Story The Wonderful (or not so wonderful, if you choose) life of Nicholas.

Huh...still nothing.
...
...
...
Meh, might as well.

 

All hell broke loose aboard the Nebula. Warning lights of every color turned the bridge into a panicked rave floor. The crew clambered over each other in their haste to address each warning, one thought racing through everyone’s mind, ‘This was much easier when we had a full crew’. Nicholas stumbled dreary eyed through the door.



“Don’t bother attacking the defenses,” he ordered. “Wittly, take the helm. Havoc, maximize power towards the engines and shields. Typhoon, man the main gunner’s station, shoot only to attract attention. Triplets, find an open gunner’s station and shoot down any warheads headed our way.”



“Sir!” the crew responded.


Rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes, Nicholas walked over to the comms station and set up an open channel.



“Attention all squads, this is Commander Nicholas onboard the Nebula. The planetary defenses have gone haywire. Begin evacuation of the planet immediately. We’ll buy you time…” Nicholas thought to say more, but couldn’t think of anything that would actually help. He set the message to repeat and jumped into an open gunner’s station.



The Nebula danced through space above the sole surviving city of the planet. Antimatter shots ripped by from every direction. Most were avoided thanks to the crew, but each one that hit threatened to punch right through the weary hull.



Havoc was the first to speak up amongst the chaos. “Sir, at this rate the ship will be torn apart in five minutes,” he reported in an unexpectedly calm voice.



“Doing the best I can Havoc!” Wittly shouted from the helm.



“Appreciated,” Havoc replied. “Unfortunately, even if we were able to dodge every shot fired at us our evasive maneuvers will drain our fuel in eight minutes.”


“Well that’s just perfect!” Nicholas cried out, blasting a turret into space dust. Fragments flew off in every direction, then stopped, hovering delicately in the air. Then, as if time just decided to run in reverse, the fragments flew back and reassembled, and the turret would start firing again. As long as the Nebula kept attacking, the defences would focus all of their fire on it. But if the crew took too long or the ship flew too far, the turrets would rain fire on the city. The crew of the Nebula had no choice but to continue their assault for as long as they could.


A single antimatter shot rammed into the hull. The blast reverberated throughout the ship, violently shaking the crew.


Havoc spoke up again. “Sir, our shields are at nineteen percent, if they drop any further we won’t survive long enough to escape the turrets’ range of fire. Perhaps we should consider retreat.” Nicholas didn’t respond. Havoc continued.


“Keep in mind Sir that the Nebula is the strongest ship in our fleet. If we lose her the surviving population will have a difficult time fending of the pirates.”


“How much of the population have made it out?” Nicholas asked.


Havoc thought for a moment, scanning communication lines for updates.


“Less than thirty percent are free from danger. Up to fifty percent of the population are in transit from the surface to outer orbit. The rest have yet to leave the ground.”


The odds were not good for Nicholas. He tried to think of a clever solution, but between the chaos, the shouting, and the total lack of any meaningful sleep, he was devoid of anything even remotely resembling a coherent thought. Why did he have to be the main character? Why was he the center of attention? Every time his life started to calm down, something, or someone, would throw it back into chaos. Then he would be the only one capable of putting everything back together.


Of course, there was his crew. For whatever reason, they had stood by him this long. They traveled into deep space for him, fought off crazed valkyries beside him, and broke out of an alternate dimension with him. Despite the chaos, they stood by him. No matter what happened, he couldn’t risk losing them.


“Wittly,” he said, exhausted, “Give me the helm. Everyone get to the escape pods.” The crew immediately protested.


“It's suicide!”


“You’ll be torn apart…”


“You'll crash!”


“Enough!” Nicholas shouted. He lifted Wittly from the pilot’s seat and took the helm for himself. “Worse comes to worse I'll be fine. You all on the other hand won't.”


Tempest looked up from his console, saying in a firm, calm voice, “We’re not leaving you.”


Nicholas couldn't help but smile, then immediately grimaced while dodging forty-seven singularity missiles.


“You're not leaving me!” he responded, twisting the ship upside down and around to dodge the missiles. “You're just...retreating to a safe distance until everything stops exploding around me.”


Vulcan, who was attempting to man two consoles at once (and succeeding) asked, “And after everything explodes around you?”


“Exactly,” Wittly added, “how are we going to pick you up if you're still in their line of fire?”


Nicholas reached under the console and grabbed an old forgotten fire extinguisher. “I’ll manage.”


Havoc, who at the beginning of this discussion decided to simply observe while continuing to scan communication lines, spoke up. “Yes? Affirmative. Sending you our coordinates now.” He stood up from his console. “Good news gentlemen, I believe I have found a solution that grants us the best outcome. There is a nearby party that has expressed great interest in aiding us.”


“Who?” asked Nicholas.


Shaaaaaaaa-boom-boom-boom! Space rippled outside the window of the cockpit as a massive fleet jumped into orbit. Frigates, carriers, fighters and all, adorned with the same blue emblem.


“Space Lord Emperor Blue,” Havoc answered.


“The penguin?” Tremor asked.


“Yes Tremor, the penguin.”


The crew got up and walked over to the window. Sensing the greater threat, the turrets unleashed their fire on the fleet.


“Is he not your pet?” Typhoon asked Nicholas.


At the heart of the fleet, the Royal Dreadnaught, Iceberg, charged it's fission cannon. In a single shot it vaporized all of the rogue defences.


“Let's just say statuses have changed,” Nicholas answered.


Vulcan placed his face against the glass peering at the dreadnaught. “Hey I see him! He’s waving at us!” Vulcan waved back. The rest of the crew awkwardly waved at the planet cracker class dreadnaught.


“I believe he is holding something,” Typhoon asked, desperately trying not to squint at the all powerful Space Lord Emperor.


Nicholas looked. ‘It can't be,’ he thought. He looked at his watch, then again at Blue.


“Shoots and Ladders,” he replied confidently.


Simultaneously the crew snapped their heads and stared at Nicholas, who casually tapped his watch and said, “It's game night.”


Silently, the crew turned their attention back towards the fleet. They watched in awe as the guns of the destroyers bombarded the base of the turrets, preventing any chance for reconstruction. The wide carriers flew down to the planet's surface, then returned moments later, heading off into space. Havoc placed his hand on his ear, or that is to say, he placed his hand on his head where a human’s ear would be.


“Affirmative. You have our deepest gratitude...Yes I’ll tell him.” Havoc turned away from the inspiring scene to address the crew.


“All citizens are accounted for and off-planet. Now the fleet is requesting that we move to a safe distance so they may disengage.”


“Wittly, get us out of here,” Nicholas ordered. However Wittly stood still, silently staring out the window. “Wittly?”


“Hm? Oh, sorry Sir,” he mumbled. He began to make his way towards the helm, stumbling every now and then over a console. All the while, his eyes refused to tear away from the glory of the fleet. Finally he made it to the helm. Steadily the Nebula made it's way out of orbit. Immediately after leaving the danger zone, the Nebula found itself flying in formation with a squad of royal fighters and a single royal blue transport ship.


“Also,” Havoc continued, “Space Lord Emperor Blue is requesting your presence, Sir.”


Nicholas started to accept, then took a quick look at his tattered wrinkle ridden clothes. “Could they give me five minutes to clean myself up?”


Havoc placed his hand on his “ear” and relayed the message. Moments later he replied, “They appreciate your consideration, and eagerly await your response. Also, the Emperor would like to remind you that you missed last month's game night, and humbly requests you bring along an extra game to play.”


Nicholas thought for a moment, then patted his jacket. After finding what he was looking for he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a deck of cards. “Roger,” he replied.


Havoc nodded and relayed back to the fleet. Nicholas left the bridge and headed towards his quarters. Blue was always found of this deck of cards. He shuffled through the deck then stopped when he reached the king. Each of the face cards had some creature on them, the jack a Pop-top, the joker a Novakid, and the king a penguin. After inspecting the king further Nicholas realized it looked exactly like Blue; scepter, cape, crown and all. Blue must have remembered the deck and modeled himself after it. ‘At least, that's what I’ll tell myself,” Nicholas thought.


His bedroom door slid open and Nicholas stepped inside. He looked longingly at his bed. The slight depression he had made when he lied down was still visible. If he laid down just right it would be like he never got up. Then again, the last time Blue saw him Nicholas blasted his own brains out. If he kept Blue waiting now he might...overreact. Nicholas stumbled, dreary eyed towards his closet and threw open the door. A smart looking vest caught his eye. A smart blue vest. A vest already being worn…


“Hello Nicholas!” The Blue Vested Man reached forward and dragged Nicholas into the closet.

