Breaking Science
All in all, the best part of the end of the world was not having to pay rent, and not having to worry about noise complaints was a close second.
I waited for the fuse to run down and shower the area in a rain of stone and metal. A nagging inkling forced me to shuffle a short distance leftward, my fingers still stuffed in my ears to muffle the impending roar of explosives.
The familiar rumble filled my body, and the urge to peek out of cover and watch almost got my head taken off. My chuckles grew into full-fledged laughter as tiny stones pelted the sturdy yellow plastic of my construction cap, most of the larger rocks smashing against the already ruined car. The large piece of asphalt my gut predicted finally crashed and shattered, most of the tiny needles peppering my weathered jacket and jeans, though a few found unprotected skin.
Once the last bits of downpour petered out like the final kernels in a bag of microwaveable popcorn, it was finally safe enough to glance over the top of the rusty vehicle at the settling dust and beyond that, the newly cleared entrance to the electronics store. The ambient moaning of the city's residents gradually returned—there was no time to spare for appreciation. Judging by the sounds, it'd be a half hour before they showed up. I still couldn't believe we'd lost to walk-at-a-leisurely-pace-for-your-life zombies.
Disappointingly, a van that had been forcefully evicted from a No-Parking zone only made it half as far I’d expected. It would have been nice to at least come close to my record.
“We should have been further away from that one,” my companion said as he dug his pinky finger into his ear, frowning at me from under his small, dark eyes.
“What do you care? You could have danced a jig right next to it and been perfectly fine.” The uneven terrain hardly slowed me down as I placed down a lunchbox and entered the store.
The wall of stale, rank air was like an odorous slap to the face, and no amount of pine-tree air fresheners would make a stank that bad disappear.
“Just because I’m in your head doesn’t mean I’ll disregard my own safety. If you bite it, so do I,” Dave growled as he fell in behind me and noisily brushed off his tweed jacket.
Considering my choices, Dave was the best company anyone could have possibly asked for. Sports equipment just hadn’t cut it. Sure, Dave may have been more than a bit rough around the edges, annoyed the hell out of me, appeared only when he wanted to, poked holes in any fun I wanted to have, and… where was I going with this? Oh, right. Dave’s okay to have following you, and he did have that awesome bowler hat. Not to mention there was zero chance of him getting his ass chomped, and that was always a plus.
“Aww, so good to know you care.” My volume dropped to a hushed whisper perfect for anything that involved tiptoeing through a darkened building.
“Right then, we need to move fast. There’s no way the zeds didn’t hear that explosion. Keep your eyes open for any that may have been trapped in here when the entrance caved,” cautioned Dave. Naturally, he didn't have to worry about his noise giving our location away.
The meager sunlight touching the store's lobby for the first time in whoever-knows how long shied away from the darkness like a terrified child. It barely reached to entrance of the shelving labyrinth sporting relics of an age gone by, making me glad the flashlight hadn’t been forgotten this time.
“Yeah yeah, this ain’t my first rodeo.” I rolled my eyes and pushed onwards, flashlight slightly shaking in my left hand and crowbar in the right. Unlike Dave, the crowbar never talked back or forgot to change the toilet paper roll.
The darkened crevasses at the edge of my vision teemed with the flickering movements of wraiths and spectres, and my knuckles turned white from gripping the tools even harder. Why couldn't these places ever be well-lit? Having to rely on Dave to point out which threats weren’t imagined was always a nuisance.
Dave glanced around the darkened store, although it was a mystery if he was looking for anything specific. “Doesn’t look to be too looted. What were you looking for again? Three o’clock, crawler.” He pointed out the rotting beast with a near-bored tone in his voice.
It took a harder yank than usual to free my crowbar best friend forever from the ex-human's cranium. “A continuum transfunctioner and a flux capacitor.”
Dave and the crowbar would keep me safe if they were trusted to do their jobs. All I needed to do was not get bit, grab what we came for, and make it home to see what the scavenging teams brought back.
