Multiverse mashup omnibu.., p.32
Multiverse Mashup Omnibus, page 32
I took a long pull on my beer. “Can we talk about something else? Anything else? Where’s the reason for this shindig?”
“Talking to Daryl’s dad,” Ashley said. “Birthday call.”
“Are you having sex, at least?” my mother asked.
“God, Mom, you’re like a dog with a bone.”
“I’m allowed one thing to nag about.”
“You don’t like my job, either.”
“But I don’t nag about it.”
“Does veiled criticism count as nagging?”
Daryl looked up at his wife. “I’d like an answer to that as well.”
She swatted the top of his head and stole his beer. “You’re a painter. I’m not criticizing, I’m critiquing.” She took a swig and handed the bottle back to him.
My mother pointed at the two of them. “That’s what I’m talking about. That’s love. That’s a relationship.” She grabbed my chin and swiveled my head to face her. “If you can honestly say to me that you’re happy without that, without this…” She gestured behind herself, to where my father was absentmindedly scratching her back. “Then I won’t say another word. But I know you, my darling, and I think you do want this and there’s something stopping you from getting it.”
“Mom…”
“So are you? Are you happy on your own? Tell me the truth and I’ll let up.”
“Can we do presents now?”
My niece ran out onto the balcony. Mackenzie was my absolute favorite family member, and not just because she had saved me from another incredibly awkward and intrusive conversation with my mother. Mackenzie was a total princess. Despite coming from two extremely socially progressive parents who refused to have anything gender-signifying anywhere near their baby, Mac had developed an intense love for anything that society coded as “girly.” If it was pink or frilly or had the word “princess” in it, she had to have it.
My favorite person in the world came and sat on my lap. She was holding the present I had brought for her.
“Oof!” I said. “You’re getting big!”
“I’m nine now, Uncle Jed. Is this one from you?”
“It is.”
She opened her eyes wide at her parents. “Can I open it now?”
Ashley nodded. “Go ahead.”
Mac turned the box over and daintily pulled at the tape holding the two ends of the pink wrapping paper together.
“Rip it,” I said. “Rip it!”
She laughed and tore a huge piece of the paper off, then pulled the rest away and dropped it to the ground. She saw the back of the box and gasped, then flipped it over and squealed.
“It’s Becky!”
“Is that the doll you wanted?” my father asked.
Mackenzie rolled her eyes. “It’s not a doll, Grampa. It’s a Career Girl.”
“Looks like a doll,” he said.
Ashley drew her hand across her throat in a cutting motion. “Dolls are for kids, Dad. All the tweens collect Career Girls now.”
Mackenzie started to open the box, but stopped, peering at it through the plastic front.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “That’s the one you needed, right? Becky Ballerina?”
“She’s blonde,” Mac answered.
“Okay…”
She looked back at me, her eyebrows furrowed. “Becky has brown hair. They had a vote on the website before they made her. You could vote for all different things about her, like her hair, and brown won. I voted for blonde but they never made the blonde one.”
Ashley reached for the box, tilting it so she could see the doll. “Huh. Right, I remember that. Where did you get this, Jed?”
Daryl leaned forward to look. “Doesn’t look like a knock-off.”
“It’s not.” I didn’t mention that I got it in a parallel universe, where blonde hair must have won this vote I didn’t know about. Whoops. The universe had seemed so much like mine it hadn’t even occurred to me that the one crucial difference might be the color of a doll’s hair. “It’s a prototype,” I said instead. “One of a kind.”
Mackenzie squealed again. “Oh my gosh,” she said, jumping up from my lap. “Dierdre and Lachrista are going to be so jealous! Thank you, Uncle Jed, I love it!” She gave me a fierce hug then ran back into the apartment.
Oh, yeah. Best uncle ever.
“How the hell did you get that?” Ashley asked. “If it’s a one-off it must have been expensive.”