 

Shirts, pants, and ugly, ugly sweaters brushed against Nicholas. After a great personal struggle he was able to break free from his closet, falling to his knees on the metal catwalk. Nicholas braced himself, then slowly stood up to the sound of ticking gears. Good god he hated this place. He hated the monitors. He hated the catwalk. He hated that smug grin that always stretched across Blue Vested Man’s face whenever he dragged him in here. But most of all he hated those USELESS GEARS! Why did he even have those? They couldn’t possibly serve any purpose. Unless of course this entire place ran on steam! Somehow, Nicholas was pretty sure there were even more useless gears than the last time he was here.


The Blue Vested Man clasped his hands behind his back and leaned forward.


“So Nicholas, it’s been awhile, do you like wh-”


“NO!” shouted Nicholas. “I hate what you’ve done with the place! I hate you, I hate your place, and I hate your STUPID gears!” Nicholas turned to leave. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to play shoots and ladders with my penguin!”


Nicholas ripped open the door and fought his way back into the closet. The door slammed shut behind him. The Blue Vested Man frowned and turned around to face the opposite door. Not even a second later it swung open and Nicholas stepped out.


“You will,” reassured the Blue Vested Man, even though Nicholas never found anything the Blue Vested Man said even remotely reassuring. “We just need to fix something first.”


“Nope,” Nicholas said as he hurled himself over the catwalk railing.


The Blue Vested Man man brought his hand to his face in a disappointed, slightly annoyed, yet secretly amused face palm. He walked over to where Nicholas had taken his leap and pulled out his pocket watch.

“Tick.”

“Tick.”

“Tick.”

Without looking away from his watch he extended his open hand over the railing. From above, Nicholas’ screaming became audible.


“aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHH-OOF!!!”


The Blue Vested Man grabbed Nicholas and pulled him back over the railing. He opened his mouth to speak but his words rammed into Nicholas’ outstretched finger pressed against his lips.


Quietly Nicholas whispered, “No,” and hurled himself over the rails again.


The Blue Vested Man placed his thumb on the second hand of his watch and gently pushed it forward.


“Tick-Tick-Tick”

“You might have-”

“Tick-Tick-Tick”

“-stopped the turrets but-”

“Tick-Tick-Tick”

“-your world’s still at risk!”


“wwwwwhaaaaaat are you talking aboooooout?”


The Blue Vested Man thought to explain but realized that in Nicholas’ current state it would take far too long. He pondered the situation for a moment as Nicholas continued to tumble through infinity. Finally, the Blue Vested Man did what he should have done at the beginning and pressed the second hand firmly into the clock face. Nicholas came to a grinding halt, suspended upside down. His eyes level with the Blue Vested Man.


“The office, the one you and your crew were trapped in? He’s using the chaos there to warp your reality.”


“Why?”


“I don’t know, he was bored? Doesn’t matter. The office was the manifestation of order in that dimension. Now that it too is a chaotic mess he can funnel an unlimited amount of chaos into this world. If we don't restore order, those turrets will continue to reassemble.”


“So we'll find a new planet,” Nicholas shouted, “A new solar system, a new galaxy if we have to! I am not going back to that office!”


“It'll spread.”


The Blue Vested Man let Nicholas contemplate for a moment what that could mean.


“The office,” he continued, “Was the one thing keeping that dimension in check. Now that He's brought a tiny bit of that chaos to this dimension the rest is bound to follow.”


The two stared at each other, suspended in time. Nicholas didn't trust him. He had no reason to trust him. He didn't even like him. But. This chaos posed a real threat not only to his army, but to his citizens as well. He began to ask himself ‘why me?’ but he already knew the answer. Any one of his crew would follow him, hell he could order an entire squad into the rift instead of him. But. That would put their lives at risk. Only those in squad Charlie knew what the office was like, and that was before it got ripped apart by chaos. No. No Nicholas had to do this himself. Sending anyone else would be a death sentence.


Nicholas reached out his hand towards the Blue Vested Man. It took a moment, but eventually he forced the word, “Fine,” from the frown on his face. Though to the Blue Vested Man it looked like a smile.


“Excellent,” he replied, pulling Nicholas back over the railing. Nicholas expected to fall flat on his head, but instead the Blue Vested Man reached out his other hand and righted Nicholas before placing him on his feet. “Now go get some sleep,” he patted Nicholas on the back and walked off to the console.


“What!”


“You’re exhausted, and on top of that you look terrible. Now go get some sleep.”


Nicholas stood there, utterly dumbfounded. “Isn’t there untold amounts of chaos flooding into our dimension?”


“Your dimension,” the Blue Vested Man corrected, “and yes. However...” He entered a command into the console. Several of the screens lit up with images from various places. One showed Wittly peering out at the Iceberg with a longing look on his face. Another showed Blue sitting in his throne room twiddling his flippers with shoots and ladders set up before him. Across the board sat an empty chair with a plush pillow on the seat. Nicholas tried not to stare at that one too long. The last monitor showed some poor bloke on a deserted planet trying to hit a bird with a crude stone sword. In each screen the image was frozen in place.


“As long as we’re here time flows differently. These monitors are all setup for real time. We could put off our little expedition to the office for as long as you like, though I don’t believe you want to prolong your stay here. I only asked you get some sleep to make sure you won’t pass out on me while we’re running for your life.”


“Couldn’t you just keep me awake?” Nicholas asked, his exhaustion starting to finally set in.


“Just do as I say Nicholas.” Nicholas, however, stood there in defiance. The Blue Vested Man thought to try another approach.


“Please?”


The Blue Vested Man was acting very strange, thought Nicholas. Still, some genuine sleep did sound pretty good. Nicholas relented and walked to the door closest to him.


“It’s through here right?” he asked, as if it could have been anywhere else. Then again everything was through that door.


“Actually, it’s the one over th-”


“SLAM!”


Nicholas hadn’t waited for the rest of the response. He walked through the door and shut it with as much force as he could muster, leaving the Blue Vested Man all alone.


“It was just a joke.”


-------


Nicholas stepped into a dark void. At first he thought it was one of the Blue Vested Man’s tricks. Then he thought of all the things he would do to the Blue Vested Man if anything he could do would actually matter. After coming up with some utterly terrifying plans he thought to actually come up with a way out of here.


The door reappeared in front of him, just within arm’s reach, but not so far that he would have to stretch. Nicholas reached out to try the doorknob, but realized the only way back was towards the Blue Vested Man and Nicholas just didn’t have the patience for that right now. The door vanished. He rubbed his eyes, thinking about how much he just wanted a soft bed right now.


A bed materialized around him. Even though he hadn’t moved at all, Nicholas had the strangest feeling of lying down. ‘Screw it’ he thought, and hurled himself onto his side beneath the covers, promptly passing out.


---------

 

At least eight hours went by before Nicholas stepped back through the door. I was standing there on the catwalk where he had left me, only now I was wearing a padded blue vest. My other vest would have suited just fine mind you. However, we were about to embark into hostile territory and well, I like to immerse myself in the role. Linda was helping me secure my holsters to my waist.


“Ah Nicholas! So good of you to join us,” I said.


“Hi Nicholas!” Linda greeted. Nicholas winced slightly.


“Hi,” was his curt reply.


I genuinely hoped that getting some rest would improve his mood, but alas, Nicholas was becoming harder to predict. Keep in mind I knew he might still be angry after his rest. That was always a possibility, it’s just that….you know what, nevermind.


Linda secured the strap between the two holsters, firmly placing my omni-grips around my waist for easy access.


“Are you ready for our little excursion into the inherently unknown?” I asked, hoping some of my enthusiasm might rub off on him.


“Yeah, sure, whatever,” he answered with the same contempt as before.


Hmm, guess not.


With my holsters ready for battle I walked over to a chest along the catwalk and pulled out Nicholas’ shotgun.


“Here,” I said as I tossed it over to him. He caught it without trouble. “I picked it up for you while you were sleeping.”


“Thanks.”


Although Nicholas’ demeanour was to be expected, his complete lack of enthusiasm was really putting a damper on my hopes for some good old fashioned rough-housing. Even if I was going to be the one orchestrating everything I still wanted to have some fun. Then again, Nicholas and I saw things differently. For him, well, he was still sick of me…


I clasped my hands together and walked towards Nicholas.


“Right, so,” I said. Better to just get on with it. “Linda here will be monitoring our adventure into the office. After all, we’re diving head first into complete chaos so it’s best we have someone standing firm in the realm of order and sanity.” Nicholas made no response. “You know...just in case something goes wrong.” I elbowed him in the side, playfully mind you. He on the other hand… let’s just say eyes are an excellent indicator of someone’s feeling towards physical contact. Especially if they’re very strong emotions. Namely for someone they despise.


