RelicNews Forums - Guy and the Fly

Here is a story that was supposed to be short, but ended up being really long. I drew inspiration from "The Hitchicker's Guide to the Galaxy", and it is long enough to keep you here for a while, so get a blanket, some drinks, and lunch!! (It's not that long, it just is short compared to an ordinary book. It doesn't really seem like sci-fi, but it is, trust me.

Here it goes:

The Guy and the Fly

By Silver Quasar

"Wake up, Alex!" was the first thing Alex heard that morning.
"Wha...? Who are you?" replied Alex as he searched for the source of the deep voice that sounded... like someone advertising on a commercial! He scanned the area. White walls, computer on the opposite corner, dresser on the left from that and between them a window. Nothing seemed out of place.
"Uh... I guess you can figure that out later, but for now I really recommend you get up out of bed and do exactly as I say."
"Where are you?" asked Alex, getting a little freaked out.
"Up here on your ceiling. The little black bug," answered what Alex now found out was a fly. The fly was sitting right on his spherical ceiling light.
"Why should I get up now?" said Alex, closing his eyes again, deciding to play along with this dream.
"I don't know. I was suddenly capable of communicating with humans and just look at me now. Hurry up! I only have two days to live and I was kind of... well, 'programmed' to tell you where to go!" said the fly as he dashed down and buzzed around Alex.
"Okay, lead the way," said Alex. The fly suddenly zipped out of Alex's unusually empty room. By the time Alex got out, the fly was already circling around the living room downstairs.
"Wait up! I don't have that advantage that you do!"
"Oh, so now I'm not as smart as you? You self-centered brown-haired human with funny looking black holes of eyes. You only have two!!"
"I didn't say that-"
"I knew it. You humans always believe yourselves to be the smartest creatures on the planet. The only reason for that is that you have a unique advantage!" Alex could have continued to start an argument, but he knew it wouldn't get him anywhere, so he just followed the fly outside and down the street. It was kind of hard to find the fly, especially due to the fact that he was tiny, and he was zipping around in the bright morning sun!
About ten minutes later, the fly stopped.
"My programming ends here," said the fly. There was an uneasy pause.
"Okay, so now what? I don't even know where I am! It's kind of easy to get lost in a huge city with houses that have the same white paint and same design all over the place! I've only lived here for three weeks! Why did I have to follow you!?"
"Uh... sorry but I didn't know what would- well, maybe we're supposed to wait for someone or something," suggested the fly, which was hovering still in the air. Right at that moment, two people seemed to pop into existence a few meters away. They both looked like monks because of the robes that they were wearing, but one had the hood on so that his face was not visible, while the other didn't.
"Okay, maybe they know something," said Alex, who seemed to forget the fact that they had appeared very... abruptly. As Alex and the fly approached, the monks turned to look at them. The one without the hood began to speak.
"You are Alex, yes?" he said in a voice that sounded similar to the fly's, but not quite.
"Yeah... why?" Alex responded.
"You are the one that must save this planet," said the monk. How original, thought Alex. I'm the only one in the way of some alien invasion, I suppose.
"No, actually more like the destruction of this planet by a terrorist," said the monk. Alex was very surprised.
"You're telepathic? Are you an alien?" asked Alex.
"I am telepathic, but I am not an alien," replied the monk, as the world around Alex began to look very distorted and watery.
Next thing Alex knew, he was in the middle of a ridiculously wide field of grass.
"Well what do you know? We are in large field of grass where cows are grazing and I think I'll go where they are," said the fly.
"You got here too? Is it programmed in you what we are doing here?" asked Alex, who was feeling quite agitated and annoyed. The field of grass had grass that was unusually green. Alex couldn't really figure out what that meant, he just knew that it was too green.
"I do have new programming... it says that we must save the world," said the fly.
"This is either a dream, or a very elaborate hoax," speculated Alex, as he got up and looked in all directions. He couldn't see anything but dense grass and sky. He also realized that the sky was too blue.
"So, where do we go?" buzzed the fly. Alex took a step, and suddenly the entire ground underneath him moved, and did so ridiculously fast. With one step, he was in a very different place! There was still grass and sky, but there were also some mountains in the distance. Suddenly, the fly appeared near him.
"Wow! What was that?" exclaimed the fly. "You just stepped three kilometers away!"
"Yes. I sure did. How? I don't know. Why? I don't know. I would rather wake up now," said Alex with a look of lunacy and sleepiness on his face, which was quite a strange sight. Alex thought he was sure that it was all a dream, as he fell onto the ground, hoping to wake up.
Unfortunately, when he hit the ground, it hurt. The fly started laughing hysterically and started dashing fifteen kilometers in every direction, but finally plopped two meters from Alex, hoping that he wouldn't break out again. Alex just got up, and headed for the cows they had seen earlier. It took a while to get used to covering a few kilometers with every step, but he eventually got used to it. He got to the main point where there was the most traffic between cows dashing at high speeds from here to there, but there were some cows that were just standing still, eating.
"Hey look! There's a hut over there!" said the fly, blasting forward. Alex silently followed. When they got to the house, they peeked inside one of the windows, and they saw people walking normally!
"How do they do it?" questioned Alex.
"I don't know, but I want that food!" replied the fly, who buzzed normally around the house and into a small crack. Alex looked through the window again, and saw the fly land on what looked like cooked chicken. Then he heard a scream.
"It's a fly! I thought they were extinct! Kill it! Kiiiiiiiiil it!" screamed a lady that was just washing a few dishes about two meters from the fly. She started to flail wildly and started doing some sort of crazy dance... or so it seemed! The fly started dashing around frantically and hoped that the three new people that were entering the kitchen would not hit him. There was a boy, a girl, and a man that entered and gaped in astonishment. It was a fly! According to the datanet, flies had been extinct for over five hundred years after WW IV, in which terrible biological weapons had been used after humans had mastered gene splicing and DNA manipulation. Why they were used on flies? No one ever knew!
"What?!?! Flies extinct! Impossible! We are the most versatile creatures in existence!" shouted the fly as he began diving at the people. The fly's talking didn't seem to bother the family as much as his mere existence, so they just kept on trying to whack him into oblivion.
"Just get out of there!" Alex blurted out, realizing too late that he had shouted it out! The entire family slowly turned their heads to look at the window. By that time, Alex had instinctively ducked. Unfortunately, he heard the front door open, and footsteps dragging across the ridiculously green grass. Alex ran to the other side of the house, and then wondered, Why am I running away? It's not like they are gonna try to kill me like they tried to kill the fly! Then he decided to meet whoever was coming out to see who had said that. When he was about to turn the corner, they bonked heads.
"Ow!" said the girl in half surprise and half pain. Alex just kind of backed off, rubbing his forehead.
"Who are you?" asked the messy blonde-haired girl. Her blue eyes were very noticeable. Like most things in this world, they were too blue.
"Greetings! Maiii name-uh iss Ah lecksss. What is eeour name-uh?" asked Alex a little loudly as if the girl didn't know how to speak English.
"Maiii name-uh iss Ahn, dreii aa," said the girl, imitating his method of speech, thinking that maybe he was from an isolated farm and spoke English differently than her family.
"Okay, well now that we know each other, can you tell me where I am?" inquired Alex. The girl looked at him in a strange way. Too strange.
"You are at the Robinson Ranch," replied Andrea.
"What city?"
"What's a city?"
"Never mind... what nation?"
"Plexinorta."
"Oh my... um, what continent?"
"North America"
"Oookay... do you mind telling me what happened to the United States of America?"
"The United States of America? Uh... oh! That nation hasn't been around in one hundred years!"
"You know what? I need a history lesson."
"You sure do."