Before I could come up with an excuse, my spanner pulsed on my wrist, giving me a quick squeeze. It was a signal from the Crossroads, telling me I had a mission. I reached into my pocket, pretending I had felt my phone vibrate, and looked at the blank screen. “Shoot.”
“What’s wrong?” my mother asked.
“I have to go. Work emergency.”
She frowned. “An Accounts Payable emergency?”
“Sorry.” I stood up, shoving my phone in my pocket. I made the rounds, hugging each of my relatives. “There’s a big project going on right now, always some disaster or another. Can’t wait.”
My mother stopped me, taking my face in her hands. “Think about what I said. I’m not saying you need to get married and start giving me more grandchildren tomorrow, you’re still young. But all this running around…I don’t think it’s making you happy.”
“I’ll think about it, Mom.”
“Don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad.” I kissed her cheek. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
I stepped into the apartment. Mackenzie came running out from her room, the doll – sorry, the Career Girl – clutched in her arms. She saw me and stopped short. Her face fell.
“Are you leaving? I haven’t blown out my candles yet.”
Shoot. This was far and away the worst part of lying to my family. Of course, I could have just gone to the bathroom, jumped to the Crossroads, gone on my mission, then come back, and no time would have passed. My family wouldn’t even have known I was gone. Except I had no idea how long the mission would take, and I had a horrible habit of forgetting what I had been doing when I last left my world, not to mention what I looked like. It would be hard to explain going to the bathroom in shorts and clean-shaven, and coming out in jeans and a three-day beard.
“I’m sorry, kid. I have to go to work.”
“Gramma said you’re wasted at your job.”
“Gramma says a lot of things. She doesn’t get how important my job is to me.”
She hugged Becky to her chest and opened her eyes so wide I thought they’d pop. “More important than me, Uncle Jed?”
“Don’t bother, you little con artist. That cutesy guilt act works on your dad but I don’t buy it.”
She laughed. “It works on you sometimes.”
“Sometimes. Come here.” She ran over and I gave her a hug. “I’ll swing by next weekend, you can show me what you got.”
“Okay. I’m sorry you have to go to work.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Another lie. I was sorry to disappoint my niece, of course, but I was never sorry to be called on a mission. Mackenzie ran back out to the balcony and I headed for the door. I made a mental note to remember that I had promised another visit the next weekend, then looked for a quiet spot to jump to the Crossroads.
Time to go to work.
Three
I appeared in my room at the Crossroads. It was a bit of a mess, cluttered with various souvenirs I had picked up on missions or on my occasional recreational universal excursions. They filled the rather small, functional space. I spent more time in my room than most Field Agents, so it always felt a little cramped to me. Even more so when my unwanted roommate was visiting.
“Get off the bed!”
Blinky, a teleporting dog I had rescued on a prior mission, woke with a start. “Jed!” he barked. “You’re back! You’re back! You’re back!” He jumped up and bounced around on the bed.
Blinky was enormous, three feet high at the shoulder, and whenever he invaded my turf he covered my sheets in his yellowish-brown fur.
“You have your own room,” I said. “In the refugee quarters, right near all the merpeople. Remember? Why are you always here?”
“The merpeople don’t have beds.” With a soft blinking sound and a rush of air he vanished from my bed and reappeared in front of me. He jumped up, putting his paws on my shoulders. I stumbled backwards under his weight and collapsed into my desk chair. He rested his head on my shoulder.
I sighed and gave in to the inevitable. I scratched his head. His tail wagged furiously.
“I missed you,” he said. “You were gone forever.”
I looked at the clock on my desk. Although time in my home universe paused while I was at the Crossroads, the reverse wasn’t true. But time didn’t always pass at the same rate, so the two weeks for me hadn’t been quite so long for my canine companion. “It’s been six hours,” I said.
“Eternity!” he barked.
My spanner squeezed again. “All right, off. I have a mission.”
He whined, and his tail drooped, but he jumped down. “Already?”
“I just got the guilt trip from my niece, I don’t need it from you.”
