Ragabout Che
by
Audrey Ayn Fuerle
Smashwords Edition
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Audrey Ayn Fuerle
Cover photography courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. All rights remain reserved by the author, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For more information, address Audrey Ayn Fuerle.
Information and more of the author's work may be found at http://www.audreyf.com
A few weeks after the invention of the multinet, Bear Schwartzsfend was a household name. It had long been so in his native world of Arrivrealm; now creatures living under acid seas or in technicolor trees knew it as well. Even if many of them could not pronounce it.
Bear was a physicist, a quantum mechanic tinkering with the gears of the universe. Most civilized people lived without understanding of the world they themselves had made. They could not explain the workings of their toaster ovens, let alone the timer mechanisms and coils of the world. In some abstract way the universe was made of mostly nothing, and forms of atomic energy sluiced through their bodies at every waking moment. But reality was far too absurd for people to live in it.
Like modern day witch doctors, Bear and his colleagues made it their business to understand and manipulate the secret and unfathomable mysteries of the universe. Universes. Multiverse. Every once in a while they would announce a new fairy tale of how the world worked, and people would be shocked, alarmed, turned upside-down. New art movements would evolve, new popular science books would be written, and then people would return to living as they had for thousands of years. It was not theoreticians who changed the world. It was the inventors who took the new understanding and made devices ne'er 'fore seen. You go to witch doctors for medicine, not mythology, after all.
This time, it was the multinet, the Internet of internets. Bear was known for inventing things along this line; his thesis project, in fact, was the Quantum Brain. But there was only one person with a Quantum Brain, and anyone with a computer could connect to the multinet. Beacons of intelligence light years and dimensions apart were drawn into one picture like constellations in the night sky.
Bear showed up at the press conference announcing its launch only to berate the reporters for bothering him. He was already working on his next project, the purpose for which the multinet was created. He had no interest in the vast reaches of pornography and spam.
Unfortunately, he was not quite finished with this next invention when the invaders arrived.
How to Lose Friends
and Irritate People
Che Miranda had a philosophy, and it was this: don't worry about it.
Throughout the multiverse this philosophy had been put forth many times, usually by people on drugs. But on his home planet of Aguedo, known to travelers as the Skinny Lesbian planet for its overwhelmingly female population, it was a revolutionary thought. The native borrosans had evolved from something timid and highly edible. They lived fast, died fast and were fastly digested. Growing opposable thumbs had changed their world but not their outlook on life.
They knew aliens were slow, though it was no longer polite to say so. Che had met his first a few weeks ago and stealing from them had been an exercise in dark humor. It was a deadly game, as even he could not dodge a laser. But he didn't have to, when they took so long to pull the trigger.
The universe was brimming full of rules to be broken. He might just even discover some new ones and have the pleasure of being the first to walk all over them.
Che had set his sights on Arrivrealm and spent the long weeks of travel learning how to talk and act slow. Now, he parked in the wilderness outside a city and waltzed in. Thankfully, there were doors--wide open and apparently for show--otherwise he might not have known he had. The change was primarily one of coloration and population. Everything was so organic yet so organized, it looked like God had dropped acid and started seeing music.
Che, after giving it some consideration, decided that the city was Classical as performed by a Jazz ensemble.
Stranger still were the people. They weren't just foreign to him but to each other--some furred, some scaled, some multi-tentacled. When you see something that looks like it came from a sci-fi horror flick, you don't expect it to be a person, to be smarter and more civilized than you.
Che smiled.
The pixie-looking thing with six wings and two tails would act like Paloma, he decided at random. Timid and deferential unless you got him talking about his hobbies, at which point he became a torrent of facts and opinion. The unpleasant shimmering underwater slitherer would be like Rica, moody and dramatic but very generous. Or perhaps that was the beige and feathered thing talking to what seemed to be a lamppost--
There was a horrible screech of metal followed by an even more horrible thump, which shook Che in his whole body and made him confused as to whether his heart were beating or just shaking. The great door of the city lay twisted on the ground, and a figure strode atop it with perfect dramatic timing.
He's good, thought Che, confirming with a swift look around that everyone's eyes, no matter how numerous or faceted, were focused there.
"Kunai," said the man, cloak swirling around him, "Round them up."
After that, it all rather went to hell.
"You're so cute!" gushed Fox.
Bear responded to this with the long suffering sigh of, well, any of Fox's friends. He was normally twice Fox’s height and six times his weight, a person with some gravity. But for some reason he’d switched his stature for a tiny, pudgy body that looked a lot like a stuffed animal Fox'd had as a child.
"Sooooo cute," said Fox, "Can I pick you up?"
"NO."
Fox choked, coughed and laughed. "Your voice is still scary."
Bear returned to his work, and Fox gave himself a moment to recover from his excitement and suppress the urge to pick up his friend and cuddle him. "But why'd you do it? You hate transmogrifying. You've never even gotten rid of that scar of yours, which is kind of perversely vain, you know."
Fox was convinced Bear kept the scar to scare people off. Instead, he'd started a of fad. Some sort of cosmic sense of irony insured that the asocial inventor was incredibly popular. The more Bear walked away from people, the faster they came running after him.
Bear said, "You're calling me vain?"
"I have two tails," said Fox, heading off Bear's train of thought, "Look, I can wag them independently of each other."
Bear nodded at this as though it were something of great consideration, then returned to his work.
"You haven't said why." said Fox. Like a child, he had no attention span except for subjects you wanted dropped immediately.
"I want to be left alone." Bear said.
He said it often enough, but the tone ... Fox’s brow creased as he tried to pick up any signals his friend might cast off. Bear was as unreadable as ever.
Fox's voice, when it returned, was uncharacteristically soft and hesitant. "Bear, as an inventor, you have to accept that sometimes people will use your creations in ways you never intended."
Bear turned to him this time with glacial purpose. His gaze was piercing. That was the thing; when you didn't have too little of Bear's attention, you had far too much of it. "What happened?"
