StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I didn't write this - but I can pass on C&C to him. This stars Marina, Ye, Chris and I (so far - Ye and Chris are on Marina's board)

Remote Panic

Prologue: Remote Control
-In which a remote control was purchased, words were exchanged, and Ye was confused by circumstances

A slight draft blew across the room. I suppressed a sneeze, and looked around. An open newspaper on the floor flapped open. Moulded plastic chairs lined the walls, with large windows just behind them, looking out to what seemed like a heavy fog. A coffee machine and an automatic vending machine stood at a corner. There was a faint but persistent stench of stale coffee and burnt dust typical of any over-heated public facility. There were three other persons in the room. I stood up, and brought out a small MP3 recorder.

“Testing. Testing.”

“My name is Ye. Just Ye.”

“It all started with... good God I hate that line.”

Somebody behinded me snorted.

“Shut up, Phong. Anyway, it did start with this bloody thing.” I replied without much conviction. Well, it did...

***

I walked down the mall, headed straight for the radio-shack. They were having a sale, and I’ve been wanting a flash drive cum mp3 player for some time. I picked up one of the machines in question. Good, there are still some in stock. You never know with these promotions. I walked towards the sales counter.

And then it caught my eye.

It wasn’t really anything particularly interesting, or beautiful, or in any way remarkable. It looked like your standard television remote-control, with a line of brightly coloured buttons stamped with large symbols. So it was one of those. I took one up. 9.99, not bad. Universal remote control, hmm. Programmable buttons, huh. Compatible with the following manufacturers, good.

And then I did something stupid. I bought the bloody thing. Impulse buying is always stupid? Well, my tele’s remote control had gone to meet its maker (and may that factory be beset with legions of dead remote controls!), and although I was in no hurry, it was a good price, and I was there, anyway. No, it was worse than that.

***
(21:50:05) MKSheppard entered the room.
(21:50:05) MarshalPurnell entered the room.
(21:50:05) JerisFlame entered the room.
(21:50:05) JediPhong entered the room.
(21:50:05) rh4389a entered the room.
(21:50:05) sbbigsteve entered the room.
(21:50:05) Mahanfan entered the room.
(21:50:05) fimagal2001 entered the room.
(21:50:05) MHui 421 entered the room.
(21:50:05) YeDiWen entered the room.
(21:50:05) AndrasOtto entered the room.
(21:50:05) Maj Svetlanna entered the room.
(21:50:05) Ravenwood Knight entered the room.
(21:50:10) fimagal2001: comrade!
(21:50:12) YeDiWen: Comrade commissar!
(21:50:13) MarshalPurnell: And frankly, I have made some really boneheaded mistakes in working out problems on paper.
(21:50:19) JediPhong: Everyone does
(21:50:21) YeDiWen: Comrade Hristofor.
(21:50:25) YeDiWen: Oh, comrade Boyan!
(21:50:27) JediPhong: Comrade mathematician!
(21:50:31) YeDiWen: To see you up so late!
(21:50:36) Maj Svetlanna: When was recentering?
(21:50:36) Ravenwood Knight: Nah, if I know them, she does. She's not that oldO:-)
(21:50:36) YeDiWen: It is unusual.
(21:50:46) MKSheppard: Comrade Running Dog!
(21:50:58) YeDiWen: Vy you address yourself, comrade Ryan?
(21:51:01) MarshalPurnell: Ah well.
(21:51:21) JediPhong: 1996
(21:51:36) Maj Svetlanna: Uhm, yeah.
(21:51:39) MarshalPurnell: Hopefully you are all correct and the GRE will be far less difficult than I fear.
(21:51:44) YeDiWen: Vot?
(21:51:44) JediPhong: Don't worry about it
(21:51:48) Maj Svetlanna: I suspect I took the SAT at around the same time that Andrew did.
(21:51:48) Mahanfan: It wasn't.
(21:51:53) rh4389a: brush up on yur speed writing skills
(21:52:00) MarshalPurnell: But I suppose a good night's sleep will really help.
(21:52:05) Mahanfan: I mean, I finished the History test in half an hour.
(21:52:09) YeDiWen: Oh, SAT. Yeah, it's nothing worth worrying about.
(21:52:14) JediPhong: And GRE
(21:52:17) rh4389a: the SAT had history?
(21:52:22) Mahanfan: Nah, the GRE.
(21:52:23) YeDiWen: Well, that is slightly harder.
(21:52:23) JediPhong: SAT II has history
(21:52:25) rh4389a: i got gypped!
(21:52:28) Maj Svetlanna: Chris is taking the GRE, we're just boasting about old schores.
(21:52:29) JediPhong: and the GRE Subject Test
(21:52:35) YeDiWen: But not that hard. The math bits are complete jokes.
(21:52:44) rh4389a: it's all a complete joke
(21:52:44) YeDiWen: Multiple choice!
(21:52:46) YeDiWen: I mean to say.
(21:53:29) YeDiWen: Anyway, I brought a new remote control
(21:53:40) YeDiWen: ...one of the newfangled universal remote controls. I think it works on my computer's sound card I/O port, too.
(21:53:59) YeDiWen: Lessee




***

I opened my eyes up with a start. I found myself standing in some sort of public square. There were only three other people in sight, though it seemed like a clear enough day. Then I looked saw the sunrise. Still early, then. I walked towards a street sign with the intention of seeing just where the devil am I, and how in the world I got to this place. I didn’t think I drink yesterday, and I never passed out. If I got drunk enough to end up in another part of town and not remember a thing afterwards, it would be a most alarming development.

Federal Street? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that street before. Anyway, it’s a bit of an unsual name for a street in Victoria, or for most of B.C., come to that. I looked around a little more, and with a little surprise, I found that the other three persons were all heading my way. I felt my pocket for my knuckle dusters, and slipped my right hand through one, finding the familiar grip of wound leather some small comfort. Though, come to think of it, they did not look particularly dangerous, or hostile, for that matter. The closest one was a woman, with dark hair that was still distinguishably red, five eight or so, and quite athletically build from what I can see. The next closest was an Asian, probably from Hong Kong or Vietnam, five seven or so, taller than me and build like a bean pole. The third, who was coming from my left, was the tallest of the bunch, short, black hair, trimmed beard and blood-shot eyes under glasses, though not drunk from what I could make of the fellow.

