Kev (18 page)

“No.” Had the girl overheard my conversation
with Aputi? Possibly. If she had, did she suspect me of taking it?
And what of Aputi? Did he really want to save the universe or did
he have something else in mind? I didn’t know whom I could trust,
but I knew I loved the girl. Would she really try to end the
universe?

“Well, he did and if he gets his hands on
that cube bad things are going to happen.”

I wanted to fess up and give her the cube,
but I held back, convinced that I should at least get Aputi to
train me in its use before making a decision.

“You didn’t tell me my birthday is in three
days,” I said.

“Oh, Aputi told you?”

“Yeah. Do you have something big planned? You
can tell me, because I’ll probably forget.”

The girl laughed, but I could see concern on
her face, and I wondered if she thought I knew what they had
planned for me on my birthday, if Aputi’s claim was true.

That night, Aputi and I went to the bar. I
told him I had found the cube and had put is somewhere safe. I
asked him about the time he had planned on wiping out most of
humanity and he said he believed, at the time, it was the only way
to save the universe, and then told me that I ended up destroying
the universe by making a wish (Aputi wasn’t terribly clear on this
point) and then Bri, a name I didn’t remember, and the Proth Sphere
recreated the universe.

“So, if the universe ends, won’t Bri and the
Proth Sphere be able to recreate it?” I said.

“No, Kev. If your nightmare destroys this
universe it will not be recreated. If you fully remembered your
nightmare you would know that.”

“How do you know my nightmare?”

“You told me all about it after you had it.
Trust me, this is a no win situation without the yellow cube.”

“Then teach me how to use it. I just need to
manipulate the Proth Sphere’s matter, right? How hard can that
be?”

“Where is the yellow cube?”

“Somewhere safe, I assure you.”

“Who had it?”

“That doesn’t matter. Now tell me how to use
it.”

Aputi eyed me for a moment, then said, “You
press your thumb down on the side with the black circle…”

“Wait a second,” I said. “The cube I found
has no markings.”

“Oh, really? Then the one you found is the
water-breathing cube. You’re going to have to keep searching.”

In my confused state, I forgot my
conversation with the girl. I pulled the yellow cube out of my
pocket and said, “So, this will let me breathe under water?”

Aputi’s hand shot out and grabbed the cube.
He immediately disappeared, and I knew, in that instant, I’d been
had.

I returned home and admitted my blunder. The
girl froze, a look of absolute horror on her face. “We have to find
Aputi,” she cried.

“Well, where is he?” I said.

“He could be anywhere. I knew we never should
have befriended him, but you insisted and…we have to find him.
Now.”

In the next two hours, the girl took me to a
number of Aputi’s haunts. We found no trace of him.

“Maybe he went to Vermont,” said the girl,
teleporting us to my home in Vermont. Standing ten feet away from
us, I saw Aputi holding the yellow cube, a blissful smile on his
face. In that instant, the entire universe transformed into a
giant, unbelievably stinky cesspool.

We were knee deep in filth, assaulted by a
smell that could not be described, a smell I could barely tolerate,
a strong urge to barf taking hold of me.

“What do you think?” said Aputi. “Nice, isn’t
it?”

“Give me the cube, Aputi,” shouted the
girl.

“Absolutely not,” said Aputi,
disappearing.

I had been responsible for turning the entire
universe into Aputi’s idea of paradise. At that point, the girl
told me Aputi was a Bladrithian, a species that lives in filth.
Long ago, he had been cast out by his brethren, banished from his
home. The girl assumed this was his attempt to get back in their
good graces.

“We have to find Clive,” said the girl.

“Why?”

“You need to connect to the Proth
Sphere.”

“I’m not connecting to that thing. That will
end the universe.”

“Oh, you remember that nightmare? Crap. Well,
we have to get the sphere to Bri somehow.”

The girl teleported us to what used to be
Clive’s house on Uthio Minor. Clive stood on top of a heap of fish
bones, a baffled look on his face. The sphere hovered nearby.

“It was Aputi,” said the girl.

“That bastard,” said Clive.

“We have to get the sphere to Bri
somehow.”