"Y ... You don't know?" Fox stumbled for a way to start. "'Cause of the multinet, everyone knows we're here. And because of the transmogrification, aliens just blend in with everyone else. We're getting a flood of them, and one of them..." Fox hesitated.
Bear waited, staring.
"...one of them's crazy or something. He's taken over Hermes. All the officials are freaking out, they're locking down the city at noon. Should keep them out, but what do we do with the ones already here? Bear?
…Bear?"
The little blue dot ran into the wilds. Behind him, the rarely-used, near-transparent shields flipped on, blocking any retreat. He had a map in his head from a long ago geography lesson and a prototype strapped to his back.
Before, only the barely tangible had been able to pass from one dimension to another, quarks and photons and rumor. The prototype broke those rules, connecting to a pocket dimension and a filing system. It was nothing compared to what Bear was aiming for--the same way the multinet was just a stepping stone--but it had its uses.
Bear withdrew a small hovercraft from it and continued, turning on the wireless.
"--as been locked down until further notice. Authorities wish to determine whether there are any aliens within the city before taking offensive measures. So far, our only information on the aliens describes them as 'like a magician and a ninja.'"
Bear raised an eyebrow at the report, but kept on. There was very little else said that he hadn't heard, mostly speculation and fear. Eventually they reported his departure in tones of hysteria, and he turned the wireless off.
He was left alone after that, the only sound the quiet hum of the hovercraft growing ever louder in his ears. The sun had set and risen, and he had not yet slept. It crept over the horizon, dying the land red as he reached Hermes.
He stopped, turned off the craft, put it away. The silence buzzed in his ears; his steps made no sound as he approached. He never left Athena, the city being a world of its own, but he was sure Hermes had not looked like this. The buildings were twisted. Strange scorch marks ran along many of them. Odd lights danced within, more disturbing than even the red coat left by the sun.
Bear was almost within the city walls when he noticed the man. Standing atop a tower like a gargoyle, coat tails flying in the wind, his shadowed eyes seemed to focus on the tiny figure of Bear far below him. Bear froze, yet the figure leaned further, tensed, as though to pounce.
"Kunai!"
He was gone. He had glanced over his shoulder and vanished from the building like a cast shadow. Bear sat heavily with a sigh of relief.
"Looking for a hero's grave, are we?"
Bear bolted upright, head whipping around, long ears trailing. He'HHd come down here--
But this man wasn't wearing a coat. He was wearing a suspicious smile and a suspicious black outfit, leaving only his arms and face bare. He was brown and fuzzy with slightly long ears and an elongated look. He had the brightest smile Bear had ever seen. It went ting.
Bear furrowed his brow. "Are you one of these invaders?"
The stranger tried to look innocent. "Me?"
"Yes, you." Bear had not spent much of his life around other people, but he was certain there was something off about this one.
"Just trying to help." He had an odd accent, that was it. "Name of Che. That," He gestured up where the unknown figure had stood, "was the ninja. The magician's inside."
Bear narrowed his eyes. "You believe that?"
"I'm the one who made the report. The wand and the pointy star things are a dead giveaway. See that?"
This time he was waving at the giant metal gates of Hermes, many times the size of either observer. They were for show, and now they were lying bent and warped on the ground.
"The ninja boy moved that single-handedly." said Che, "Can you do that?"
"Yes. With a lever."
Che closed his eyes and shook his head, still grinning. "As a fellow smart arse I appreciate the sentiment, but--"
Bear didn't bother waiting to hear the rest of it. It was his responsibility. That was the beginning and the end of it. If these aliens were dangerous, then that was just another strike against him.
Inside, it was worse than he'd hoped and better than he'd imagined. There were many hostages behind some sort of bars Bear didn't recognize, enough to be the entire population of the town. There were no wounded that Bear could see. Were they just that easily overpowered? It was hard to believe.
To Bear's left was the "ninja" in heavy clothing and sunglasses. Bear wasn't up on the genre, but he was fairly sure ninjas weren't supposed to have white shocks of hair or wear long red-brown trench coats. Beside him, a bald man with strange markings on his face brooded on a impromptu throne. He surveyed his hostages with distaste.
"Do I really need so many hostages?" He turned to the ninja. "Couldn't you have killed some of them?"
The ninja cocked his head to the side.
"Let me rephrase that." The magician pointed to the cowering masses. "Kunai? Kill."
The boy's soft and curious airs disappeared, and he leapt forward on all fours towards the crowd. It was such a sudden change that he was half way to them before they began to scream and pull away, squashing those behind them. They were still screaming for a moment longer, having missed the cry to halt and Kunai's sudden stop.
Bear held one paw to the attacker's nose, eyebrows down, expression disapproving. His shout, deep and authoritative, had made Kunai scramble to avoid crashing into him. Frozen with his eyes on Bear's, Kunai was thawing back into a questioning state--What is this bunny-bear thing?
He sniffed him.
"Stay." said Bear, trying not to sound surprised.
The magician rubbed at his temples in a long-suffering manner. "Kunai, you only take orders from me, remember?"
Kunai stared over his shoulder at him.
"Come here, let's go over this one more time."
Watching the magician explain the basics of us verses them, Bear realized he had very little time in which to turn this situation around. He was, at least, between the aggressors and the hostages, which was both very good and very bad. A quick mental check of his pocket universe revealed nothing helpful for dissuading invaders. Were he his old, larger self, he might have at least threatened to sit on them until they behaved. But physical threats were never his forte.
The explanation ceased, and Kunai turned to him again. It had been only a few seconds, but Bear was the fastest thinking creature on the planet. He had his plan.
He remained right where he was while Kunai charged forward to kill him. The timing was important, and the boy was fast. Kunai was a yard away from him, and Bear went to turn--
Then a feeling of great acceleration, of being topsy-turvy, of confusion. When it subsided, he was somewhere entirely new in space, in someone's arms. He looked up into the fuzzy chin of the man "just trying to help".