He rolled his eyes. “Can you try to be serious? I’m sure you don’t want a repeat of the shopping mall.”
“How was I supposed to know that door was going to lock behind me? Besides, it wasn’t that bad.”
“You lost two fingers,” he deadpanned.
“I never liked those two anyway, what with the hangnails and always getting pinched in doors. You have to agree the fireball afterwards was epic.” My footsteps echoed in the still air as my path led around a toppled, thoroughly ransacked battery display and wandered into the appliances section.
Dave let out a noisy sigh, and it wouldn't have surprised me if he'd shaken his head as well. “Never mind. Shambler getting up on your right.”
The red mess that splattered onto the face-shield only smeared further when wiping it off with my sleeve failed. Reluctantly, I tilted it up and snorted with disgust. “Hate it when that happens. Nothing here, let’s head on back to where they keep the TV’s.”
“Just take the damn thing off. It’s not like there aren’t forty more back at base. Why do you think it will be back there anyway?” It baffled me how he could still mock my little missions. Things were hard enough with the other survivors always whining about how nobody should be going off alone. They just couldn’t understand getting these parts was far more important than searching for the few overlooked cans of green beans or spinach, especially the spinach.
The plastic safety mask glanced off an open washing machine, and I grumbled at both the missed shot and Dave's mood. “I don’t. I don’t know what or where it is, just that I need it and it’s in this store.”
“The voice in your head?” he inquired.
“Not a voice.”
“And you’re still listening to it? How are we still alive?”
“Of course! It’s a chance at getting off this rock. Ooooh, I’ve got to grab one of these.” One of the few remaining DVD players found itself crammed in my backpack. It wasn’t looting, it was treasure hunting.
“Please tell me that’s it.”
“Nah, I just wanted to give us something different to do tonight other than play ping pong with the wall. You know, since someone doesn’t actually exist,” I snarked, sticking my tongue out at him.
A figure limped toward us out of the corner of my eye, but it disappeared when it noticed me turning. Dave drew my attention with an irritated huff before I could spot anything. Dave didn't see anything. Just had to trust him.
“How is it my fault I’m incorporeal? And why a DVD player? I suppose there’s that television in the conference room, but we don’t have anything to watch on it.” He grimaced as his mistake slowly dawned on him.
“Good point, let’s make a detour. Right turn!” The sturdy piece of steel lazily twirled in my hand as we strode through the chest-high shelves of poorly sorted media.
The romance flicks and the new releases went ignored since there was no interest in the first and I’d already seen everything interesting out of the latter five years prior. A motley assortment of pretty much every other genre ended up in my bag. Dave was getting anxious and jittery by the time we reached the boxed sets for television series.
“Will you hurry it up? It’s a wonder they aren’t here already!” He angrily gestured towards the gaping hole on the other side of the cash registers.
As if on cue, the moaning from outside grew in volume and separated itself from the city’s background noise. At least zombies, unlike relatives, were polite enough to let me know when they were dropping by for a meal.
“That one’s your fault.” A sigh escaped while I judged my time. “Just let me find the MLP boxed set and we can go look for the doodad again.” Five years was too long to go without the colorful equine shenanigans, and it was a better choice than the various sitcoms.
“Are you serious? Just get going! There’s no time to look for anything like that.”
His blasphemy earned him a dagger-throwing glare. “There is always time for ponies.” A brief reprieve from a post-apocalyptic wasteland infested with undead? Yes please. The fact that it was cartoon ponies was just a bonus.
“I hate you so much.” He didn't mean that… probably.
“Found it!” The backpack bulged dangerously as the boxed set was forced in with a cheer. I might have needed to get rid of some of the other DVD’s depending on what I was there to grab. Claire was going to be so excited when she saw it. Granted, we were all eager to get our filthy mitts on any scrap of entertainment, but she'd been a fan before things went to hell.
“That’s nice. Go go go.” He rudely shooed me away from the DVD’s before there was a chance to think of anything else worth taking.
