The Dancer/Finny Valentine's Day Special Finale: Fate's Misleading Smile was made by Fin Fang Foom on 4/17/2003 at 1:12:44 AM.
Doctors have come
From distant cities
Just to see me
Stand over my bed
Disbelieving what they’re seeing
They say I must be one of the wonders
Of God’s own creation
And as far as they see
They can offer no explanation
--“Wonder”, by Natalie Merchant
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Like many people, Wang the Conqueror suddenly found himself alone…and also like many people, he had absolutely no idea how he’d gotten there.
The room--if it was a room--was utterly dark. Without either rush or hesitation, Wang rose to his feet, and the sound of his metal boots on an apparently-metal floor created distant echoes. It took him less than a second to activate a futuristic form of nightvision, which led him to discover that he was in an empty chamber; one that was easily the size of a small town. Simply out of habit, he produced two triangular blasters from his Nth-dimension pockets, and clicked the safeties off.
He wore his standard combat uniform--his body was covered in normal-looking blue fabric, which was actually circuitry-laden underneath. Over that was a layer of thin, flat, black metal, which enveloped his shoulders and head, and much of his torso. He had gloves and boots of the same material and color. His helmet had a blue facemask, which was surprisingly expressive…it showed his eyes, teeth, and even the shape of his nose.
Moments ago, he’d been attacked by some sort of temporal hedgehogs--but he was trying not to think about that. Right now, he just wanted to get home. Wang was seconds away from activating his vest’s time-teleport system when a voice rang out over a public announcement set-up...he tensed, waiting for an attack.
“I’ll make it quick: We saved you, so you owe us. We want access to your private databases--specifically, the ones with your experiences in future timelines.” The words simultaneously bounced off each other, thanks to the acoustics.
Wang was dumbstruck--it’d been ages since he’d encountered arrogance like that. “Do you have any idea who I am ? You can’t just--”
“Please don’t make me resort to an ‘or else’, because that’s really cliched.”
“Who--what’s going on? Who are you?”
A sigh came over the unseen speakers, as did a halfhearted “You asked for it.”
“I don’t know who you think you are, but--”
Wang suddenly blinked, because he hadn’t said that. He turned, and saw himself…not a mirror, but another Wang. He panicked, and the chrono-scanner in his faceplate confirmed that panicking was probably in order: He was looking at the Wang from a new reality that had just spun off from our own. Then, they were both looking at two more Wangs.
The man who’d been using the PA system smiled. One of the more interesting things about Quantum Theory was that, according to it, every tiny action or thought creates a new alternate reality in the Multiverse, which continues where the main one left off. And this room kept those new other-dimensional variants of people from splitting off, trapping them in the original reality.
So, they saw four more of themselves, and another eight, and another sixteen, and another thirty-two…
Though the room was incredibly huge, it didn’t take that long for it to become crammed with bodies. They were unwillingly stacked on each other from the floor to the ceiling, and from wall to wall. It was packed too tightly--if not for the air supplies in their uniforms, they wouldn’t have been able to breathe…and if many more Wangs came, they’d all be crushed to death.
The PA system crackled to life again, and the voice on the other end sounded annoyed and impatient. But it was hard to hear, with temporal analogues taking up so much space and muffling the speakers. “Okay? Is that enough? Do you want us to screw with you some more, or are you going to--”
Then, everything in the room went white, and it was empty once more.
---------------
Wang experienced pain of a different kind--sunlight, stabbing into his eyes. He sat up, and found himself on a grassy hill, under a cloudless sky. For a moment, he actually thought he was dead…but then he remembered certain laws of reality that were exclusive to the Parodyverse.
“Oh, God, don’t tell me this is the Happy Place…”
“No, it’s Georgia, stupid.” A woman was standing nearby, but Wang’s refraction-lenses were having trouble adjusting to the teleport-brightness, so he couldn’t really see her. Everything was a pastel watercolor blur. “In case you’re wondering, that was SHAG--the Secret Hardcore Alien-breeding Group.”
Wang decided that today was turning out to be a little weirder than expected.
“And yeah, I was the one that saved you…but the saving-you part just happened because I’m trying to mess up SHAG, so don’t think I went out of my way for you or anything. It’s just, with all the crazy stuff they’ve been doing, they’re getting in on my territory, so I--oh, right, I didn’t--I’m Hoki. Ausgardian god of tricks and illusions and stuff like that, but I can teleport, too, and do some other stuff.”
“I’m--”
“I know. Now, you wanna tell me why we’re here?”
“What? You teleported us here, I didn’t--”
“My powers are on automatic, I just teleported us to wherever you most wanted to go…which, apparently, is Nowhereville USA.”
Wang took another look around. “You said we’re in Georgia?”
“Yeah.”
Understanding settled on him, and his words became quiet, almost meek. “Well…if it’s anywhere close to a town called Starcross, it’s…okay, look, there’s this girl…”
The Dancer/Finny Valentine’s Day Special Finale
About The Girl
After years of being battered by improbabilities and retcons, the Parodyverse was held together with what was essentially the cosmic equivalent of duct tape. It was a violently patchwork place, with many disparate parts having been forcibly stuck together. The plus side was that it was flexible and resilient, rather than being rigid--but even the Parodyverse had its limits.
In the big scheme of things, the Happy Place served a remarkably important function: When the stress of the Parodyverse’s extreme circumstances would set in worse than usual, it acted as an endless source of euphoria. While few would actually get teleported there, millions unknowingly tapped into it mentally, and found themselves calming down. It was, simply, a (highly necessary) buffer to keep the Parodyverse’s populace from being overwhelmed by the weirdness. At least, it was supposed to be all that…
In what had once been the Happy Place, a door-shaped, mirror-like portal wavered. This was the other end of the Happy Place Conduit, which was currently responsible for screwing up reality as everyone knew it. As long as it was active, the Happy Place had--for all intents and purposes--switched places with the Unhappy Place. Aside from making the Happy Place look like a post-apocalyptic warzone, it was also undermining the structure of the Parodyverse. Shutting it down would solve the problem--but that was complicated by the fact that giant carniverous rabbits were ferociously guarding it.