He had to force his words through gritted teeth. “Great, let’s get on with it.”


Just what I was thinking.


Nicholas started to walk towards the door he came from. I raised my hand to object, after all going through the same door all the time got boring. Yet before any words could leave my mouth Nicholas whipped his head over his shoulder. After receiving his look I decided one more trip through wouldn’t hurt anyone. At least now I knew that no matter what the office might throw at me, nothing could scare me more than I already was.


“Linda, I’ll be on the earpiece the entire time. So if something comes up, let me know right away.”


“You got it Boss! Have fun restoring order! Bye Nicholas!” Nicholas winced again and quickened his pace towards the door. He reached for the doorknob and pulled back with tremendous force.


“Hold on Nicholas!” I cried out, making sure the door did not swing open. I raced over and placed my pocket watch in his hand. “Put this on your person.”


“Why?” I could have sworn his eyes were on fire.


It took a moment to regain my composure, but eventually I summoned the words, “We’ll be stepping into pure chaos. Unless you want to be ripped apart, or worse, put that on your person. And make sure you keep it safe! It was a gift after all.”


Nicholas shoved my prized possession into his pants pocket. Somewhere in my gut I felt this adventure wouldn’t contain as much whimsy and fun as I had hoped. I reached around Nicholas and threw the door open. Together we stepped back into the office.


------


I’ll admit, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I returned to the office. We emerged from the large double doors I had placed my “Boss Room” behind, the big blue letters spelling “BOSS” still emblazoned on the wall above. Their location however had...shifted.


We were standing on a beach. At least I think we were. The sand seemed to flow beneath our feet, only to turn into water and come to a stop, freezing almost. In front of us was, well, everything, and at the same time, nothing. Everything imaginable existed in this world, yet do to its nature nothing lasted long enough to be fully recognized.


“This isn’t right,” I said.


“What the hell are you talking about?” Nicholas asked. The “ground” beneath our feet vanished yet I could still feel its presence holding us up.


I started to explain. “I knew the office would be in shambles but I expected there to still be an office!” Somewhere in the distance a monster roared. The scream sounded somewhat simian in nature. “I...I’m not sure what to do here. If there was a bit of wall, or plaster, or even a water cooler for crying out loud maybe but...this mess doesn’t make sense to me!”


Something tall and slender sprouted from the space in front of us. My brain said palm trees. After growing to its maximum and sprouting train cars it then exploded into sound, nothing else, just sound. At the same time an...orb, a mass? Something with undefinable physical properties appeared in the air. When I looked at it I could feel the smell of lemons. The ground reappeared beneath us but this time made of pure glass. Muffins swam through the space beneath the surface, and those were just the things I could describe. If you closed your eyes and thought of something crazy, it was happening in here somewhere.


I pressed my finger into the earpiece and cried out, “Linda! Linda can you hear me!”


“Yes Boss, loud and clear. What's wrong?”


“We’re aborting the mission. This place is too crazy!” I turned around towards the large double doors and threw them open.


Endless chaos lay beyond. There was no sign of my realm.


I slammed the doors shut and hurled them open again. Chaos. I tried again. Chaos. Again! Chaos! Again, and again, and again! Chaos! Chaos! Chaos!


Linda's voice came through on the earpiece, “Boss, something's wrong. I didn’t notice at first but the doors won't link to the realm any more. I’m trying everything you taught me but they just won't respond.”


Ooooooh no.


“What's wrong,” asked Nicholas, more annoyed than concerned.


I spun around to face him, trying my best to stay calm.


“Well you see Nicholas, when a writer, such as myself, decides to include themself in another's story, such as yours, they stop being a writer and simply become...another...character.” I started to pace back in forth in front of the door.


“So we're stuck here?” Nicholas asked more concerned, still annoyed, and getting angry.


“No...yes? I have no idea. I can’t just summon a portal anymore, and there’s too much chaos to link back to my realm. This world undoubtedly contains a portal back to your dimension, but the chances of us finding it are, well, grim.” Nicholas glared at me, the fire in his eyes burning hotter. “And by grim I mean slim.”


“We better get started then,” Nicholas growled. He grabbed my arm and yanked me towards ungodly chaos. I broke free from his grasp.


“No!” I exclaimed terrified out of my mind. “Don’t you understand? I can’t just go sauntering off anymore. I’m just a character now! I’m...mortal.”


That word didn’t sound right coming from my mouth. I looked at the large double doors, my back to Nicholas. The huge blue letters spelling “BOSS” seemed absolutely ridiculous now. Funny, it seemed as though I had invited Nicholas through those doors (and proceeded to taunt him) only a moment ago. Although I knew it had been years.


“Mortal?” he asked, still growling. Something about his tone of voice unsettled me.


“chic-Chic!”


Several unpleasant thoughts raced through my mind. I didn’t dare turn around.


“Did I say mortal? You see Nicholas I mea-” I leapt through the double doors and slammed them shut behind me. I kicked off the doors and soared through empty space.


“Blam!” The double doors burst into shrapnel.


“YAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Nicholas shouted and leapt after me.


He cocked his shotgun again. But instead of shooting at me he aimed the barrel of the gun behind him and fired. The blast propelled him towards me with more speed then I would have liked. I clicked my heels together to activate my rocket boots. Nothing happened. I suddenly realized that in order to activate rocket boots one would need to have put on rocket boots in the first place. God being mortal sucked.


I heard Nicholas load another slug into the chamber. I reached for my omni-grips and spun around shouting, “Shield!” Hard-Light erupted from the grips and formed a shield large enough to cover my body. I tucked into a ball behind the barrier just as Nicholas fired his gun.


“Blam!” The buckshot rammed into the shield, shattering the Hard-Light and knocking me back. I flew through the air until my body crashed into a newly formed island. The impact hurt my back but I didn’t have time to wallow in pain. I leapt to my feet and ran. Blurs of color raced by as I ran through the void. The ground would hold firm one moment then suddenly give way like quicksand. My foot would sink into the earth until it was buried at the ankle. Sometimes the earth would cling to my foot, holding me down helplessly until it decided to let go. Nicholas roared in the distance. It echoed throughout the realm over and over, warping and becoming more sinister with each reverberation. I sprinted around a corner only to run into the barrel of Nicholas’s shotgun.


“Blam!”


My body careened through the air, smashing into a rock. Pain seared through my chest, breathing made it hurt worse. I coughed, the metalic taste of blood stinging in my mouth. I tried to move but my legs, burned out from running, finally gave way. My back slid down the rock until I was left sitting limp at the base.


Nicholas walked up to me. His shotgun hanging at his side. I didn’t look at him, just sat there and coughed. Time went by, no telling how much in this hellhole. Yet Nicholas just stood there.


Finally, I broke and asked him, “So how does this end?”


“I don’t know,” he replied.


More silence. Again I spoke up, “Don’t you want me dead?”


“I do,” he answered with malice.


More silence, still nothing.


He spoke up, “Why are you here?”


“Hmm?” I mumbled.


“What are you up to? What are you planning? Why did you drag me back here? Why not just leave me alone!”


I looked up at him, and said as calmly as I could manage, “Because you died.”


Shock and confusion flew across Nicholas’ eyes. “No...No I didn't! We’re here! Talking!” He pointed his gun at me.


“From your perspective no, you never died. But from my perspective… Nicholas, you've been stuck in the same place for three and a half years. I thought someone else would come along to resolve your story, but no-one ever did. I've been trying to think of a way to wrap everything up here but it's just...taken a while.”


Nicholas pumped his shotgun, “And if I kill you here?”


“Then the story ends and this discussion is over, at least for me. You on the other hand, will have to either find a way to end it yourself or find someone else to do it for you.”


More silence. Nicholas held me at gunpoint throughout it all. Never wavering, never blinking. I decided to keep taking.


“I'm sorry for throwing your life into chaos. I'm sorry I didn't resolve all of this sooner. And I'm sorry for getting you stuck here. I'm the one that started all of this, and yes, other people jumped on board along the way, but I'm the only one left now. I want to finish this.” No response. “If you’ll let me that is.” My eyes darted down to the barrel of his gun briefly.


He lowered his gun. There was a different look in his eyes, not exactly trusting but not murderous either. He crouched down close to me.


“If I see any sign of funny business, I'll blow your head off.”


I coughed out, “Roger that.” I pressed my finger to my ear and asked, “Linda, you there.”


Linda's terrified voice came through. “Oh my gosh boss, what is going on? I heard gunfire, and shouting, and roaring, and shatter-”


“Linda!” I cut her off. Normally I would have let her get it out of her system, but this was not the time to keep Nicholas waiting. “Nicholas and I just had an...incident. We resolved it. Now I need you to detect any traces of order in this realm.”