Well, looked like they were interested more in the signpost than me. I kept my right hand in my pocket, and walked away at an angle. They didn’t seem hostile, but you never know, and I wasn’t going to stick around. There should be buses around any time now, if it was around six or so, and I am getting home for a shower and some breakfast. Funny thing, I wasn't tired, though it must have been quite a few hours since I last drank.

“Federal Street? Where the hell’s that?”

American? So a bunch of tourists also ended up here, eh? I turned around, well, I was the native, sort of, and I always gave directions. Nevermind that I didn’t have any to give at the moment. “So, you blokes are Americans, eh? Lost?”

The woman turned to look at me, with what could only be surprise, if not slowly dawning horror. What did I do? “Are you trying to tell me we are not in America?”

HA! And I thought I had a bad night! Trying very hard not to laugh (no, that would be wrong), I said, “Well, near as I can make out, we are in Victoria, loike.” I paused, seeing the look of now unmistakable horror across all their faces, and I could not resist adding, “that’s Canada, mate.”

The woman had been staring at me for some time, and then with a look of dazed disbelief, she said, slowly, words that would haunt me forever.

No, not that, you idiot.

“Tell me you are not Ye.” That comment drew gasps from the other two. Did I know these people?

“That God-awful accent? It had to be him.” The tallest chap felt it necessary to add.

I looked around. No, I definitely did not know any of them. But they seemed to know me, and I know I was not a recognisable face.

“I am Marina, you bloody native.”

Right. I had to be dreaming. I turned around and walked away.

“Hey! Where the hell are you going.”

“I woke up, standing, in an unfamiliar part of town, with people who claim to be people from the other side of the continent who I’d never met before. Where on Earth do you think I am going? The Corn Art Gallery? I am going to wake up, is where I am going.” I replied without even turning back.

“Come back here, you aggravating, irritating, exasperating excuse of a mathematician!”

I stopped.

Nobody called me an excuse of a mathematician.

I turned around. But something else caught my eye. The Asian guy was holding up a newspaper. Funny, I didn’t think I recognise the type face. Well, I wouldn’t from that distance.

“Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror.” He said, with a voice that sounded surprisingly terrified for so innocuous a name.

...

...

...

“The WHAT!?”

Chapter One: Mariland, my Mariland
-In which the Heroes (and Heroine) found out exactly how Deep they are in the Soup. And lo, it was deep

All three of us turned towards the Asian. I knew where bloody Nantucket is, and it wasn’t anywhere near Victoria. Maybe I was still dreaming, but I was beginning to have extremely bad feelings about this.

I extracted my right hand from the kuckle dusters, walked forward and grabbed the paper. Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, in bold face, top of the front page. There was no mistake there. Mari and the other fellow stood behind me, and tried to look at the papar. I handed it to them. “Here. I’ve seen what I needed to see.”

I turned around, only to find the Asian bloke still standing there, with his hands held out where he was holding the newspaper. I passed a hand in front of his eyes. He blinked, shook his head, and then looked at me, and said, “Ye, right?”

I had to admit that it was the truth of the matter.

“I am comrade Boyan.” He said with a weak smile.

Comrade Boyan? Com... Phong!? I looked around with wild surmise. Mari, Phong, and Nantucket? This was most definitely a dream.

Well, I might as well play along, as long as I was not waking up any time soon. Who knows? It may even be fun! Pity I wouldn’t remember anything when I wake up, though.

“My dear comrade! It iz comrade Svetlana Marinova zere, and who are you, comrade?” I turned to the last piece of the our little quartet. He stared back at us, with something of a suggestion of wildness in his eyes, and then chuckled.

“Comrade Hristofor, or some such.” He said with a somewhat ineffective attempt at a Russian accent. Chris Purnell, eh. My. Maybe we’ll see Fim, too. I half expected the comrade commissar to materialise out of thin air, but no luck.

“So, ve're are in capitalist America, da? Ve must maintain ze cover. Remember, ve are as American as applce borscht. Apple tart. Nyet, vot is vord, comrade Boyan?”

“Apple cake, comrade chekist.” Phong was good enough to oblige me.

“Hang on a moment, Ye, I would love to chatter, but aren’t there better things we should be doing now?” It was Mari, again.

“Aww, c’mon, Mari. We might as well have a bit o’ fun while we are at it. It’s not like this is anything permemnant, anyway.”

“Serious contender for Nantucket Boat Basin purchase throw name in. Secondary school board in third debate session regarding retainment of culinary studies programme. Looks pretty damned real to me.” Mari grabbed a newspaper, and began reading out headlines at random.

I shrugged. “So? So you can read in a dream.”

Dream? Haven’t I heard that one cannot read when dreaming? Well, I was no neurologist, so I was probably wrong.

She walked up, and then suddenly her fist shot forward at quite a passeable right hook. I ducked just in time, took a half step back, and brought my guard up. I cursed as I realised that I took off the kuckledusters when I took the newspaper. She didn’t pursue, however.

“Don’t do that, you drunken excuse of an Irishwoman!”

“Look, you blithering idiot, I am going to demostrate to you this is not a dream, now come back here and take a punch like a good little student!”

Did she honestly think I’d do that?

Chris walked between us, with his hands held up, “look, people, we shouldn’t be fighting at a time like this. We should try to find out exactly where we are, and how we got here. Ye, you probably don’t have a passport on you, and that might be a problem. We are all Americans, so our only problem is,” He said as he reached into his trouser pockets and turned them out with a rueful smile, “a certain shortage of funds. But you may have other problems. And even if it is a dream, and I am not saying it is or isn’t, you might as well play along. It’ll be fun.”

Well, why didn’t you say so? As long as it’s fun, mate. “Roight, Chris.”

In the meantime, Mari seemed to have calmed down a little. She stood, ramrod straight, and assumed a business like attitude, and said, “it looks like it’s early in the morning, but the morning edition of the papers should be out soon, and then the places where we can book passage back to the mainland. In the meantime we should find a diner somewhere to sit down and talk about this,” at this Chris coughed a slightly embarassed cough, “Don’t worry, Chris, it’ll be my treat.”