Lisa was painfully aware of this problem. The leather-clad brunette was standing a few hundred yards away from the rabbits, trying to draw them away from the portal…but they weren’t going for it. She’d sent Yi off to try to find some male rabbits, in the hopes that the (decidedly female) ones guarding the Conduit could be distracted. Of course, even if she managed to shut it down, she’d be trapping everyone in either the Happy or Unhappy Place…
She whirled, as she heard growling behind her--but nothing was there. The sound was everywhere, and it was actually more of a ripping noise. In the air above her, a lightning-shaped crack blistered, growing larger and glowing indigo. This had to be it, the Parodyverse must have finally given ‘way to--
--to fruit, apparently.
Several 300-foot-tall kumquats fell out of the opening. They had small, squat faces, which were growling and snarling at no-one in particular. As soon as the kumquats hit the ground, the guardian rabbits freaked out, and started charging them. The tear in space shrunk, but was still big enough for people to get through.
Lisa felt icy hands on her shoulders, and then she didn’t feel anything underneath her feet. She looked up--it was Fin Fang Foom, naturally.
As the two of them soared through the air, she couldn’t help but grin. “You wanna explain that?”
“You needed a distraction, I needed a place to put those things before they trashed Parodiopolis…seemed like the natural thing to do. And you can thank the Chronicler for getting us in here.”
“You know you aren’t supposed to be able to do that, right? I mean, you can’t just teleport into the Happy Place like that…”
“…except when the Parodyverse is swiss-cheesed. Not exactly at its peak, y’know?” He angled towards the now-unguarded Conduit. “But you’re right--we can’t leave the tear open too long. I’m figuring one minute to close the portal, and another minute to get into the real Unhappy Place and grab the others…as weird as it sounds, I heard something about them being chased by evil Teletubbies…”
----------------------
When the lights abruptly cut out inside the love rocket, and the guns started going off, spiffy ducked behind a sofa and screamed “How come I’m never the one that gets rescued first?!”
dull thud threw himself to the ground next to spiffy, as a stream of unseen bullets devoured the area of the couch just above them, raining down stuffing and shreds of fabric. SHAG enforcers had them cornered on the slightly-elevated end of the ship, which was filled with furniture. “Hey, I’d say it was some kinda gypsy curse--‘cept with your luck, I can’t rule that out as a--”
Cressida engaged in the psychic equivalent of clearing her throat, but as she didn’t exactly have one, it sounded more like gurgling white noise. “~~Not to interrupt your witty repartee, but if I’m reading these idiots’ thoughts right, they have superhuman backup on the way--and disturbing-sounding backup, at that. Getting out of here just might be a good idea.~~”
thud only managed to get in a few words of an “Obviously” speech before Yo cut him off. “Yo is thinking that SHAG goonies have special weakness,” the thought being stated unequivocally. “Yo has seen Monsters Inc. thirty times, and remembers ‘contamination’.”
S/he then hopped up on the one piece of furniture that actually was still in one piece, and laughed as the paramilitary troops found out that bullets didn’t really hurt someone made of pure thought. They paused for a split-second, waiting for the field commander’s decision on how to handle this…
Yo put his/her hands on his/her hips, and proudly declared, “Yo’s mating season begins!”
S/he then jump-tackled the nearest soldier and covered him (or rather, his body armor) with smooches. He dropped his gun in the process. The SHAG men--who knew that humans who “interacted” with aliens were likely to end up in one of SHAG’s own experimentation chambers--decided that they didn’t want that to happen to them. They all backed off, and called in a numerical emergency code.
Yo tossed the (hopelessly terrified) guy aside, and eyed the others. “Lots of choices! Yo likes this.”
The field commander nodded to another soldier, who hit some buttons on a wrist-keypad. As soon as he did, the man that Yo had trapped suddenly went rigid, as a piece of equipment near his shoulder popped like a firework. One of the soldiers said, “Sorry, Bennett, but you know the infection protocol.” Then, they abandoned him, blinking out in purple teleports.
“Oh, God, come on,” he pleaded, pulling the ‘port-device off of his shoulder and trying to get it to work.
Though it was still completely dark, spiffy stood up, and felt his way down the stairs, towards the area with the pool. “Okay, here’s how it’s gonna be,” the fern-boy said, searching with a foot. When it fell upon the guy’s gun, he kicked it into the water. “You tell us how to get off this ship, and you don’t have to marry Yo.”
“Um, right,” dull thud said, hastily agreeing. “Yeah, you better do what we say, or else…yeah.”
“~~Why didn’t you think of that? Oh, right, spiffy’s fern is a sign that there’s actually life inside his brain, whereas with you…~~”
The soldier considered the punishment for helping those who were currently enemies…and then he considered what it’d be like, being stuck on a ship with a love-crazy alien. “Okay…there’s an invisible, intangible teleport system interface, underneath the bed. You can only activate it if you use a spoken code…”
Once he’d given them the code, spiffy put his hand on Yo’s shoulder. “Okay, you can stop pretending.” A moment passed. “Um, you are pretending, right?”
--------------------
Wang had always thought that focus was a good thing. In the various activities he involved himself in, it had definitely been a key to his success…but over the years, he’d found out (the hard way) that there were problems with it, as well. There were times he’d get frustrated with something, and instead of backing off and trying again later, he could become obsessive; bogged down and churned up to the point where he couldn’t see the larger picture. He’d tear the situation apart in his mind, over-analyzing everything and second-guessing his second-guesses. It was like being trapped in a fog. But once he got out of the situation, it’d go away. So, when he time-teleported Hoki to his home, the realization--the emergence from tunnel-vision--was like being hit in the head with a wrecking ball: He suddenly realized that he’d gone on another meaningless crime-binge.
The two of them were standing on a huge, metallic balcony, which was spacious and wide open, like a park. It was covered by a clear half-dome. Outside, stretching out below and forever, like the ocean, was a cluster of flickering, pale blue globules. They were rounded, but somewhat elongated, as well. The “sky” was a deep navy, rich with the reflected afterglow. New globules kept popping into existence, squeezing out of pre-existing ones.