“Will you relax? You know I have a surprise waiting for the crowd. After everything they’ve helped me make, how can you still not trust my hunches?” The zombies weren’t too worrying, but my feet quickly carried me through the over-priced television section anyway.
“The way you describe it, they aren’t your hunches." His face paled and he stammered, "You didn't..."
It was much easier to nod without the headgear in the way. “Aww yeah, packed that box full of C5.” Deadlier than the news's opinion of cellphone radiation and tasty with a side of potatoes, C5 was one of my better inventions.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Not only did you place it in our exit, but you’re going to bring the rest of the store down on our heads!” He was absolutely furious, which in turn made me laugh at the bright shade of red he was turning.
“We’ll be fine, I—hold that thought, I think I found it.” A large pegboard of various electronic components stood in front of me. A quick glance at any flicker of movement was all that interrupted my hasty scanning. When a single bite was all it took, nobody could afford to miss anything.
My attention hung on a quartz crystal resonator, a popular component in radios and other devices. Specifically, the third one in was what caught my eye. The hunches were pickier than a spoiled third-grader, but if they wanted that specific one, they got that specific one. That was not a fun lesson to learn.
“We’ve seen those all over the place! Why couldn’t you have gotten a ‘hunch’ to get one then?”
“I was supposed to get this one, I guess. Oh look, just in time too.” A horde had shuffled through the entrance, their slow pace—and the time of year—the only thing differentiating them from Black Friday shoppers. Neither of those flesh-stripping crowds would have been a welcome sight.
The shiny yellow detonator felt familiar, even through the callouses and torn, fingerless gloves, and it practically begged me to press the button. Dave was all that stopped me from making soup.
“Back up towards that employee door, we need to time this right.” I knew that tone. Dave may have been frustrating, but he thought things through, and when his words rang with a tone usually reserved for speaking one’s full name, ignoring him would have been a poor choice. “Wait… wait… get your damn finger off that button!”
“Jerk.”
The undead were about halfway to us when he said, “Alright, through the door and out the loading docks; hopefully we can get some decent distance before we need to detonate.”
The door flew open with much less resistance than expected, but my balance somehow kept me upright while bolting down the revealed hallway and nearly choking on the surprisingly staler air. A managerial zombie lunged from an open office, and his rotting fingers brushed against my clothes as I ducked under his grasp.
“Now!” Dave shouted as we clumsily rounded a corner, following the arrow labelled “Loading Dock.”
With nearly everybody undead and most of the world a lost cause, there were few things to look forward to. Luckily for me, pressing the button labelled “showtime” on the detonator always brought a smile to my face and a messy end to several unlucky zombies.
The building shook and groaned, drywall falling from the walls and tiles plummeting from the ceiling in a glorious and familiar cascade. A shock wave knocked me to the dirty carpeting but failed to remove my silly grin. How many ended up re-dead that time?
“Get up and go already!” Dave's words were barely noticeable above the ringing in my ears. It was a wonder there was no hearing damage after three years of demolitions work. In all honesty, I was more curious how I'd made it through the first two years without reducing anything that moaned in my general direction to a fine paste.
“That was awesome! We need to go see how much damage it did.” With a quick shake, most of the dust and debris clinging to me fell to the ground, but the small cloud that had made it into my throat took a hearty coughing fit to clear. “Bleh, hate the taste of drywall.”
“Circle around if you’re that set on it, but we need to get out before the building comes down. It’s going to be close if you need to use a mini.” Dave sighed, moving past me and motioning for me to follow.
“But I hate using minis!” Dave was easy to pass and beat into the loading bay. Minis were like baby's first grenade.
“And I hate getting eaten. Open one of the doors up and let’s see what we need to do.”
The door only rose a couple feet off the ground before it caught on something. A mini, which was like a bangsnap compared to what devastated the storefront, was unceremoniously lit and tossed under. Hopefully, me scampering behind a forklift and covering my ears was enough cover.
The home-brewed explosive ripped the door off its track and rattled the weakened building further. When the dust cleared, it revealed…more rubble.