And then she smiled. “Well, I never thought we’d meet under these circumstances. So, shall we, Gentlemen? Oh, and you, Ye.” She added, I thought unnecessarily. I shrugged. I had not been to a greasy spoon for some time, so why the devil not? And she was right. Meeting them would be fun.

What on Earth was I blathering about? This was a friggin’ dream.

“So, any idea where to find one, O Most Exalted Mistress?” I tried the question obsequious.

“Well, no. But there won’t be that many other places open at this sort of hour, so we should just wander around a bit, towards downtown, preferably.”

So exactly what hour was this, anyway? I glanced down at my watch instinctively. Half past one? It clearly wasn’t half past one - the sun was just rising. Oh well, it was just a dream. The others were leaving, so I shoved my hands into my pockets, and followed.

Hmm, what’s that?

My left hand felt something long and rectangular in my left pocket. I idly took it out. The universal remote control? Now this was what I called real-time virtual reality! Well, I had been thinking about the thing before I slept. Funny, I didn’t remember sleeping, actually. I put the remote control back in.

***

I idly added another spoonful of sugar into my tea, and stirred it with the plastic straw courtesy of Ronald McDonald, carefully avoiding the scaldingly hot cup.

“We are in Nantucket.” Mari stated. I covered my eyes in mock pain. Mari studiously ignored me, but Phong obligingly asked, “what was that, Ye?”

“It was a flash of the obvious! My eyes!”

Mari smacked me lightly behind the head. I didn’t try to duck.

“Whispersnapper. I was talking to the cashier there. It’s the year of our lord (I obediently crossed myself at that) 2001, June the fifteenth. We are on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, United States of America.”

There was a moment of silence around the booth we were in. We couldn’t have that.

“You didn’t ask him whether there was any bright lights? Unexplained disappearances? Shifts three thousand years into the past?”

“...surprisingly well-spoken young man, actually, very erudite.” Mari chose the reply courteous.

Well, that was no fun. I started looking through the newspaper Phong picked up back in the square. Who wrote this stuff, anyway? “Secondary school board in third debate session regarding retainment of culinary studies programme”? That was how Drake talked, but I should have thought that a American small newspaper would have a more straight forward style. Well, America’s a big place.

“So, where do we go from here?” Chris asked the obvious question.

“I suppose we book tickets for the next ferry to the mainland. There’s a service to Hyannis, the next one leaving in an hour and a half,” said Mari as she adjusted her watch, “fool thing... My credit card is working, thank God, and I can get tickets for you three. I am not going to call in sick at work, because I would be about five years ahead of myself... I may try to call myself, though. Don’t know how she... I’d take it, but unless any of you have a better idea?”

I shook my head. I had a dangerously new credit card, fifty three in notes and coin of Canada’s finest, a backpack, and no passport. It wasn’t as though I was spoilt with choices. Though I still had my HK ID card, so I suppose I could claim that I lost my passport... Happily, the ID card was issued in 1999.

“Shouldn’t we try to figure out how we got here?” Phong said, slightly hesitantly.

“We should, but until we’ve settled down at least temporarily, we wouldn’t be able to.” Replied Mari briskly. She stretched a little, and continued, “Hell, I have no idea where to start.”

Phong nodded unhappily at that.

“So, I suppose, if we are all done, we’ll head to the jetty, then?” Chris said.

We all nodded at that. Mari and Chris stood up, with Phong following. I took one last look at the cup of liquid cunningly masquerading as tea, and followed them. I bumped into Phong.

“Chroist, watch it, will ya?” I mumbled. So he’s a bit dazed, understandable, really. Hang on... “Phong?”

He was staring at the outside, his right hand pointing, and his mouth moving, but nothing save a dry hiss escaped his throat.

“Calm down, mate, what is it?” I said. By then Mari and Chris also noticed this, and turned to Phong with some concern.

“I saw... I saw...” Well, I had thought it wasn’t something he smelt.

“I saw my mother!” Phong finished. Well, I had heard of people who were afraid of their mothers, but this was ridiculous.

“Scared of your mother, eh? Well...” I could not finish, however, as Phong interrupted me.

“Not that! What’s my mother doing on Nantucket?” Oh, yeah, good point.

“Perhaps we should follow her? I mean, worse come to worse, Phong can get his mother to help him, and we’d be no worse off.” I ventured.

“It’s actually a good idea. Well, let’s!” Mari said, and briskly set off in hot pursuit.

***

Despite the early Summer weather, the early morning dock still had a rather bracing breeze going. We were huddled behind a pile of crates, comically sticking our heads around the corner.

Phong’s mother, it transpired, was supervising a group of dock hands loading a number of crates onto a motor launch.

“Phong, do you have any idea what your mother would be doing here?” Mari asked the query obvious.

Phong shook his head. “No, afraid not. She’s an engineer, and as far as I remember, she was back home in 2002. She shouldn’t be here.”

Mari looked deep in thought.

“Well, those crates seeem quite heavy, but have no custom stamps on them, so probably domestic, unless your mother was a head of a hidden smuggling ring...” Chris offered. Phong glared at him, and Chris had the grace to colour a little.

“Actually, those seems to be computer parts.” I said. They all looked at me. “I recognise the boxes.” Well, there were quite a lot of these boxes. Must be worth a fortune. I turned to Phong. “Were your mother ever in procurement?”

Phong shook his head once again. “No. Never.” He looked deep in thought, and asked, “Shall I approach her?”

“Not just yet.” Mari said decisively. “I am going to try to talk to one of them first. She won’t recognise me, so if it came to that you could leave first. Watch me, and we’ll meet behind the McDonalds if anything happens.” And then without awaiting us, she walked off. I wasn’t going to let her have all the fun, but I didn’t think she was in the mood for a garrulous comic mathematician tagging along.

She walked over, and rather expertly melted her way through the group, and started chatting with one of the stevedores. They looked like they were temps - not surprising, at a dock this size at this sort of place there wouldn’t be much demand for a lot of heavy loading. She talked a little, and to my alarm, seemed to be growing in more animated and agitated by the second. Not two minutes later, she walked back to us, this time not bothering to be discrete.