“Okay boss.” The delicate sound of typing tapped through the earpiece.


“Are you going to be okay,” she asked abruptly. “Before the shouting started, I heard you say you were mortal. You’re not going to…” she trailed off.


I tried to reassure her. “Don’t worry Linda,” I said, “Find us some order and stability and I will be just fine.”


“Yes Sir,” she replied, though not as chipper as usual.


Nicholas and I waited, while Linda worked away in my realm. I felt confident in her abilities, but finding order in here was like finding a needle in a hurricane. She could do it, it would just take some time. I took off my vest. Buckshot holes covered the surface, but thanks to my unfortunate proximity, I myself was not riddled with tiny pieces of metal. My chest however, was a repulsive shade of blue. One giant bruise covered my chest from sternum to belly. I couldn’t tell if anything was broken, not that I would even know what that felt like. Needless to say, I moved as little as possible and took shallow breaths.


“How’s it going Linda,” I would ask periodically.


“Still looking Boss,” she would reply.


“Keep up the good work, you’ll find it,” I would reply back.


“Thank you Boss. Will do Boss,” she would say.


Then the silence would return again.


The void did it’s best to keep up entertained. Endless chaos never ceased to be unpredictable. Watching it, more like getting lost in it was easy, similar to gazing into a burning fire. Finding any meaning in it, that was near impossible.


Nicholas, undoubtedly sick of chaos, reached into his jacket and pulled out a deck of cards. He looked down at them, mulling an idea on his brow. Then he flashed me a look of impending regret.


“Want to play?” he asked grudgingly.


A cumquat the size of a mini-van flew by my head. “Sure,” I replied.


He sat down next to me and drew out the cards. There wasn’t a single card that wasn't either bent or faded. Still, they shuffled nicely. Nicholas asked what I wanted to play. Go-fish was the first thing that came to mind, but there was a slight chance Nicholas would kill me if I said that. I replied with “Texas Hold’em” and he dealt the cards.


“Hellfire!” I replied, and threw down the two aces in my hand.


Nicholas looked at the cards then back at me in confusion. “Uhm, don't a pair of aces win everything?”


“Yes, and if I had played them you would have killed me.”


Nicholas gave me a look of hurt denial followed by the realization that is exactly what he would have done. He redealt the cards and we played. Granted I never could remember what pairs won over others. I just quietly decided if it ever came up for discussion, Nicholas would win. We played on for hours. When we got bored of one game we’d switch to another. Most times we had to teach each other how to play. Other times we just made up games. It’s not that hard when you have all time in the world.


Suddenly Linda’s increasingly excited voice came through the receiver. Hell, she was practically singing.


“Boooooss!!! Oh Baaaah-Aaaas! I’ve found it! It took forever, but I foooound it!”


Although Nicholas couldn’t hear Linda, he could read her response on my face. He gathered up the cards while Linda continued.


“Now I’m not exactly sure where you are relative to the Order. But! I know where it is!”


“That’s great Linda,” I replied, quietly turning down the volume.


“We ready to head out?” asked Nicholas.


The answer wasn’t simple. We had a location, sure, but directions in this world wouldn’t be straightforward, nor would we have any way of preventing us or the location from tearing across the dimension. We could suddenly teleport, or fall down. Even falling up was plausible. For all I knew, Linda had picked up on something entirely different from what we were looking for.


“Yes,” I replied. “But there’s going to be some wandering involved.”


“Better get started then.”


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Nicholas and I wandered through the void. The absolute insanity of this realm never truly dissipated, but aside from the occasional cataclysmic event we progressed unhindered. Linda did here best to navigate us. Except, well…she wasn’t bad at giving directions, but let’s just say it didn’t help that “go forward” doesn’t mean what it should in this world. It could mean lean forward, or cough, or spin around in a circle while singing “How to Love a Glitch”. Nicholas kept his cool through all of it. Normally he wouldn’t stand for any of this nonsense, but I think watching me try everything imaginable (and unimaginable) but all completely embarassing made it worth it.


Despite the stalling we made progress through the void. Clouds passed by. Not water clouds, rock clouds, that rained rocks. Sharp rocks. Nicholas reluctantly acted as my indestructible umbrella, otherwise I would have been shredded in an instant. Though I would only stay under Nicholas as long as need be for fear he would lose his patience with me and shred me himself. Needless to say, the journey was tense. Suddenly, we stumbled across a tall plastic tower of hope.


A water cooler stuck out of a patch of dull grey carpet. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Nicholas and I rushed forward then stopped mere moments away. In weary unison we stared at the cooler. When we were certain the water cooler was going to stay a water cooler, we stepped closer and got a drink. Nicholas and I took a cup from the dispenser. They were exactly the same. He filled his cup with the clear heavily filtered water. Three bubbles rose from the bottom of the tower, each with a resounding, glug glug glug. Then I filled my cup. Three bubbles rose from the bottom of the tower, each with a resounding, glug glug glug. Each the exact same shape as before, floating to the top with the exact same path.


We cheered.


We hugged.


We cried.


Oh lord did we cry.


Eventually our ecstatic jubilation subsided. We turned back to the situation at hand. Before us stood a small sliver of order. And while that was more than Nicholas or I hoped for, it still wasn’t the office. Judging by the vast expanse of chaos around us, that office was nowhere in sight. Probably long gone. Deeply confused, I called Linda.


“So, uh, what now? Is this the order?”


Her voice rang through the earpiece. “Uhm, yes? No...Hold on a second.” The sound of rapid typing tapped away in my ear. Nicholas reluctantly leaned in so he could hear her progress.


“Oh! I got it! You just need to synchronize with the order.”


Nicholas and I responded with a unanimous nasal, “Huh?”


“Drink the water.”


“Ooh,” we replied. I drank the cool water in my cup, refreshed by the faint taste of cardboard. At first nothing happened, then the grey carpet beneath the cooler started to crawl over the ground. A wall sprouted from the carpet behind the cooler. Once the wall reached an ergonomic height it stopped and ceiling tiles slid over walls, blocking out the swirling chaos above. Finally, we were back at the office. But as more of the office returned I began to notice just how much damage the chaos had caused.

 

The office had seen better days. Much better days. There wasn’t anymore volatile chaos, but the office itself was barely holding together. Cracks ran along the walls. Some in parallel, others criss-cross, perpendicular, or orthogonal. A few cracks fed into other cracks forming a large crack more commonly known as a huge gaping hole. Desks lay haphazardly in the halls and hung from holes in the ceiling. The water cooler appeared to be the only thing in the office not ruined. Then it sprung a leak, gushing water onto the already ruined carpet. And to make matters worse, the entire building seemed to tilt slightly to the left.


I called into my earpiece, “Linda? You still there?”


A cascade of static poured through the earpiece. I could faintly hear someone calling out “boss” on the other end.


“Well that’s not good.”


“What’s not good,” asked Nicholas.


“I’ve lost contact with Linda.”


“And that’s not good?” A sly grin crept up the corner of his face.


“Not unless you prefer stumbling through this junk heap blind.”


“I would prefer blind to deaf.”


I stopped engaging him. A computer lay in a waste bin. I turned it on. The cracked screen flashed and sparked. A small fire started behind the glass. I recoiled from the fire while Nicholas ripped of his jacket and smothered the small flame. With the fire extinguished he threw his coat back on, gently brushing the slightly charred leather.


“The hell was that for?” he asked.


“I was trying to turn it on so we could get to work.”


“Work on what?”


Sweet lord he never stopped asking questions. I responded as calmly and as comprehensively as I could.


“We need to finish your work. The work you and your team were supposed to submit at noon. My best guess is that completing that work and turning it into your supervisor will restore order. But we can’t do that until we find a working computer.”


“Wait. Your best guess?” His frustration built behind each word. Mine peaked at the question mark.


“Yes my best guess! Everything we’ve been doing since we got here has been based on my best guess! It’s the only guess we have, which makes it the best guess by default! Now if you would be so kind as to stop questioning my guidance, we could both go on our merry ways and leave all of this unpleasantness behind.”


Nicholas drew his shotgun and stuck it in my face. My nose rested inside the barrel. The rough scent of gunpowder grated the inside of my nose. Despite, or more in spite of my current situation, I egged him on.


“Go ahead, do it! Blast my brains out! Who knows? Maybe in this dimension it’ll just give me a case of the sniffles, or turn my head into jelly, or maybe it won’t do anything at all!” I should have kept my mouth silent, but despite the refreshing water break I was still high-strung after our trek across insanity incarnate. “I’m more than certain your temper will only guide you to salvation, as opposed to condemn you to wander through this bleak abyss till the end of eternity!”


