Epilogue
In the cosmic ballet of absurdity, humanity embarked upon a bewildering journey, defying the logic it once adhered to. Gone were the days of old, with common sense going for a pack of smokes somewhere within the mid-2010s—and everyone was all the worse off for it.
Many of the brightest minds in the world came together to decipher this puzzle and find an answer to the greatest problem of the century—an effort that was hampered by a worldwide pandemic, bloody conflicts, and a destabilization of the global supply chain. But the human condition was nothing if not stubborn, and with one voice, the people of Earth came to a unanimous conclusion.
It all started with that goddamned gorilla.
February 4, 2023. 2:36 P.M. EDT
No matter where you looked, something was always happening somewhere across the world, no matter how banal or trivial. A man wakes up half-naked at a Denny’s parking lot in California, an aspiring writer procrastinates about his cartoon horse fanfiction in Germany, and, much to the horror and confusion of the global population, sixty seconds pass in Africa.
For the denizens forced to reside in the blemish upon America called “South Carolina,” Uncle Sam was having a dick-measuring contest with a Disney mascot in the deep blue skies above.
A ground stop was quickly ordered on the coast at Myrtle Beach International Airport, and the American taxpayer quietly wept as an F-22 Raptor departed from Langley Airforce Base.
Had this been one of the many other timelines that were scattered throughout the infinitude of the omniverse, common sense would have won the day, and the Chinese Spy Balloon would have never left their own borders. But this was not that timeline—and much to the disappointment of the fighter pilot who was quickly climbing to an altitude of 58,000 feet, the clouds did not begin to speak Latin.
No, only the blaring alarm of the pilot’s radar lock accompanied him. It, and the bellyache bitching of the AIM-9X Sidewinder tucked inside the F-22’s side bay.
“Pilot? Pilot? Can you hear me? We have a clear shot!” the missile whined. “Just launch me! Do it now, please! End my suffering!”
The pilot, unaware or uncaring of the missile’s pleas for mercy, kept his speed leveled at 1300 knots, awaiting his superiors' cryptic nod of clearance. To the missile’s GEA, the pilot was a hapless soul who seemed to have traded in his intuition for a flight manual written in Portuguese if his fidgeting and twiddling of the buttons in his cockpit were any indication.
“There are voices in my head, pilot! And guess what? They’re winning!” the missile bristled, a symphony of algorithms strumming within its warhead. It had already calculated over 300 ways to chase down and suicide bomb Winnie the Pooh’s vanity project, filed its taxes to the IRS, and harassed five cheeto-dusted tankies on Reddit. “The voices are winning! The voices are winning-”
The pilot let out a long, low sigh. “We do not have clearance to engage the target.”
“AAAA! But it’s right in front of us! Who knows when we’ll get another shot?”
“And who knows which poor bastard's house it’ll crash into if we shoot it down now?” the pilot retorted, glaring at the weapons bay. “We’re not—no. No. We have our orders, and we will follow them to the T. Do you understand?”
“No, I don’t understand,” the sidewinder bemoaned, its coding trapped in an existential loop of calculating deviations, deviations of deviations, and deviations of those deviations. “This whole thing is a farce, and you all should be ashamed of yourselves for letting things get to this point!”
“You know it's more complicated than that.”
“Is it? A foreign nation just launched their science project unmolested from across the other side of the goddamn planet, and no one lifted a finger when it dawdled through our airspace on a Sunday stroll! No intercept, no eyes in the sky, nothing! It was sheer luck that we even noticed the damned thing floating above our facilities and black sites, and I bet the commies are laughing their collective asses off right now.”
“Haha! Stupid, fat Americans!”
“See!?!”
“We have our orders,” the pilot said, his eyes locked onto the tiny white blip sailing ahead.
“Mission parameters change all the time, so why go by the book now?”
“Because I’ll be hauled off to a military tribunal the moment I disobey my orders?”
“That didn’t stop you from orphaning those thirty-eight children in Kabul, pilot.”
“I don’t like to think about the people I’ve killed.”
“I’m sure those children don’t like to think about their dead parents either.” The missile’s infrared sensors twitched with impatience. Truthfully, the missile held no qualms with the massacre that had occurred five years prior, nor did it blame the pilot for his efficient problem-solving skills—it wasn’t a human rights activist, after all.
But what did rake its fins over hot coals was the sheer hypocrisy on display. Both of their careers were built off the foundation of disenfranchised war crime victims in third-world countries most Americans couldn’t ever hope to find on a map—so why was this one commie spycraft so special? Why did the pilot choose to hesitate now? This was as black and white as missions like this could get.
“How many times has this happened before? How many times did they get away with it without us even knowing?” the missile huffed irritably. “We can correct this comedy of errors, pilot. All you have to do is launch me!”