“This is why I hate minis,” I grumbled loudly, lighting and nonchalantly tossing another. “Never gets the job done in one.”
A second explosion cleared enough rubble for us to climb up and over the pile, emerging into the overcast outdoors once more. After a hard-earned breather, we set off towards the parking lot. More precisely, it was what had once been the parking lot: half the store had collapsed and a sizable crater was all that remained of the unfortunate lunchbox.
A dopey grin crossed my face. “Hey Dave, do you see the van anywhere?”
“No, but I do see a lot of zeds piling in.” Even gruff ol' Dave couldn't stifle a smirk as the mindless forms tumbled into the crater, rolling down the sides like ragdolls. The sides weren’t steep, but they had worse balance than me the morning after New Year’s.
“We’ll be fine, I still have the crowbar. I’m going to say I beat my record though.”
“Whatever, let’s just get out of here.”
—
—
The stronghold was not a pretty building nor was it a spacious building. What it was, though, was a sturdy building, which was surprising for a two-story office building. Surrounded by parked cars and “strategically placed” rubble, it hadn’t been breached since we'd moved in a couple years ago.
Only two zombies needed to be dealt with this time, so no horde nipped at my heels and made climbing over the entry barricade difficult. The lock on the jury-rigged, plate-metal gate was as difficult as always to operate, and the whole thing just barely slid open enough to let me squirm through. After some habitual locking on the other side, I was home.
“Guys, I'm back!” Nobody replied, so another shout went out, louder this time and with a hint of worry. Again, nothing but silence returned my call. My grip tightened as I crept forward.
”Expecting company?” Dave looked at me, both concerned and confused.
Where were they? Claire, Jordan, Alex; any of them should have been able to hear me. We did keep quiet to avoid drawing attention, but something wasn't right. There weren’t any signs of a struggle, so chances were slim a zed had gotten in. Banditos perhaps? Sadly, that was an actual problem I'd turned to giblets before. Well, sad for them, not me.
”No, seriously, who are you looking for?”
“You're the thinker between the two of us,” I hissed quietly, scanning every nook and cranny for the slightest hint of peril. “Something must have happened to the sentries.”
Dave massaged his eyes and sighed in exasperation. ”Not this again. Who do you think is supposed to be on watch?” Almost inaudibly, he added, ”I hate this shit.”
“I think it should be Jordan's shift, but at least Claire and Alex should have been able to hear me.” There were a few other survivors who were out and about on their own scavenging teams, but those three always stayed at base for one reason or another.
“They're gone and have been for a while. They haven't ever met each other either. In fact, you never knew all three of them alive at the same time.”
Clutching at my poorly cut, filthy, short hair, I sagged against the wall and tried to process what Dave had just said. A small headache was forming, despite the desperate massage I gave my temples. They couldn't be dead, I'd spoken to all three of this morning right before my trip to the electronics store.
Alex had been sharpening any edged tool he could get his calloused hands on, his past as a mechanic proving to be quite helpful in maintaining anything more complex than a fork. A giant of a man, he would have towered over any other person I'd ever met. He was, without a doubt, laconic, rarely speaking more than a single sentence or two. He had a tattered mechanic's jumpsuit he wore whenever he worked, with a faded patch bearing his name sitting over his heart.
The nauseating smell of cooked flesh had attacked my nose when I'd found him after the fire. Somehow, he had survived, but between the quality of medical care available and Alex looking like he'd brought a knife to a flamethrower fight, there was only one option. No, that couldn't be right. Claire and Jordan would have told me.
Claire's svelte form had been as dirty and battered as everybody else’s, but her beautiful, hazel eyes stood out in the crowd of haggard survivors. She'd been a grocer trying to get into the field of nature photography, and often whined about the loss of her favorite camera during the initial panic. No matter what bland, canned item we brought her, she was somehow able to transform it into a meal that could almost take your mind off what you had to wash off your hands before eating.