"You've completely ruined my plan," said Bear.
"Shush," Che was peering around the edge of a pillar, presumably at the attackers. "I'm sorry, I did what?"
"I had him right where I wanted him."
"Did you now? Suicidal, are we? I suppose that shouldn't come as a surprise." Che's grin was caustic now, or so Bear guessed. It took some effort to decipher the moods of someone who smiled like a shark all the time. "At what point does the army get here?"
"Army?"
"Air force? Police?" Che turned from his watch in order to survey Bear with what was probably a disbelieving expression. "Boy scouts?"
Bear blinked at him. The police were very useful--many of them recognized Fox by attitude if not by sight, and would show him the way home. They weren't lost, however.
Che brought his eyebrows into a scowl even as his voice remained amused. "You know, there's such a thing as being too civilized."
There was a deadly swish behind them. Bear likened it, in that second moment of vast acceleration, to the strange hiss of an experiment about to blow up in one's face.When they stopped they were across the street from the collapsing pillar. Plaster clouds billowed around the pale Kunai, with his one arm through the offending pillar and unfazed as it crumbled around him. His eyes, somewhere behind those reflecting lenses, were on them. Bear knew for a certainty that it was the pillar that they had just been standing behind, that had Che not moved it was their heads that would be crushed in, or their middles pierced by that fist.
Bear said, "He is strong."
Che laughed. "It's nice to be right."
They could hear the magician shouting in the background, although their attention was closer at hand. Kunai charged forward, and Che side-stepped him like a matador teasing a bull. Kunai bounded off a wall and lunged back, but Che was already somewhere else. All the jerking around was making Bear ill, but he could hardly complain. Within a matter of a few minutes he was endangered and saved more than he had been in the entirety of the rest of his life.
It would be nice if they stayed still long enough for him to save the day, but unlikely.
"Forget this farce," said the magician. It had only been a few frenzied minutes, but perhaps Che's laughing attitude had got on his nerves--his tattooed fists were clenched to the point of shaking. One of them reached within the breast pocket of his robes, drew back his arm, and revealed a handful of nothing.
"Misplaced something, have we?" said Che. He was teetering a stick between his fingers, his grin turned predatory again.
"How did--" He shook himself. "Kunai! Get my wand!"
"That's right," Che dropped Bear for the moment, leaned back, pitched, followed through. The stick disappeared over the buildings. "Fetch!"
Kunai's noisy departure faded into silence. Bear was left floundering by the exchange, but he welcomed the chance to steady his mind, his stomach and his nerves. Che and the usurper were sizing each other like cowboys at noon, judging the happy medium between looking cool for the longest time possible and not being shot. The caged locals were noisily holding their breath.
Bear had his feet again and, ignored by all, was walking steadily towards the makeshift throne. It was better that he had been interrupted, perhaps. It was handy, even, that he was too small to be accounted.
The magician broke the silence with a sneer. "That's just a focusing device."
"Oh good," said Che, "I was hoping to see the trick where you pull a rabbit out of a hat. Although--" He hesitated; thoughts of rabbits must have brought Bear back to mind. Without Che's voice for cover, Bear felt suddenly exposed. He pulled the prototype off of his back and threw it over-arm at the magician with the awkwardness of a child. But he was close enough; the man disappeared as it hit him, and it fell noiselessly onto the throne.
Che gaped. "What was that?"
"I filed him," said Bear, retrieving his device.
"You did what?" Che examined the little figure with a bit more deference. "That must be one of your great civilization's little gadgets, then?"
"Yes," said Bear, "Not that you're one of those invaders."
Che coughed to cover a laugh. "Naturally. And that was excellently done. How very happy for you. I'll send you a note with my therapy..."
A shadow descended over Che, and he looked up, quite slowly for him, at the expressionless ninja with the stick in his mouth. He was fast, yes, but Kunai was right behind him.
"...bills. Of course."
Bear took a deep breath. "Kunai, behave! Come here!"
Kunai looked between Che and Bear exactly the way a dog does when its owner calls it away from a squirrel.
Bear deepened his already bass voice. "Kunai..."
That did it. Kunai bent, jumped, twisted in the air more times than ought to be physically possible and landed on his feet in front of Bear, proffering the wand. Bear accepted it with good grace.
"Very impressive," said Che, waltzing back to them. "For your next trick, you'll find a way to let those people out?"
Bear nodded. But he was more worried about the magician; he would be fine in there, but the place had no lights and wasn't made for living things. Best to get him to a proper cell as soon as one could be made.
Bear waddled to the nearest telecom, Kunai following at his heels. Che watched with mild interest, his smile having withdrawn to just the corners of his mouth now that there was no danger about. It was short work to reassure the public; he said he had taken care of it, and that was all. When he turned aside, he found Che's smile absent for the first time since meeting him.
"You're Bear Schwarts... Schwartzs... Bear UnpronounceableLastName?"
Bear nodded.
"You don't look like your picture."
He waved it off, not wanting to explain. "The camera adds..."
"...600 pounds?" Che was grinning again.
Bear ignored him in favor of getting on with things. He found a place for the magician, got the people released and requested they keep silent about the body switch (which would give him a few weeks at most.) Throughout it all, Kunai followed him. Che was following as well, but in a causal, 'leaning against a wall in the background' way, in a 'turn around and find him gone' way. Bear got the same feeling he did from his minimal exposure to small children. He expected to turn back and find something broken and Che suspiciously absent.
The stories of the townspeople were all the same. They had been herded like sheep, stray lambs tossed in by Kunai, landing lightly. They seemed strangely unafraid of him now that he was tagging after Bear, so Bear requested an extra act of discretion.
"Are you serious?" Che had reappeared once again. "He nearly killed you."
"That so?"
Kunai peered at Bear over the edge of his sunglasses, exposing huge red eyes.