I stood up and changed my clothes. I didn’t need to undress – my uniform was made of a unique fabric which accepted mental commands from my spanner, and could form itself into any clothing I wanted. I rarely wore anything else, even at home – it was just so damn convenient. Self-cleaning, too. With a thought, my t-shirt, shorts and sandals shimmered and reshaped themselves into the standard blue Crossroads uniform. Three gold spirals formed on each shoulder, indicating my rank as a Field Agent.
I gave Blinky a pat on the head. “Stay off my bed.”
I stepped out into the hallway. Before the door had even finished sliding shut behind me I heard my bed creak. I jogged down the corridor to the shifter – sort of like an elevator, but instead of moving, it teleported you to another shifter near your destination. Before I reached it, it slid open and Lock stepped out.
Lock, as I’ve said, is my close friend and occasional sex buddy. We trained together as Apprentices before becoming Field Agents. I don’t think I mentioned how incredibly hot he is. He’s black and muscular, with sea-blue eyes and closely-buzzed black hair. He was usually clean-shaven, but was now sporting a day or two of stubble that really accentuated his sharp cheekbones. He wore a uniform identical to mine, but over it he sported a black leather jacket. A real jacket, not part of the changeable material. He swore it brought him luck on his missions, but I think he just knew how good he looked in it.
Can you hear me drooling?
His face lit up in a smile as he saw me. “Hey, buddy, I was looking for you!”
“Hey!” I ran and gave him a quick hug. “Good timing, I just got back.”
“I had my computer set to ping me when you were on-site again.”
“What’s up? It’s gotta be quick, I’m on my way to see Angie. I’ve got a mission.”
“I’m glad I caught you, then. I wanted to ask you…it’s my birthday.”
I smiled, while inwardly cursing myself. I had known his birthday was coming up and meant to set a reminder, but completely forgot.
“Happy birthday! It’s a day for birthdays, I just came from my niece’s party. How old are you?”
He shrugged. “In real years, who can keep track with the way we jump around? But on my world, I’m thirty.”
“Old man.”
“Flark you. I wanted to see if, uh…” His eyes darted away. “If you wanted to come back to my universe. Celebrate with me.”
I smacked his shoulder. “Of course! Is Liz coming?” Liz was my other best friend – the three of us had all trained together.
Lock looked down at the floor. “Oh, I, uh, I haven’t seen her. I could invite her, sure. I was thinking, though, maybe just you and me…”
I grinned. “Okay, I get it.” I tucked my fingers into his waistband and pulled him closer. “I know what kind of birthday present you’re looking for.”
He took my hands in his. He still didn’t look up at me, but he started rubbing the backs of my hands with his thumbs. “Well, yeah, but…I was hoping we could spend the day together. Just you and me.”
“Oh. Are you and Liz fighting?”
He let go. “No.”
“Because she’ll take off when we’re ready for some alone time. She knows we’re fooling around, she’ll get the hint.”
He nodded. “Sure, yeah. I’ll see if she’s around. Come on.” He headed back for the shifter. “You shouldn’t keep Angie waiting.”
I followed him in and the door slid shut. “I’ll come and find you when I’m back from my mission and we can head to your world.”
He nodded. “Sounds good.” He raised his voice slightly. “Residence Wing Six.”
He vanished.
I stood there for a moment, the shifter silently waiting for me to tell it my destination.
I’m not quite as thick as that conversation made me seem. I realized that Lock was asking me for something more than just sex. The problem is, we had agreed on one rule when this thing between us started – no romance. We were friends, and we had sex, and that was it. No complications. We were both excited by the prospect of infinite universes to explore, and infinite new people to meet, and neither of us wanted any ties.
Something had changed for Lock, it seemed. I needed to figure out if it had changed for me. Luckily, I had a good excuse not to think about icky emotions for a while.
“Control Room Twelve,” I said.