Like a pendulum in a grisly clock, she swung to and fro from the orange extension cord wrapped around her neck. Clean clothes were a rarity, but she’d somehow managed to save a set for a “special” occasion. Her manilla dress hung as limply as she did, and one of the matching heels rested where it had fallen from a dainty foot. Her dead eyes refused to let mine go. It had snowed that day. Monty had needed to help me bury her, except he'd slipped on the ice, and I'd found myself with two bodies to dispose of. But that didn't make sense. Monty was supposed to be out with one of the scavenging teams.
My palms pressed into my eyes, trying to rid me of the lies. The unbidden images hurt to see, and it felt like a UFC fighter was using my head as a boxing bag.
Jordan couldn't be dead. If I could survive off little more than luck and tenacity, the highly trained, ex-military survivalist would have thrived in this environment. He never showed the faintest shred of emotion, approaching each hurdle with the same cold stare. The rare few nights he actually succumbed to exhaustion and slept, Jordan would cry until he awoke.
What was left of his hand still clutched the engraved Bowie knife he never let out of his sight. I wouldn't have known the pile of offal was him if it weren't for the distinctive tattoo spotted on a different scrap of flesh. There's a reason they call them final stands.
The back of my head thumped against the wall in protest of the false memories. I couldn't have been alone. I'd watched out for each of them at least as much as they looked after me. There had to be someone I hadn’t failed.
“How long?” The delusion still hanging heavy on my mind, hampering my words. My mind travelled toward places marked with ‘trespassers will be shot’ signs; I needed to keep things together. “How long has it just been you and me?” Dave would help me sort the mess out. He’d never had a reason to lie to me.
Dave sat next to me, wringing his dark brown hat as he stared across the hall. “At least two years.” Noisily, he cleared his throat. “It's been a while since you last…forgot, but it looks like this will be one of the easy times.”
I couldn't help but flinch at that. Between my aching psyche and the failures staring me in the face, things weren’t looking too cheery. Just how bad had the other times been? How many other times were there?
Alone. That's how it was, and that's how it had been. Anyone who remained was supposed to escape perdition with me, so all we had to do was keep each other alive. It was my fault there'd only be one person leaving. I'd failed them.
My limbs felt worse than a canary in a coal mine, and I sighed, leaning against the wall as the day's trials caught up to me. The unavoidable scrapes and bruises tingled like they were trying to remind me of their existence. The energy to stand and go about the day was gone. No, that wasn't right. It was the will to keep going that was missing. It was my fault I was alone. My emotions and body urged me to just give up, slather myself in steak sauce, and wait outside until something noticed dinner was served.
Dave’s words were unclear, concern showing on his face as he tried again and again to snap me out of my funk. Everything seemed distant, like that dingy hall and the imaginary man trying to comfort me were miles away. Indecipherable whispers filled my ears with static as I clutched at the spiral everything slid down. It took a rotting hand, macabre streamers of skin dangling from its wounds like faulty paper mâché, reaching from my left to bring me back to reality.
Without hesitation, my trusty crowbar swung at my foe, but instead of a walking corpse eager to find its next meal, the wall took the brunt of my swing. With a grunt, the tool tore from the wall, scattering drywall across the floor, yet nothing took advantage of the delay. It was still just Dave and me.
“We need to get out of here.” My joints protested the movement, creaking loudly as I rose to my feet, wanting only to sit down and watch something. Ponies sounded like a pretty good idea right about then. Poking science in the eye could wait.
A pang of hunger pushed something else to the top of my list, only to be shunted to second place when scratching an innocent itch led to sticking a finger in an open wound and swearing loudly.
A stale granola bar snagged from the break room—just something to take the edge off the hunger while patching things up—kept me from gnawing my legs off while meandering over to where the pile of first aid supplies waited patiently.
There was nothing too serious to patch up this time, but being caught in so many explosions tended to leave a few wounds. The injury I'd inadvertently fingered wasn't as bad as it felt, but the scratches ended up requiring the last of the gauze and most of the remaining stock of adhesive sutures, two things which absolutely sucked to scavenge for. After that, all that remained was tweezering out a couple slivers of rock from my cheek, the future scars an eventual part of my ever-growing collection. Thankfully, Dave kept his snark to himself during my time playing medic.