“This is very strange. Apparently they’d seen a lot of loading, intended for a bulk freighter anchored off shore... and get this, the man recognised me. Apparently I was here with my ‘fleet’. His very words.”

A fleet eh? I didn’t know Mari had a fleet back in 2001. Or now, for that matter. I stuck my hands in my pockets again, and found the universal remote control.

...

Universal remote control.

...

Everybody spoke eruditely.

...

Loading onto a bulk freighter.

...

Fleet (of sailing ships?)

...

The headlines average 4.6 syllables a word.

...

And the scales fell from my eyes.

“Aww crap.”

Mari looked at me, and nodded.

I frantically dug out the remote control.

One of the programmable buttons read, ‘Universal Channel Jump’. I searched for the ‘Toggle’ button, found it, and pressed it.

And we were enveloped in white brilliance.

***

“...and that’s how we got here.”

“Don’t ever do that again.” Mari said as she gave up trying to extract coffee from the coffee machin. Ha! Waiting room between realities. Correction. Waiting room between fanfictions.

“Look, Mari, no disrespect intended, but we were going to run into a bunch of our clones, completely destroy the balance of power there, and get shifted back to a world where the idea of high hygiene involved using leaves after defecation, running water is a distant memory, and all Englishmen wear skirts!” I paused for breathe. “And I had thought that ‘toggle’ would bring us back to the previous, uh, channel. That’s where we belong, you know.”

“Probably just as well, really.” Chris said, “Marina’s works are excellent, but there was a distinct tendency for a lot of carnage.”

Mari looked only slightly appeased, “well, it would not have been a bad place to settle in. Though I suppose Ye’s right. We must get back. Family, work, loved ones. So, are you going to change channels?”

“Hold on a moment!” Phong looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

“As far as we can see, we’ve been shifted to Mari’s Shang story, you know, where we journey back with Nantucket to 1000 B.C. and build a new civilisation. Dont’as ask, I have’t a damn clue how, either.” Chris said, by way of an answer.

Phong nodded, confusion still evident on his face.

“Anyway, let’s have the remote control, Ye.” Mari said, holding out her hand.

“Well, not so fast, Mari. I haven’t the faintest idea how to get back to our own world. Toggle didn’t work, and I am not entirely sure just flipping at random would be a good idea. We may end up in...”

“Oh God, don’t say it.” Phong stopped me.

“I don’t think we have any choice in that matter.” Chris said, pointing behind the three of us. We turned, and saw that there was a blinding white shining through all the windows, and the glass door. Phong walked forward, gripped the handle.

And we shifted.

Chapter Two: Channel Surfing
-In which a pair of pantaloons were ruined, an amount of ammunition purchased, and beans counted


“It wasn’t as though we had a choice.” I said.

“No.” Phong replied.

“It was going to happen, one way or another.” I added.

“Quite.” Phong felt prudent to agree.

“After all, the situation was highly suspicious.” I elaborated.

“Pretty bad, that was.” Phong concurred.

“All things considered, this isn’t so bad.” I said, by way of conclusion.

“Could be much worse.” Phong ventured to say.

“But if you do that again, I’ll make you crawl over acid-splattered broken glass to beg for the sweet release of eternal torture.” I finished.

There was a moment of silence.

“Fair enough.” Phong said.

So I was a little short with the man. Being suspended in midair by handcuffs had a somewhat detrimental effect on my usual sweet-natured self. We had the good fortune to shift straight into an honest-to-goodness Cardassian interrogation facility, completed with those resin-looking bone ridges and badly-accented English.

So of course Phong did the logical thing. He tried to touch one of those bone ridges.

He thought it was a film set. Apparently he mistook the interrogation-issue lamps for film-set lighting.

“Phong, doing this sort of things is unhealthy. It strains the good cheer. It might get one seriously inconvenienced. It might even get one killed. We should hate to see you killed. Worse, you might get Mari or Chris killed. You won’t want to see you friends killed, I am sure. But worst of all, you might get me killed, and then where would we be? In fact…” I continued in that vein at some length. Well, someone had to educate that man. And it wasn’t as if the Cardies were giving us much to do. This was, I thought, the period where we were supposed to reflect upon Cardassian interrogation protocols and work ourselves into a state of abject terror. Funny, I was not frightened. None of this felt very real to me. It was as though one woke up and found oneself in the body of a Barbie doll… well, Ken doll. The terror, I suppose, would come later.

I strained my neck to the right, trying to see how the others were doing. Chris seemed composed enough, although what he was thinking, I did not know. He hadn’t exactly been communicative since we were strung up like so many butchered pigs. Mari was on the opposite wall, next to Phong, and she was also silent, though unlike Chris, it was clear what she was thinking, and it involved a deathstar in conjunction with Caradassia. Phong was actually humming some tune I couldn’t recognise. None of us were in a particularly talkative mood, and even I got tired of listening to my own voice.

No, it’s not a bleedin’ record, you lame-brained son of a bachelor.

I tried not to move my arms too much, to preserve my strength and prevent straining my arms any further, though Emperor only knew what for. I looked around a little more. A fairly typical medical-bay set up, with the obligatory full-body units Star Trek seemed to like so much ranged at the far end. Our bags laid, piece by piece, on a surgical table between us. Next to it were trolleys with trays of what seemed like surgical implements on them, both powered and manual-operated, though given the present trend I should be very much surprised if they had ever been used in a surgical operation, or indeed had ever been intended for same. The door was to Mari’s left. There was not one Cardie in sight.

As if on cue, the door chimed upon, and a tall and gangly Cardassian in what I could only describe as doctor’s coat, followed by a human in brown overalls and a metallic collar with some sort of electronic device on it, walked in, strolled up to the surgical table, and turned to Chris and I.

“Well, if it seems that our friends are awake!” The reptile said with what amounted to a grin on his face.

“Well, no, I sleep with my eyes open, especially when captured by the drop-outs from mustachio-twirling comic-opera villain schools.” Was what even I wasn’t brash enough to say. So I simply nodded. Behind him Mari was making fairly brisk progress in boring a hole through his back with nothing but sheer bloody-mindedness.

“So, what brings you to our fine establishment?” Never let it be said that sadistic Cardassian torturers don’t have a fine appreciation of irony, was what I always said.

