Chapter 4

Denny stopped shelving Snack Ramen (6 for a $1) for a moment and looked at his fellow conspirator. "The back door? We unlock one of the most important secrets of space and time, and you walk in through my back door?"

"We, uh... lost a clipboard."

Denny stared for a moment before throwing the empty packing box to the floor. "Oh, Lord. Who has it?"

"Remember Tom? He clocked Forrester at Popeye's. Took his clipboard. Which makes a total of two that are missing..."

"Two? What was Forrester doing with two?!"

"Oh, he only had one. I, uh, almost got shot by Mr. Nelson and, uh... well, I dropped mine."

"And you became a Hindu, I see?"

"What?" the Lab Coat Man asked, touching his forehead. "That was the bullet! Do you realize--?"

"Just kidding..."

"Kidding! I'm almost killed in the line of duty, and all anyone can think to do is make fun of me because at the last second I didn't die! Am I so dispensable that --"

"All right, calm down. We need to have a meeting about this."

"Yes, I informed everyone. They'll meet us."

"Good. We also need to discuss another complication."

"What's that?"

"Not what -- who. Don't worry, I've fired her. Just a precaution."

The Lab Coat Man nodded vaguely and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"Well if you're just going to stand there," Denny said, "how about giving me a hand with this mouthwash?"

The Lab Coat Man frowned, but began to arrange the bottles of mouthwash (3 for $2) on the opposite shelf. "If I had known I was going to be shelving, I would have brought the new kid... Kurt. Why don't you just... move them, you know? Since we've unlocked one of the most important secrets of space and time, why not just--?"

"Not until after the final phase, I keep telling you! We don't know who's watching! Like that Nelson. What do we know about him?"

"Zeke knows that. Brings him his mail."

"Zeke?" Denny asked.

"What?" Zeke replied, filling his basket with hemorrhoid cream (2 for $3) fifteen feet up the aisle.

"You askin' about Justin Nelson, Jr.? Oh, he's just nuts. Thought he saw a UFO once, but it was a weather balloon." The trio converged in the middle of aisle seven. "He asks strange questions, that's about all."

"He almost shot me!" the Lab Coat Man exclaimed.

"Would you leave that alone for a minute?" Denny asked. "We'll have to get him out of the way."

"And whoever has Forrester," Zeke added.

"Something happened to Forrester?!" exclaimed a black woman at the end of the aisle, who had been comparing prices of toilet paper (2 for $5). "Who was careless enough to let two of us be compromised?!" she demanded.

"Keep your voice down, Shenika," Denny replied. "Forrester was in charge of the daily operations, so he's only got himself to blame."

"And who lost the other one?" Shenika demanded. All turned to the Lab Coat Man.

"I'm afraid I was responsible for the other mishap," he admitted, grudgingly.

"Yeah, right before you became a Hindu," Shenika said, noticeably not suppressing a smirk.

"Well, you can't be too hard on the old LCM, here," said Zeke, "'cause Justin has always had a quick temper. And since he's paranoid, he's more likely to notice something going on. In fact, I think he thinks there was something going on before he got hold of the clipboard."

"Like what?" Denny asked.

"I dunno, I was never able to get him to tell me."

"He's a fricking nut," said a police officer, who was passing through the store on his rounds. Aisle seven was filling up. "He reads books on UFO's, Bigfoot, crop circles, you name it! And he listens to Art Bell at lot..."

"But no one knows specifically what he knows?" Denny asked.

"Nobody," said the policeman. "He's never opened up to my people down at that hospital."

"And Julia is just like him," Shenika muttered.

"Rubbed off I guess," said Zeke.

"Inevitable," the Lab Coat Man added.

"Inevitable how?" Shenika demanded.

"Well, I just thought... inevitable," he mumbled, straightening another row of mouthwash.

An old lady turned the corner with a shopping cart. "Are all of you going to block the aisle?" she asked. The Lab Coat Man, Denny, Zeke, Shenika, and the police officer turned. At the sight of her, their backs stiffened and their heels ever so slightly clicked together.

"Don't worry about Julia. There's plenty of other work for you to be doing," she said. "All right! Meeting's over!"

The crowd, except for Denny, quickly dispersed.

"Now, young man," she asked, "I found my Depends, but could you tell me where I might find the Metamucil?"