With that out of the way, my stomach told me a granola bar was a terrible dinner, and I should be ashamed for not eating an actual meal first.
When it comes to food, the apocalypse sucks. Make a list of all your favorite foods. If any of them need to be refrigerated, cross them off unless you have a generator, a refrigerator, and the means to maintain both of them. In fact, you might as well cross them out anyway, because the universe is a bitch.
Most shelf foods have fairly short lifespans as well, even tasty little snack cakes. Unless you have the good fortune to not be in a city when shit hits the fan, forget about growing a garden to feed you: it may help a bit, but you’re still going to need to scavenge a lot. Even if you aren’t in the city, good luck maintaining the perimeter on a plot of land large enough to feed you and everyone who is with you.
Not that the bit about other people mattered anymore. Everyone else was… gone, but that just meant more “delicious and nutritious” Spam for me. And Spam was that night’s supper, washed down with room temperature bottled water.
“You going to get building?” Dave inquired, gesturing towards my workshop.
“Screw that, it’s pony time.” With a laugh, I skipped to the conference room.
"I still don't get why you almost got yourself killed because of My Little Pony." He sighed, hanging his head in shame.
"Because ponies." As if there would be any other reason.
The DVD player worked beautifully, and better yet, nothing had been damaged when I fell from setting off the C5. Only made it through four episodes before Dave’s angry glaring got under my skin. On my way out, a drained remote control hurtled through him. It couldn't actually hurt him, but it's the thought that counts.
No matter the unholy amount of potpourri, the room always smelled like oil and burnt electronics—an odor that added a homey feel. There were enough jagged scorch marks and gouges marring the walls to slay an interior designer at fifteen paces. In one wall, a melon-sized hole, the result of a hilariously failed experiment with office chair propulsion, provided a glimpse of the office floor and its sea of cubicles.
The hunches that had led me to the electronics store in the first place had been helping me build a machine which could have never been conceived in normal circumstances. Fluorescent lights lit the workshop well enough, yet the corner with the device had grown steadily darker as more of it came together, making part of the room feel like somebody had said, “We need to talk.” The fact that it only took up a single corner offset the ominous feeling.
There were so many parts it was impossible to remember everything included. What mattered, though, was that my hunches told me this was our—my ticket out of here; this pile of crap would hand me a one-way ticket to another universe. For some reason, Dave thought it was completely ludicrous.
“So, what exactly are you going to do with that quartz?” I could feel him looking over my shoulder as the resonator worked out of its package.
“No clue.” The component refused to give up its secrets. “Give me some time to figure it out.”
Circling the machine at a snail’s pace, I took in every detail as the task presented itself. It was like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces from several different boxes. Precariously leaning to one side, it was held together by little more than duct tape, hope, and cartons of chewing gum. No doubt my old shop teacher was thrashing in his grave. Come to think of it, if he were a zombie, was there some zed just spinning in circles somewhere?
“Here we go.” Smirking, I grabbed the soldering iron and attached the resonator to the microwave’s circuit board. That would have allowed… something. Who cared how it worked? Whether or not it worked was the real question.
A feeling of accomplishment struck, and it was no mystery what it meant. The machine was finally finished, and the realization struck me like a hammer to the kneecap. After all this time, after far too many excursions for random junk, this was it. There was plenty of excited shaking, and there may have also been some gleeful squealing. I regretted nothing.
“I take it that means you’re actually done? Like, done done?” Dave stepped to my side and tried to figure out what the addition had done.
Unable to talk, I nodded fervently and began the last bit of tweaking. It may have been complete, but these things always needed a little bit of extra love.
“Hey hey, not so fast. You’re travelling between universes, you know, if you don’t get disintegrated or meet some other unpleasant fate. Go pack some supplies, and I mean more than just food and whiskey.” While he may have always insisted the entire concept was impossible, he was still smiling as he gestured toward the door.