“We are tourists. Sight-seers. Travellers.” Well, you try to think of something better when you are teleported straight into a high-security facility.

The grin widened. “Please, my friends! Let us have complete frankness between us! Tourists don’t bring phasers along, do they? Not to our sorts of facility, anyway.” He said, and picked up the universal remote control from the table. My mind began racing with the vague, unformed possibilities…

I did my best to make my voice sound dry, and stared fixedly at the remote control. “It’s not a phaser. Look, it has no trigger guard, no sights, and is completely awful to aim with. It can’t possibly be a phaser. What it is, is a, is a, it’s a tricorder! Multimedia recorder premium model. Huawei electronics, if you want to know. For sale at $9.99. That’s Canadian. Want me to order you one?” Well, it did cost $9.99, before tax! Take that, evil Cardassian scum!

He pointed the thing at me. “Now, now! I know we Cardassians look stupid to you Alliance humans, but I assure you that is not so. But if it is as you say, a tricorder, then you wouldn’t mind if I take a picture of you, would you?”

Bingo. I did my best to squirm in my bonds, and thought about Young Earth creationists. That did the trick, and I felt my heart pounding with rage. “No. No, of course not. Say, you should take a picture of yourself. It’d be nice. The green button, that’s the one you want.”

He lowered the remote control, I tried to put on a look of suppressed fear, of wanting to squirm away but restraining myself. It seemed to be working. “The green button, you said? I think I will take a picture of you, after all.” He said, pointed the thing at my legs, and then pressed the toggle button.

Sucker.

White light once more enveloped us.

***

I found my arms suddenly freed from its bonds, so I lowered them to my side, shaking them slightly, trying to restore circulation to them. In front of me was the dazed and confused figure of the Cardassian. With scarcely a moment of thought, I turned my right side towards him, took a half step forwards, and drove my right leg into his chest. I felt an instant of resistance and then a solid connection. Taken by surprise, he was sent flying into the vending machine. I quickly took another step forward, and stomped him in the front knee with my front leg as he staggered forward, and as he bowed over, bought my left knee crashing into his descending face. I felt the crunch of bone giving way, and heard a soft crack, and grinned. Blood now ran freely down the Cardassian’s face, and he dropped to his knees. My arms were still dangling uselessly besides me, so I raised them with some effort, put them around his head, intending to knee him once more in the head.

And then I found myself staring at what appeared to be a water pistol.

Crap.

The Cardassian smiled through the blood running in neat rivulets down his face, this time a wild, feral smile devoid of any false cheer, and then squeezed the trigger.

So this was the way it ends.

...

...

I blinked. He blinked. And he squeezed the trigger another time. And then once again. And then again. And then he snarled, “this is impossible! This is a new cli...”

Then there was aloud crack, and a neat, coin-sized hole appeared on his forehead, and a trickle of blood ran down it, joining the blood on his face. And we never did find out what was new. Was it a clip? Was it a clinker? A clinic? A cliff? Oh well.

I looked back, and saw Mari holding a pistol in a classic two-hand aiming stance. She smiled at me weakly. “Nice shot, Mari.” I felt obliged to say.

“I was aiming at his hand.” Mari answered, and then by way of explanation, “it’s the cuffs, my bliddy arms are still numb.”

I walked forward and kicked the Cardassian, which fell to the ground with a thump. I bent down to pick up his gun. There was a little indicator panel at the side, and it seemed to show a full charge. I thought about this for a bit more, and burst out in hysterical laughter.

“What?” Chris asked with some concern. Well, I would ask with some concern, too, if a hysterical man with a gun were in my vicinity.

I was laughing so hard I couldn’t respond for a while. When I calmed down and caught my breathe, I answered. “Don’t take this as gospel, but I think that Trek technology just wouldn’t work outside of its own universe, so only things based strictly on physical principles would work across worlds. Poor bastard!”

Then I walked over to one of the chairs, and plopped down. I found myself sitting next to Phong. Opposite us, Mari and Chris also set down. Between us lied the corpse of a Cardassian.

“That was a lucky escape.” Phong said, to no one in particular.

“Yes.” I could not disagree. I glanced up, to find Mari lovingly returning her pistol to her handbag, one of those large, leather ones with hand-painted patterns on the side. It looked like it could hold the Woolworth Arsenal in there, and probably did.

“Mari, it occurred to me that we should do an inventory, pool our resources, and what not.”

Mari glanced up at me with some surprise, and then said, “Hmm. Not a bad idea, actually. Shall I start?”

“Actually, I’d like to start.” Chris interjected.

He stood up, put his hands in his pocket, and dramatically produced a key, and hold it up in the air.

Ten seconds later, I said, “next.”

“There is no next, I am afraid.” Chris answered. “Except the shirt on my back and the trousers I stand in. And the spectacles I wear. And my… unmentionables.”

I hadn’t heard somebody describe man’s underwear that way since, well, a long time.

“I didn’t mean next item, Chris, I meant the next person. Well, might as well be me.”

I stood up, picked up my backpack off the floor where it shifted with us from that surgical table, and picked out items one by one. “Well, let’s see. Spare spectacles, Springer Verlag’s Measure Theory, a note book, two pens, a fountain pen, a mechanical pencil, a wallet, a jacket, eh, ha, these are a pair of knuckle dusters, and oh, this is my new MP3 player cum flash drive, and, last but not least, the bloody remote control.” I finished, picking up the remote control from where the Cardassian dropped it. Come to think of it, we never did find out his name. Nothing to shed tears over, really. I didn’t feel it necessary to be introduced to people who tried to kill me but moments before. “I travel light.”

I walked back to my seat. Mari stood up and began emptying her handbag. She pulled out the pistol with a flourish, and said, “The hero of the day, the Para-Ordnance P14-45 Double Action!” She reached into her bag, and produced three more magazines, “with spare magazines!”

We looked on in silent wonder and awe.

“Nice gun.” Chris broke the silence.

Mari seemed like she was about to launch into a lecture on the properties of same, then thought the better of it, and continued. “Well, here’s some receipts. Ticket stubs. I’d forgotten that!” Funny, I thought United Airlines phased out those tickets in 2001. “Moisturising lotion, a mini-make-up kit, a Swiss army knife, of course. Two pairs of clippers, one large and one small. Ohh! Antiseptic salve and bandages!” She smiled brightly at that. “Do you have an oowee, Ye?”

