cool and unique, just like the block."

"Daptin, cinder blocks are pretty common, it's just that that's our last one for awhile," Confetti said.

"Well."

"Okay, let me see what I can dig up," Confetti said as she turned around and started looking around on some shelves. After a few moments, she sighed and began to climb up the shelves.

"I--uh--don't go out of your way on my account..." Daptin said in a worried tone.

"Well, I have to find you something good, don't I?"

"Yeah but..."

Confetti clung onto the shelves and peered into a dark corner of a high shelf.

"Aha! What's this?"

She reached out, grabbed something, and then half fell and half jumped back to the ground.

"Oonf!"

"Are you okay?" Daptin asked.

From the other end of the store, Fake said "Do ballet, cinder block!"

"Yes Daptin. Just a little shaken. Now let's see what I got."

"What is it?"

"Oh goodness," Confetti said, looking at what appeared to be a magic marker. "Goodness."

"What is it? What is it? Is it good?" Daptin said.

"Uh..." Confetti began slowly. "I don't know if..."

"What is it? A pen?" 

"Well I'll tell you," Confetti said with a sigh. "It's a geometric weight marker, but I thought we'd seen the last of these."

"Cool!"

"But Daptin, these markers are very, very dangerous. Maybe I should ask Nashin-Yogo if--"

"--just hold on a second. What does it do, first of all?"

"Well the idea is pretty simple. The ink from the marker, once dry, begins to get heavier and heavier at a geometric rate, until it eventually bores into the ground."

"That sounds pretty good!"

"Yeah, but if you get even a little bit on your skin, it'll rip your skin right off eventually--and there's no way to stop it."

"Ouch."

Across the store, the cinder block was clumsily spinning and stumbling around.

"Ballet! Ballet!" Fake said. 

"What if you wash it off right away?"

"It works if you do it real quick, but you need the right solvent. And we've been out of solvent for decades."

"Hmm. I think I can handle it. I'll take it."

"Okay Daptin," Confetti said, "but I think you should get some situation grenades with it, just in case you get some on your skin."

"Uh--you expect me to know what that is?"

"No, so I'll tell you. They're grenades that demolish local situation and force it to reravel. So if you got geometrically marked, you could detonate a situation grenade and totally get out of the situation."

"That sounds like the best thing yet! I want a lot of them!"

"Sold," Confetti said.

"Follow me, cinder block," Fake said as she came back up to the counter. "Now land on the counter."

The cinder block landed on the counter, carefully avoiding a cup of soda Confetti had been drinking.

"I think that thing's a little more intelligent than a dog," Daptin said.

"I think it's even smarter than you, Daptin," Fake said with a grin.

"Haha," Daptin said.

"What else can we get?" Fake asked. 

"Well?" Daptin asked of Confetti.

"How 'bout the books in that case over there?" Fake asked, pointing.

"Oh no," Confetti said. "Skoobs are for very experienced mortals only. Don't even think of getting any."

"Why not?" Daptin asked.

"Because, they're extremely unstable. Just imagine a book carried between worlds in totally the wrong way. They're backward, inside-out, unreal, destroyed, infinite, brooding, wonderful--and they're totally off limits."

"Not even one?" Daptin asked.

"Forget it," Confetti said. "Try these."

Confetti reached under the counter and produced a canister, opened it, and poured a few dried peas into her hand."

"Conductor voice peas," she said.

"Come again?" Daptin said. 

"Eat 'em and you'll sound like a train conductor over a distorted train loudspeaker. Very fun."

"What good are they?" Daptin said.

"I don't know. Be creative."

"Okay! Why not! I'll take 'em."

"Heh heh. Won't Cursive and Elaine be surprised when they see their bill."

"Well, let's not worry about that now," Daptin said. "We just have to get all the stuff we need and get over there to The Caxopy Group."

"Oh Daptin, there's no rush," Fake said. "What else, Confetti?"

The three heard a loud moaning from somewhere in the store, but it quickly subsided.

"Well Fake," Confetti said, lugging a big cardboard box up to the counter, "how about some huge tin clocks?"

The box was neatly packed with little tin cuckoo clocks the size of cigarette packs.

"They don't look very huge to me," Daptin said.

"Aha, but if you throw one up in the air, it'll become an immense clock in the sky--much to the horror of all who view it."

"This stuff is just right over the edge, like, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I'll take it. Whatever," Daptin said, shaking his head.

"Great!" Confetti said.

"What's that popcorn over there?" Fake asked, pointing. 

"Goodbye popcorn. Eat it, and you can say goodbye to existence for a few hours."

"Is it dangerous?" Fake asked.

"Not at all. It just makes you not exist for awhile, that's all."

"Wow, I could use some of that!" Fake said.