It had been a week since Alex had gotten to this very different world, but he already knew where and when he was! He had also received a visit from the monk people, who told him that the key to saving the world was in the middle of the ocean... the elusive Hawaiian Islands believed to have been consumed by the sea in some sort of a massive cataclysm. That sounds familiar! Alex had thought, while Andrea seemed very excited about it. All this time, Cy had just been out having fun with the cows.
Alex had also learned that the USA hadn't existed for that long because it had simply renamed itself. After the fourth world war, only a few nations were left lingering on the edge of existence, and the US was one of them. Unfortunately, Canada and Mexico had not made it, so the US colonized the land. It only took about fifty years for the US to reach its peak again, though, and so far, everything was going fine. Plus, there were only five other countries left, each taking up an entire continent, and each one changing its name.
Australia had become Margran, Great Britain had taken Africa and had become Alon, Germany took Europe and was renamed Nerlarland, Japan had taken Asia and was renamed Hugo, and lastly, Brazil and Chile took South America, and renamed it Surtaplex. There were some colonies on Antarctica, but it was still a continent that belonged to everyone for research.
Now that Alex knew when he was, 2938 AD, he had to find out how he was going to stop Harry, which is how the monks referred to the guy that was going to blow up the world because it was too corrupt to exist in a perfect universe. No one knew why Harry thought this way, but they did know that he wanted to blow up the world. The monks had explained to Alex that only he could defeat Harry because he had been born in the exact circumstances and with the correct DNA configuration to be capable of "staring down" a global terrorist like Harry. Alex didn't know what good staring Harry down would do, but the monks had their ways!
Alex had packed a backpack full of clothing, and a small spherical device that the family referred to as an "MSR," or Molecular Structure Recompiler. Apparently, if you pressed one of a few differently colored buttons on the sphere's smooth gray surface, a different item would materialize on the floor underneath it. Finally, the day had come to leave for Hawaii.
"You'll never make it alone. I'm coming with you," said Andrea.
"Don't you have a job around here?" responded Alex, hoping he could find a way to make her stay at home, because he wasn't so sure he wanted a girl along with him... it might cause distractions! The fly actually liked the idea.
"The more biological waste, the better!" he would announce cheerfully whenever the subject came up. Alex and Andrea reacted in disgust, but quickly forgot and continued arguing.
"Well, I'm off. Thanks for the history lesson," said Alex as he abruptly twisted around and shot forward. He had found that he could control the movement of the ground by keeping his mind blank. If you had no definite destination, you could cover more distance. The less you knew where you were going, the more distance you covered. Unfortunately, Alex had a pretty good idea of where he was going, and could only cover about half of a kilometer every step. When he got to the mountains, he looked back at the wooden home which had shrunk to a speck... no, that was the fly approaching him. The home looked more like a grain of dark rice.
"What mountain range is this again?" asked the fly.
"These are the Rockies... by the way, you need a name. I can't just call you fly... it sounds weird. Hey fly, how are you feeling today? Hey fly, you're open!"
"Oh my goodness, you're right! What should I be named?"
"How 'bout Cy?"
"Okay."
"Wha?"
"What?'
"I expected more of a debate."
"Oh."
"Oh?"
"Oh."
"Oh... Okay."
"Yes... and Andrea is right behind you." Alex lost consciousness.