20. Love in Bloom "Give me golf clubs, fresh air and a beautiful partner, and you can keep the clubs and the fresh air." -- Jack Benny

When Alona began to regain consciousness, she thought she saw Tom drag the body of what looked like a mad scientist inside the trailer home.

"I'm not feeling too well," she muttered.

"How's that, dear?" Betty asked, stroking her patient's head.

"I'm hallucinating about Tom dragging the body of a mad scientist -- "

"You're not hallucinating. He just did," she replied. "Well, he might not be mad, but I wouldn't trust anyone with that mustache!"

"Oh."

For some reason, this did not disturb her. During her blackout, she had dreamed of a subtle shift in the circumstances that kept her universe in equilibrium. She was too disorientated to judge whether this was a dream or not, but at least she no longer felt like crying. In the kitchen, Ritchie, Tom's father, had just come home from work and was searching for a cold Pabst to drink in front of the news. He watched his son drag the man's body into the center of the room, drop his legs, and turn toward Alona.

"Who the hell's that?!" he cried.

But Tom wasn't listening. He was looking deeply at Alona, who was looking back. Alona felt her heart flutter; instantly, she knew. The trailer seemed to glow in a light she had never believed existed. Tom kept her gaze as he stepped over the body, stood before her, and took her outstretched hand in his.

"I did this for you," Tom said simply.

"I know," Alona said, and she did.

"Anyone care to tell me what this has to do with Kurt and that professor?" Ritchie asked, cracking open a bottle and taking a long-deserved drink.

Tom and Alona, their gazes locked, now holding both hands, seemed to glow somehow in the lower-middle class splendor of the trailer home. Betty, watching the exchange with incredulous eyes, finally sighed and her own hands slipped together over her heart. Ritchie, noting his wife's reaction, allowed himself an ironic smile.

"Oh, for crying out loud," he muttered. "Tom!"

Tom and Alona jumped and turned toward the voice, their hands dropping by their sides.

"Why did you just drag an unconscious scientist into my home?"

Tom turned toward the body. "Oh, him!" Tucked in the front of the man's trousers was a clipboard. Tom extracted it and handed it to his dad. Both parents read the top sheet, their faces turning pale.

"Does this mean what I think it means? Richie?"

He nodded slowly.

"This settles it. They were kidnapped," Ritchie pronounced authoritatively. Tom and Alona did not hear. Their eyes and hands had found each other's once again. Tom attempted to say something meaningful and clever but only managed a half-swallowed: "I love you."

"I love you," replied Alona, and the room seemed to begin to slowly revolve around a newly formed sun. Betty peeked at them over the clipboard, but Richie raised it again.

"Aww..." she cooed.

"Now, hon'," he admonished gently.

21. How the World Works "Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined." -- Leo Rosten

Julia felt a scream building. Cecil wouldn't stop rubbing her legs, Uncle Justin wasn't answering the phone. He shot somebody, but there was no one there to have been shot. Rhonda, having flirted with all of the men in Tranquil, had started flirting with her. Seeing things that weren't there, or if they were there, things she didn't want to know anything about. Losing jobs, getting jobs. Being caught up in a world that she could barely make sense of, running by so quickly by that there was no chance to catch up. Concerns of that general nature were making it tempting to rip the phone from the wall and throw it through the sliding glass door.

She settled for slamming the receiver down. Cecil jumped and skittered away. Julia, for once, was going to make this a three cigarette day. And smoke indoors. She grabbed her purse and scrounged inside for the pack. Her old one was gone, but a new one, wrapped in a red ribbon, was in its place. Had to be from Rhonda.

"Oh great," Julia muttered. Do I take it or not? It's not exactly red roses or from someone I'd want roses from, so if I take them, am I sending a signal I don't want to send, or... The debate could have lasted longer -- on a better day, it would have, but this wasn't one of those days. She ripped open the pack, jammed a cigarette between her lips, and flicked her lighter.

As the flame touched the end of her cigarette, a hand smacked it from her mouth, sending it flying over Cecil's head and onto the couch. The cigarette suddenly burst into a small fireball, sending a cushion up with it. As Cecil sped off for the safety of the bedroom, Julia grabbed her least favorite throw pillow and beat it against the flames. Whoever had just appeared next to her tossed a flower vase full of water (and one white rose) onto the cushion. With a sizzle, the fire died, leaving a burn mark and a pathetic flower on the center of Julia's couch.