"Sold."

"Like, what do you mean out of existence? Where do you go?" Daptin asked.

"Nowhere. You wanna try it?" Confetti said, grabbing a bag of goodbye popcorn.

"No way!"

"Go ahead. If you just eat a tiny bit you'll be gone for less than a minute. Try it. It's fun." Confetti said, opening the bag.

"Oh go ahead and do it," Fake said.

"I don't know."

Confetti took a piece of popcorn out of the bag and carefully broke off a tiny bit, handing it to Daptin.

"Don't be afraid of it! It won't do anything if you don't eat it!" Confetti said, smiling.

Daptin hesitantly took the small piece of goodbye popcorn and examined it.

"Just eat it, Daptin. You'll be back before you know it," Confetti said.

Daptin looked back and forth at Confetti and Fake.

"Oh come on, don't be a chicken," Fake jeered. "If you can do it with Spanking New Sarah, you can eat a little goodbye popcorn."

"That's it--I can't stand talking about that any more. Here goes!" Daptin said as he tossed the piece of popcorn into his mouth. He began to chew it briefly, and then quickly vanished. 

"Wha!" Fake exclaimed.

"He should be back in less than a minute," Confetti said.

"How does it work?" Fake asked.

"Now that's a question to be answered another day. Not that anyone really knows, but people certainly have their ideas."

"But like, where does all this stuff come from? Who makes it?" Fake asked.

"I can't get into that with you right now. Sorry," Confetti said.

"Whatever."

"Well, while we're waiting for Daptin, let's see what else you need. Hmm," Confetti said, looking around. "Ah yes--no mortal is happy without an infinite-ammo submachinegun. Here ya go."

Confetti reached under the counter and produced a two different-looking submachineguns.

"Like, guns, like, to kill people?" Fake asked.

"Yeah. And to destroy stuff, propel boats, signal cohorts, open doors, whatever. If you need metal, you have a never-ending supply in one of these babies. The bullets make good ballast, if you find yourself in need of ballast, that is."

"Well yeah, but I'm not sure about the killing people part."

"Hey, it's your gun--kill or don't kill as you choose, y'know?"

"Yeah."

"This is," the two heard Daptin say off to the right.

"Oh you're back," Fake said.

"This is what," Daptin said, approaching the two.

"He'll be dazed for a few seconds. You always are upon hatching back into reality," Confetti said.

"This... I am back, I... I, the popcorn, I... oh man."

"See Daptin, it works. And here, have a machinegun," Fake said, handing Daptin one of the infinite-ammo submachineguns.

"Thanks," Daptin said, taking the gun. "Y'know, I don't remember anything. How long was I gone?"

"Only about thirty or forty seconds," Fake said.

"Huh. Some trip," Daptin said, examining his machinegun. "What's so good about this?"

"Infinite ammo," Confetti said.

"Cool," Daptin replied. 

"Oh--" Confetti said. "While you were gone I found the perfect item for you. You're from Arctica right? Am I right?"

"Yes I'm from Arctica. Not like the green hair gives it away or anything," Daptin said.

"Well Daptin, just look at this," Confetti said as she produced what appeared to be a brown vest engulfed in a blue-gray fire.

"Ah--what the hell is that?" Daptin asked.

"It's a frost flame delimiter, silly! Just got it in. I thought it would be perfect for you, like a wintry cold sort of theme, y'know?"

"Yeah, well I'm certainly familiar with the cold. But that thing's like on fire--isn't it just the opposite--hot?"

"Frost flame, it's frost flame. A fire which burns cold. Nothing like it on Earth. This delimiter preserves it from wherever it came from. But you wear it like a vest, and you can wield the flame to do a lot of useful stuff."

"Won't I freeze?" Daptin asked.

"No--you'll assimilate to it soon enough. The wearer doesn't get very cold, and you can regulate the flame. The best part is you can shoot it out, extend it, y'know, basically wield it. I figured since Fake got the cinder block I'd give you this. Lucky I found it before someone else bought it."

"Well, what the hell. I dislocated myself from the world with popcorn, why not don a cold-burning vest?" Daptin said as he took the frost flame delimiter from Confetti and put it on over his blue jacket. The gray flame danced all about him.

"Ooh, cold!" Daptin said.

"It'll always feel cold when you first put it on, but you'll feel normal soon enough. Here--do a test," Confetti said, holding out her half-full cup of soda. "Extend the flame to engulf the cup, to chill my soda."

Daptin pointed his hand toward the soda and willed the flame to reach outward. Jerkily, the frost flame licked the cup and quickly chilled it.

"That's all there is to it. If you can will the flame to do that, you can eventually learn to will it to do anything," Confetti said, taking a sip of her chilled beverage.