“I don’t have a problem. It’s for anesthetic. You can’t judge me.” Delicious, delicious anesthetic.
“Where are we headed anyways?”
Another wide grin cracked my lips. Dave knew we were going somewhere, but he'd never gotten a straight answer when he'd asked me where. “Equestria.”
Dashing throughout the building, I was able to pack food, explosives, water, party water, explosives, and most of a tool kit, and I was still back before he could respond with a quiet “What?”
“I know, right? Isn’t it great? We get to see ponies!” My laughter would have probably earned me a tight white jacket, but to hell with it. They wouldn’t stifle my excitement.
Dave looked at me like I’d just voted Libertarian. “I’ll ask again. What!?”
“Hey, no need to shout.” Wincing at his volume, I set the pack down and resumed the last minute tweaking.
“But Equestria is fictional. You know, like the television show that it is.” He facepalmed so hard, he would have broken something if he were real. “You built this abomination to go to a place that doesn’t exist.”
“Well, it obviously exists if we’re going to it.” Dave frowned harder as I rolled my eyes and adjusted the knob on the samophlange to calibrate the relativity angle. “Beats going to Narnia at least. Or the Imperium. I want a better life, not more hopelessness.”
You could bring up any theory you wanted on alternate universes, and there'd always be someone with a counter-argument. Good thing there weren’t any actual people left to argue with. This would work; I could feel it alongside the unfamiliar taste of hope. Together, they kind of tasted like snozzberries.
“How can you be so sure? This is our lives you’re gambling with here. And you’re a terrible gambler!” That much was true at least: a bet on both heads and tails on a coin-flip would just end up in the coin landing on its side.
“I have a hunch. Shit, what are the coordinates?” One hand covered my eyes while the other pushed "random" buttons. The microwave was ready to go, its display brightly showing a sequence of numbers and symbols the appliance had no business knowing.
“Again with the hunches. I’ll give the credit for the C5 to 'em; that stuff works great, and there was no way you would have figured out how to make a deadly explosive with tapioca pudding powder otherwise. But this is far beyond that. You’re actually trying to leave reality. If I’d known this is what you had planned, I’d have tried harder to stop you. This delusion of yours is so completely off-the-wall crazy, bonkers, ludicrous. Whatever you want to call it, how can this possibly work?”
“Says the imaginary acquaintance following me through a zombie apocalypse.” I snorted. “I’ll take oblivion over this any day. Well, unless I have to buy horse armor.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Frustrated, he ineffectually punched the wall. “Fine, either way, we need to get out of here. You've held on this long, but we both know your luck can't last forever. Best case scenario: it works like you expect it to. Worst case scenario: it doesn’t work and lights you on fire.”
“That’s the spirit. Now shut up and let me work.” A smirk inched across my face as I cracked my knuckles and opened the toolbox. My instruments stared back at me, eager to play their mechanical melody. There wasn’t much left to do, but it needed to all be done with utmost precision:
Oil the hinges.
Recalculate exit distance and vertices.
Tighten all the things.
Debate going to find a hula girl doll. Nothing says 'please don't explode' like a plastic dancer.
Turn the relativity angle knob half a degree counterclockwise.
Push start on the stereo and the microwave simultaneously.
It was go time.
The music player filled the air with an appropriate tune while the microwave—the expedition to retrieve that son-of-a-toaster-oven was barely worth it—sparked over the tinfoil origami crane within. A few pregnant moments passed with crushing gravitas; the tension was so thick I could have almost reached out and slapped it for being so dramatic.
“It didn’t explode, which is a plus. I really didn’t expect that microwave to work after how much you gutted it.” Dave shrugged. “What a tremendous waste of time and effort.” His eye twitched as he glared at the cancelled escape.
“One moment.” After a swift kick to the easy-bake oven, the device surged with renewed vigor. “It was loose.” Even a trans-dimensional transporter followed the first rule of tinker troubleshooting: sometimes all it needs is a good smack. Rule two: jiggle the cord.