"Have you noticed his coat is the exact color of dried blood?" Che looked him over with disdain. "Why is that, do you think?"
Bear hardened his gaze. "I'm expecting you to keep quiet as well."
"Fine, fine, who am I to question?" Che grumbled, losing his smile momentarily. "Though it would be a shame for the world's greatest genius to wake up--make that not wake up--with his throat cut. That is what ninjas do, you know. They're assassins."
"Then he's a very poor one." He left it at that.
Having found out the magician's name, Bear wrote up an edited version of events and sent it off to the news.
"Not much of a villain if you don't learn his name until afterwards," said Che.
Che seemed to know a lot about being a villain, Bear thought. But he edited that out as well.
It was several weeks later that Bear finished his next invention. To an extent it was just a matter of putting his last two inventions together. He had been working on the various intricate problems all at once, setting each aside as it blocked him and approaching another with a solution worked out by the outer rim of his intellect in the meantime. It had all come to a head, and Bear felt ... not proud, pride being an unknown. Done. Complete. The endless, foaming sea of his intellect cooling to a simmer.
Simmering with the question of what he should attempt next, of course, but simmering nonetheless.
Kunai was doing well, he reflected, now that he had time to do so. The boy had not said a word or even made a noise. Rueben--the magician--said he'd cast a curse or a spell or something that made him mute, made him obedient, suppressed his mind. He refused to lift it.
It made no sense. 'Magic' was just a word for that which you do not yet understand. Granted, that made it the perfect word for whatever had happened to Kunai. Fox had looked him over and couldn't explain it, nor could Fox understand his physiology. Kunai had sat patiently through all the tests, but nothing had come of it.
Bear checked to make sure Kunai was eating (while completely forgetting to eat something himself) and started the safety tests.
Che watched all this with interest. He was fairly sure that Bear had no idea he was here, despite his high-tech gadgetry. Bear liked his privacy, and that left loopholes in his security.
Bear did know Che was still around in general, because Che popped up now and then to ask him what he'd been doing. Granted, Che had seen what Bear was doing, but watching Bear granted you no epiphanies. It was like seeing any master at work; every step of the process unfolded before you, yet at the end, you had no idea what had just happened or how to reproduce it. That was what made Che believe he was dealing with The Bear Schwartzsfend. That and finding out about transmogrification.
Che entertained himself for a moment by thinking of what would become of his home should they be able to change bodies at will. His mind flashed to certain people whose painful or merely inconvenient lives would be made easier. Everyone would become beautiful, of course. Then things would just return to normal. People would forget about beauty and have different standards. There had to be problems that would arise (there always were) but he was having trouble guessing at them. There was the total inability to tell anyone's gender. Che had been confused by the total lack of females until he'd realized they simply didn't use gender pronouns. It made no sense to, when gender was that fluid. At the moment, Bear himself was naked and completely genderless, which was ... strange.
Such a technology would completely change the world, although it was nothing of note here. Arrivrealm was filled with fairy tale solutions. It was amazing people could live in it. No, it was incomprehensible. As with Bear, you looked at them without blinking yet you understood nothing.
Che dropped that line of thought as too frustrating and focused instead on Kunai. It seemed Bear was right about him, so far at least; he acted completely harmless. But Che had amended Kunai's mental status from canine to feline: cute, but untrustworthy. You never could tell when a cat would decide you were a mouse. The things were crazy; the kind of crazy that purposefully ran head-first into walls, that tried to insert itself up your nose while you slept, that chased creatures ten times its size and got them to run away. Cat crazy.
Worse, Kunai knew he was here. Every once in a while he tilted his head around in Che's direction, made an expression as though flicking an invisible ear, then got bored and turned back to chasing his toys. It was unsettling.
He was easily distracted, at least, and did not seem to know that Che was trespassing. Since there was little else to observe (even Bear had fallen asleep on pillowed arms,) Che left via the roof. It was a route he was surprised no one took, since much of the population had wings and all of them had hovercraft. Perhaps it was simply unthinkable for them to try the back way.
Che swung his legs out over the ledge, not bothering to hide himself. No one would look; no one would care if they saw. Athena was a big, wobbly city, full of buildings and people but full of space as well. Bear's laboratory was a comfortingly rectangular block in a city of half-melted constructions. The buildings looked like they had grown, like hives or trees or even tumors. They were covered with what looked like graffiti, except that apparently it was supposed to be there. And, everywhere, odd bits of technology that Che hesitated to touch, even after seeing them in use. The phones had been easy enough to figure out, but he didn't want to attract attention with his ignorance. If it were possible to stand out in a city full of critters with wings and tails and scales, of all sizes.
Che wondered vaguely what they did when they wanted to have children. Transmogrified back to their original forms, presumably. What would happen if they didn't? It was all very strange. And there was no one to ask these questions.
The bizarre aesthetics and creatures fit together, Che had to admit. If he unfocused his eyes and let the strangeness blur away, it was nice. Balanced, perhaps, was the word. Like a painting.
With clear eyes, however, it gave him the heebie jeebies. Perhaps he should just turn around and take the two week trip back to Aguedo. No. He definitely should.
But he wouldn't. He was far too stubborn to turn back after having come this far and seen this much, even as his instincts screamed to run.
As a borrosan, his instincts were always screaming to run. As a person, he had long ago learned to ignore them.
The tests completed without a hitch. That didn't mean Bear was satisfied. He scanned the results for anything even slightly unexpected, but found nothing. He would have to do real trials, send robots flying into the ether and back again a few thousand times, before he would trust it with a living soul. That soul would be himself, of course.
He turned to give the machine another once over, only to face a large gap where it once was.
Bear's mind, which had been quietly buzzing like a distant hive, roared back into force in an angry swarm.
"Kunai?" The boy was there, dropping an empty can of tuna into the recycling and bolting to attention. "What happened?"