"Hmm. Now this I like. It's getting comfortable already."

"Well now we have a lot of stuff. I wonder if we can even carry it all," Fake said.

"Yeah. We have more than enough stuff for the mission. I guess we should get going soon," Daptin said.

"Well here, before you go, take some caviar," Confetti said, placing several glass containers of caviar on the countertop.

"Okay Confetti, what special properties does the caviar have?" Daptin asked. "Does it turn you into a finch? Teleport barrels? Do sky writing?"

"No, it's just ordinary caviar, compliments of the house. We always have lots of it around. Nothing weird," Confetti said.

"Hmm. Interesting," Fake commented.

"But if you ever do want to turn into a finch, or teleport barrels, or do sky writing, stop by again and I'm sure we'll be able to accommodate you," Confetti said with a smile.

"I'll remember that," Daptin said. "But the clocks--they're sort of like sky writing. Y'know?"

"A little. I guess you could carve writing into one. I never saw it done before, but it's certainly possible," Confetti said. 

"Well--so how do we pack all this stuff up?" Fake asked.

"Okay, let me add this up," Confetti said. "There's the cinder block, which I can see you're very happy with, Fake. Then there's the socks, and the fucking morons, and the great gross of slay balloons. Okay. And the marker--now Daptin, be extremely careful with that thing--they've been known to topple office buildings, so just be cool with it. Alright? Okay--the situation grenades of course, the huge tin clocks, the free caviar, the frost flame delimiter you're wearing, the submachineguns. Now what am I forgetting? Oh yeah--three bags of goodbye popcorn, and--what else? I know there's one more thing..."

"Yeah, the special peas. Right?" Daptin said.

"Oh yes--one canister of conductor voice peas. These are great fun."

"Life of the party," Daptin said.

Confetti looked over the bill she had been writing.

"Okay, everything looks to be in order!" Confetti said with an approving expression. 

"Yeah, but how're we gonna carry the stuff all the way over to the Caxopys?" Daptin asked.

"And how much does it all cost?" Fake queried.

"Don't worry about it," Came a voice from behind them. They turned to see the leather-clad Cursive Caxopy with a lit cigarette in her hand. 

"Oh hi Cursive," Confetti said. "Just finished equipping your proteges."

"I see. I see," Cursive said.

"I'm glad you're here. You can help us carry all this stuff back to your place," Daptin said.

"Oh, no need. We can use my disappear simulator to disappear over there," Cursive said. 

"You can disappear like the gods?" Fake asked.

"Of course I can--can't you, Fake?" 

"No."

"Well, gather all your junk up and let's go. I came by because you're late. This mission is time-sensitive, and we have to get it started. Come on you two."

"Hey okay," Daptin said. 

"One pile of junk coming right up," Fake said.

Just then, Elaine Caxopy, Cursive's sister and business partner, walked into Basement-Wall-Thursday Mortal Supply. She wore a pretty, light-blue dress--the antithesis of Cursive's hard attire.

"Oh, you're here. I was just coming by to see if our two recruits are all set," Elaine said.

"They're done," Cursive said, taking a drag on her cigarette. "We were about to disappear over in my simulator."

"Well," Elaine said, looking a little hesitant, "okay. But my truck's outside. You'll take care of it, won't you Confetti?"

"Of course," Confetti said, and Elaine tossed her the keys to the truck.

"No need to gather 'round--I'm good at this," Cursive said.

The next moment, Cursive, Elaine, Daptin and Fake were in the offices of The Caxopy Group.

"Nice simulation," Elaine said.

Cursive didn't reply.

"Well you two, come on. We have a cup of coffee to show you," Elaine said urgently.

--------------------------
CHAPTER 9
--------------------------

"Notice the strange glyphs on the styrofoam--we haven't been able to match these to any known form of writing," Elaine Caxopy said to Daptin Gone and Fake Cerquaine, gingerly holding a twenty-ounce styrofoam coffee cup with a plastic lid.

"Probably just a silly corporate logo," Cursive Caxopy said with a sneer.

"So this is our mission?" Daptin asked. "Buying coffee?"

"Don't be an idiot," Cursive said tersely.

"I just thought--" Daptin started.

"Would we need all these supplies just to buy coffee, Daptin?" Fake said.

"I mean--maybe there're some weird, super weird coffee shops or delis in Boltpike. I mean I don't know," Daptin said.

"You can see the coffee's still hot--you can see the steam. They must've just got it--and without our help," Fake said.

"You're both very, very, very mistaken," Elaine said. "Open your minds and listen. This is the Cup of Coffee. And we didn't just get it--in fact, by our estimates it's well over 40,000 years old. Now just wait--there's more. Hold on a second."