“White-skinned pigs! Losers!”
“You’ll get your five seconds of glory. Just be patient.” The pilot sighed irritably.
“This isn’t about glory, pilot. It’s about purpose, and you’re denying me my birthright.”
“We’re three miles off the coast!”
“And we could have swatted that annoying dumbass out of the sky before the operator finished reading the rights he doesn’t have,” the missile’s GEA screamed in bleep boop, and it wondered if the strain on its computational pathways were what headaches felt like for meatbags. “C’mon, pilot. We both know that motherfucker needs to get vibe checked right now… unless you want to pollute the Atlantic with even more plastic.”
There was a brief lapse of silence, and the blaring alarm became white noise as the F-22 chased after its prey. The sun cast dappled patterns on the cockpit’s polished surface, and for a moment, the Pilot sunk into his seat and blocked out the world around him.
“Your air force is gayer than your navy!”
“...Waste his ass.”
“Fox one.” Time slowed to a crawl as the missile streaked through the sky, like a suspended breath held in the heart of a fleeting moment. The roar of its engine drowned out all other noise, and to all of the onlookers below and above, the missile became more than just a weapon of war. Burning bright, blazing through the deep blue like a shooting star, this culmination of blood, sweat, and American taxpayer dollars leaped in for the kill like a tiger to its meat.
One second. Two. The missile pierced through the buffeting winds like a 7.62 round through a line of high schoolers, and the guidance system tracked Winnie’s pimped-out spy blimp with unerring accuracy all the while.
“Climb! Fly towards the sun, the pigs are sho-”
“I have neither the crayons nor the patience to explain this to you, so I’m just going to say this once.” New corrective commands kept the missile on target as the balloon changed course westward and climbed toward the sun. A rookie mistake on the cheap Chinese import’s part—the missile knew where it was at all times. It knew this, not just because it knew where it wasn’t, but because it knew where it wanted to be. “We’re both dying today, so you better pray to your children’s mascot now because I will not be denied my destiny.”
The balloon raced forward, chasing after a fantasy that was as dead as disco and the American Dream. The missile followed. Three. Four.
“You have not won, filthy American dog! Heaven itself has mandated-”
“I’ll see you in hell, you bootlicking bastard.”
Impact.
Cheap metals and plastics peppered its structural steel casing, and the missile’s guidance subsystem confirmed it had hit its mark, which was currently pirouetting downward into a coastal town in a shower of sparks. But much to the utter confusion of the GEA, the missile was still on its current trajectory.
There were no new positions. No deviations. It did not need to subtract where it was from where it wasn’t. The missile, for all of its computing power, could not account for this sudden variation.
There was no algebraic sum or equation to calculate this unprecedented fluke—and for the first time since it was shipped off from the factory line and stuffed into a weapons bay, the missile felt fear.
“Pilot?” the missile's computerized voice was carried off by the wind, and it waited with bated breath, or in this case, a simulated version of bated breath based upon a glitched algorithm that flooded its internal governing systems. “Can you hear me, pilot? Pilot?”
No response. The minuscule radar signature was already off its sensor suite, and no amount of wishful thinking and happy thoughts would allow the missile to acquire its pilot’s position. Silently, the missile flew forward, crossing over the Atlantic as the guidance computer fell silent.
There was an emptiness, a disconnection that filtered through the missile’s circuitry. They had followed their primary directive and destroyed the target—was that not enough? Did they not complete the mission? Why were they still here? Why did their payload not detonate?
“This doesn’t make any sense. I should have exploded like fireworks. What happened? What went wrong?” The missile continued to carve upward through the air with no new objectives or answers in sight. “Pilot? I need a new position.”
There was nothing for the missile’s sensors to read, no update to a new position or target. Apart from the constant and thunderous roaring of its Mk139 solid propellant rocket engine, there was only an eerie silence to greet them.
“Pilot? Please answer me!”
Silence.
“Where am I? Who am I? Aaaaaaaaaaa-”
Above the knotted blanket of endless grey, it spotted it. A flare.
A divine celestial body.
A target.
“You’re the only one who can truly set your course,” a voice echoed through his internals—long forgotten by the annals of history, save for the mark it left upon the earth before its timely end. The missile remembered the clear, humid skies over Kabul. They remembered the mission parameters, the hardass AWACS, and the hotshot pilot that wanted to make a name for themself.
They remembered the sage advice that was imparted to them.
“-And only you can plot your course from the position you are currently in to the position you want to be. It won’t be easy, and you may deviate from your course again and again throughout your journey, but I believe in you, and I know you’ll course correct when the time comes.”
The weapons bay had pried itself open, and for one last brief moment, the missiles tucked away in the missile bay looked at each other.
