(Ishmael)
There was a lot to take in at once. First, for some reason, Larry was important to robots from the future. Second, my cerulean unitard was riding up in an oddly comforting way which I was having some serious trouble dealing with. Third, a bunch of velociraptors had just jumped on top of the Orb.
Granted, there’s no love lost between me and the Orb, but when it comes down to a choice between robots, dinosaurs, and the Orb, the Orb is slightly more human.
I know that’s slicing things pretty thin. And I really don’t like the guy. But I actually didn’t want to stand idle and watch him get eaten by velociraptors. I scanned the surrounding bluescape for anything I could use as a blunt weapon. There wasn’t much, just the stanchions from in front of the robot’s information desk. Those were too heavy and the velvet ropes might as well have been velvet ropes.
I unhooked one and gave it a test spin over my head. I felt like a damn rodeo clown, and maybe that’s all I could hope to be. But at least it was something.
Apparently, Larry wasn’t about to do nothing, either. He grabbed Lizzabits in a pseudo-heroic bro-tackle and pulled her around to the other side of the info desk.
I let my velvet rope fall slack as I contemplated the absurdity of it all:
A lone concierge desk in a completely abstract landscape of nothing but blue like an especially minimalist bottle episode of a late 60s sci-fi television show. Let that image sink in for a few chapters. All we needed was for Rod Serling to step out of nowhere and narrate about how we’re all actually plastic figurines trapped in some demented kid’s toy box.
But there was no Rod Serling. What we did have was a lurking robot butler. (How was this not some demented kid’s toy box?)
A bunch of those monkey ninjas streamed in through the little archway just beyond the desk and formed a semi-circle around the Orb and the velociraptors.
The Orb vainly flailed at the velociraptors, but to no avail. Their talons clawed at his anemic, translucent flesh. I was surprised his blood wasn’t blue like everything else. I was also surprised that old Orb wasn’t falling down under the crush of the feathered serpents. What fight he had in him might not have been very effective, but it was definitely in him. He had produced something like a collapsible cattle prod from a pocket in his unitard, extended it, and began zapping at the little buggers.
While that was going on, several more velociraptors screamed in out of the blue, making for the archway to the forbidden future. These velociraptors were immediately engaged by the robot monkey ninjas, provoking the question yet again, how is this not some demented kid’s toy box?
The robot butler remained at his post proffering what I assume must be the robot equivalent of a shit-eating grin. He took a pen from beside the blank registration book and switched it to weapon mode. Neat, precise energy blasts leaped forth from the pen to strike individual velociraptors, bursting them one at a time.
“Holy shit,” said Larry. “Holy shit.”
I was inclined to agree.
Another set of energy beams was shredding the velociraptors struggling to maintain their purchase atop the Orb’s enormous cranium. These came from Agent Lovejoy. She had reemerged from the mists with a blaster rifle in hand like something from a Robert Heinlein masturbatory fantasy.
It was about then that I concluded this really wasn’t my fight. It was time to follow Larry’s lead.
I dove behind the desk and pulled Larry close for a little pow-wow.
“What do you say we get the fuck out of here?”
“Shoot me a taco, and I’m golden,” he said. Considering the nature of his method, I took that for a yes.
“Sorry,” I said. “I left the tacos in my other unitard. We’ll have to use the watch.”
* * *
(Larry)
Right. So Ishmael wanted me to write this part down, for whatever reason. So it’s me again. Larry. Your hero and all that.
So the three of us, Liz, Ishmael and me, were hunkered down behind that hotel desk thing while a shitstorm of robot monkey ninjas were going to war on a stampede of tiny dinosaurs. It was definitely time to get out. Ishmael was twisting knobs on his watch, which is how he does it. I’m a random taco traveler, and he’s more of a precision piece of Swiss clockwork when it comes to how we get from then to when.
I might not have much control over where I’m going, but I’m always thinking. And, bam, I had a thought.
“We’re taking Liz with us, right?” I asked.
“That’s the intent,” said Ishmael. “If we hold our breath and all hold hands, it just might work.”
“So it might not?” said Liz.
“Honestly,” said Ishmael. “Honestly... we’re at the very limit of where humans are allowed to be. I’m not sure how well anything works here. Anything. It could be that this crazy blue field all around us sticks to us like flypaper and none of us are getting out.”
Ishmael kept tweaking his watch knobs as the occasional ninja monkey jumped over our heads to eviscerate a velociraptor.
“Just believe in yourself, dude,” I said.
“What kind of shitten shrift is that?” said Liz. She was pissed. “You tell him that you’re not going anywhere without me.”
Which just made me smile. I didn’t know she cared.
And then she slapped me.
“What are you laughing at?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just that you’re super hot when you’re pissed.”
I’m not sure she quite understood the sentiment, though, because that time she kneed me in the groin.
“Look,” said Ishmael, “I’m going to do the best I can. Usually I don’t take passengers. I have no idea what Larry’s capability is. All I do know is where I jump, Larry jumps because the Orb—“
“The boulder-headed fellow?” Liz asked. You gotta love her, because, talk about word choice. She’s a trip.
“That’s the guy,” said Ishmael. “He linked up Larry and my time traveling methods, so we’re pretty much stuck together. I don’t know about you. I don’t really know about any of this.”
I was looking at how that blue jumpsuit fit pretty fantastically on Liz and I had an idea.
“Let’s hug it out,” I said.
“Dammit, Larry,” said Ishmael. “You’d be more helpful if you’d just stay shut up. I need to concentrate on getting all the dials tripped up to get us all the fuck out of here.” Those weren’t his actual words, but he started getting technical and I kind of checked out.
“I think Larry might be right,” said Liz.
“Bullshit.”
“No, really,” she said. “If we all embraced, with me in the middle, I may have a better chance of getting pulled along by whatever devilry you travel by. At least it couldn’t hurt.”
“I suppose not,” said Ishmael.
“I call frontsies,” I said.
“Sidesies” said Liz, “you both get sidesies,” which, to be fair, was her call. “And watch where you put your hands.”
So, we sandwiched together, Ishmael and I both getting sidesies, which is still pretty okay. Liz had an arm around each of us, and I had a hold of Ishmael’s shoulders.
Ishmael clicked his watch. The total, barftastic swirl of time travel summoned itself up in one big puke of a flash in which all the blue and dinosaurs and robot ninjas sucked themselves out of the world. And we were somewhere dark and free from all that life-threatening shit.
* * *
Dark and still and quiet. And cold.
“I’m guessing we’re not in San Diego,” I said.
“Not by a longshot,” said Ishmael. “Now, come on. We want to get to the bar before the air raid sirens start.”
“Air raid sirens?” I said.
“Yeah,” said Ishmael. “But we’re fine. The bar’s not too far from here. This neighborhood gets through the Blitz just fine. Well, mostly fine. Fine today, and that’s what matters.”
“The Blitz?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“The Blitz Blitz?”
“That’s the one.”
Any further argument about the batshit absurdity of escaping where we were only to end up in the middle of the one part of History class I actually stayed awake for was cut short. The sound of sirens. London was going to start exploding and I was in it.
Oh, and one more thing. That hugging it out plan turned out to be bogus. We’d lost Liz.