Wang pressed his hands against his helmet, moaning in a barely audible way. Both his sight and his head were finally clearing up, and he got his first good look at Hoki: Tan, dyed blonde hair, with a white tanktop and matching pants. She was definitely nice to look at, but he didn’t let his eyes linger for more than a second--it felt like cheating. He continued leaning on an enclosed railing, not really moving or saying anything, and looking kind of tired. It was like, now that he didn’t have an enemy to impress, something in him had turned off.
Hoki nodded towards the ethereal cluster below them. “What is that ? It looks really close…”
“That’s the Multiverse.” He then amended, “Our Multiverse, anyway. And we’re something like a few hundred million miles away.” She gaped, and he shrugged. “It’s that big, yeah. Think about it--a near-infinite number of constantly-expanding universes in the same structure…”
Hoki took another look around…this time, her eyes went upwards, and she saw another Multiverse. She instinctively flinched, ducking, as it seemed like it was pressing down, threatening to crush them…
“Oh, sorry, I assumed you knew,” he said, and his voice took on a routine tone, as if he’d had to explain this a million times before. “This is the Omniverse. Think of Multiverses as solar systems, and the Omniverse as the universe surrounding them.”
“…okay. I’d heard a lot about an Omniverse, but never...” She trailed off, looking impressed. “So, uhh, where--I mean, what are we in, exactly?”
A holographic screen blinked to life before them, and showed what vaguely resembled a space station. Wang sounded like he was just waking up. “Without anything familiar to compare it to, it doesn’t look like much, but…anyway, we’re right here.” He pointed at a nearly microscopic dot, about halfway down the hull.
Hoki blinked, confused. The balcony looked large enough to hold at least a few thousand people--if it was that small a portion of the whole thing, how big was it altogether?
“I live here with a few million of my--well, I guess they’re my soldiers, but they aren’t all soldiers. I rule my empire from here.”
“You have an empire?”
He nodded hesitantly, as if he couldn’t believe it himself. “Yeah, I have a lot of land, in quite a few different universes and timelines.” Abashed, he added, “It sounds more impressive than it really is.”
“Um…wow,” Hoki laughed awkwardly. “I never knew you had all this stuff.” Upon learning more about him, she was coincidentally being more “friendly” towards him, with fleeting eye contact and coy smiles.
He didn’t seem to pick up on it--instead, he shook his head vigorously, and shuddered. “Why do I remember something about pink socks? God, I hate these binges…”
“Binges?”
“Yeah, it’s--” He tried to figure out how to word it, as his mouth moved silently, apparently going through several drafts. “--I went to 21st century Earth to see someone, and it didn’t work out, and I got really…well, I did stuff I only do when I’m feeling kind of hopeless.”
“Like shooting a pregnancy gun at the LL?”
“You heard about that?” He sighed, and his words became pained, exhausted. “After what happened with my trip, I didn’t want to stay there--but I didn’t want to come back here, either, because there’s always all this stuff to deal with.” Wang’s next statement had an edge to it: “So I just distracted myself with a lot of meaningless…with slumming. Crime. Whatever.” He gave a self-derisive snort. “It’s a habit.”
“Did you go there because of the girl? The one in Starcross, Georgia?”
“Yeah…”
Doors slid open behind them, and Hoki turned to see a tall, thin, grey-skinned man, in flowing crimson robes. He was bald, and though his face was somewhat alien, she could read his expression…a combination of surprise, relief, and anger.
He ignored her and walked right up to Wang, who was still staring over the Multiverse. Immediately, he said, “Remember last time? You said--no, you promised--you promised that if you did it again, if you vanished for more than two weeks, we’d make the changes I talked about. And you obviously did it again, so--oh, and, did you see the losers you were associating with? That--that isn’t how a conqueror is supposed to act.” The man paused, not actually calming down, but pretending to, so he’d look more dignified. “And before you say it: Yes, I know how you are when you get depressed, but you have to have more self-respect than--” He stopped short, finally noticing Hoki. With a note of contempt in his voice, he asked, “Is this her?”
They simultaneously answered “No.”
He looked her over. “Good, because if this was what you were making such a big deal about, it would’ve been a waste. We can find you a woman much better than--”
Two small pockets of light enveloped his eyes, and he fell flat on his back, writhing on the floor while screaming something about tiny razortoothed zinnen swimming through his bloodstream.
“You need to teach your flunkies some manners.”
Wang didn’t seem to care about what was going on around him--he just kept staring out into the distance.
Hoki’s stream of thought went something like “Get on powerful guy’s good side = Good thing to do”, and she said, “Maybe if you tell me what happened with the girl, I can help you figure something out.”
He gave a lifeless shrug. “Nothing happened…I didn’t even talk to her. I tried to, but…”
She nodded fake-understandingly. Since arriving at his Omniverse hovercastle, Hoki had assumed that he was a strong-willed warrior from the future (who was, admittedly, inexplicably engaging in “crime” far below his stature), as these types tended to be that…but given the way he acted and spoke, she was starting to wonder about who he really was, and when he was from.
Wang rubbed his gloved hands together, filled with nervous energy. “God, I’d love to just get it over with. I should just try it again, right now, before I have too much time to think about it.”
Hoki smiled. “That’s a good idea--and I bet I can help.”
“Really?”
“Oh, definitely.” She gave him a moment to consider it, and then said, “Look--if this works, it works. If it doesn’t, I bet I can help you stop worrying about it.” She suppressed a smile. “People like us? You ask me, our problem is, we get really hung up on one idea, and we aren’t happy if it doesn’t work out…but we ignore all the other cool stuff that we could be doing. I mean, I used to be all obsessed with killing my half-brother and taking over a kingdom, but I got over it. Hey, I figure: I’ve got eternity, why should I tie myself down and limit myself like that, y’know?”