Kunai looked at him blankly. Bear sighed and reached for his prototype--also missing, he now noted. A quick inventory found nothing else gone, but no clues either. Several lines of thoughts winked into nothingness in Bear's mind before he turned slowly to Kunai.
"You can find the person who took them, can't you?"
Kunai cocked his head, nodded and picked him up. Being carried by Kunai wasn't the shock-and-stop bumper car ride that was being carried by Che. It was more of a rollercoaster. They were quickly on the roof and hopping from building to building--a dangerous game, since few of Athena's buildings were flat. But Kunai never slipped nor acknowledged gravity or the laws of physics, so soon they were outside the city. A few more bounds took them to a ship. Something that was probably a ship, in any case. It didn't look like anything from Arrivrealm, but rather like sailing ships of fairy tales. Kunai was on the deck with one leap.
He didn't make any sound as he landed, but Che turned around nonetheless, smiling with recognition, the prototype strapped to his right wrist.
"Bear! I wasn't expecting you," Che narrowed his eyes at Kunai. "What does he do, follow me around when I'm not looking?"
Kunai was already walking past him, and Bear chose not to respond. Within, he found his machine duct-taped to the floor.
"Quite impressive," said Che behind them, "It's even compatible with the ship."
Bear didn't bother pointing out that he had built it to be that way. Figuring that out had been one of the major humps of getting the multinet up.
"Return it." said Bear.
"I think not," said Che, "Possession is nine tenths of the law, you know."
Bear stared at him. "No, it isn't. Stealing things and calling them your own is the complete opposite of the law."
"How about, 'all property is theft'? I must admit, I never did understand that one," said Che, "Nonetheless, unless you wish to be very far away from here very fast, I'd suggest you leave."
Bear crossed his arms.
"Only, the thing is, I've sort of already asked the computer to take off, it's just booting u--"
It turned out that Bear's multiverse jumper worked perfectly. Che, Bear, and Kunai became the first people aside from magicians stuffed into pockets to see a universe other than their own. Gazing out at it, Bear decided who Che reminded him of--Whizgig, that guy from college, one of those pranksters who was constantly inventing useless or annoying things for the fun of it. Whizgig, though, at least had the decency to dislike and distrust Bear in return. Che smiled and disembarked as though it had not occurred to him that Bear might turn the ship around and go back without him.
He wouldn't. The problem with morality was that it cut off so many of your options. Instead, Bear followed, trying his hand for the first time in his life at debate and persuasion. He had other options, of course, but he felt--as he always did--that there was only one way to behave, and he followed it.
Stray Cat Strut
Che awoke with Kunai sleeping on his feet. Kunai was heavier than Che; it took some time to get his blood flowing again. Having an assassin sleep on your toes could give you cold feet in more ways than one, but Che ignored it. Kunai slept like the dead in any case.
It was several weeks and quite a few robberies later. Much to Che's surprise, Bear had not forced the issue. He nagged, of course, and used arguments that made perfect sense yet did not apply to Che's motives. But he hadn't threatened to leave him stranded or sic the cat on him. Not that Che thought he would, but that was the point of threats, to avoid drastic action.
They played chess over breakfast. Kunai came in yawning mid-game and demanding food.
"Checkmate."
Bear looked like a teddy bear and talked like a grizzly. When he responded, it was with a voice bigger than his entire body. "Aren't you forgetting about my rook?"
"What rook?" said Che with faux innocence. As Bear looked down to find the piece missing, his thoughts, just for an instant, became completely visible. His eyes jumped back and forth backwards through the moves of the game, far faster than was fair, his stubby arm underlining the moves as he read the board like a lesser man would read a book. It took a matter of seconds; Che had only just pushed back his chair and lazily started to stand as Bear's deep voice cut in accusingly.
"Che, you stole my rook!"
"Well, of course I did." As Bear started to protest, Che held up a gloved hand. "You were trying to prove to me that I will eventually be caught," Che's finger rested on the top of his king. "So I should just give up and go home, right? But your analogy is false. You expected me to play by the rules. I never play by the rules."
Not to mention, any borrosan who was bold enough to venture off their home planet was too bold to be talked out of anything. Bear couldn't know that, of course. Just like his argument about the pointlessness of multiversal theft. Che could, if he so wanted, run off to some place where gold was worth less than dirt and have all he wanted. There was no reason to steal things people actually wanted.
Except that that was the point, just one Bear couldn't understand.
They arrived in a new dimension. The Brinkmanship was a pirate's ship, full of style, with a figurehead and a jolly roger and sails that served little purpose. It seared through the atmosphere, its usually translucent shielding glowing red, and then eased its way to the ground. It landed amidst a sea of light which broke in waves and flew away before it. Lightning bugs with bulbs as big as fists scattered in all directions and settled on the hull of the ship, blinking on and off.
Che glanced at the ship's screen, "About a thousand years behind Aguedo, resources--"
"You're using my stolen technology to travel, you don't need to use it to find more things to steal."
"Fine, fine." Che set the multinet aside and sauntered out onto the deck, eying the gigantic insects. He looked away; it was obvious to him why they were normally too small to make out the details.
The ship finished its routine. "Environmental quality confirmed. Shields down."
It rained fireflies for a moment before the insects that had been resting on the shields had the sense to fly away. Che stepped off the ship and into the night. Bear followed, held in Kunai's arms but still barely high enough to see over the long grass. In the near distance stood dark woods, in the far distance, bare wire towers tall enough to be holding up the sky.
"Hard to believe this place is civilized." said Che. There were worlds that reached technological heights without touching upon quantum computers. This was obviously not one of them.
Bear shrugged. Che wondered if he was sulking, but it was impossible to tell with Bear.
Che pulled a pair of binoculars from Wrist--what he had nicknamed the prototype pocket universe--which he still had strapped to his arm. He wasn't clear on how Wrist worked, but it was perfect for holding stolen items, tuna and soda pop.