"Well, this is the end of a perfect day!" she yelled, turning to whoever it was who had just appeared.

"I told you smoking wasn't good for you," Uncle Justin said, scratching his armpit with a clipboard. Julia figured that the worst thing she could do right now would be to have a temper tantrum, but decided to throw one anyway.

"What -- is -- going -- on?!" she yelled.

Justin shook his head and motioned with his hand to calm down.

"Look, this is going to take some explaining. Let's sit down and -- no, I guess we can't sit there now, can we?"

"I can hear it standing up! First, you're in the hospital; then, you're not. You shot somebody, but you didn't, and then you break into my apartment just as -- "

"I didn't break in," he interrupted. "I just that second got here."

"Without opening the door?"

"Without opening the door."

Julia took a long look at her Uncle's face. He wasn't drunk, and he wasn't lying.

"OK, maybe I do need to sit down," she said, sitting on the carpet and pulling her knees to her face. Justin grunted as he managed to get his body to sit (and not fall) beside her. They waited in silence for a minute.

"So what's going on?" Julia asked.

"Something to do with this clipboard," Justin said, handing it to her. "Flip to the front."

Julia read through the directions concerning Uncle Justin and the outline of how Julia could be removed if necessary. Someone would slip her some knock-out cigarettes.

"Knock-out cigarettes?" she asked incredulously.

"Well, from what I've seen, this isn't the most intelligent conspiracy in the world."

"You'd at least think they'd check to see if their knock-out medicine was flammable."

"Probably alcohol based."

"Why not just slip me a mickey, then?"

"How much do you drink?"

"Hardly at all. Occasionally when I'm with -- "

"What?"

"Rhonda must be in on this."

"Are you still hanging out with her? She's bad news. Her family owned Tranquil's only brothel about eighty years ago, and --"

"No ancient history lessons, please," Julia said.

"Well it wasn't ancient to my grandfather, who -!"

"All right, pax, pax! Sorry for using that word. So how did you get in here?"

"That's the gray section, towards the end."

Julia flipped through and tried to read them. "This is worse than 'Finnegans Wake'."

"You don't know the half of it. But as I was reading that, I got blipped to Wildwood Park."

"Blipped?"

"Pinged. You know, there one second, gone the next. Zap! All the way from Arizona to Wisconsin!"

"That's what 'blipped' is. OK, so what were you doing in Wildwood Park?"

"Hard to say. I was reading this over, trying to remember all the math I knew ten years ago, thinking about how I used to come up with ideas for class while I walked Roosevelt, about how we used to walk through Wildwood Park on Sundays, how I used to sit on that bench across from the swings, and next thing you know, I'm sitting on that bench looking at the swings!"

"So, you're saying that if I went through these pages and thought of, say, Nova Scotia, you would have blipped there instead?"

"Sort of. It's a set of equations that tells you how to travel anywhere instantly. It took a few more tries to get it to work again, but in the last few minutes I've been over half the globe."

Julia closed her eyes so Uncle Justin wouldn't see her roll them.

He tapped her on the arm, and when she opened her eyes, he handed her a brochure in French.

"From the Louvre," he said.

"I thought they'd be closed by now," she muttered.

"They are," Justin replied.

"You realize the damage this will do the economy," she said, flinging her hands in the air in mock exasperation. "No more gasoline, cars, airlines --"

"I don't need sarcasm right now, Jule," Justin said. "I need some help. Now."

"So," Julia sighed, "my choices are: either accept the possibility that you may have done the impossible, or ostracize you like a kook along with the rest of humanity despite the evidence of my senses. Right?"

"I think," Justin said, "you've finally figured out how the world works."

22. The Plan "If life doesn't offer a game worth playing, then invent a new one." -- Anthony J. D'Angelo

Denny walked into the interrogation room to find Neoldner and Kurt giggling inside a cloud of smoke.

"Oh cripes," Denny muttered.

When they heard Denny in the doorway, they stopped moving, slowly turned toward him, and starting giggling again.

Denny clenched his fists and exhaled slowly. "OK, Neoldner, why don't you take five?"

Neoldner nodded in agreement and stepped into the hallway, giggling all the way out. Once he had left, Denny gave Kurt a quick stare, and suddenly, Kurt's giggling stopped.