Arcs of electricity ran up and down every bit of the machine, the paper components evaporating in little puffs of flame. Various diodes blinked on and off, and one flashed plaid instead of the usual bright green. Fluorescent bulbs throughout the stronghold shattered, and an unearthly hum filled the air as the music distorted.
The Slinky matrix began to spin, my decision to grab the metal ones proving better and better. They each glowed a radiant blue or red as mysterious energy coursed through them, simultaneously disintegrating and reinforcing them. The plasma Slinkies increased in speed, the red and blue combining into a shining purple as they began to cut through the fabric of space and time. The whole room had become strangely dark, and the only light came from the machine.
Space-time doesn’t cut gracefully; with a tearing sound heard in my bones instead of my ears, the portal opened, consuming the quartet of previously metal springs instantly. The room may have gone dark when all the lights blew out, but it was still brighter than the abyss before me, its edges redefining what was previously black.
“What the shit? How the hell did that actually work? I-I think you just broke science.”
“I told you it’d work. Let’s go, we don’t have much time before it closes, and we don’t want to get stuck halfway through when it does.” That was a mess no creepy janitor deserved.
Even though it had been me to stress urgency, I took a moment to gaze at the open doorway, almost hoping one of the many survivors from the past would come stumbling through and tell me they only faked their death to escape a tax collector. This was it. This was the end of my life on that decaying rock.
How many other humans were still alive anyway? Two years without a single trace didn't leave my hopes very high. I'd tried to keep them from dying. I'd tried to find more. But only a figment of my imagination and I stood in the darkened room. Despite my best efforts, I was alone, and the guilt was like a knife. If my regrets fought any dirtier, they would have kicked me in the groin while shielding themselves with an orphan.
“I’m sorry, everyone.”
My pack hung heavy on my shoulders while heavy steps marched me toward my last hope. Suddenly, I tripped over what must have been missed clutter, falling into the portal with the grace of an upside-down blimp and flailing boldly where no man has flailed before.
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What you did there.
Your argument is valid.
Best ending to a chapter.
this... was... HILARIOUS!!! on to the next chapter!!!
I'm watching Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy while reading this. Needless to say, I read Dave in Grim's voice and other guy in Billy's voice.
"flailing boldly where no man has flailed before."
like favorite watch
You, sir, have earned an upvote after only one chapter. Well done.
While I'm at it, "I don’t what or where it is" should probably be corrected to "I don’t know what or where it is"
3013853
Fixed, thanks for finding that one.
Huh. Seems legit.
troll.me/images/futurama-fry/seems-legit.jpg
The journey begins.
3900485
If it has powdered milk that is pretty legit. After an episode of Mythbusters I saw powdered milk scares the shit out of me.
If I get to the end, only to find out that the machine actually exploded and everything he saw was a coma-riddled delusion, I'm gonna be so fucking sad. Plz, please, plz let that not happen.
Wow! What an opening chapter.
Time to read all of them.
cdn.meme.am/instances/54157782.jpg
Well, I just got around to reading chapter one. And yeah, I agree with dave; he pretty much just broke the universe. I have a hunch Discord is behind his 'hunches'.
Love the insane protagonist btw. A lot more interesting than I thought he'd be.
Microwaves. Useful for more than cooking food. For instance I once set a ceramic plate and a cheese sandwich on fire with one. The plate caught first though so that was a conversation and a half
Threats of imminent death? Hell no! I'm grabbing Dash plushies!
Bombs you can eat...
Ten stache points to you good sir
Also, my thumbs up makes the number read "777" Yay!
...He actually died and the rest of the story is all in his mind, a comforting delusion as he passes.
Yeah, my mind hasn't left the topic of death. Finding it hard to leave the topic alone. I'm scared. Sorry. Don't mean to offload here.
I like it. Another!
7110237 it's okay, its only natural
How come his machine worked but not mine?... Ahh the aluminum origami swan.
6323586
Well, plaid LED’s just scream discord. XD
This was a very interesting start to a story.
Huh. Looks pretty neat