In the interest of world peace, I heroically refrained from comment.

Moving on, Mari began taking out her wallet, “and my wallet, obviously. I have my credit card, debit card, COSTCO card, and of course driving, boating and flying licenses! Here are some matchbooks from some random restaurants I’ve been to. Those might come in handy.” She said, and then looked at me again with what was decidedly the gleam of somebody about to do something I would regret.

“Speaking of fire, Ye, I have a lighter.” Well, that was good. I have nothing against lighters. Some of my best fire-building experiences involve lighters.

“A Chairman Mao lighter!” She said as she produced the offending item and thrust it at my face. And then she opened it. A little red light came on, ran around Mao’s bust, and then music played.

East is Red?

I realised I must have been dazed, shook my head, and then said with a voice which I thought was admirably steady, “That’s nice, Mari.”

If possible, Mari’s grin grew larger, and said words which sent a chill up one’s spine, “I must do that more often.”

“Would that be all, Mari?” I gave the query obvious. At this point Chris and Phong were suppressing giggles with marked lack of success. I turned on... to Phong. “Perhaps you might grace us with your presence, my dear Phong?”

Phong was sitting, with a laptop on his, well, lap, his laptop briefcase now lied open on the seat next to him. A mess of cables was connecting his laptop with an iPod, a cell phone, a PDA, a... calculator? Was that a USB light? And a digital camera!?

“Phong, please take this question in the spirit it is intended. What in the name of the First Emperor and all His fleets are you doing?”

“Well, you see, I am linking my laptop array up with my other sensors to create a multiphasic array. I am trying to reprogramme them into a phased-sequencing array, in order to detect the tachyon flux caused by inter-universal jumping.” Phong looked up and answered, in apparently seriousness. No, I take that back, in complete, earnest, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die seriousness. “To detect a way back to our own reality, you see.”

...

“On your bloody lap top?” I asked, with I thought remarkable forbearance and restrain, given the circumstances.

Phong considered this for a moment, and then his eyes widened. “I swear, it seemed like the right thing to do.” He paused, his eyes growing even larger, “Oh God, it catches, doesn't it?”

“Sure looks like it, mate.” I was unable to offer any comfort.

“Well, you seem to realise that something is wrong, now, so hopefully the effects wear off with time.” Chris did better. Phong still looked shakened, but happier than he did a moment before. Chris continued. “I think we can derive a pattern here. Only baseline technology works across worlds. The worlds have characteristics which they infect people coming into contact with, but those effects wear off with time.”

I glanced at Chris. Then something came together in my mind. “Mari going for a hand-shot when some murderous scum was trying to kill me, Phong going native... And Chris, were you thinking about the Prime Directive, by any chance?”

Chris seemed to redden at that. “You can’t prove a thing.” He coughed, and said, “anyway, as I was saying, we can’t stay in these worlds for too long. They may be dangerous, and they certainly seem infectious. But it seems to me that we are wandering on Divine Salamis’ fanfic section.”

Mari whistled at this. “Of course! We shifted straight into a torture scene, there was a slave, and the Cardie called us ‘Alliance’ humans! Steve’s work! And we were in Shang before that, of course.”

“Well, there aren’t that many fics on DS, so maybe we can just go to all the channels, and then we’ll reach home eventually!” Phong added, excitedly.

“Well, that certainly makes sense. Most of the fics feature worlds distinguishable at one glance from the real one, anyway, so we should make fairly brisk progress.” Mari said. But I had a bad feeling about this.

“Mari, two is not nearly large enough a sample size to determine that pattern! Besides, even if you are right, a lot of the worlds on DS are lethal! Drakafic? The Big One? Pendleton?” Raining on parades is my specialty, you know.

“And we are not going to be able to collect more samples just mopping around in a waiting room, are we?” Mari said with unanswerable logic. Dammit, my instincts were screaming against this, but we seem to have no choice.

“Alright, Mari. Just a few words about modus operandi, Mari. We are going to be traipsing about a lot of very dangerous places, after all. You get the gun, of course. I will keep the knuckle dusters. They won’t fit any of you, anyway. Who will speak for us?”

“I nominate Marina. She’s the one with the most experience dealing with people, and she seem able to hold her tongue better than... certain members amongst us.” Chris said.

“Seconded.” Phong immediately followed. Well, who was I to disagree?

“Right, Mari it is, then. Phong will be our tech-specialist.” Nobody seem to register any opposition at that, “I take it we are unanimous?” All nodded. Good. “I think that will do for the moment. Driver cum pilot would have to be you, Mari. Second driver?”

Chris raised his hand at this, “I drive.”

“Seconded.” I added quickly. I have never seen the need to learn driving. Being the one who never gets drunk, that would have landed with far too many drive-the-company-home-one-by-one jobs for my liking. “Any other posts? Well, I suppose these will do for now. Shall we get started?” I asked, heading towards the door.

“Not yet, Ye. We might as well rest up a little, at least until our arms are no longer numb, before we embark on our Great Adventure.” Chris said, always the cool-headed one. And the sarcastic one. I was sure I could hear the capitalisation.

“Righto. Well, what say two hours? I don’t want to wait too long. That body’s beginning to smell, and we are all out of food and water.” I said. Everybody nodded, and began to try to get as comfortable as possible. Phong began packing up his equipment. Oh yeah, he never did start his inventory, although I suppose we saw all that needed to be seen. I wonder what else he might have, not that he didn’t carry enough electronic equipment on him to crash any twenty jumbo jets.

***

“Ready?” I asked, unnecessarily. They nodded. “Then let’s move out.” I had always wanted to say that. I opened the door, and we were gone.

***

“Mari, please, we have to go.” I pleaded.

“Just one more, Ye, just one more!” Mari evidently had different ideas.

“Look, Mari, we have enough guns already! Anymore and we’ll have to hire an APC! Not that that’ll be difficult around here.” I looked around once more. RPG-7s. In the home-care section. And this wasn’t Afghanistan.

“Well, we should purchase some backpacks, too. Credit card working, Mari?” Chris was no help.