"Whoa, what did you do?" he asked.

"I had to remove whatever it was you didn't inhale from your bloodstream," he said. His legs suddenly felt limp, and his steadied himself against the wall. "It takes something out of you to work that precisely." Slowly, he moved toward the other chair and sat down.

"When am I going to learn to do that?" Kurt asked.

"If we had a clipboard, we'd start ASAP, but we're kind of screwed right now. Forrester's taken, along with his copy; Justin Nelson has another. We were making more, but our copier ran out of toner."

Kurt pondered this for a moment.

"What kind of organization is this?"

"The shoe-string kind."

"Well, if you can't get your hands on some toner, how do you expect to take over the frigging world?!"

Denny gave Kurt a dark look.

"Sorry..." Kurt muttered.

"As it happens, we're not trying to take over the 'frigging' world. We're trying to create our own."

Kurt guffawed and slapped his knee, and stopped when he noticed that same scowl on Denny's face.

"OK, so, you're trying to create your own world..."

Neoldner, stumbling his way past door, and still giggling, shouted: "Planet Wisconsin! Woo-hoo!"

Kurt covered the smile on his face with his hand. Denny sighed, stood, and shut the door.

"Not a new planet, a new world. There's a lot we can do, now that we've figured out the secret. Moving from point A to point B in zero time is just one aspect. Moving from one alphabet to another takes organization."

"I'm lost."

"OK, follow the metaphor. You're in the restroom, then you're here. Point A to point B."

"Uh-huh."

"You're here, and then you're in a new world. Not another planet, another level of existence. Somewhere you normally can't get to from here. You've gone from point A to point µ. That's where we're trying to get to. Got it?"

Kurt thought about this.

"So why this conspiracy?"

"It'll take a concerted effort if we're going to take the town with us."

Kurt's jaw dropped. "All of it?"

"Every last citizen and every last piece of concrete. A community isn't an easy thing to build, is it? So we'll just bring along what we've got."

"Including Wildcat Graham?"

"Who?"

"She's a senior at Tranquil High."

"Yes, if she's in town."

"What about Wendy Branwell?"

"Yes, her too," Denny said, placing his head in his hands.

"And --"

The door burst opened. Denny and Kurt turned to see Prof. Sigger enter wearing a white lab coat and holding a clipboard -- a smirk borne of a thousand cut-throat departmental meetings perched cruelly on his lips.

"Allow me," said the latest recruit. "Due to recent vacancies I was offered a post... tenure track, of course! Let me interrogate this capitalist."

"I'm a capitalist," Denny said, sternly.

"Oh yes, yes," Prof. Sigger replied. He turned to Kurt. "Now, when did you first notice that you were being indoctrinated by right-wing ideologues?"

"What?" Kurt asked, scratching his arm.

"When did you become a mind-numbed robot? Why have you become resistant to income redistribution?"

Kurt looked at Denny, who was rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"It's going to be a perfect world with him along?" Kurt asked.

Denny looked up and stared at his colleague for a moment, who then disappeared. The clipboard fell to the floor. Kurt stared at the space before him that used to occupy Prof. Sigger.

"Cool..." he whispered.

23. Real Love "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it." -- Song of Solomon 8:7

Ritchie flipped through the clipboard one more time before placing it on the table between his recliner and his wife's rocking chair.

"Did you find anything useful?" Betty asked, without looking up from her knitting. Tom and Alona sat across from them on the coach, holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes.

"Did we ever look that stupid?" Ritchie whispered.

"Oh yes," Betty replied confidently.

"Thank God I'm getting old," Ritchie grunted.

"Now, hon'," Betty admonished gently.

"I only found one name in there that might help us at all. Any idea where Seltsam Street or Avenue or whatever it is might be?"

"No idea. Are you sure it's a street and not a name of somebody?"

"A couple pages referred to it as a meeting place. I guess we'll have to see if the Lovebirds birds know anything. Standby with a bucket of cold water in case I can't get through," he said.

Betty chuckled and kept knitting.

Ritchie cleared his throat. Getting no response, he tried again with gusto. He considered tossing the TV Guide at them, but figured that would be too humiliating. So he settled on using his 'voice of authority': "Hey, Lovebirds!"

The Lovebirds jumped slightly and turned toward the voice, as if unaware that anyone else had been in the room.