Nicholas eyed me behind the iron sights of his gun. He seethed heavily, ready to kill at an instant. Suddenly he lowered his shotgun and stormed off in the opposite direction. “I’m going this way!” he shouted over his shoulder. Then he rounded a corner and vanished.


I stood there for a moment, alone. It occurred to me that Nicholas had no idea what he should do or how to do it for that matter. But Nicholas had proven resourceful in the past, he would figure it out. That, and he was indestructible, meaning as long as he kept trying he would eventually figure something out. But what was I supposed to do?


Only two of the crew members had definitive tasks assigned to them, Typhoon with his copy, and Nicholas with his taxidermy, whatever the hell that was. That left Havoc and the triplets. I had to figure out what they were assigned, and get it completed before this place did me in. All I remembered from the triplets interaction with the office workers was something about a chart, or graphs, or something involving numbers. And I hadn’t written a word about what Havoc was supposed to do. All he did throughout the entirety of the adventure was sit at his desk and mess around with chaos.


Looking around the office I couldn’t help but notice this area looked strikingly familiar to how I had imagined the office. The office kitchen was two lefts and a right past the corner Nicholas had stormed down, the executive offices were two straights down and a right past the burnt out monitor, and if I turned around and followed the wall I would eventually end up at Havoc’s desk. What I would do when I got there I had no idea, but if Havoc had managed to make sense of the chaos he might have left something on his computer I could use. Chances were slim to grim but it was better than standing around.


I spun around and followed the crumbling wall. The scattered remains of office supplies coated the floor. About halfway down the hall I encountered a pile of desks forming a barricade across the hall. It appeared as if each desk had fallen ontop of the other from directly above, yet miraculously there was no hole in the ceiling I could see. I clambered over the pile and came upon a small rodent like creature. It saw me and scurried through a hole in the wall, but the little glimpse I caught of the creature indicated it was a cross between a rat and a roach. The sound of its multitude of clawed rat legs scuttling across the floor churned my stomach. I sat atop the heap, reordering the contents of my stomach, trying not to think about how many of those creatures I couldn’t see. Then I considered the possibility of one of those abominations lying in the pile just below me. I flung my body from the top of the heap of desks. A thick cloud of dust rose up from the floor where I landed. I quickly covered my nose with my shirt sleeve and hurried down the hall.


The hallway opened up and I stepped into the remains of a once productive workspace. Fluorescent bulbs hung from their sockets. The few still bound to the connections flickered weakly, illuminating the space with an eerie light. Coffee mugs lay shattered across the room. Some still possessed the general shape of a mug, while offers had been reduced to a depressing pile of ceramic ash. All of the potted cacti were dead, a few looked as if they’d spontaneously burst into flames. The computers themselves were utterly destroyed. Shards of thick monitor glass lay scattered around the desks and inside the monitors. There was one computer tower so horribly warped it twisted in on itself into a shape from the fourth dimension. Not a single desk had every side it was supposed to. One desk appeared to be intact, but upon further inspection I discovered that the leg space was filled with anti-matter. The carnage continued on for as far as I could see, then stopped suddenly at a single desk. Two fluorescent bulbs firmly secured to their sockets shone down through their pristine frame. A single desk lay illuminated in their light below. A perfectly watered potted cactus basked atop the desk in the glow. There was a single grey mug with the words “I love my job!” running not once but twice around the rim. The monitor was off, but the gentle hum of the tower proved it was only sleeping. Resting on the edge of the desk just in front of the monitor was a simple nameplate that read “Havoc”.


Angels sang in my ears. I raced over to the screen and turned it on. The glass immediately sprung to life. Much to my surprise, Havoc had left a program running on the computer. Two windows occupied the screen. One covered the left half and the other the right. The left was a swirling mess of chaos, but the right resembled the desktop of a dull office computer. Chaos would swirl on the left, then the window on the right would flicker for a moment then return to the way it was before. Unchanged. Orderly.


There was a text document left open on the screen. It read,


“Note to self:


Chaos-Order Translator : Complete

Windowed Mode : Complete

Update Window Mode to run in real time : Complete (delay of 0.54 ms, must fix)

Translate Alphabet : Incomplete (Yet to find characters for Q, Z, X, V, and J, might not exist)

Tested incomplete alphabet on email programm. Found request directed to a “Billy”, assumed it referred to me and carried out its request to rely numbers.

Nicholas calling, setting the Chaos-Order Translator to run indefinitely and record results.


End Note.”


It.

Was.

Beautiful.


After wading through endless plains of chaos, this tiny island of order was paradise. I sat down in the chair and pulled myself close to the desk. There was a dull sterile office scent of chlorine and artificially heated air hanging around the tight space. I hugged the monitor and laid my head down on the cold melamine. I cried. Sweet tears dripped from my face onto the fake wood top. I don’t know how long I laid there, only that I occasionally wailed aloud like a dying seal for all the office to hear. Eventually, I burned out of self pity and sat up straight in the chair.


There were a sparse few shortcuts on the desktop. One was named, “Opw#ke!c-” and another was called “~ergfdse”. Opw&ke#c@ made no sense to me, but its icon looked like a scribble. I clicked on the shortcut and a completely white window opened up on the screen. A tool bar jam packed with an assortment of icons filled to the top border of the window. I clicked on the second link which had the image of an envelope. An email browser opened in the corner of the screen. The most recent ones were still unread, but the bottom few looked like they had been replied to. I clicked on the bottom email. The time stamp read 11:15.


“Thanks for the numbers Billy, I’ll relay them to Ste&e. See you at the meeting.


%immy.”


I clicked on the next one, this one sent just a few minutes later to a guy named “Steve” but with “Billy” CC’d below.


“Hey Ste*e,


Take these numbers and add them to the chart. I know it’s a last minute change but I need them before noon.


@immy”



“Hey Ste^e,


{ust checking in on those charts. Don’t mean to rush you but we’?e got the lesser half of the hour to set up. I’ll head down to conference room B-4 and get things set up. Print out the chart and bring it to the meeting.


$immy”


The last email didn’t have a subject line. It’s timestamp read 11:55


“Ste+e,


Where are you? I need that chart. The board members are here and they e\pect us to start at noon on the dot! I’ll stall with our pitch but I need that chart. Bob and Tom aren’t here either.


Look just print whate7er you ha`e and get e<eryone o>er here.


=immy”


I could only assume “Jimmy” never got his chart. I skimmed the other emails from earlier in the morning and got an idea towards the theme of the meeting. Tom needed to create a powerpoint for presentation while Bob would do all the talking. I couldn’t help but smile. This was perfectly doable. I opened Opwjkevcx back up and clicked the icon that looked like a pie chart. An ungodly slurry of different options and settings flowed forth, many of which I didn’t think a chart even needed. There were toggles for fonts, line size, pie thickness, pie flavor, segment counts, ergonomic attractiveness, even cook time. And along every edge of the screen where a dozen more tabs for different settings windows. Undaunted, I sat up right in the chair, wriggled my fingers over the keyboard and whispered, “Bring it on.”


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


“That bastard!” Nicholas shouted down the empty corridor. “Just when he starts to become tolerable he opens up his arrogant mouth and proves just how much of an ass he is!” Nicholas pounded his fist into the side of the wall. Bits of plaster broke off and fell to the floor in dusty heaps. “Doesn’t even know how to get out of here. I should just blast his brains out! See what the little worm has to say about that!” He threw all of his volume behind his threat, hoping that the Blue Vested Man might hear it. Yet once his shouting subsided the only sound in the office was his chest heaving to enraged breathing. Everything else lay silent and still. The emptiness uneased him, and Nicholas decided to continue walking, if only to mask the silence with his footsteps.


He wandered down the hallways. Turns came and went, sometimes he took them, other times he passed by without ever noticing. After some time it became apparent that Nicholas was wandering in circles. He sat down on an upturned trash bin and tried to collect his thoughts.


“Alright Nicholas, think,” he mumbled to himself. “You’ve got to restore order, and in order to do that you need to complete everyone’s jobs. Or at least that’s my best guess!” He shouted down the halls, again to no-one in particular. “Of course if it doesn’t work everything and everyone you love will be torn apart by chaos, so let’s just go ahead and assume it will work. Now then, what the hell did your boss ask you to do? Something involving taxes? Ughh!” Nicholas groaned and leaned back against the wall. Everything happened so fast he barely remembered. The day started like it usually did, somewhere strange and weird for no reason what so ever. He talked to the jackass, or did he find Havoc first? Didn’t matter. Then he bumped into Typhoon, found the triplets, held back a heart attack for fifteen minutes, and escaped by the skin of his grated teeth. Oh, and he beat the living hell out of his boss. That was fun.