As if she hadn’t said any of that, he said, “Maybe we should wait a few hours, because this is too important to just--”
“No, let’s do it now.” Then, as casually as she could, she added, “And for my plan to work, you’ll have to bring a lot of your guys--your soldiers--with you. Huge ships and stuff like that. Pomp and circumstance, they used to call it. You want to impress her right off the bat. Oh, and, it might help to have a good ‘official’ reason to be in Starcross…”
------------------------
Al B. Harper--the black man in the grey slacks and green-and-black intricately-patterned shirt--was in one of the Lair Legion mansion’s sub-basements, sifting through wires and components that were sticking out of the floor. The work he was doing was delicate, and required total concentration. “Okay, but: Did you actually see the evil Teletubbies, or…?”
“No, after we shut down the Conduit, and everything just--just snapped back to the way it’s supposed to be, they were gone,” Finny said. The Chronicler of Stories was also in the room, with his trademark flowing brown robes and hood, golden sceptre, and black-wrapped hands. The dragon glanced towards the mess of technology. “How’s that going?”
“Well, from what Mr. Bautista told me, shutting it down isn’t enough--it has to be completely dismantled, so the residual connection energy dissipates. If it does, we shouldn’t have any more problems.”
Finny nodded. “Will we ever be able to use it again, or is it too dangerous?”
“We just can’t leave it charged-up all the time. Right now, taking it apart and separating the pieces is the only way to get it to completely power down. As far as I can tell, having this thing plugged in 24/7--even if it wasn’t actually open--was slowly eating away at the structure of the Parodyverse. I mean, even when the channel between here and there wasn’t active, it had the potential to be active, and the potential energy was…it’s like…” Al tried to think of an analogy that would be clear to someone who hadn’t taken a dozen advanced postgraduate science courses.
“I get it,” Finny sighed. “I get the basic idea, anyway…and thanks, we really appreciate this.”
“Hey, I’m just glad to be doing something I’m actually good at, instead of fighting giant fruit monsters.” Al went back to work--though he’d never really stopped, he was just quiet now--and the Chronicler motioned Finny to step aside. Once out of Al’s earshot, the man who held the title of The Third Person said, “There’s some business we need to talk about. But before we get to it--are you sure nothing happened between you and Dancer?”
“I’m really sure.”
“I’m just asking because, when two people are lying down together, underneath the same blanket, pressed up against each other--”
“Nothing happened.”
“So you aren’t interested in her?”
“Look, Dancer is--” Finny lowered his voice. “Dancer is, obviously, out of my league. Anyone that sexy and smart, I obviously don’t have a chance with. But that’s all beside the point, because of…” The dragon trailed off, shrugging in a self-explanatory way.
“Because of her. The other her.”
“Yeah.”
“Still?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you explain that to Dancer?”
“She gave me the ‘just friends’ speech, so I didn’t have to.”
There was a sun-colored flash, and Goldeneyed landed lightly on the ground in front of them. His black costume had a few Teletubby toothmarks. He immediately realized that he was interrupting something, but Finny told him to go ahead.
“Uh, I talked to the DA’s office--they said they’re gonna charge Dr. Mango with assault, attempted assault, breaking the safety code that says you can’t have any kind of lifeform over a hundred feet in the city--unless you have clearance--and I think public health violations, because of all the chemically-altered fruit he was using as weapons.” G-Eyed shrugged. “What happened with him, anyway? Who took him down?”
Al spoke up. “One of his giant kumquats accidentally stepped--well, bounced--on him.” He tried to muffle a laugh.
“So, is that it?” Goldeneyed glanced over at the Conduit, which was almost entirely taken apart. “Seems pretty easy…”
“It never is,” CoS stated. “We still have something to deal with.”
Finny rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “You mean SHAG? Yeah, they’re still out there, but--”
“I’m talking about the Parodyverse.” He paused. “Do you want the version with dimensional mathematics, or without?”
Pulling out a chair and sinking into it, Finny mumbled “Without.”
“The Parodyverse is constantly restructuring itself. With everything shifting around like that, finding the center is harder than it used to--”
“Wait, wait--what? You mean, the literal center?”
“Literal, yes…physical, no. The actual physical center is irrelevant.” He took a breath, which was more out of habit than anything, as he didn’t really need to breathe. “As near as we can tell, the Parodyverse has certain laws--tendencies--and one of them is that it seeks out something to base itself around. Since it exists in a constant state of flux, it needs a core to latch onto.”
Goldeneyed coughed nervously. “Um, it actually thinks that? It actually thinks, period?”
The Chronicler shook his head. “No--from everything we know, the Parodyverse isn’t a living being. But just as plants, by nature, put down roots, the Parodyverse, by nature, does this.”
“Okay,” Finny said, “What kind of core are we talking about here?”
“It could be anything--a place, a person, even an idea--but it’s usually been a star or an empty planet. There have been a few cases where it’s been an empire of some kind. But as the Parodyverse changes, the location of the center changes…except this time, we think the center has found its final destination. With the Happy Place imbalance out of the way, nothing’s interfering with the Parodyverse’s reality-mechanics.”
Finny nodded slowly. “Let’s try this: Why is it important to find the center?”
“The Parodyverse subtly patterns itself after the center. The nature of it will be expressed in broad, far-reaching ways. And if we have the inside track, we’ll be able to anticipate certain…issues.”
The dragon snorted, and a burst of smoke escaped from his nostrils. “Not too vague. I’m assuming this is one of those things where you really can’t tell us everything, because you signed the ultimate confidentiality agreement?”
CoS said nothing.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. Okay…so, how do we find the center?”
The mansion’s intercom system buzzed, and they heard Dancer’s voice. “Um, some FAA guy just showed up, and he said there’s some problem with someone wanting to land…”
“What?” Finny stood up, and walked closer to the speaker. “What’s the problem?”