"Any idea where Seltsam Street or Avenue or whatever it is might be?"

"Seltsam? Sounds German," Alona said.

"Seltsam Way?" Tom asked.

"Could be," Ritchie said.

"That's that cul de sac that ends up behind the theater."

"Oh!" Betty said. "Remember when they rezoned Doege? They put in Vine Avenue and the library and cut off Seltsam, remember? There were those town meetings about it -- oh my, that would have to be thirty years ago!"

"That has been a while! I forgot all about that street. Tom, does any other business have access to Seltsam?"

But Tom and Alona had already lost themselves again in each other's eyes.

"Oh for Pete's sake!" Ritchie muttered.

"They make such a wonderful couple," Betty sighed.

"A couple of what is what I'd like to know... Now listen here, Lovebirds!" The Lovebirds turned. "Whatever's going on, the people who are working with this guy," Ritchie said, pointing to the still unconscious Forrester, lying in the corner with a pillow under his head and Betty's second-best afghan over him, "meet at Seltsam. If the only place you can get to from there is that theater, then maybe that's where they are."

Tom slapped his hand to head. "The theater! The basement! It's huge, and the Manager never lets me go down there!"

Alona smiled and said: "I knew you'd figure it out!"

Ritchie felt like reclining his chair all the way back and calling it a night, but his wife reached over and patted his hand, which was all the support he needed, all that he would ever need, to get up in spite of himself and do what had to be done.

24. Challenging assumptions "I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge." -- Igor Stravinsky

"And there's something else about this movement business," Justin began, still sitting on the floor and leaning back against a dry portion of the couch.

"Where did Cecil go?" Julia asked, looking around the corner into the bedroom.

"I don't know. The thing about this instantaneous movement is -- "

"Cecil!" she called. "Kitty, kitty, kitty!"

"He's probably in the bathroom," Justin grunted. "Hiding. He'll come out in his own time."

"I know, I'm just feeling paranoid right now."

"I understand. But the thing about this movement -"

"Look, I can barely follow physics when I can think straight -- which is not now -- so skip over that and just tell me where we go from here."

Justin sighed. What good was discovering something important if no one wanted to hear about it?

"There's only one thing we can do. We find Seltsam, whatever that is. That's probably where they're operating from. I don't know what they're planning, but from what's written in here, it's big!"

"Uncle Justin, you've stumbled on the secret of instant travel, you've gone half-way around the world in the last hour or so, and you don't have the first clue where Seltsam is. Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

Justin grimaced. "Yeah. And with their freedom of movement, I'd say it could be anywhere on Earth."

"I think I can find out," she said, standing up and walking to the phone. She began to dialing, but suddenly stopped and turned to Justin. "Uncle Justin, would you mind... just going somewhere else for a moment? Like outside? No, go outside the normal way, through the door. Thank-you. And shut it behind you!" Justin allowed himself to be forced outside, where he waited at the top of the steps, wondering whether or not he could blip himself a coat if the wind got any colder.

"Oh, but baby!" Rhonda squealed on the other end of the line. "I'm not supposed to say! I didn't want to give you those cigarettes! Denny told me to!"

"Denny's in on this, too?!"

"Oops," Rhonda muttered.

"Well, forget Denny for a minute. I just need to know how to get to Seltsam. Is it an avenue? A street?"

"How to get to Seltsam-ee Street!" Rhonda sang, her voice growing farther away.

Just how wasted is she this time? Julia wondered. "Hello! Earth to Rhonda! Put the phone back to your ear, darling. Tell me where Seltsam is and I'll let you get back to... whatever it was you were doing."

"Oh, I've been up to my eyeballs in what I've been doing -- !"

Julia nearly hung up the phone, but decided she had to try one more trick before giving up. She leaned against the counter and tried to make her voice sound threatening. "Tell me where Seltsam is or I'll send you off God knows where!"

There was a sobering silence at the other end. "What?"

"You know what I mean. Zap! You're somewhere else. Only it'll be worse than Tranquil. Worse than Wisconsin!"

"Arkansas?!" Rhonda shouted with disgust.

"What's so bad about -- I mean, yes, Arkansas! Right in the middle of... of Hindsville! In Madison county. A dry county!"

"Oh God, no!" Rhonda wailed.

"Uncle Justin has the clipboard all ready... On the count of three? One, two..."