“No way,” said the sphere. “Bri has to
apologize before I’ll go back to him.”

“Who is Bri?” I said.

“The sometimes co-creator of the infinite
universes,” said Clive.

“Well, that clears everything up, now doesn’t
it?” I said.

“You have to go back to Bri and fix this,”
said the girl to the sphere. “And you have to give me back the
yellow cube when you do.”

“What needs to be fixed?” said the sphere.
“Seems like Aputi did a pretty good job cleaning up the joint.
Anyway, I’ll only do it if Bri apologizes.”

“For what?” said the girl, Clive and I at the
same time.

“He knows what,” said the sphere with the
voice of a hurt child.

“Kev, you’re going to have to talk to Bri,”
said the girl.

“Why me?”

“Because Clive and I can’t talk to him.”

“Why?”

“Rules are rules, Kev,” laughed Clive.

“What the hell does that mean? Anyway, where
is Bri?”

“I’m right here,” said a voice inside my
head, a child’s voice, full of joy and hope and everything else you
might find in the voice of a hopeful, joyful child.

“Bri, we have a situation here,” I said only
to Bri.

“You mean the giant cesspool. Not pretty. So,
how can I help you?”

“You need to connect with the Proth Sphere
and fix this.”

“I’m not connecting with that bastard. He
needs to apologize first.”

“Apologize for what, exactly?”

“He knows.”

“Oh, come on, Bri. Would you just do it?”

“No way. Why don’t you connect to him? You
can fix this.”

“Not without ending the universe,” I
said.

“Are you sure about that? You know you don’t
have to give the sphere all of your dreams and nightmares.”

“Look, I only remember one nightmare, no
dreams, so if this works the way I think it works, then I really
can’t do much, now can I?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“What does that mean?”

“Rules are rules, Kev.”

“Would you just connect to the damned sphere,
please?”

“Make it apologize.”

“It wants you to apologize.”

“For what?”

“How should I know? It said you would
know.”

I turned to Clive and the girl. “Pain in the
ass. I don’t know what they’re fighting about.”

“Kev, just make them do it,” said Clive.

“Sure thing, boss. You going to tell me how
to do that or do the rules prohibit it?” I growled.

Clive whispered something in the girl’s ear
and she whispered something back in his. They turned to me and the
girl said, “What’s your favorite number?”

“What?” I suddenly felt faint, the smell of
this place truly overwhelming me, and thought I might throw up. I
looked around us, piles of bones and other refuse for as far as the
eye could see. I wondered how many diseases we had been exposed to,
and also wondered how other beings in the universe were faring.

“What’s your favorite number, Kev?” repeated
the girl.

“I don’t know. Thirty-seven,” I said.

The girl and Clive looked at me
expectantly.

“What?” I cried, as I dropped to my knees and
threw up on top of a pile of rotten grapefruits and oranges, which
sat next to a pile of rotting carcasses of some unknown
creatures.

Clive came over and helped me back up. “What
does thirty-seven mean to you, Kev?”

I felt myself gagging and turned away from
Clive to avoid vomiting on him. The spell passed and I said, “I
don’t know. I like it. It’s the twelfth prime if you don’t count
one as a prime, thirteenth if you do, but I don’t count one as a
prime, for some reason I don’t quite understand right now. Anyway,
it’s important for some other reason, I think. Have I ever
mentioned it before?”

Clive looked at the girl briefly and she
nodded. “Kev, what do you think about jelly donuts?”

In that instant, a number of things became
clear, not the least of which was the fact that there were only
thirty-seven possible types of jelly donuts in the universe. Why
did that matter? I also remembered how to get Bri and the Proth
Sphere to interact with each other when they were having a spat,
which they often did. What I didn’t remember was that the last time
Bri and the Proth Sphere had a spat it was over how many possible
types of jelly donuts should exist in the new universe, and that I
had been witness to this event an event that ultimately led me to
wish that they would stop fighting and recreate the universe.

I brought Bri and the sphere together with a
wish, and in that instant saw a flash and then nothing.

