Greegs & Ladders, Zack Mitchell, Danny Mendlow [read with me .TXT] 📗

ship, but it was also the most important. Assigning such an essential job to Rip was a more insane act than anything Rip himself had done, including the time he bolted all the furniture to the roof in an attempt to flip the universe upside down.

Dwellers of Earth may be interested to know that almost every single boat or airplane that has vanished while in the area known as ‘The Bermuda Triangle” has in fact been the victim of Abducted-Ship Mazing. Any other reported vanishing from that area is merely a sinking caused by drunken pilots. The Wranglers & Wobblers enjoy seeking out species that haven’t invented vehicles qualified to operate in a space-maze, and in an act of mockery transport whatever primitive vehicles they do happen to have into the maze anyway. Spectators love seeing an earthbound vessel appear midair in space, only for the vessel to immediately spin out of control and crash. If you wasted your money and are wearing x-ray glasses, the explosions and the writhing of the victims will be made much more exciting through automatic digital-enhancement. The floors of all the maze corridors are lined with the ancient wreckage of missing WWII bomber-submarines and tourist filled float-planes. Back on earth (in a moment of far too common irony) it is considered ridiculous and ruinous to your reputation to go around saying that aliens are the cause of the Bermuda disappearances, whereas the respected individuals who receive government grants and media coverage are the truly ridiculous lot, being the ones to have foolishly named it “The Bermuda Triangle”, when in fact it is blatantly rectangular in shape.

“Hey!” yelled Wilx. “Do you see that up ahead?”

“See what?” asked Krimshaw.

“Those two ships in front of us.”

“What about them? Fire a couple bombs at them and get them out of the way.”

Krimshaw’s idea to blow up the unknown ships did not shock anyone. Competition between fellow ships is a frequent part of life inside the maze. Long ago a rumour had been spread that if you destroyed a ship you would later be granted a clue about the Maze exit. The rumour is completely false. Help is never given to a Maze-goer. Being that ship battles are among the most exciting things to happen inside a Maze, the Trilateral Commission on Hearings of Importance were perfectly happy when the rumour permanently stuck around. After all, they were the ones who started the rumour and continually worked to maintain its upkeep.

“Don’t fire any bombs!”

“Why not?” asked Krimshaw. “You know the rules. Anyone who destroys another ship will later be granted a clue. Just think about when all our clues finally arrive... we’ll have no problem finding the exit.”

“There’s no clues.”

“You don’t know that. Fire the bombs!”

“Look,” said Wilx, “those two ships are Obotrons!”

Krimshaw looked out the window and saw he was right.

“How did they get ahead of us? I thought all the fleet ships were programmed never to go faster than Obotron 1?”

“That’s correct,” said Wilx. “Those two Obotrons were already in the maze without us.”

Krimshaw took a moment to add everything up. “You mean those are the two ships that never made the hyper-spacial jump into the Kroonum system?”

“Yes. Two of the slower ships in convoy. They must have fallen behind during hyperspace, allowing them to be picked off by the net-wave of the Wranglers. Nobody seemed to notice, probably because the slower Obotrons have always been considered highly expendable. Then the Wranglers caught up with the rest of us after we left Lincra.”

“How have they survived all this time without us?” asked Krimshaw. “I thought you said without our guidance system the rest of the ships would be destroyed by the nearest object of dangerous proportions.”

“Normally, yes. These two ships are lucky. It looks like their system went into shock upon the sudden disconnection with the guidance program of Obotron 1. The ships were somehow locked in place the minute they appeared inside the Maze. I don’t think they’ve moved an inch the entire time they’ve been here.”

“Good thing they got stuck in an empty corridor,” said Krimshaw aptly.

‘Keep Moving’ is probably the best survival motto one can have regarding a Maze. ‘Never, Ever Remain Motionless For Longer than 3 seconds’ would be a more helpful elaboration on the previous vital piece of knowledge. To stop your ship in the maze is to assuredly be chomped by a monstrous minotaur or gravitate into a solar whirlpool.

Obotron 1 accessed the rusty databases of the missing ships and re-programmed them to follow along with the fleet. Soon enough the number of Obotrons was increased from 13 to 15. It wasn’t a proper fleet, but it was still a belligerently high-priced set of technological waste. Wilx was delighted at having found the missing ships.

“I feel as if we’ve already passed that wormhole,” said Krimshaw.

“Check the list. We’re on corridor 193P.”

Krimshaw consulted the list. Corridor 193P was not there, despite this being the 12th time the fleet had passed this particular wormhole.

“It’s not on the list. I guess I’m hallucinating.”

“Good chance.”

Suddenly a broadcast appeared on the telescreen. It was showing a large group of Obotron crew members facing the camera.