“They thought it was a prank call, because of who the guy said he was…but, um…about ten minutes ago, Wang asked for clearance to land in Georgia. He said it’s a diplomatic mission, and that he’s bearing gifts…”
------------------------
For the past few weeks, warm waves of Atlantic air had coated Starcross, Georgia, leaving the people to wade through thick, luscious layers of spring. The expanse of dingy silver cloud-cover had given ‘way to the occasional thin white stripe, which rarely blocked the sun. And sunsets--no longer trapped in the sliver between hills and low-hanging clouds--had resumed their full technicolor glory. But for at least one man, the town’s scenery wasn’t its main attraction.
While pop-culture often portrayed small towns as an idyllic, suburbs-without-the-city paradise, Starcross was a victim of urban decay; just on a smaller scale. Most of the “larger” buildings were brick, and had been built back in the fifties and sixties, so they were now looking somewhat decrepit. Many of the side-streets were full of potholes. Business’ plastic, light-up signs had holes punched in them. Aside from in the “downtown” area, overgrown fields could often be found between buildings. Altogether, the town was currently home to about seven thousand people.
Main Street was connected to a larger freeway, and ran it the length of Starcross. It began with motorcycle repair shops and small farms, out in the country, and continued on into town. Within city limits, a driver would first encounter the surprisingly-busy hospital, and then houses and the occasional business--car dealerships with about twenty vehicles, craft shops, gas stations. A mile or two later, Main Street’s residential area vanished, and there were churches, the jr. high, the McDonald’s across the street from it…just beyond were about two dozen towering buildings, all of three or four stories. Most had a street-level business, and either small offices or apartments above.
A few (usually more modern) one-story buildings could be found, such as banks and doctor’s offices, and even a hilariously pathetic attempt at a mini-mall. Once past the downtown area, houses began popping up again, and a few of the truly small businesses (which couldn’t afford larger-building rent) were wedged between them and the increasingly natural landscape. The town faded into the country, with nothing left but a small department store and the large hardware emporium next to it.
The Catholic church bell struck a single ring for four-thirty, and the Methodist one did the same. Lots of teenagers roamed the streets, with backpacks slung over their shoulders. Except for the busiest parts of Main Street, the town’s crosswalks were faded to the point of invisibility, and hardly anyone used them. Pickups from the 70’s and 80’s rumbled along, driven by middle-aged men and women. Toddlers in nothing but diapers pushed plastic lawnmowers along their sidewalks, watched over by half-distracted older siblings.
Two blocks over from Main Street sat Eastline Real Estate’s office building. It allegedly combined “The power of a national, respected institution with local care and pride”. Its parking lot always contained at least four cars, and it was surrounded by an eye doctor’s office, a funeral home, and the town’s “historical” hotel--or rather, the hotel’s parking lot; the hotel itself was just one story, but spread out over a large piece of property. Eastline, of course, was where she worked.
-----------------------
Courtney Zusten was now twenty-two years old. All told, she’d lived about nine years of her life in Starcross--six of them when she was a young child, and the most recent three. Her parents had been born and raised there. In fact, her father had been the biggest thing to hit town in some time. He got a job as an international journalist, and his semi-celebrity status helped him become the local hero…but what it helped him end up as, was something else entirely. Having a Zusten in town again, after all these years, was bringing up memories that many wanted to forget.
She looked out of place in Eastline’s sleepy office: For one thing, she was the only person under forty. Courtney had rich, black hair, and her skin look perpetually tanned, when in fact she just had a slightly-dark complexion. Since she didn’t actually have to interact with clients (she engaged in exciting career opportunities such as entering data, helping balance the books, showing other employees how to use the radical new invention known as the “computer”, watering plants, and feeding the official office mascot, Joey the fish), they let her dress a bit more casually. Today, she had on black overalls that were actually cutoffs, a faded purple midriff shirt that showed a few inches of skin, and she wore her shoulder-length hair partially up.
Courtney was sitting in Ken Anderson’s office. When she’d first worked there, he’d been the other under-forty employee, but a few years had pushed him over the limit. The company had brought him in to clean up the mess that the previous boss had made, and in the process, he quickly realized that Courtney was indispensable. They always needed another pair of hands; another mind to run things by. At the moment, he was scouring their unfortunately low-budget advertising plan, and bouncing ideas off of her. Whenever they were alone in his office, he made sure to leave the door at least partially open, to avoid a bad appearance.
Ken drummed his fingers on his desk, like he wanted to break it. “So it’s either the newspaper or the radio station.”
She had the look of a person saying something they didn’t really believe: “Technically, two radio stations.” He gave her a questioning look, and she said, “Same owners, but one is country, and one is rock. Well, super-obscure 70’s rock that nobody ever liked, anyway. I mean, this stuff doesn’t even get put on the new compilation CDs; it’s that bad.”
“I don’t even listen to ‘em,” he confessed. “I pay way too much for satellite radio. But I’d go crazy without it.” He went silent for a moment, and then, “Doesn’t the town have a website? I thought I heard something about that…”
“Yeah, but it looks like it was put together by a blindfolded monkey. And they only update it every few weeks.”
He sighed. “In Atlanta? We always used to put ads on movie screens. People would be waiting for it to start, nothing to do but watch…it was perfect.”
Her unwrinkled brow furrowed, and after a moment of thought: “Well, the cable company kinda superimposes local ads over the regular ones, on some channels. Except it’s crappy--it’s all snowy, and the sound goes out a lot.”
He groaned, and melodramatically put his face in his hands. Muffled, he said, “Please tell me you have an idea, because I got spoiled from being able to just make a call to get something seen by thousands of people…”
“I think it’d just be easier to sponsor some local events…maybe something for kids. Get the parents to come and watch them do something, and you’ll get a chance to talk to ‘em.”
“Yeah, that’s probably what we’ll end up doing. Okay, let’s--” His cel phone rang, and he brought it to his ear. “Yeah? Sid, is that--why are you whispering? What? I thought you said the plumbing people had taken care of that…no, of course you can’t let the buyers see it. No, don’t--come on, the guy told you that he’d gotten the first gerbil out, you couldn’t have known the previous owners flushed both of ‘em…well, some people are weird about burying pets. Just find a mop and--yeah. Yeah. Okay.” As if making a list, he said, “Show them the backyard, and I’ll call the plumbers, and tell them that you’ll show them the rest later, because--well, make something up.”