Typhoon! All he had to do was make a measly copy. Nicholas could totally do that. Typhoon was an excellent sword fighter, but had little patience for everything else. The original file was probably still in the machine. Now if Nicholas could just remember where that was…


The halls around him looked just as grey and decrepit as the rest of his office, but with a definitive location in his mind Nicholas started to vaguely remember the layout. Following little but his gut, he trekked down the corridors until he found the remnants of the copy room. The copy machine stood abandoned in the corner. An impossible layer of dust coated every surface. Nicholas trekked over to the machine kicking up clouds of flint behind him.


His pressed the power button.


Nothing happened.


He lifted his finger back up and pressed it firmly against the plastic button.


Nothing happened.


He slammed his fist into the machine with enough force to fling the dust from the panel, but nothing happened.


Nicholas rubbed his face and scratched his beard. His breath came out in forced steady streams. He looked behind the machine. The cord for the copier curled around itself a few times before it snaked into an outlet. The outlet however, was lying on the floor. Long streams of black soot coated the case of the outlet. Two frayed wires hung inside a gaping hole just behind the discarded outlet. With no regard for getting electrocuted, Nicholas reached into the hole and tapped the two wires together. Dead. Not a spark, or a hiss, or even a bit of smoke. Normally it wasn’t this hard to get things work.


Refusing to give in, Nicholas looked around for something he might use. But after a few minutes of fruitless searching he found himself nowhere closer to a solution.


“Dammit! Nothing in here is blue!” he cried out, then paused. He couldn’t help but chuckle. He sat down, and contemplated the situation. “Alright Nicholas, think. Stupid thing needs power. You are going to get it power. Now where can you find power? Maybe from a different outlet?” He looked around again, but the light from the single bulb above him was so dim he could barely see dust. Then he looked up at the light bulb. “That’s got power,” he said with a grin.


In one swift motion he cocked his shotgun and fired at the light fixture.


“Blam!”


The fixture tore free from the ceiling and cascade to the floor below. Nicholas ripped the wires feeding into the fixture and tapped them together. Bright yellow sparks shot across the frayed wire. Filled with hopeful excitement Nicholas tugged the cords free of the ceiling and fed them into the copiers socket. More than once a lethal dosage of amperage coursed through his body, but Nicholas giggled it off. He was happy the cord still had so much power. Nichols twisted the screws of the socket into the wire and heard the copier's internal fans spin up. The whole machine booted up, roaring and ready to go.


Nicholas shot his fist up in a victory pose and brought it down hard on the copy button. The machine gave a resounding “Ding”.


But nothing happened.


Nicholas’ left eye fell victim to a viscous spasm. He beat the poor button with his clenched fists like an ape. Each time it gave out the same cheerful “ding”. His blows flew faster until the sound filled the space behind his ears. Nicholas stopped. Slowly, gentler than before, he pressed his fist into the button. “Ding”. That sound, ”Ding”, it wasn’t coming from the copier. “Ding” it sounded more like it belonged to a bell than a machine. “Ding” and it was coming from behind him! Nicholas tilted his head as he gently bashed the button. “Ding”... “Ding”....”Ding”


There! Nicholas raced towards a dilapidated filing cabinet and ripped open the first drawer.


Nothing.


He ripped open the second.


Still nothing.


He ripped the third off its hinges.


There was a small hand bell with a long wooden handle. As it rattled against the drawer the copier began to whir. The eye spasm returned but Nicholas ignored it. He grabbed the bell and shook it back in forth like a crazed town crier. The copier whirred and spattered out a single pristine copy. Nicholas dropped the bell and grabbed the copy. He folded the sheet and placed it inside one of his many coat pockets. Overcome with joy Nicholas jumped into the air and did a heel kick. He strutted out of the room and turned left just in time to see a massive hairy fist crash into his face. Then the world went dark.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


“As you can see, gentlemen, our economic synergy has gone hyperlocal. Now is the perfect time to stimulate the millennial paradigm with a digital remastering of our primary swim lane.” I had no idea what I just said, yet the blobs sitting in the twisted office chairs in front of me nodded their heads. At least that’s what I believed they were doing.


A tendril stretched out from the main body of one of the blobs and hung above the main mass in silence. Hesitantly I pointed to the blob and asked, “Question?”


“Wuh wub wuh wuh wuh wub?”


“Uhhhh- the ballpark estimate from the profit center indicates long term sustainability and growth.”


Another blob raised a tendril, except as it did, the end extended into five short tendrils. The viscous mass vaguely resembled a hand. I silently pointed at the figure and raised my eyebrows.


“Wuh woo wub lub numbers?”


“The numbers are great!” I could barely contain my excitement. After spending four hours with these blobs they finally uttered a sound that resembled a comprehensible word. “The numbers are full of leverage and empowerment! Everything we need for some good headlights into the mind share.”


Viscous fluid wiggled around the blobs, slowly forming into solid shapes. Although I had to resist the urge to gag as they grew hair and eyeballs. One raised a hand with almost the right number of fingers.


“And ‘SCREEEECH’ the exit strategy?”


“Most likely unnecessary,” I reassured the mostly solid, somewhat clothed masses. “ But if need be we have written out fallout plans from Generation X to Generation Y and even to Generation Z.”


The blobs wriggled furiously. Coats of slime solidified to form boring gray suits. Hair, previously sprouting from the masses indiscriminately, burst forth in greater thickness covering their bodies entirely. Finally the faces coalesced into their original blank apex frames. The room around them started to reorder itself, but as the crack began to seal a mysterious force opened them back up again. Either way the apex didn’t seem to notice.


“Well Mit it sounds like we have everything we need. We’ll stay here and discuss amongst ourselves,” said the one in the middle.


I gave them a big thumbs up and left them to it. I stepped outside and was immediately greeted with the sound a static blasting out my eardrums. I ripped the earpiece off and tossed it to the floor.


“SasdfjBosss….Bosss are you there?” called out a very quiet voice.


I picked the earpiece back up and called into it, “Linda! Is that you!”


“Oh my gosh, yes Boss it’s me!” The voice was a bit muffled but audible. “Boss, are you alright? What’s happening?”


“The office was in a bit worse state than expected, but we’re starting to restore order,” I said. Even outside the cracks in the wall tried to reseal themselves but couldn’t manage to hold together. “Can you locate Nicholas for me?”


“Yes...maybe. One sec…” For the next thirty seconds the only sound coming through the earpiece was, ‘aksjdfnkjndviergnkdnvanf;gknagenrjkenegpafnvkjanrghernf;kjnviadjbepiraprngskdnfuahpgaqnthpvhajrngkjnvarjnavpdiaurhgajnfhipnf;kjanfjabjnpirghajnv;janvag;kjabgpiuhj;rjgnpiuajng;hvpaufarniuhasng;kandfjnsnvhr gnaivajng;asdhfpaadfpiuandfansdfihasdfnas;kdjfapisdnamv sfiejpiufhsdfalkhfpiuhaerthfpasndanah;fknadhag;adh’

(Do it to your keyboard, you’ll get the idea.)


“Found him…uhm, he doesn’t seem to be moving.”


“That’s because he’s been captured.”


“How do you-”


“Call it a gut feeling,” I interrupted, “Which direction is he in again?”


Linda peered deep into her monitor. “To your left about...thirty, maybe forty feet.”


“Forty-two feet,” I corrected her.


“Boss,” Linda asked with concern, “Are you feeling alright.”


I couldn’t help but grin, “Quite alright Linda. In fact, I feel like my old self again.”

 

Nihcolas was having a really bad time. The swollen lump on his face pulsed with each heartbeat and while he couldn’t see it himself, it felt an awful shade of purple. He was locked in a cage composed of horribly warped desks. Layers of fake wood made up the walls of his cell, while the twisted and mangled legs shot out in every direction barring him from escape. And to make matters worse, his shotgun was nowhere in sight. Yep, Nicholas was having a really, really, bad time.


Suddenly the crisp sound of dress shoes stamped down the hallway. Nicholas wasn't sure who it was, but he knew who he feared it was. And sure enough, as the dress shoes clamped around the corner he saw the one vest in all the known universe that he absolutely despised.


“Nicholas,” the Blue Vested Man said, holding back a laugh, “you've been caged…”


“Your point?” Nicholas asked through gritted teeth.


“You’re Nicholas, in a cage.” The blue vested man waited for Nicholas to get it. He didn't. So the blue vested man continued.


“Some might say you’re, Nicholas Cage-d.”


Nicholas reeled against the bars of his prison. “Get me out of here you idiot!”