There was no perceptible change, but when the doors opened, it was onto the irritated face of Angie Colzystan, my Mission Supervisor. The green face of Angie Colzystan – she was from an Earth where everyone was pale green. And had three eyes – the third, in the middle of her forehead, was shooting daggers at me.
“You took your time, Agent Ryland,” she said in her vaguely Eastern European accent.
“Sorry, Angie, I got…”
She spun around and headed for the opposite side of the octagonal room, towards one of the seven large control panels. At each panel sat a Mission Supervisor, watching their assigned sections of the multiverse for any dangers. Large cantilevered windows over each looked out onto Mission Transit Rooms, from one of which I would shortly be departing.
Angie took a seat at her controls and I stood over her shoulder. She tapped a monitor. “Dis is your target.”
The screen displayed a still image of a woman. She looked to be somewhere around thirty. Dark blonde hair flowing in gentle waves down to her shoulders. Eyes of a deep brown, which stood out against her rosy white skin. Straight narrow nose above a broad, brilliant smile. An angel’s face on top of a body that looked like it wouldn’t know what to do with a carb if you buttered it and served it on a plate. A total knockout.
“Wow.”
“Focus, Agent Ryland.” Angie tapped the picture again. “She’s de target of your mission, not your libido.”
“How do we have a picture of her?” I asked. “I’ve never seen that before.” Usually I get sent on my missions completely blind, with virtually no information at all.
“Ve lucked out,” Angie replied. “De universe-breaching energy dat alerted us to de problem is focused very strongly on her. I vas able to piggyback on dat energy and get a qvick peek into her vorld.”
“So she’s not the source of the contamination?”
“I don’t believe so, but finding out is your job. Get moving.”
“On my way, boss.”
I headed to the center of the room and stopped. A circular section in the floor lowered, taking me down to Mission Transit. I waved to Angie as she rose out of sight.
I hit the floor and a door slid open. I stepped out into a big empty box, with every surface slightly padded in case of rough arrivals.
Angie’s voice sounded through a loudspeaker. “I’ve programmed your spanner vid de coordinates. I tried to get you as close to her as I could, but…”
“I know, I know, it’s an inexact science. Oh, Angie, uh…how’s the time differential? How much time will pass here while I’m there?”
“I’m not sure. I can’t get a strong lock but I’m still trying. Vhy, you have somevhere to be?”
“Possibly. Okay, I’m off.”
“Good luck, Agent Ryland. Be careful.”
“Aren’t I always?”
“Almost never.”
I grinned. “See you in a second.”
I ran across the open room. Angie shouted, “Vhy alvays vid de running?” but I didn’t respond. Just before I would have hit the far wall, I sent a mental command to my spanner. The Mission Transit Room vanished around me.
It was replaced by a bright sunny day, on a little tree-lined street filled with quaint brick apartment buildings, three or four stories high. I slowed to a stop before I could run into the back of a woman pushing a stroller. Nobody had noticed my unusual arrival, but the woman looked behind herself warily when she heard me coming up behind her. At the sight of my uniform, she stopped, looking me up and down.
“Fleet Week or Comic Con?” she asked.
“Military fetish,” I replied.
She smiled knowingly and continued on her way.
I knew right away where I was, as I had been to the corresponding spot in my own universe enough times. The West Village, in New York City. I was pretty sure I was on West Fourth Street – I had just been there a few days previously, a world away.
Not twenty feet in front of me, hurrying towards the corner, was a woman in a gray sweatshirt over black yoga pants. She was awkwardly carrying five or six large shopping bags in her hands, while simultaneously trying to keep her purse slung around one shoulder and a white cardboard box pinned under the opposite armpit. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a rough ponytail, rather than hanging loose like in her picture, but I guessed she was my target. I needed to get ahead of her, to see her face, to be sure.
She turned the corner onto West Eleventh Street. Before following, I ducked into a short stairwell leading down to a basement apartment. Semi-shielded, I changed my clothes into something less conspicuous. It felt like summer, so a plain gray t-shirt and jeans worked fine.