Surth Beta

I saw a flash in the dark. Thunder sounded, and then
another flash lit up the sky. I felt sand underneath my feet and
heard waves crashing on the beach.

Behind me, I saw lights, so I turned and
approached what appeared to be a bar, sitting just off the beach.
Standing behind the bar, I saw Brok. When had I last seen Brok? I
thought Clive and I had been at the bar recently. Was that in a
different universe? I couldn’t tell.

I remembered a few things in that moment,
like who I was and where I was. I remembered Clive, the girl, Ruby,
and my children, now five of them. I remembered Aputi, but did not
recall him changing the universe into a giant cesspool. I had a
vague recollection of having some vague concern about Clive and his
intentions with respect to me, something about a sphere. Maybe the
sphere was Clive’s, something he was going to use against me, but
for what reason I did not know.

Brok served me a green tea. “You look like
you have something on your mind, Kev.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Is this a new universe?”

“Most likely,” said Brok. “Big improvement
over the cesspool, don’t you think?”

“Cesspool?”

“Never mind. So, what’s going on?”

“Brok,” I said, remembering the game and
wondering if the rules would prohibit Brok from answering my
question. “Why is Surth Beta important to me?” I didn’t know why I
had thought of that. However, I suspected there was something on
Surth Beta that could help me figure things out, something that
would help me get my memories back.

“Why don’t you go there and find out?” said
Brok.

“How do I get there?”

“What’s your favorite number? Crap. Don’t
tell anyone I said that. Please, forgive me. I wasn’t
thinking.”

Hadn’t someone asked me that recently? What
did thirty-seven have to do with Surth Beta? In that instant I
appeared on Surth Beta, or so I thought.

Surth Beta, to a well-traveled Earthling
would appear to be much like the red light district in Amsterdam.
However, this red light district on Surth Beta, the entire planet,
was home to an industry known as mind fusing.

Mind fusing can take many forms, from mood
alteration to complete personality transformation, memory recall to
memory storage and replacement, and a wide variety of other
things.

I looked around and saw signs and heard
voices calling out. I heard someone shout, “Become one with Garth
Nader, infamous serial killer.” Another shouted, “Engage with Ceeli
Jool, chess master and class eight mind.”

I saw an odd centipede-like creature holding
a sign that read, “Have total recall, know everything (almost).” I
approached the centipede and said, “How much for that?”

“Hey, Kev. How are you? I guess you’ve
forgotten again, huh?”

“Apparently,” I said, trying to remember the
centipede’s name.

“Name’s Flid, Kev. Anyway, it’s free.”

“I’ve been here before then?”

“Many times, my friend.”

“And what do I do here?”

“Do you see that brain in a vat?” said Flid,
pointing at a basketball sized brain floating in a vat of greenish
liquid behind a glass window. “All you do is connect with that and
you will get your memories back, or at least the memories you had
each time you connected to the brain.”

“Oh. And, you say I’ve been here many
times?”

“More than I can count.”

“So, then I should be able to get back all of
my memories. I’ll do it.”

Flid led me through a door into the small
room that was home to the brain in a vat. He attached an electrode
to my temple and left the room.

“Hey, Kev,” said the brain in the vat.

“Uh, hey there. Sorry, I have forgotten your
name.”

“I don’t have one. So, what is it going to
be? You want everything or would you prefer to just have your
memories back?”

“What’s everything?”

“All of the memories of all of the beings
that have ever connected with me.”

“How many beings is that?”

“Well, let’s see. I guess I’ve connected with
something like twelve trillion minds.”

“Could I handle that?”

“Sure, you have a class nine mind, after
all.”

“What does that mean?”

“That you’re basically a god. So do you want
the big package or the little package?”

“Let’s go with the big package,” I said,
forgetting what the brain had said about having a class nine
mind.

“Excellent choice. By the way, you might want
to remember to keep all of your memories when you recreate the
universe,” said the brain.

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

I felt a jolt as the memories of trillions of
beings entered into me. The transfer complete, I pulled the
electrode off my head, jumped up and cried, “I’m going to recreate
the universe,” thinking that was possibly the best idea ever.