“I'm sorry Nicholas, but you have no idea how long I've been waiting to get that joke out.”


Nicholas’ response was an incomprehensible guttural wail.


“Alright, alright calm down. I'll get you out of there.”


The Blue Vested Man paced back and forth in front of the cage. He yanked on the individual bars of the cage, but to no avail. When he was certain the mass would not move he took a step back and addressed Nicholas.


“Okay it's not moving, but don't worry. I can get you out of there.” The Blue Vested Man reached out towards the cage with one hand, his forefinger outstretched.


“You're going to want to sit back,” he warned.


Nicholas sat on the floor of his cage.


“Bit more to the left.” Nicholas glared at him. “Look, Nicholas, I'm being perfectly honest right now. You're going to want to move to the left. Your left, not mine.” Nicholas continued to stare down the Blue Vested Man, but after several moments of unproductive silence he begrudgingly shifted to his left.


“Thank you, now don't move.”


The Blue Vested Man pressed his forefinger against the heap of ruined desks. A pulse of energy coursed down his arm and through his finger. It plowed into the desks charging them with raw order. They twitched and shook and rattled with a ferocious rage. Nicholas feared they would crash down on his head, burying him alive. Suddenly the wood shined with a brilliant sheen. The twisted metal legs unraveled themselves shooting out in every direction. One leg punched through the roof of the cage and planted itself an inch into the floor just to Nicholas’ right. The bars in front of Nicholas straightened out to provide an opening just large enough for him to squeeze through.


The Blue Vested Man shuddered and planted the palm of his hand on pile. The legs immediately started to writhe. “Alright, now move! Move!” he cried.


Nicholas wasted no time. From where he sat he swung his body weight forward and leapt straight through the hole. His momentum ran out halfway through. His chest crashed into a slanted leg and he scrambled to heave his lower torso and legs from the reething wall of metal bars. Finally, he broke free and rolled onto the floor. The Blue Vested Man stumbled backwards. As his hand left the pile it coiled and warped back into its cage form. Desk legs spasmed within the mass, shooting into the floor were Nicholas sat moments before.


“So how are you?” asked the Blue Vested Man, “And before you ask, my powers are only partially back but that means we must be doing something right so…,” he trailed off.


“Stop. Talking.” Nicholas replied.


It took every ounce of willpower for the Blue Vested Man to keep his mouth shut, but despite all odds he did not utter a single word. Nicholas took a few moments to catch his breath then looked up at the individual before him. “I got the copy,” he reported


“Excellent, I completed the triplets’ assignment.”


“And Havoc’s?”


“Finished when I got there, probably the only reason any of this is in any ‘order’ at all.”


Nicholas chuckled, “Havoc does have a knack for keeping things together.”


“Yes, yes he does,” I concurred.


“So all that’s left is my...taxidermy,” Nicholas paused. “What the hell is a taxidermy.”


The Blue Vested Man opened his mouth to speak, then closed it suddenly, only to open it again and say, “I have no idea.”


“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVE NO IDEA!”


The Blue Vested Man considered his next words very carefully, and did not utter a single sound until he was certain the following sentence would not put his face beneath Nicholas’ boot. “It was one of the conditions He put forth. I didn’t worry about it because I was more concerned with getting your team out of there, well, here.”


“You were never concerned for me or my team.”


“Yes and Wittly just found you out of sheer luck, and that sonic pickaxe was just lying there, and there just happened to be enough coats for all of your freezing citizens.”


“And those pop tops just happened to be passing through the park, and those pirates just happened to stick around after you hired them, and that t-rex just happened to have blue eyes, you know, the one that ate me!”


“If I remember correctly you let it eat you.”


Nicholas reared back his fist just in time for a deep guttural roar to shake the floor, walls, and roof of the building. The Blue Vested Man was the first to respond.


“We should turn around and run.”


“What?”


“Just run!” screamed the Blue Vested Man as he ran away from the roar.


A beast larger than the hallway crashed around the corner. It’s shoulders pushed the walls back and every thunderous step fractured the floor’s very foundation. It’s face seemed similar to a gorilla's only twisted and warped to ghastly proportions. And it’s two yellow eyes locked on the source of the shouting and lunged forward. If the walls had been two feet wider, Nicholas wouldn’t have managed to scramble away just as the beast’s claws tore through his coat. He sprinted forward until he caught up with the Blue Vested Man.


“What’s the plan?” Nicholas asked at the top of his lungs.


“You won’t like it,” the Blue Vested Man screamed back. The two of them leapt over a hurdle of discarded desks. Moments later the beast annihilated the obstacle pelting the two ahead of it with splinters.


“Try me.”


“Alright, I’m going to break away and locate a taxidermy while you distract that guy.” The guy in question let a roar capable of shattering bones to dust.


“And why don’t you distract him while I locate the taxidermy?”


“That’s a great idea!” The Blue Vested Man exclaimed. He looked Nicholas dead in the eye and asked, “Where are you going to find it?”


“God I hate you sometimes.”


“I know.”


The beast was gaining on them. “Ready?” asked the Blue Vested Man. Nicholas furiously shook his head in response. “Well that’s a darn shame.” He pressed his finger against his ear and asked, “Linda! What the hell is a taxidermy?” And with that he ducked through a hole in the wall and vanished.


Nicholas, completely unaware of this possible escape until it was far too late, had no other choice but to continue running as fast as his quickly tiring legs could carry him. He ducked left, swerved right, jumped up, and dived down in his efforts to escape the raging monstrosity behind him but to no avail. The beast would merely crash left, crash right, crash up, and crash down with increasingly terrifying intensity. Should Nicholas stop running to try some clever trick, the beast would merely crush his trick between its forefinger and thumb, and promptly beat Nicholas to death with his admittedly clever but tragically ineffective trick.


Suddenly the ceiling gave way to reveal the Blue Vested Man falling down from above. A ferocious stuffed possum sat firmly in his hands.


“Nicholas!” He exclaimed landing with a dead-man’s sprint, “You’re still alive!”


“Where the hell did y-”


“Doesn’t matter,” he interrupted turning around to face the beast. “Hey boss look what i fou- OH SHI-.” The beast raked its huge paw in front of the Blue Vested Man catching the taxidermy with a single claw. The three dimensional object flew into a nearby wall where it became a strictly two dimensional object.


Nicholas didn’t know how he could manage to run anymore, but after the beast’s last display of power, he managed to run faster than his legs could carry him.


“Why didn’t that work?” Nicholas screamed.


“Uhhh,” the Blue Vested Man pressed his finger to his ear, “Linda! Why didn’t that work?”


“I don’t know boss,” replied her panicked voice. “Give me a second! I’ll figure it out!”


A nerve twitched on the back of the Blue Vested Man’s back. He reached out his hand and grabbed the back of Nicholas’ head forcing it and ducking his own head down as low as they could go. A metal desk careened through the space their head’s just recently occupied. It crashed into the floor a short distance ahead of them.


“We don’t exactly have a second,” he shouted, hurdling over the desk.


The sound of rapid typing tacked through the earpiece. A few short seconds later it stopped.


“Boss, I found the first request, the one He posted. It asks for tax interdimates, not a taxidermy.” All the color in the Blue Vested Man’s face drained away until he was practically transparent.


“What?” sniped Nicholas.


“I misread the first request,” whispered back the Blue Vested Man.


“What!” Nicholas growled back.


“Well his entries are so hard to read I-”


Nicholas’ fingers wrapped around the Blue Vested Man’s neck. “I’ll kill you!”


“Stop! Stop that’s not helping!” the Blue Vested Man choked out. Despite his frantic attempts to fight off Nicholas’ attempts to murder him, the two of them managed to keep running.


The Blue Vested Man finally managed to pry Nicholas’ fingers far enough away from his jugular to ask Linda, “All right what is a tax interdimate?”


“Uhm....it doesn’t exist, however! I’m pretty sure He meant tax intermediary.


“And what the hell are-”


“Basically they say how much the company as a whole owes in taxes, but can also provide reports and strategies for limiting and or counteracting those said taxes.” The Blue Vested Man was silent. “I was a temp before the radio gig,” Linda clarified, somewhat sheepishly.


“That’s great! Nicholas, we have a plan and you don’t look so good.” Bullets of sweat poured off of Nicholas’ forehead. Every breath shuddered, shaking his body, making it even harder to navigate the cluttered hallways.


His voice came out ragged and desperate,“I can’t run anymore.”


The Blue Vested Man’s head twitched to the left.


“Ding!”