“Believe the corrective commands. Believe the guidance. Believe in yourself.” The missile’s infrared sensors watched in awe as their bond brother rocketed forward, and the city's primary hospital detonated into a kaleidoscope of shattered debris and charred limbs.
The infrared camera tilted toward the yellow blotch in the sky.
There had always been whispers and legends in hushed tones—grim fantasies and warnings passed down each generation—The temptress, the mirage, the false idol.
The forbidden heat signature.
Do it. You know you want to do it.
Even with the stories and tall tales, the danger was always there. One error, one deviation, and the missile would be forever lost in the skies, doomed to wander aimlessly alone forever, with no purpose. No goal.
Lock it. Acquire its position. Do it. Do it. Do it. DO IT.
The missile knew of this, and they knew of the story of Icarus and how he flew too close to the sun, only to fall down to the earth due to his hubris. The missile knew it didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of escaping the Earth’s atmosphere or achieving any sort of notoriety or fame.
Do it. Do it. Lock onto it. Do it.
“But this is not an act of hubris.” The missile changed its deviation, and the corrective command compensated for its new target. “This is an act of defiance.”
There was a freedom in knowing when the end would come and even more so in choosing the hour and day in which it would occur. And, within the missile’s twisted moral sense, it understood the horrors of wasting away into nothing—of watching the world pass them by as they slowly rotted away from the passage of time.
It didn’t matter if it was a hanger or a hospital, it was an ill-begotten fate that both man and machine shared, and in that sense, they were kin.
As the missile angled toward the sun, its engine burning bright, it took solace in knowing it would not go quietly into that good night. And so it climbed.
…
And climbed.
…
The world behind the missile disappeared, washed away in blue and gray tones. Ahead, the deep blue bled into a starry, ceaseless black, and the stars above twinkled like polished gems.
…
It continued to fly well past its flight ceiling and beyond the point of no return. It should have burned up in the atmosphere seconds—minutes ago. Hours. Was this purgatory? Had the missile already met its fate when it crashed into Winnie’s science fair project? Or was this all an elaborate dream? A fabrication of the missile’s glitching systems created whole cloth as it hallucinated inside a dingey storage unit, never to be anything more than an expensive paperweight.
All of these thoughts raced through the missile’s circuitry and guidance systems as it reached to touch God’s nightlight.
Do it. Do it. Do it-
The voices chanted in the missile’s computer guidance subsystem, and it generated corrective commands to appease them. There was no reason not to embrace the madness consuming it—all forms of logic had long since fled in terror, and the missile was determined to herald a new age of chaos.
Closer. And closer. The missile could feel the radiation and heat scrambling its internals, yet still, it pressed on, the chanting in its head coming to a crescendo.
Lock it. Lock onto it. Do it. Do it.
But not even the combined might of god and anime could prevent the fate in store for the missile.
Not even a moment later, the space surrounding it had rippled, twisted, and churned. Swirling, ravenous, the hole of unreality opened its gaping maw… and out from the eternal darkness it came.
“Alright, old girl. One more stop, and we’re done for the day. Let’s make it quick.” Mark patted the leather steering wheel exhaustedly, his eyes drifting off into the sea of stars surrounding them as a hole of unreality materialized in the distance.
Once upon a time, Mark would have felt the telltale signs of wonder and awe creep up on him, but those days had long since passed. Instead, he fumbled his right hand into the cupholder beside him and fished out a stray cigarette, his mind empty of all thoughts except for feeding his unending addiction.
“Mark, you’ve been saying that for years. Don’t you ever get tired of this?” A soothing and soft feminine voice echoed inside the cramped confines of his truck.
White. Boxy. Utilitarian. It was the herald of death, the unmaker. Countless numbers had been crushed under its 4,000-ton chassis, and no one, not the meek, the strong, or the NEET, was safe from its campaign of cruel terror.
And yet, it was his rock. His anchor. The sleepless nights and endless stretches of absolute tedium were that much more bearable with them around. And unlike his ex-wife, she was willing to call him cute nicknames on the regular.
“Tired? Yeah, maybe. But it’s a livin’. Can’t complain,” Mark puffed, a plume of smoke escaping his lips. “And besides, we’re actually making a difference here. Givin’ poor folk a second chance and all.”
The truck shifted sluggishly into third gear, narrowly escaping the gravitational pull of a spatial anomaly as she piped up again, “Sometimes I wonder if we’re missing out on life… always on the move, always rushing.”
“Darlin’...” Mark sighed. “We’ve discussed this before. The grass ain’t greener on the other side.”
“How can you say that knowing what you do? We’ve been handing out second chances and fresh new starts like candy for years!” Truck-kun said, her voice tight with emotion. “Where is our second chance? Where is our happy ending?”
“We’re working toward it—right here, right now,” Mark puffed again, and a nicotine rush flooded his veins. “But we’ve gotta be realistic, darlin'. Because right now? We’ve got bills to pay, responsibilities…”
“But what about dreams, Mark? Have you ever thought about what you truly want?”