Scrutinizing the horizon, he spotted some lights that didn't seem to be blinking and just might not be bugs. He told the ship to secure itself and headed off in that direction, genius and assassin in tow.
The fields and then the woods retreated before them. The light was coming from within a hill, within a cave. They scaled it wordlessly, Bear wondering if the people here lived underground. It would explain the deserted surface.
They stepped within the cave and were momentarily blinded.
Che's species was very quick and very fragile. From his perspective, foreigners moved as though through invisible molasses. Any of the people Che met could break his arm in half with their bare hands, he said, but would never have the chance.
Che was always relaxed because they'd have to catch him first, and nothing could catch him.
Nonetheless, Bear saw Che's ever-smiling expression change when he saw the robes and sigils. Che had skirted past the last magician with every appearance of self confidence, but still, his grin had grown sharper than usual, and his ears ticked back.
"Hel-lo," said Che, as someone stood to greet them. The man was in one long black cloak, face completely shadowed and figure deformed. Were this a horror movie, he would pull back that hood to reveal the greasy skull of Death.
Kunai crouched defensively. The veiled figure had swept a chill after him as though he were wearing it for a second cloak. There was an air of concentration sharp enough to prick, there. The other magicians had their eyes on him; they were attentive and carefully placed. The entranceway had miraculously dried up behind them, leaving them enclosed in solid rock.
The figure's eyes swept over them and settled on Bear.
"Bear Schwartzsfend? Is that you?"
"Do I know you?"
"No, you wouldn't." The figure went silent.
Bear coughed. "Is there some reason you locked the door behind us?"
"I want to talk to you."
"There some reason you can't do that with the door open?" Che interjected. The hesitant silences were taking the edge off his grin.
The figure glanced at Che, as if noticing him for the first time. "Well, you'd run off with everything I own, for one."
Che smiled at that.
"What do you want to talk about?" Bear remained guarded. He trusted Kunai's instincts, and Kunai was tense.
The figure sighed. "Everything. How can you be you and not be arrogant? Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, so why are you not...?"
"I don't think I understand the question."
The cloak gave an odd, derisive, fake laugh at that.
"I'm asking you, you can do anything, so why are you helping others?" The arm of the robe gestured violently at Che. "Why do you put up with him?"
"What else would you have me do?"
"You're the one who's supposed to know that!"
The enclosed air rang with the echoes of the shout for a moment.
Che examined the area around the exit. "You know, perhaps you could just write up a list and get back to us? You seem a bit confused. Incidentally, are there any items of intense value nearby?"
"Even now, you're only focused on stealing things." The figure's voiced rang with disgust.
Che considered this. "Well, I am a thief. And a bit of a workaholic." Che's eyes flitted to the figure and his thoughts became transparent.
Not to mention, you're turning out to be not all that interesting.
Bear wondered whether the figure could read that expression as well, and interrupted in case he could.
"Let's try this again. What's your name?"
"Suk Klohe." He was still staring at Che and radiating anger.
"And what would you like to ask me?"
After a moment of hesitation, he discarded Che in favor of another long pause.
"What it all means would be a good start."
Che snorted.
Bear talked quickly to take Suk Klohe's eyes off Che again. "If you want the meaning of life, you're going to get it in the form of a thousand line equation."
"You'd still be the only one to come up with an answer." Suk Klohe said, "You're the closest thing we have to a prophet."
"I'm just a physicist," Bear said, "An inventor. I can tell you about computers and quantum and that's about it."
"'That's it?'" he repeated.
"There are more important things," said Bear, "But if you don't have those sorts of questions..."
Bear put an arm up against Kunai's chest to silently restrain him. From the rumbling of his chest, if Kunai had a voice, it'd be growling. Maybe it was because they were magicians. Maybe it was because they were trapped. But he was nearly bent double and ready to drop Bear to the floor and attack.
It seems Suk Klohe had finally noticed this, because he slipped a wand out of the sleeve of his robe.
Bear was dropped. He looked up in time to see Kunai meet the rising army with a patented dance of well-placed force. Wands appeared just in time for Che to slip them out of their owners' hands.
The fight was a blur of figures and motion, incomprehensible from floor level. Kunai hardly had to attack; after tossing a few people aside the rest gave him room. Che wove in and out of the crowd, breaking wands as he did, taking a disjointed path towards the cloaked figure who stood apart. Suk Klohe hardly seemed aware of the chaos around him, although perhaps that was due to the shadows obscuring his face. Before Che could reach him, a grey hand appeared from within the folds of cloth and somehow caught ahold of Kunai's neck, lifting the slim boy off of the ground.
Bear leapt forward, "Kunai!"
He hung without response. He didn't even raise a hand to support his weight.
"I know this curse," Suk Klohe said, eyes on the collar 'round Kunai's neck. It was simple, black and unremarkable, but Bear had not been able to remove it.
Suk Klohe began to chant.
"Che, do something!" Bear reached behind his back, thinking of various inventions--but the prototype was on Che's wrist now, not his back. He lost sight of both Che and Kunai as hands laid upon him, and he was roughly pushed into a birdcage. He shook this off as a mere distraction and peered through the crowd, trying to catch sight of them.
Suk Klohe lowered Kunai to the ground. Dangling doll-like from the grey hand, Kunai seemed like he would collapse; instead he stood upright like a wooden soldier.
"A fine bit of magic," said Suk Klohe, nodding to himself, "I'm almost impressed."
Bear shouted, "Kunai beat that the last time."
"Not this time," Suk Klohe turned to Kunai, ordered him. "Round up the other one."
Kunai's head whipped around towards the last free man.
"Found
it!" Che was standing before a wide open door, black on black.
"Knew there had to be a way out somewhere."
Bear's
better nature fought with his brain for a moment.
"Please tell me he's not going to--" Bear slapped a paw to his face. Che had disappeared cleanly into the night.
Suk Klohe swept his arm towards the gap. "Bring me the device."