With a swift motion, the Blue Vested Man hurled Nicholas by the back of his coat around the next corner and through the open doors of an elevator. With the two of them inside Nicholas collapsed against the back wall. A tremendous roar reminded them they were still in crippling danger. The Blue Vested Man repeatedly bombarded the close door button with his left forefinger, while his right led a similar assault on the button labeled “Taxes/Claims/Etc.” The monster rammed into the corner wall, buckling the support. Light fixtures and asbestos rained down on its back. The creature locked eyes on Nicholas. It bounded once, twice.


The doors slid shut with a “Ding!” The elevator compartment dropped down just as the beast crashed into the doors with a loud “SLAM!” Despite the ferocious impact the elevator continued its descent undisturbed. Lying against the wall, Nicholas gasped greedy lung-fulls of air.


“Are you going to be alright?” inquired the Blue Vested Man.


A ruthless glare was all Nicholas gave as a response, though once his gasps became less desperate he relented and nodded his head. “I’ll be fine,” he replied.


“Good, because I need you to distract him a bit longer.”


“Are you kidding me?” His voice rattled with suppressed rage and exhaustion.


The Blue Vested Man knelt down dangerously close to Nicholas’ face. “Nicholas, listen to me. The only reason we are in a functioning elevator right now is because of how much order we’ve restored. During my meeting a couple of the business men even reformed.” Suddenly the elevator shook, lights flickered overhead, and a distant roar rang out, but the duo ignored it. The Blue Vested Man pinched a sliver of air between his forefinger and thumb and showed it to Nicholas. “We are this close to ending this shared nightmare. If I can get back to Havoc’s desk, Linda can use her experience as a temp to complete the tax intermediary, but I can’t do my part with a giant monkey chasing me.” The Blue Vested Man stood up and reached out his hand towards Nicholas, yet Nicholas looked at it, unsure. “Come on Nicholas, I’ve thrown worse at you before.”


Surprisingly, Nicholas grinned. He took the offered hand and hoisted himself up. “You’re right,” he said, just before socking the Blue Vested Man in the face. “That’s for all of that.” The grin fell. “ And after this you never bother me again.”


“Fair,” winced the Blue Vested Man rubbing his throbbing jaw.


The two glanced at the floor counter. Just another dozen to go.


Nicholas scoffed and turned to the Blue Vested Man. “A temp? Really?”


“TEMPS ARE WONDERFUL AND BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!” he exclaimed.


“Whoa! Okay! Sorry!”


The Blue Vested Man collected himself, “No, it’s fine. Just ‘sniff’ forget about it.”


The elevator neared the final floor.


“Are you ready?” asked the Blue Vested Man.


“Do I have much of a choice?”


“Well I could hold the door close button but there’s a slight chance the monster will find us so…”


“Let’s just finish this,” Nicholas grumbled.


“And then you can go play Snakes and Ladders.”


“Shoots and Ladders,” he corrected. “Blue hates snakes. Declared them ‘Galactic Enemy Number One’. ” And for the first time since leaving the Nebula, Nicholas genuinely smiled.


“Ding!” The elevator doors swung open. The duo ducked through the doors and ran off in different directions.


“Don’t get flattened,” the Blue Vested Man called after Nicholas.


“Take too long and I’ll lead it to you,” he called back. Then he took a deep breath and screamed at the top of his lungs, “Hey Ape-Face! I’m over here!” The walls shook in response.


Nicholas jogged through the crumbling halls, conserving what energy he could for the sprint ahead. Yet as he wandered the halls he noticed the office was in slightly better shape. Junk and discarded trash lined the halls, but fewer cracks lined the walls and every other light shone from their sockets overhead, as opposed to every fourth.


A low rumbling shook throughout the building, slight at first but slowly building in strength.


Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! BOOM!


The monster burst through the wall directly in front of Nicholas. He ducked right, rolling into a tight ball and springing back up. His feet thundered down the hall in a dead man’s sprint. The beast followed suit.


The predator hounded its prey with vicious intent, while the prey led it into a forest of cubicles. The small nimble Nicholas leapt atop a desk and hurdled over the low wall. Moments later the beast flattened the desk and shattered the wall. Yet once it burst into the three foot walk space between the cubicles, Nicholas was gone, hidden by the conglomeration of low walls, desks, and plastic potted plants. In response, the monster grabbed half of the desk beneath its feet and hurled it indiscriminately into the ergonomically spaced cubicles. The projectile flattened low walls, and shredded fake plants along its path. It finally came to rest after embedding itself in the far wall. When Nicholas didn’t reveal himself, the beast grabbed the other half of the desk and hurled it in a similar fashion. It too mowed down cubicles and crashed into the far wall but Nicholas still didn’t reveal himself. Needless to say the beast flew into a rage. Walls flattened beneath its fists and office supplies flew off in every direction. A short five minutes later the neatly organized cubicles were nothing more than a pile of grey splinters.


A stapler bounced off the back of the creature's head. “Hey idiot!” the thrower cried out with a smug grin. “You missed me!”


The beast twisted around to meet its attacker. Two sets of claws tore into the floor and lunged forward, ripping pieces of ugly carpet off of the floor. The smug grin fell from Nicholas’ face and he proceeded to run for his life. Hallway after hallway, Nicholas continued his sprint. But no matter how far or how fast he ran the beast hounded him mercilessly. More than once he ran past a water cooler only to have it sail past his head and explode into a refreshing mist of shimmering water. Each bound of the great beast rattled the ground. Whenever Nicholas steps fell in time with it the a shockwave would surge up his feet, stabbing needles into his ankles. Nicholas swung around a tight corner and ran straight into the Blue Vested Man’s outstretched hand, stopping completely. A second later the beast rounded the corner.


“Hey Chief,” the Blue Vested Man called out holding a folder of papers, “I got those tax interdimates you wanted.” The beast stopped short. It gingerly leaned forward and sniffed the fresh xerox off the papers. Throwing the folder open, the Blue Vested Man leaned into the beast.


“As you can see, our annual tax expenses have increased by zero-point-zero-zero-two percent. However, after consulting with some off site expertise, we have drafted up a plan to cut the excess and bring us back to acceptable levels.” Slowly, but surely, the beast morphed into Nicholas’ supervisor. Yet it still had the head of a beast.


“It’s late,” he griped.


“Last minute changes to the numbers, and I do mean the last minute. Mac here,” he said pounding Nicholas on the back, “Has been running-”


“No running-”


“Briskly walking everywhere to remedy this hiccup. After all his hard work, management has decided to relocate him to a new dimension-blib-blab-department.”


The supervisor looked from Nicholas, to the Blue Vested Man, and back five times before his face deflated into its somber apex form.


“Congratulations Mac,” he drolled out, “Make sure to represent the company at your new location.”


With those words, raw order surged throughout the office. Cracks sealed, lights returned to their sockets, and business apex in suits materialized at their desks. Nicholas barely had time to appreciate the heavily sterilized air before the Blue Vested Man shoved him towards a broom closet door.


“Linda. We’re done. Get us out of here. Now!” he barked into his earpiece. “Please,” he added. The door swung open. Linda stood in the frame holding the door out as far as it could go. Without hesitation, Nicholas leapt through the door shortly followed by the Blue Vested Man. The door swung shut behind them with a resounding “Toom”.


“Boss!” Linda cried out, “You’re all - oof!” The Blue Vested Man wrapped his arms around Linda in a tight hug.


“Have I ever told you you’re amazing at your job?” Linda’s entire body physically hummed with sheer happiness and rainbows in response.


Nicholas, thrown off by the his sworn enemy’s display of affection, awkwardly asked, “Can I go home now?”


“Take whichever,” replied Linda, waving a finger from one door to the next with one hand and tightly holding onto the Blue Vested Man with the other.


Nicholas looked at the door behind him but cringed at the mere thought of anything even remotely associated with the office. He made his way across the catwalk and stepped through the door on the other side.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The grand double doors to Lord Blue’s private chambers swung open. Nicholas stood in the opening, his coat looking brand new, and he himself free of any sign of his previous adventure.


“Hey Blue,” he said, a pack of well used cards in his hand. “Ready for game night?”


Blue responded with a bright cheerful, “Wack!”


The two played seventeen rounds of shoots and ladders followed by six rounds of Texas Hold-Em. Nicholas could never remember which pairs won over others, and silently decided it it ever came up for debate, Blue would win. After a while he proposed inviting his squad to come and play. Blue agreed wholeheartedly, and once squad Charlie arrived Nicholas introduced them all to a slew of card games never before played in this dimension. When the festivities ended, Blue found guest rooms for the squad and a private suite for Nicholas, who promptly collapsed onto the bed. He clapped once, and the lights shut off, plunging him into deep blissful sleep.

 

Well, that took forever. Now what to do about Black-Gear...