He kept listening, put his hand over the speaker, and told her that they wouldn’t need her for anything else, so she could leave early today.
She walked into the “office pool”, where everyone else worked, and grabbed her purse from a hook on the wall. The regulars were all there: Jack, who insisted that everything was fine with his wife, except he’d worn the same shirt and tie for the last three days. Shirley, an empty-nester whose incredibly inconsiderate sons were finally gone, so she could get back to her old, pre-housewife life. Corey, the sports-maniac father of three sports-maniac girls, who had been talking with clients about high school basketball for the past hour.
As she stepped out the door, into the fading heat, a few cop cars blasted by. Their sirens were uncharcteristically screaming. She laughed--someone was probably littering, and the cops were desperate to make their ticket-quota for the day…
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A small crowd had gathered on the hills by the Statelis farm…including, but not limited to, half of the Starcross police department, members of the highway patrol, the FBI, the local National Guard unit, and three 51st century warships that were roughly the size of shopping malls.
A legion of black- and brown-haired men, all in dark suits, were scurrying around the barricades that had been set up. Stunned TV reporters were just starting to roll up in their newsvans. Law enforcement officials were screaming at each other about jurisdiction issues. And, in a flash of light, three members of the Lair Legion had arrived, while the others came by LairJet.
Agent Richardson--one of the man MIBs on the scene--saw them, and started trying to get their attention. He recognized Fin Fang Foom and Goldeneyed, and he was pretty sure that the dark-haired woman in pink and blue was Dancer…
The dragon noticed him. “What’s the situation here?”
“So far, they’re just sitting there. They keep broadcasting a message that says ‘We come in peace’…no, really.”
“Has SPUD been notified?”
“I think so, yeah.”
Finny nodded. “Okay. I want that barricade extended another fifty feet, because we’re going in, and anything could happen.”
“You are? When?”
“Now.” He pushed off from the ground, went over the crowd, and landed in a field about fifty feet away from the closest ship. The other two followed.
Goldeneyed hurried to catch up with him. “Um, shouldn’t we be attacking or something? Instead of just walking up like sitting ducks?”
In a jokingly analytical tone, Dancer asked, “Ahh, but, if he’s serious about not being here for the purpose of general evil, attacking might set off a conflict that wouldn’t have happened otherwise, right?” Finny gave an imperceptible nod. “See? I knew I was right, I know our glorious leader pretty well, especially after being stranded together…” She winked at G-Eyed, who quickly looked away. She was clearly enjoying getting to embarrass both of them.
When they were pretty close to the ships, Finny stopped, and crossed his arms expectantly. Loudly and clearly, he stated, “I’d like to hear more about this diplomatic mission.”
A beat passed. A black spotlight came from the ship, fell in front of them, and when it went away, Wang was standing there, as was Hoki. Unlike in most of his dealings with enemies, he wasn’t acting arrogant or defiant…but, as Hoki had noticed, being a “conqueror” seemed more like a job to him, rather than a part of his personality. She suspected that the public attitude just went along with the job--and as such, he could simply turn it off when he didn’t need it. Stepping forward, he said, “It’s just an act of goodwill.”
“For who?” Finny asked. “America? The world?”
“No…just Starcross.”
“Why them?”
“Why not?” He let that hang, and then said, “If it’ll make you more comfortable, I can send away the extra two ships I brought.”
Finny suspected it was a bluff, and called it. “Go right ahead.”
Wang looked over his shoulder, and nodded. The ground shook, and the two ships raced towards the sky, shrinking into tiny dots. After they’d vanished, he said, “I locked down all the weapons on my ships, for safety purposes. But there are defensive measures, so don’t think I’m helpless.”
This was directed more at the government officials, who were hungrily eyeing the prospect of getting their hands on future technology. Upon Wang saying that, they suddenly looked sheepish and embarrassed, like first-graders after the teacher has caught them doing something they shouldn’t be.
Slowly bringing his hands up, Wang said, “Now, don’t panic: I’m going to instruct some of my robots to carry down gifts I brought, for the citizens of Starcross...I’d appreciate it if you didn’t attack them, but feel free to inspect the gifts. I can understand why you wouldn’t trust me.”
While large, red robots were unloading crates, Finny casually whispered something to Goldeneyed. He vanished, and a second later, he reappeared, with Sorceress by his side. Finny gave Hoki a hard look--Whitney could see through illusions, mystical or otherwise. Hoki didn’t seem bothered at all by this.
While they were waiting for the crates to be lined up, Wang seemed to take great pleasure in saying, “I’d like to personally apologize for the pregnancy gun incident--that really is beneath me, and you don’t deserve that kind of treatment. I was just lashing out because of--well, because of things that we don’t need to get into. I would like to make it up to you, though…maybe if you’d name a charity, and I could donate something to them?”
Finny--who was used to dealing with enemies that were utterly ruthless--had no idea how to deal with someone who was acting considerate. He wasn’t sure if Wang was schizo, an up-and-down personality, or what. Looking at Hoki, he said, “What’s your interest in this?”
She shrugged. “Hey, I’m just along for the ride.” Hoki couldn’t tell them what she was really thinking, about both Wang’s situation and her own: This is a lot to go through, just to get a date…
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The gifts were surprisingly normal…antiques, jewels, gold, and pieces of art, from many different eras. Nothing about them was remotely dangerous.
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Wang gave a formal bow, and informed everyone that he’d be making an important announcement within the next few hours. Allegedly, it would include information about his diplomatic mission, and how the people of Starcross could get the gifts he’d brought. With that, he and Hoki were teleported back into the ship.
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Someone tapped Agent Richardson on the shoulder--he turned to see an Asian-American woman, in a brand-new leather jacket and beat-up jeans. She looked to be in her early thirties. Not recognizing her, he asked, “What, are you a reporter or something?”