“Look, people, missiles for sale in Qwik-mart. Ammo blow-out sales on the rack besides the beer. They sell nuclear de-con kits... for children. This is clearly Shepland. We are in grave danger of being nuked. By supermarket robbers. Let’s just clear off while the going is good.” Nobody was listening. I looked around in vain for Phong, and I spotted him, at a side rack, drawling over nuclear-powered battery packs for his lab-top. That did it. I pressed the channel up button, and we shifted.

***

“I vote we take the remote away from Ye.” Mari was in a rebellious mood.

“Seconded.” Phong was no better.

“Look, I’d love to discuss this further, but I think that’s a nuclear bomb shelter over there, just next to the Empire State Building. The cars outside are all gigantic. And call it a hunch, but I thought Lieberman was not the democratic candidate for president in 2000.” Chris came to the rescue somewhat unexpectedly.

They looked at each other, and said, “TBO!” Simultaneously. I looked on in confusion. Phong rushed forward with every sign of panic, and pressed the channel up button.

***

I felt a connection, an innate understanding of the world around me, as though all were connected to me in an invisible network of fine tendrils. I opened my eyes, and everything seemed in clearer focus.

We stood in the middle of my room in Victoria. Everything seemed as they were before our little jaunt. I smiled, and bowed to the company, “ladies and gentlemen! I give you Earth!”

They all seemed relieved. Chris plopped down onto the sofa. Phong whooped. Mari smiled, and began to look around. She idly handled an iron-flame ornament from my desk. “Well, this is nice, Ye. I didn’t know you had an iron-flame paperweight made.”

Iron-flame ornament?

I pushed past Mari and snatched the paperweight up. There was no mistake. Imperial psych-seal from the Wreckage.

Crap.

I scrambled for the remote control, and pressed the toggle button.

***

“Why did you do that?” Mari asked with remarkable calmness. We were in the waiting room again. It seemed that the channel-up button send us directly to another world, whereas with toggle, one would be sent to the waiting room first. Over at the other end, Chris was still restraining a very furious Phong from his evident intention of inflicting bodily harm upon me.

“That was my world, Mari. Lang’s Earth. And, uh, for your information, I kill half the main characters and let the rest live so they can suffer.” I answered. I looked around, something seemed amiss. No, more than one thing.

“Could this not be one of Drake’s?” Mari asked.

“No. Lang and the entire Earth arc were mine. In any event, there is no functional difference between us in terms of main-character survival rate.”

“Well, no help for it. Shall we?” Chris said, standing besides the door.

Then it clicked.

“Chris. I have bad news.”

“What is it?” Chris gave the reply stoical.

“Remember we said that the worlds are all on DS, and we will eventually find our way back?” I asked.

“Yes, what about it?” Chris answered, missing the point.

“I never posted anything about Lang on DS.”

Chapter Three: Lots in Spades

-In which a council was held, a card found, and a body disappeared


Really, I am not a bloody-minded sort of bloke. It is common knowledge that my sweet and gentle nature is second to none (and so is my objectivity – you have but to ask me to confirm that, and who better to ask than the man in question?).

If it were at all possible, I always try to please all and sundry. Not for me the spiteful and indeed sadistic glee some take in crushing the hopes and aspirations of others.

No, indeed. I am the very soul of tender-hearted concern for the welfare of others, selflessly devoted to fulfilling the dreams of one and all.

But there was no other ways of expressing this.

“We are lost. We are completely, utterly, hopelessly, well and truly, without the slightest shadow of doubt, beyond any possible reasonable grounds for dispute, lost. We are stranded. Cast astrayed. Marooned. In the middle of Siberia without a compass in the middle of a heavy snowstorm on a particularly starless night. In the labyrinth without a ball of thread. Deaf hedgehogs with a particularly poor sense of direction would have a significantly better chance of navigating three-dimensional mazes with greater facility than we do of finding home. In other words, we are lost.”

“Sorry, could you repeat the last bit again? The bit with the hedgehog and the maze.” Phong sought clarification.

“Don’t encourage him!” Mari said to Phong, I thought a bit sharply, “We get the bloody idea, Ye! So your fiction was posted on a Chinese website presumably a long way from DS. So it isn’t going to be as easy as we first thought, but we still hardly know the exact mechanism. And even if it is as bad as you claimed, what choice have we but to keep trying?”

“Well, now that you mentioned it, Marina,” Chris evidently had something to contribute, “We can just keep going until we find a comfortable world to settle down in, you know. Xanadu sounds like just the thing, actually.”

I blinked. Tropical paradise with rivers overflowing with wine and honey? This might not be such a bad idea, after all.

What was I thinking about? Getting the honey off after a little dip would be a complete nuisance, to say nothing of so much honey in a tropical climate. A complete non-starter.

“Overruled.” Mari said, before I could explain to Chris exactly why vast amounts of honey in a tropical surrounding just wasn’t a very hygienic idea. “We talked about this. We agreed that we had to go home. We all have responsibilities back home, and people who wait for us. So we go home as a group.” Mari paused, and then turned to look Chris directly in the eyes, “If you really wanted to, I can’t stop you from staying in a world, but…”

“Sorry to interrupt, but actually,” Phong interrupted, “I am not sure about that. We were pretty far away from each other when that Cardassian shifted us, and also when we were... leaving Shepland,” at this he directed a decidedly unfriendly gaze at me, “but all of us shifted. There were people between us in Shepland, but they weren’t affected. Come to think of it, when that Cardassian shifted us, the slave who was between him and you wasn’t shifted. I think maybe the remote control is attuned to us, or something, and we would be shifted with it regardless of range.”

I thought this was an interesting idea, well worth going into. “I think this is an interesting idea, well worth going into. On the premise that we can return to a world we have been to, we can experiment this by having, say, Chris go a hundred metres from the rest of us and then channel-up, to see if he would shift with us. So far we haven’t gone back to a world we have been to before, but if channel-down, which we haven’t used so far, gets us back to a previous world, then we could do this. Actually, why don’t we st…”

“No, Ye! Forget about the experimentation! We are trying to find a way home, not trying to find a way to leave random members of the group behind!” Mari did not appreciate the noble spirit of scientific enquiry.