Kunai raced forward, ignoring Bear's shouts for attention as though deaf as well as dumb. Suk Klohe waved his men away, leaving Bear to face him alone. He remained silent; fortunate, since it would be hard for Bear to hear over the grinding of his mental gears. The back of his mind was planning for every eventuality, a thousand steps ahead.
But this man probably didn't play by the rules any more than Che did.
Bear sat down and scratched lazily behind an ear while Suk Klohe stared. At least, it seemed so. His face was lost somewhere within that void. But he was motionless, and in that blackness there was something taut as wire and losing patience.
Bear sighed. "You researched us, planned an attack, planted information on the multinet to get this place high on the list of hospitable planets, then laid in wait."
Suk Klohe stared for another moment, then withdrew.
"You're so far above us, why do you squander your attention?"
"My creations are my responsibility." It was so hard to get people to understand that. "What I do with my life is my choice."
The cloth shook itself and turned away. Bear could only just make out the whispered response.
"Not anymore."
Kunai stepped into the dark, silhouetted against the light within. His head jerked from side to side in odd, slippery movements as he stepped forward. His manner was completely changed from the boyish innocence that so easily fooled Bear. No more did he seem the house cat that slips off tables and chases dust bunnies; he taken on the skin of a leopard. Each movement was deceptive; without appearing to move through the intervening space his hand was now at his sunglasses, pulling them down over his small nose.
The light caught him straight on. Che could see pupils contract in red eyes before the boy went down, tears streaming.
Che lowered the flashlight. "Sorry." Then he was off, into the haunted woods.
The ground was ankle-deep with leaves; there was no chance of Kunai missing his trail. Speed was vital, yet he weaved through the trees, his path forced aside a hundred times before the land turned downhill. Che pulled a wide disc from Wrist, jumped on it and crouched as it sped down. Branches lashed at his face and arms, but this was much faster. He had to beat Kunai back to the ship.
Whump.
Che didn't want to turn around, but there is no delaying the inevitable. Nor is it a good idea to keep a ninja at your back.
"I did say I was sorr--"
Kunai grabbed for him and, unbalanced, he and Che and the disc all went tumbling. Che's heart and breath froze for an instant. It was so easy to break something and so easy to die with a broken limb. But he was lucky, he hit nothing, so he was upright as soon as he was down.
The forest left him surrounded by dark figures with hundreds of limbs and fingers, all outstretched. No sign of Kunai. He twisted around, trying to keep 360 degrees of vision at all times. At this rate, he was going to wear down.
Moonlight flashed off a metallic surface to his right. Che caught the dagger perfectly, and once you knew where he was, the rest was cake. Speaking of which, he could really use some sugar right now. Oh well.
More daggers followed the first, all deadly sharp, all deftly received. A shadow separated itself from a tree and approached him, circling him in a way usually seen in sharks. Che smiled and displayed the daggers he'd caught, one at each knuckle.
"You know," Che glanced down at them, eyebrows raised, "you're lucky I'm a gentleman."
Kunai lunged. The shadows convulsed in a momentary, frantic dance. When they halted, Che was flat on his back, his right arm caught in a vice grip. Kunai crouched over him, with Che's left fist--
Che's eyes widened. "You ... stupid ..."
He yelped. Everything went dark.
Bear was staring at the door, eyes unblinking, so he was the first to see Kunai stumble out of the night. The boy was clutching his side, doubled over, Wrist in one loose hand. He fell to his knees halfway across the room. Suk Klohe approached him, and he held up the device in trembling fingers.
Suk Klohe took it. "Where is he?"
Kunai fell forward, almost onto Suk Klohe's feet. The magician gestured for assistance.
"I didn't tell you to kill him! Or get yourself killed."
"Kunai..." Bear pressed against the edge of the cage as they dragged him away. "You didn't."
"Clean up this blood, too." He sounded irritated now. Distantly, Bear was aware that Suk Klohe was short of hostages. But Kunai wouldn't kill. When he was in the hands of Rueben he was ordered to do so, yet he had contrived to avoid it.
He was good at it. Che had to be alive.
Bear snapped out of his thoughts. Suk Klohe sat, obviously also immersed in contemplation. The cloth around his head moved slightly, and Bear guessed that he was looking up.
He tossed Wrist down next to Bear's cage. The cloth danced around him as he turned and left Bear alone with only the minor magicians and his thoughts.
Witches and goblins and ghouls of all kinds,
reading my mind, singing to me.
Sifting my thoughts for all of the fears
that bring me to tears, won't let me be.
It was still night. What had seemed like hours had been but minutes. Suk Klohe approached the ship alone, singing. There was a story behind that song; it was the first song many a child had heard. A comfort and a threat, all in one. Fear the darkness, the unknown; stay home, stay safe.
The sea of fireflies was calming and the song fit them, somber yet shining, a wistful lullaby weaving, flitting before the encroaching magicians. As children they had chased these brilliant points of light, too big for bottles and too small to ride. A simple wave of an arm and one was cupped in his hands, carried upwards to the gap before his face.
It lit for a moment, illuminating his grey-furred face, leaving spots in his wide eyes. Then it flew away and joined its brethren.
"Professor! This way." Alers was trying to get his attention. The Brinkmanship was here, modest in size but far more than three people needed. Poking the air around it elicited ripples in the air and warning remarks from the ship's computer.
"You are not a resident," it said.
Alers grinned weakly. "I'm a friend of theirs."
"What do I look like, an abacus?"
"You're reported as stolen," said Suk Klohe, ignoring the others poking at the shields.
"Quit it, I'm recording you," it said, "I was stolen by pirates. My current owner is legitimate. If you persist, I will alert the authorities."
"I don't think your 'owner' would like that." said Suk Klohe.
Alers grumbled. "Damn thing."
"I heard that. I'll report you."
"Leave it."
"But, Klohe..."
"We have the multiverse's greatest super genius."
"Yes, but," the magician hesitated, "That's more dangerous than nothing, isn't it?"