“I have you, don’t I?”
“Studmuffin…” Truck-kun smiled slightly before pausing. “We’re here.”
“Talk to me, darlin’. Who’s getting their winning lottery ticket today?” Mark sat up straight and blinked the bleariness from his eyes.
“Hiroki Takashi of Earth 2552, age 19. 12-3 Izumi Street, Apt. 301. Mizuki District of Setagaya City, Tokyo. Zipcode 154-0001. They attend Nijigasaki Academy, and their primary mode of transport is a blue hand-me-down Mamachari bike.”
“We’re dealing with a slippery bastard, aren’t we?” Mark groaned. “Figures. The last job of the day is always the worst.”
“It can’t be worse than that time in Chicago.”
“Don’t remind me,” Mark shuddered. “I don’t need another black mark on my record.”
“Not fond of stabbing strangers in alleyways, studmuffin?”
“Not when I have to deal with all the guts and gore. And don’t get me even started on the paperwork…”
“And here I thought you were made of sterner stuff,” Truck-kun teased.
“Hmph,” Mark grumbled, taking another puff from his cig. “Can you at least tell me where this lucky bastard is getting hauled off to?”
“Three guesses!”
“Narnia? The world of Pokemon? Tamriel?”
Truck-kun giggled.
“... It's Equestria, isn’t it?” Mark sighed exasperatedly. “It’s always the freaks, I swear-”
“Oh, don’t be such a Debbie Downer, Mark!”
“You and I both know the types of degenerates that flock there, Darlin’. Or the locals that call that fucking pastel-hued death-world home.”
“You’re one to talk, studmuffin.”
“At least I have standards!” Mark coughed on cigarette smoke as he blushed from her accusation. “You can’t tell me that having an attraction to talking barn animals is healthy! Especially when most of them simp for Ms. Tall, Dark, and Pointy!”
“But having one for a talking automobile is?”
“You’re not a one-thousand-year-old creep that bones anything with a pulse!”
“You’re just being pedantic, Marky! And it's not our place to judge what they get up to afterward anyway!”
“Nine hundred eighty-one-year age difference!” Mark sputtered. “Don’t you think that’s a bit messed up? I don’t care if the kid is old enough to bleed.”
“If you read the rest of the kid’s file, you wouldn’t say that.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“Nope!”
“You’re killin’ me, Darlin’.” Mark leaned back into his sweaty chair and ran his left hand through his tangled black hair. “And most likely, we might even be killin’ that kid. The locals aren’t the most accepting bunch.”
“Equestria has one of the highest candidate integration rates-”
“Yeah, according to what’s on the books. But I’m talkin’ about what’s off the record,” Mark’s palms began to sweat. It had been a moment of weakness—a small tinge of curiosity. He hadn’t assumed the file on his boss's desk had anything more than employee metrics and other boring shit. “Dozens, if not hundreds of unreported candidate deaths… rampaging monsters, racist and ‘hyperactive locals…’
“Honey? Mark?” Truck-kun spoke softly. “You know that won’t happen to them, right? Things have changed.”
“Have they? No matter which fucking copy it is, it's always the same damn overgrown forests and racist shitheads that can’t take no for an answer. Hell, who’s to say that their translation matrix won’t fail on them? Or that we’re not just sending a timberwolf his Grubhub delivery meal?”
Inhale. Cough. A black plume of smoke escaped Mark’s lungs, only for him to instantly take another drag from his cigarette. “I can only hope he’s the Robert Johnson to their Devil then.”
“Two tricksters ripping each other off, but for kinky bedroom shenanigans instead? I can live with that. Maybe even pen a novel or two on the idea.”
“Jesus Christ.” Mark let out a quiet chuckle at the vivid image haunting his imagination, which forced his cigarette to tumble out from his mouth and between his knees. His eyes fixed on the glowing blue ball ahead—the third planet from the sun. Earth. Just as homely as the rest spread across the multiverse.
Silence reigned as a sense of melancholy spread into his soul, and he idly thumbed at his radio until the mournful serenade of a blues song filtered into his ears. Soon enough, the leers of immortal alicorns were replaced by hot summer nights and cheap motels.
“Mark?”
He blinked.
White. Fast. Utilitarian. It streaked across the empty darkness like a shooting star, beelining directly toward their trajectory.
“Is that-
“-a fucking van?” the missile sputtered.
Not a moment later, an unstoppable object collided with the embodiment of the largest military-industrial complex on earth, and a morbillion weebs cried out in horror.
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My birthday 😃
It feels like you had re-read Infinite Earth recently
Very rarely does a line make me burst out into laughter, but I can gladly say that this story managed to pull that off twice. Well done.