“That’s another thing...” Phong interjected. “Our belongings, I mean our bags and so on, they shifted with us from that Cardassian med bay, but none of the other stuff, such as the table under them, or the cuffs on our hands, did. But the guns we bought in Shepland did shift with us. I have no idea how this works, but the remote seem to recognise ownership, too.”

That was a very clever remote control, indeed. I opened the newly bought backpack and took another look at the gun Mari assigned to me. Ithaca Roadblocker magnum 10 gauge semiautomatic shotgun. Sawed off. Available at your local friendly Qwikmart. Two for the price of one.

Gun control or concealed weapons laws weren’t even concepts in Shepland, apparently.

Hang on.

“Phong, this remote may be cleverer than you think. Remember the extra ammunition Mari bought for my shotgun?”

“The new DU alloy buckshot with white phosphorous ‘Nuke Barbecue’ Special?” Mari had a dreamy look on her face as she answered for Phong.

“Yes, well, they are not here. I shifted before you paid for them, I think, and little miss Remote here doesn’t condone theft of any sort, so it must have left them behind, even though we already put it in the kitbag.”

Mari looked close to crying at the revelation, but bravely held her tears back. “Very commendable.” Was all she said.

I continued emptying the gun pack, “might as well check the rest while I am at it. The HK UMP-9s are here, including optional tac handle and laser sights. Spare magazines for same, check. Grenades, check.” Those were next to the canned pineapples back in Shepland, whether intentionally I was not sure, “6D maglite, spare batteries, check. Spare magazines for Mari’s pistol, check. Good news, Mari, we haven’t lost much. Some of the ammo, and two of the grenades (I knew because we bought the dozen special), and that’s it.”

“That’s very reassuring, Ye, but perhaps we should return to the topic at hand?” Surprisingly, it was Chris who attempted to bring us back on topic.

“Yes, indeed. The original topic. It simply won’t do to be side-tracked when one is discussing matters of such import. It is very… important. Yes, important is what it is.” Phong murmured assent at that, “Very important. I think I can go so far as to say that it can’t be more important.”

I paused to think of further qualifications with which to describe of the sheer… importance of the topic in question.

“You’d forgotten what we were talking about, hadn’t you?” Chris asked the question direct.

Well, one couldn’t be expected to remember trivialities when one was engaged in matters of such overriding consequence.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Chris. But I’d like to hear how you would express it. I think it would provide the necessary perspective which would be valuable to us all.”

Mari muttered indistinctly under her breathe, something about politicians and I. I cannot say without reservations that I appreciate the thought.

“We were talking about what to do next. Good God, I have an idea now, and it involves vast quantities of food.” Chris said, “Don’t know about you, but I am starving.”

There was a chorus of agreement to that. Come to think of it, we hadn’t eaten since this morning in Nantucket. Morning? I glanced at my watch, which read half past four. We must have passed through five time zones since Nantucket, including one on another planet. I didn’t feel up to calculating what exactly that would put us. My stomach rumbled. Well, I couldn’t argue with that. Chris was now inspecting the vending machine for something more appetising than pork rinds and dorito crisps. Mari and Phong were standing behind him.

Something tugged at my memories, and then I suddenly realise what was the other thing that was bothering me.

“Umm, Chris.”

“Yes?” Chris had apparently made up his mind on what to select, and turned to face me with some reluctance.

“The body. It’s gone.”

***

“So we may not be the sole occupants of this room.” Chris surmised.

“So it would seem.” Mari agreed. “Somebody cleaned up after us.”

“Either that, or perhaps these waiting rooms only exist for as long as we are in between fanfictions. Or that it cleans up after itself. Or maybe things from another fanfiction reality disappear if they spend too long outside of same. We don’t have enough data to say, one way or another.”

“Actually, we do, sort of.” Phong felt it necessary to interject. “I left the wrapper of a Take 5 here when we shifted, and it’s still right where I left it.”

So that eliminates that idea of a sort of metaphysical waiting room which creates itself whenever we are in between reality. “So this eliminates the id…”

“And I found this card.”

***

“Tell me, Phong, just when did you plan on telling us that?” Mari was not in her sweetest mood. “Really. I am very intrigued. I want to know.”

“Well, it didn’t seem important at the time… I was still setting up my, uh, multiphasic array when I found it.” Phong had the grace to look a little shamefaced.

“Well, let’s have a look, anyway.” Chris had the card at the moment. “Contingency Security Services? Ready for any contingencies, eh. Deployment within five minutes? Twenty percent off for payment in souls of firstborn (sons and daughters only, no hermaphrodites accepted)? Special promotion on Soviet Tank Surprise, two kills for the price of one? What is this trash?”

I held out my hand. Chris handed the card over. It seemed to be made of fairly standard cardboard at first glance, standard sized, and apart from the sixteen point font for the name of the company, the rest of the card was covered in six point font detailing the many services and special offers of the Contingency Security Service. There was a distinct gleam on the surface of the card, and viewed from the side it seemed to shimmer, rather like an old style LCD screens. I turned the card over, on it were printed in a clear font the contact number of the Service.

Pi + ei!?

“I think this is pretty clearly not real. Its contact number is a bleedin’ transcendental complex number, for Emperor’s sake.”

“So it’d take a while to key in that number on the telephone, then.” Phong had a hidden talent for understatement from which I must learn to guard myself.

“Oh well. Anyway, you’re sure it wasn’t here in our first visit?”

“No. It was sitting right on the chair there, and I think I would have noticed something like that if it was there before.” Phong answered.

“I wouldn’t bet on it, mate.” Was what I was charitable enough not to say. Instead I simply nodded.

“Well, so it seems that somebody did visit the place in our absence.”

“We’ll file it away for future reference, then.” Mari said, having made up her mind. “For now I suggest we go on to the next world and grab a bite, as well as perform other… essential functions. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but this waiting room has no toilet attached.”

Eternal waiting without relief, eh?

I waited until the group had gathered their belongings, and then walked up to the door.

I wonder where we might be off to this time. Well, I could kill for some proper borscht. And then I felt the grenades in the small of my back. Perhaps that was an unfortunate turn of phrase.

I gripped the handle, and turned.