Suk Klohe ignored him, turning back the way they had come. His motions were aggravated, his sober mood flown with the fireflies.
Bear tapped a few more keys and pressed enter.
"There you go,"
"It works? Yes!" The young magician, who had misspelled his occupation on his hat, gaped at the screen. "I haven't been able to get my mail for weeks! I love you!"
"Joy."
Bear hopped off the desk and left the magician to the laborious task of deleting his unwanted mail. The door had sealed itself up as though it had never been there. He could only presume that one of the magicians had failed to close the door completely behind them before; it fit Che's irksome luck.
His guard now distracted, Bear mentally cataloged Wrist's contents. There had to be something that could get through a simple door. It was likely that Che had added things without Bear's knowledge, of course, so Bear reached into Wrist in mind to pull out anything he didn't know about.
It turned out to be quite a lot, but Che himself dwarfed the rest of the pile.
Che mumbled something, his smile conspicuously absent. He rubbed his head and rolled over onto his feet, wobbling. He was covered with scratches, and he'd lost his bandanna somewhere, leaving his eyes partially obscured by brown, ragged bangs.
"Ch--!" Bear bit down on his own exclamation and quickly glanced at the magician. He seemed not to have noticed. When Bear turned back, Che was downing a six-pack of Disco Cola.
Bear lowered his voice. "Che, we have to get out of here and help Kunai."
Che's half-lidded eyes managed to focus on Bear for the first time. He looked around (or at least, his head blurred, which Bear assumed meant he was looking around) and then went back to his soda pop. Having finished the can, Che reached into Wrist, pulled out a rope, tied up the magician and returned for a second six-pack, in less time than it would have taken Bear to scold him.
"Eh? Er..." The bemused magician struggled for a moment, then kicked off a shoe and began deleting spam with his toes.
"Are you listening?"
"Why should I help him?" Che sounded more agitated than Bear had ever heard him; Che was never discomposed, but now his fur was ruffled and his ears down and back. "He nearly killed me and threw me in that thing which might as well be a sensory deprivation chamber for all the--" Che went on for half a minute more, too fast to be comprehensible. "--not to mention I nearly starved!"
"In an hour?"
"I have a quick metababism. Metabarism. Metabawhatsis." He downed another soda.
"Kunai probably saved your life by hiding you there," said Bear, "And what happened to him?"
"Him? Well, he--" Che fumbled on this point and gathered himself up again. "It's not my fault."
"Yes, I know, nothing is ever your fault."
"This really isn't. He jumped at me--" Che halted at Bear's expression. "It isn't."
"Mmmhmm."
"Besides, he's probably bled out already." Che was gesturing wildly and at speed, which made him hard to watch. "And he's under that magician-person's control. He nearly killed me before I stabbed him--NOT that I stabbed him or anything."
Bear had yet to blink.
"I mean it!" Che attempted to stare Bear down and failed immediately. "Oh, fine. Let's go. Have to at least get out of here before the walking wall-hanging returns."
Che slipped Wrist back over his arm and picked up Bear, making his way to the door and opening it by the manipulation of a device not visible from the ground.
Bear had the feeling things would be so much easier if he were still in his original body--the one much bigger than Che or Kunai--and said as much.
"Now, that one really isn't my fault," said Che, "You were little when I met you."
Despite having a mind that was several thousand steps ahead of everyone else, Bear was always two steps behind Che. Not only did he have the wrong sort of mind for deceit and crime, but Che's movements themselves were hard to track. Magicians appeared and disappeared like, well, magic. They never had a chance to spot him first, and even Bear's sharp observational skills had only just begun to pick up the change to a more sterile, clinical environment when they arrived at Kunai's bedside.
Kunai, pale under normal circumstances, was literally whiter than the sheets tucked around him. Che left Bear on the bed momentarily to demonstrate a few knots to the magician medic, but Kunai did not react to the extra weight, nor to Bear's cursory examination of his temperature, breath and pulse.
"Well?" said Che, ignoring the protests of bound figure beside him.
Bear narrowed his eyes. His breath was steady, as was his pulse, but there was little Bear could tell besides that. To get him treated properly, they would have to get him back to the ship. But that was not surprising.
"Escaped?"
Neither was that. Something about that voice--like Che's--promised to turn up when you least wanted to hear it.
Bear turned to face Suk Klohe expressionlessly. "You're going to undo whatever's been done to Kunai, and you're going to let us leave."
Suk Klohe took this without surprise, but glanced at Che.
"Frankly, he doesn't even like me," said Che, holding up his hands placatingly, "I'm sure any effort would be rather wasted."
Bear ignored both of them in favor of pulling out a screwdriver and fiddling with Wrist's underside.
"You have a statistically infinitesimal chance of outsmarting me," Bear said. He'd never bragged in his life and could only hope it sounded intimidating.
"Isn't that rather generous?" said Che.
Suk Klohe glanced at Wrist and waved an arm in their direction, but seemed unsurprised when nothing happened.
"Knowledge is power," said Bear, "Trite, but true. I defeated Rueben, as you know."
"Yes, a person looking very much like an elephant sat on him so we could get him into a cell," said Che, "You don't want to wind up like that, do you, hmmm? All flat?"
"Undo this spell," Bear said, "And we'll be going."
This tactic had a good chance of not working; it wouldn't work on Che, Bear knew. But he never would have tried it on him. Morality was black and white, but whether it was black or whether it was white changed with each circumstance. Che seemed to realize this and danced always upon the white side, but Suk Klohe had unknowingly stepped completely over grey and into the abyss.
Suk Klohe stared him down for a moment, his fellow magicians tugging at his sleeves.
"...Fine."
That was not a sign of victory. Bear had basically demanded to hand Suk Klohe a potential hostage. Che gave Bear an "I'm reconsidering your super genius status" look for it. But Bear did have a back up plan. Well, twenty-two back up plans and possibly others, to be precise.