//------------------------------// // Drive Insane // Story: The Rock in the Gulch // by Tatsurou //------------------------------// "Teleporter complete," Gary finally intoned. "Dammit!" Church snapped irritably as he slipped out of sleep mode. "And I was so close to actually completing Skyrim!"(1) "Slightly ahead of schedule," Gary offered apologetically. "Whatever, Maud's more important anyway," Church grunted as he shut down the games. "Do you have the coordinates to send me to Blood Gulch?" "Yes," Gary confirmed. "Do you have a plan yet?" "Yeah, I was running simulations concurrently while playing games and enjoying reliving time with Maud and Texas," Church responded easily, rolling his eyes. "And?" "First things first, keep Captain Flowers from dying and hide him away somewhere so he can help me once we catch up to important events, while also leaving behind a fake body to prevent anyone from realizing what's happened," Church explained readily. "I've already checked, and the matter generators Drunk Simmons built into this body can generate a dead duplicate of a person with ease. ...I don't know whether to be surprised or not that there are matter generators." "You do not wish to prevent yourself from dying?" Gary asked in surprise. "If I did that, Texas would never get called to Blood Gulch," Church answered readily. "Since my death didn't upset Maud, I'm not about to risk upsetting her by making her never meet her Mom." Gary was silent for a time. "You believe S.C. is capable of perceiving events outside the flow of time?" "I wouldn't put it past her," Church confirmed. "Anyway, if I succeed in preventing Captain Flowers' death, then we'll sneak out to this facility and hide out in one of the out of the way corners until after I hear the recorded message playing, then figure out what to do from there." "Why wait until the recorded message plays?" Gary inquired curiously. "Could you not interfere before then?" "Narrative causality says that if I recorded a message for Maud, she's already heard it in her own timeline, and I don't want to give her a headache from a paradox," Church countered flatly. Gary was silent for a time. "That does not compute." "Hang around with Maud long enough, and Caboose starts to make sense," Church explained readily. "That does not help." "Don't worry about it," Church reassured him. "Send me out Gary. See you in a few hundred years." "Goodbye," Gary offered as Church vanished in a flash of light. Church blinked as he warped into Blood Gulch, finding himself staring at Red Base. "Okay, time to figure out when I am..." Turning, he rushed towards Blue Base. Before long, he reached the Base, and saw himself and Maud heading towards the kitchen. "Okay, Captain Flowers normally took care of everything in the kitchen, and after he died Maud took care of making sure everyone ate. So the only time I went into the kitchen with Maud...was her birthday! I'm just in time!" He quickly rushed into the base. He got there just in time to see Captain Flowers looking at the cake. "Mmm, that does look good," he murmured thoughtfully. "I hope Private Church won't mind if I try some-" "Captain, stop!" Church insisted quietly as he got to him. "Private!" Flowers gasped out in surprise. "You startled me. I thought you were in the kitchen with..." His voice trailed off as he turned and saw Church and Maud in the kitchen. "...there are two of you. Why are there two of you?" "I'm from the future," Church explained readily. "It's a long story, but-" "You came all the way from the future to stop me from eating your cake?" Flowers asked in shock. "Well, if it's that important to you I'll leave it for you, but I'll need to teach you about sharing-" "It's not about the cake!" Church insisted intensely. "Well, it is, but not about you eating it! Well, it is that, but I don't mind you having some. You just need to take this injection first! Otherwise you'll die of a massive heart attack from how sweet it is!" Church held out the medical dispenser. Flowers stared at Church for a time. "Private, you know it's not actually medically possible to have a heart attack from too much sugar, right? That's completely different symptoms." Church blinked for a time. "...huh. You know, given Doc still hadn't figured out why his med scanner turns pink when he points it at Maud, I really should have questioned his diagnosis-" "In fact," Flowers continued, "the only thing that would have caused a heart attack was if someone had given me a medical injection to prevent one that happened to contain aspirin." Seeing Church's confused stare, he elaborated, "I'm deathly allergic to aspirin." Church stared down at the injector he was holding. "...wow. Really dodged a bullet on that one. Still, to preserve the timeline, we need to get going." "If the timeline has me dying-" Flowers began. "When Simmons gets drunk, he makes super tech," Church explained readily. "Including this robot body I'm currently using since I died and came back as a ghost. It can turn into a pony and it has matter generators. I'll just make a dead copy of you to leave here while we book it." He turned to the spot he remembered Flowers' body lying. "Private, I'm beginning to question your sanity-" Flowers voice cut off when he saw energy gathering to take the shape an exact duplicate of him, right down to the Freelancer armor. "...well blow me down..." he murmured in awe. "Yeah," Church agreed smugly. "Tex was really impressed by it, too." "Wait, Agent Texas comes to Blood Gulch?" Flowers asked in surprise. "Yeah," Church confirmed ruefully. "Tucker calls her in after I die, since Maud sees her as Mom." "And...how does Texas take that?" Flowers asked curiously, using eye blinks to deactivate the transponders in his armor so he wouldn't give off any signals to the Freelancer program. "She's actually a surprisingly good mother, and agrees to it rather readily," Church answered easily. "...any chance we could stick around long enough to see that?" Flowers asked hopefully as he turned to follow Church out. "We can come back-oh!" Church ducked back and grabbed the slice of cake. "Almost forgot! Besides, I never got to finish it." "Nice attention to detail, Private," Flowers praised warmly as the pair rushed off. "So we'll have quite some time before we catch up to everyone else?" "Oh yeah," Church confirmed. "A long while." "Good," Flowers agreed. "Because I have a lot to tell you, and I'm not certain how you'll take it..." Just as they exited the chamber, Doc stepped in. Seeing the dead body, he gasped in dismay. "This is terrible!" he screamed out, immediately drawing attention. Church then ducked in behind himself and Maud as everyone looked. "Always did wonder how one went missing," he murmured softly as he snagged one of the muffins he and Maud had been baking. "Thought I'd miscounted." With that, he dashed off with Captain Flowers. (1) Thanks, Des_Shinta, I just had to use this.