“No, I’m Amanda Statelis--I own the land you’re on.” That seemed to surprise him. “Before he got here, Wang called me, introduced himself…he asked if he could park his ships here for a little while. He promised me that he wouldn’t be breaking any laws. And since he isn’t, I’d appreciate it if you’d all get off my property and leave him alone.”
“But--”
She pulled out a cel phone, and brandished it like a sword. As if reciting an unimportant bit of unrelated trivia, she said, “My brother is a lawyer at Bradley & Sons in Atlanta, and I have him on speed-dial.”
Agent Richardson struggled to keep his mouth shut. He started to walk off, but quickly turned around, and demanded, “Why are you doing this?!”
She rolled her eyes. “Because I hate it when judgmental idiots jump on people when they haven’t even done anything wrong?”
His eyes went wide. As if explaining it to an immature child, he carefully, condescendingly enunciated and exclaimed, “He’s a conqueror!” Then, in an accusatory tone, “He uses his military to further his own interests, and if innocent people die along the way, that’s just the way it is!”
“Congratulations: You just described almost every government on earth. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but…when you’re done going after him, are you gonna go after them?”
He couldn’t think of a reply to that one.
“Look, if he’s doing stuff that every other world leader isn’t doing, just tell me about it, and I’ll gladly kick him out. I mean, if he’s actually going out of his way to hurt people or take away their rights or something--”
“That--that isn’t the point!”
“What is the point?”
“Look--fine. You win. We’ll set up outside of your property. I hope you’re happy…”
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Getting an apartment in Starcross was, at times, next to impossible. The community only had three actual apartment buildings, not counting the numerous senior citizen complexes. The rest were nothing but scattered rooms above Main Street businesses, and often, the owners kept them empty “just in case” their friends and family would ever need them. Of course, young, single people were something of an endangered species in the town, so there wasn’t that much of a market. And Courtney, like many others, had been forced to get some friends together and rent a house.
She shared it with Amy Lonnigan and, in theory, Amy’s younger brother Matt, except he spent almost every day at a do-nothing park department job, and almost every night at his girlfriend’s. Amy worked at the eye doctor’s office right across the alley from Eastline. The two girls had met during Courtney’s first stay in Starcross, and had become best friends. Over a decade later, when Courtney came back, they easily picked up where they left off, like only a week had gone by.
When Amy had first seen the faded white house, she thought it looked familiar…but wasn’t sure why. She wrote it off as silly déjà vu. It wasn’t until after they’d been living there for a few months that Courtney--out of nowhere--casually mentioned that this was where it happened.
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Every town has its legends. Stories that are told and retold in hushed, conspiratorial tones, by people who are eager to prove that they know a chapter of secret history. This particular story was often shared between many types of people: Residents and their visiting relatives, finger-wagging church members who still hadn’t gotten over it, and old citizens and new ones, as a sort of initiation.
Ricky Zusten was Starcross’ golden boy--he’d been Prom King, and his Queen was Melanie McCorren, arguably the most sought-after girl in town. They “coincidentally” picked the same college, and were seriously dating. He was a promising Journalism major, while she was studying to be a nurse. Halfway through school, they ran into financial problems, and he chose that exact moment to propose to her. Once married (her parents handled the costs), she ended up dropping out to support him, knowing that later, when he was making great money, she’d be able to go back to school. She became pregnant in 1981, and he graduated the same year.
In 1982, he got a job as a globe-hopping international journalist. He had no single base of operations, so they could live anywhere…but he didn’t want to drag them along, as it’d just make it tough for the baby. Since he’d be gone a lot, they moved back to Starcross, so she could be around people she knew. The plan was for her to take a few years off--she’d been working so hard, she deserved a break--and just focus on Courtney. Within two years, he’d made enough for her to easily afford school…but she wasn’t in a rush. Even with her family around, Melanie was often lonely, so she befriended an older woman named Glenda, whom Courtney instantly adored.
1984, and 365 Oak Lane, changed everything. It was then a bed-and-breakfast, which was hosting a graduation party for Amanda Statelis’ older brother Tom. Ricky was actually home, for once, and the three of them had been invited to the party. They walked up to the house on a sunny June afternoon. Everyone was thrilled to see Ricky; the local paper constantly reprinted his articles, and they all wanted to know about the famous people he’d met, the exotic places he’d been.
The next few moments were the subject of much contention, but, after twenty years of examination, the townspeople had come to a consensus on the basics:
Just as they were going inside, for some reason, Melanie was delayed. (some witnesses claimed that Courtney had displayed precognition and started crying in advance, thus slowing her down, while others said that old Mrs. Sutt budged in front of Melanie and was moving at several inches an hour)
Ricky got a few steps ahead, went into the front foyer where the crowd was, and made small talk. (everyone who was anyone--in Starcross, anyway--claimed they spoke to him before it happened, but for that to be true, he’d had to have talked to thirty people in as many seconds)
Tom Statelis’ girlfriend, a blonde foreign exchange student from Germany, had her slightly-older blonde sister there. Upon seeing Ricky, the sister recognized him, ran over, and started kissing him passionately. Everyone noticed it. The room went quiet, and Melanie walked in. Right as she did, the sister saw the ring on his finger, pulled away, and blurted out “You’re married!?” (more extreme versions of the story had her jumping up on him and wrapping her legs around his waist--and other witnesses say that Courtney didn’t see the kiss, while some have her staring, and her mother looks to see what she’s staring at)
Just now realizing that every eye on the room was on them, and seeing his wife in the opening stages of what would be a long, painful meltdown, Ricky calmly extricated his hand from its hold on the girl’s butt. With neither explanation nor begging, he ran--literally ran--out of the house. And that was the last time anyone in Starcross, including Courtney, ever saw him.
The next day, Melanie found out that their bank accounts had been emptied. The next week, upon declaring her intent to end the marriage, she was alienated by her family, as they didn’t believe in divorce. The next year, she found out about more of his affairs from all over the world, and decided to go back to school, out of state. Except she wouldn’t have the time or money to take care of Courtney…Ricky’s parents had become pariahs and moved away, so the only person left for Courtney was “Grandma Glenda”. Where the story ended, Courtney’s life began…
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Nineteen years later, Courtney walked up the three white board-steps that her father had probably jumped over, on his way out. She did it every day, and every day she had a different mental image of how he must have looked. Today, her impression of his exit was cartoonish: He was boing-ing over the steps, with his eyes leaping out of his head fearfully, a Ricky Zusten-shaped cloud of smoke where he’d been mere seconds ago.