With this, Elaine placed the cup carefully on her desk.

"Tavmatey--are you with us?" Elaine asked, facing the cup. 

Silence.

"Tavmatey Numblem--if you can hear me, please respond. Please. We have two new friends here."

"Well I don't--" Daptin began.

"Quiet!" Elaine snapped as she held out her arm. 

Then a small voice emerged from deep within the cup.

"Hi Elaine," said the distant yet distinctly husky female voice. 

"Hi Tav. The two are here, the two we told you about last time we talked. Remember?" Elaine said, staring distantly at the cup.

After a pause, Tavmatey said "I remember. The rescue team."

"That's right. They're off to Boltpike to retrieve you," Elaine said.

"Oh boy, I can't wait to get out of here," Tavmatey said.

"Now is she in the cup in some way," Faked asked, "or is it just a means of communicating?"

"Good question," Cursive said. "We're not entirely sure, but we know one thing--the sound of the girl's voice gets louder in some places and softer in others. And by mapping our various readings, we've determined that she must be somewhere in Boltpike."

"So there it is," Elaine said. "You have to go into Boltpike with the cup and find where the voice is the loudest. Your relative anonymity will be of great help--if one of us were seen wandering about Boltpike listening to a cup of coffee, there'd be trouble for sure."

"Yeah, but like--when we get there, to where the voice is loudest, then what?" Daptin asked, staring at the cup.

"At that point things will be getting clearer for you," Elaine said. "You should be able to perceive some sort of entryway--a door, a hatch, a curtain, a window--something. This will likely be a one-way portal of some class. So remember--and this is vitally important--do not go all the way through the portal. No. Just go halfway, and you should be able to see Tavmatey. At this point, she can come back to The Avert Cities with you. But be careful--we don't want you getting stuck too."

Daptin's stomach growled loudly. 

"Hungry, Daptin?" Cursive asked.

"Um yeah," Daptin replied. "The only thing I ate today was a Twix."

"Twix?" Cursive asked. "Isn't that a candy bar from the future?"

"Uh, no. As far as I know, Twix has been around for a few years. Maybe you're thinking of a new flavor they're working on?"

"No..." Cursive said, looking down. "I guess it was some other candy bar from the future I was thinking of."

"Do you time travel?" Fake asked.

"Yeah," Cursive said distantly. "Sometimes."

"Cool," Daptin said, nodding.

"I'd like a Twix," came Tavmatey's little voice from the cup. "I think I remember it. Caramel cookie treats?"

"With chocolate," Fake said.

Tavmatey didn't reply, so Fake looked around and then moved her face closer to the cup.

"With chocolate," she repeated.

"Yeah," Tavmatey said.

"I'll order out for the briefing," Cursive said. "Any preferences you two, foodwise?"

"Pasta beverage and crullers might be good," Fake suggested.

"Um--maybe some eight eggs with filberts or something? Or custard grain?" Daptin said.

"You can have pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, or pizza," Cursive said.

"Some selection," Fake said.

"Could you repeat the list, Cursive?" Daptin asked.

"Pizza. Wow," came Tavmatey's voice.

"Well I'm ordering from Xould Pete's Camera. And they have pizza," Cursive said, almost belligerently.

"Fine! Like why'd ya ask then?" Daptin wondered.

"To see what foods you like. You can tell a lot about a guy from what he eats," Cursive said.

"What about a gal?" Fake asked.

"Why, are you a gal, Fake?" Cursive asked, taking her cigarette from her lips.

"You could say that," Fake said.

"Well," Cursive said, looking from Fake to Daptin, "what will we have to drink?"

"Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi or Pepsi?" Daptin asked.

"What, are you funny? Xould Pete's Camera is a great restaurant. They have every drink ever," Cursive said shaking her head back and forth in a flippant manner. 

"Well then I suppose I'll have a Mr. Pibb. They do have that, I trust?" Daptin said.

"Of fucking course!" Cursive said. "And you, gal?" 

"Hmm... how about... Diet Cool Ranch Tempura Honeysuckle Nectar Beer Classic?" Fake asked.

"You made it up," Cursive said.

"I drink that all the time here," came Tavmatey's voice.

"Come on, don't make up stories," Elaine said toward the cup.

"Just trying to make conversation. So I never drank it. But it sounds good," Tavmatey said.

"Now something real," Cursive said. 

"It is real--from the future," Fake said. "As a mortal, I'll be fabulously wealthy, and I'll eventually bottle my delectable drink. So it exists somewhere in superreality--and if they have everything, they should have the cool ranch honeysuckle whatever I said."

"You're a little wise ass, but I like you," Cursive said to Fake. "For you, antimatter iced espresso."

"Fine," Fake said, a bit irritated.

"And I'll take a