Wilx was startled by the appearance of the image, especially considering it now blocked his view of the Maze corridor.

“Who are you?” asked Wilx.

“We are the crew members of the two Obotron ships that have until recently been missing,” replied Ralph, one of the nighttime janitors who suddenly took it upon himself to be spokesman for the group. It was not known whether Ralph had been voted into leadership, made himself leader because he genuinely felt he deserved the job, or fell into the gig by chance having been conveniently standing both nearest the microphone and best framed in the foreground of the camera.

“We’re busy,” said Wilx.

Ralph felt the pressure to skip to the point. “We just wanted to express our sincere and heartfelt thanks for the recent rescue of our two vessels, as well to send our regretful apologies that we were ever lost in the first place. We dread to think what would happen to us without the guidance system of Obotron 1. We look forward to sustaining a lifelong career out of following you around on your adventures. We would also like to say---“

Wilx cut off the broadcast. “That’s enough.”

“About the wormholes in the Maze,” said Krimshaw, “aren’t they time-travelling wormholes?”

“Of course they are,” replied Wilx. “Have you ever known a wormhole not to be a time-traveller? Fly into one of those and you’ll be transported to any random time in the past or the future.”

“So isn’t that our way out?”

“What?”

“This maze tours around the galaxy. It’s constantly moving. So if we fly into one of those wormholes we’ll reappear outside the maze no matter what, because during any other time it won’t be here.”

Wilx thought this over for a minute. It seemed like a foolish plan, but they had nothing else.

“It’s a brilliant plan!” he said.

It actually was a brilliant plan. Flying into a time-travelling wormhole is the only way to escape the Maze. Even the official outer exit is not at all a means of escape. As mentioned before, the official exit is also the sitting perch for the Council of Eleven and a Half Thousand Different Coloured Robes. Anyone who finds the exit is put under trial by the Robes to decide if they are truly worthy of leaving the Maze. No one is ever deemed worthy. The ships are placed back at the starting point instead of being set free like the usual logical rules of finding the exit of a Maze.

“Time-travel is frightening. Everyone prepare yourself,” said Wilx as he set the guidance system for the nearest wormhole. He then roped himself down with unbreakable Tjurdian Rope.

“Hey, where’s our magically unbreakable rope?” asked Krimshaw.

“There isn’t any more. You’ll have to prepare yourself for the horrid act of time-travel in some other less logical way.”

Krimshaw prepared himself by gnashing his teeth, even breaking some of them. Rip didn’t move at all. The fleet of Obotrons flew directly into the center of a time-travelling wormhole. When they re-emerged on the other side of the obligatory mind-bending psychedelic light-show, the Maze and all of its war-faring spectators were nowhere to be seen.

“It worked! We’re free!”

“But where did we travel to?” asked Krimshaw. “Or when?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Wilx. “So far all I know is that two of the Obotron ships are no longer with us. They’re either still inside the maze or they’re forever trapped in the purgatory of the wormhole. One thing is certain, we’ll probably never mention or think of them again.”

TIME WARP

of Things that are neither the Beginning

nor the Middle, nor the End… Sort of

 

CHAPTER 23

Emerging from a Wormhole with an Empty Stomach

 

The thing about hurtling through time is that there are far too many things about hurtling through time to even begin attempting to convey to you in a manner that won’t take up several human lifetimes. So I’m just going to try and keep you up to speed on the more important things pertinent to our journey and hope you don’t get too lost. You will almost certainly get too lost. Don’t worry, this is your fault, not mine nor the fabric of space and time’s. But try your best to keep up will you?

The first thing that happens when you emerge from a time travelling wormhole, no matter who or what you are, is that you start evacuating whatever body you happen to have in a rather disgusting manner. It is inevitable that after you have done so, for a ridiculous amount of time, you will pretend as if you have not done so, and go about some sort of mediocre task avoiding eye contact with your fellow time travellers. This is not difficult, as thanks to the obligatory mind-bending psychedelic light-show you’ve all just experienced, your eyeballs will be twirling about like a pinwheel or one of those lollypops you get at Disneyland. Then (always at the exact same time as your fellow travellers) the guilt, shame and sloppiness is finally outweighed by the tremendous need to eat. When you have no food, the need to eat is a dangerous need indeed. This is discussed in detail in Horaticus Neil Travensenzels classic Cannibalizing Your Crew After Emerging From a Time Portal: How to End Up Eating Dinner Rather than Becoming It. Unfortunately all of the members of Obotron 1 had indeed read this book several times by now, and had stealthily thwarted the other two’s relentless attempts to eat them. When alas it was realized the stalemate would not be broken, and treaties began to be drawn up rationing out each