He’d never seemed real to her, anyway, so that particular daydream came naturally. Ricky Zusten wasn’t a person, and he certainly wasn’t the father she barely remembered--he was just a name on her birth certificate, a byline on an old news-story, a whispery part of the town’s folklore, and an enigma that no-one really understood. While her mother had nothing but white-hot hatred for him, Courtney just had pity. Not because what he’d done wasn’t bad, but because she’d seen how anger had torn her mother apart. Most people wouldn’t have been able to live in the house where their life had been ruined, but if there was one thing that Grandma Glenda had taught Courtney, it was how to be okay with things. She hardly ever talked about it; her lone comment on the subject, which she’d made to Amy, was “I’ll be glad when the next scandal comes along, and it has nothing to do with me.”
Courtney unlocked the front door, grabbed the mail (bill, bill, offer for free credit counseling, postcard from her mother’s boyfriend in LA), and went inside. The bed-and-breakfast had been cheesily rustic, which had driven Amy up the wall, so they’d redecorated, changing everything except for the hardwood floors. Now, the house had white walls, super-modern black furniture, and lots of blurry art on the walls. Courtney went straight for the tiled kitchen, and plopped the mail down on the table. She then checked the answering machine, typing in a code to get her messages. A pause, and then, “You have…zero…new messages.”
She jogged up stairs that only creaked at night, and headed straight for her room. It was full of antique clocks (Grandma Glenda had got her started on fixing and collecting them), and unusual, evocative photographs of nature, which she’d taken herself: Sideways lightning branching around a crescent moon, dusty amber grain-fields, daylight rain in which people were walking about as if it weren’t raining, and more. While she had no pictures of her parents, she did have some of her and Grandma Glenda--the first set was when Courtney was very young, and the next was her in her late teens.
Downstairs, she heard the door close, and Amy walked in, apparently in the middle of a cel phone conversation. Her voice drifted through the house, from room to room, as she walked around putting things up and checking the mail on the table.
Courtney sat on her intriciate-blue-plaid bed, and took off her earrings. Amy came galomping up the steps, as she always did. “Court? That you?”
“Yeah.”
Amy--with her short, dyed red hair, petite frame, and cutesy-trashy-goth clothing--stuck her head through the door, and then invited herself in. They’d last talked during their lunch break; they usually ate at Gino’s, a small pizza place a few blocks away. Like no time had passed between now and then, she asked, “Were you right about Jack?”
“Yeah, I’m sure his wife kicked him out…and the gerbil-plumbing thing happened again.”
Amy made a face, and sat down on the floor. “Oh, yuck. That’s--yuck.”
“What about with you? Did Connie ever show up?”
“No, she called in sick right after I got back. She was all fake-coughing and stuff. But the weird thing is--remember at Gino’s, when we asked if Trey was on today, and they said he’s home sick?”
“What, you think they’re back together? After he cheated on her with--what’s her name, the farmgirl?” Listening to herself, Courtney laughed and said, “Um, we have better stuff to talk about, right? Actual important stuff? I don’t want to end up like the library ladies that just sit around spreading rumors…”
Her coolness suddenly in question, it took Amy a few seconds to come up with “Uh, well…did they ask you to take the real estate test again?”
“They kinda hinted at it, but I shot it down before it went anywhere.”
“Court, c’mon, you should take it…you might as well. You’d be making more money if you were an agent, instead of just--”
“It isn’t--I don’t care about the money, okay? For one thing, I don’t want the extra stress. I want to just go there from nine to five--ten to four on slow days--and have it be over when I walk out the door. Besides, I don’t need a big important job to feel big and important, I’ve got other stuff to keep me busy.”
“I’m just saying, you should be thinking about the future.”
Courtney raised her eyebrows, and, with mock-surprise, said, “Look who’s suddenly turned into an adult. Does this mean no more twenty-four-hour parties and TP’ing the other eye doctor’s house?”
Amy tried to be serious, and failed miserably. “You know what I mean.”
“Look, I knew what I was getting into when I came back here. I got all the warnings from my mom.”
After the divorce, her mother had completed college, and then came back to Starcross, to move Courtney out west. Courtney had been living with Grandma Glenda for a few years, then, and she didn’t really want to leave. Not that she had much choice. A decade later, when Courtney herself had started college, she found out that Grandma Glenda’s son and his new family had died in a car crash…not wanting her to be alone, Courtney moved back to Starcross. Her mother, of course, was furious with her--not just for dropping out of college, but for going back to “that horrible town”. Grandma Glenda died about two years later, but Courtney had stayed there, as she had nowhere else to go.
Amy’s cel phone rang, and she beeped it to life. “Amy’s All-Night Chop Shop, how can we help you? Oh, hey.” Without making any attempt to cover the phone or lower her voice, she said, “It’s my twerpy little brother.”
While Amy kept saying “Uh-huh”, Courtney read the postcard her mother’s boyfriend had sent--she actually got along better with him than with her--and took off her shoes. She was about to change clothes when Amy’s tone shifted…it became almost tense, which was unusual, for her.
Looking up, Amy--with a surprising amount of urgency--said, “Go turn on the TV. Look at one of the news channels or something.”
Courtney padded down the stairs quickly, took long strides into the living room, and hit the power button on the remote. In seconds, it was showing images of some big alien-looking ship…except the location was in Starcross. Some failed-supermodel newsanchor was talking about how Wang had invited the whole town, and its government, to come to a dinner tonight, to discuss the possibility of creating a trade agreement between Wang’s empire and Starcross. Everyone could pick up their gifts there. Also, there was no reason to be nervous, because he’d invited the LL and their friends to be chaperones…
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