Slap! Alex was wakened by a very rude slap.
"Ah!! Get away from me!" Alex yelled at a shadowy figure that was looming near him.
"It's me! We had to wake you up, we can't carry you up the Rockies!" replied Andrea's voice.
"Actually, I waked you up," said Cy.
"You mean 'woke' me up," replied Alex
"Yeah whatever. Let's get going, according the monk dudes, we have about a week," and so they set off up the mountain at a shocking rate. Luckily, if a cliff was collapsing underneath them, and it happened frequently, they could dash forward and avoid falling. The long distance traveling didn't work when one was falling though, and Cy didn't really fall a lot... unless he was examining cow waste.
"Why did you follow me?" inquired Alex when they had reached the summit of one of the mountains. It was cold, but the swift movements strangely kept them warm. Before, when he had asked how and why the ground moved underneath them when they walked, the family had simply looked at him as if everyone knew that. It was as if someone asked why apples fall off trees, because that's just the way things are!
"Why not? I want to get some credit for saving the world too," she answered. And then they continued passed the icy, Rocky Mountains and into the desert.

"Let's stop here," said the fly, as he stopped and snagged Alex and Andrea in mid-transit.
"Wow, is it just me, or are you too old and too strong for a fly," said Alex.
"Well, it is a world of toos," stated Cy.
"Okay, well, let's eat, it's about lunchtime," said Alex as he took out the MSR. He pressed a button, and a little wad of light poured out of a hole on the bottom of the ball and slowly got fainter as it revealed a checkered cloth with a picnic basket on it.
"Oh! How... nice..." said Andrea, cheeks turning too red. Alex just dove in and dug out a sandwich. Cy absorbed a sandwich, and Andrea took another. The sandwich was made basically of a plump, juicy ham, and a strange fruit that looked like a tomato, except it was purple and it tasted like both a mango and a plum. The sandwich had thin layers of a creamy substance, but this seemed to be the well-known mayonnaise. It was a pretty good lunch despite the fact that underneath the very thin cloth there was a really hot and hard layer of cracked dirt. When they were finished, they continued lunging though the hot desert.
Throughout the unusually easy journey, they never got lost, and it was pretty easy to tell what region of Plexinorta they were in. When they got to the Central Valley of California, they decided to camp for the night. Alex generated a tent, and they were all stuffed in, although Cy didn't take up all that much room, it was just that the tent was too small.
In the morning, they woke up to the sound of birds high in the trees that were hardly even visible at night. Now they could all see that there were huge redwoods with a happy little creek chuckling near by. It was a magnificent sight to see the sunbeams pierce the nearby air with dazzling brilliance.
"What a nice morning," announced Cy in a vacation commercial voice.
"Yep," said Alex as he stretched out in front of the tent.
"Um, I think we should eat before leaving," suggested Andrea. Alex quickly snatched the ball and pressed the food button. This time, a nice table with hot dogs on it appeared. The hot dogs were hot... too hot, so they had to wait for them to cool.
"I'm gonna go take a shower in the creek in the mean time, so don't go over there until I'm done," said Andrea. Alex nodded, and Cy flew into the dirt. As soon as the hot dog had cooled enough, Alex gobbled his up, Cy eradicated his, and Andrea came back up with matted hair, looking refreshed. She sat down to eat, when Alex went down to the creek to bathe as well. Cy eradicated another hot dog and dove into the ground again, this time generating a slight tremor.
"Wow, you really are getting strong!" commented Andrea.
"I guess when I come from, flies could accomplish a lot more, they just lack the days," replied Cy. When Alex got back up, they continued on their trek towards the ocean.

"It's getting cloudy," said Andrea.
"Yeah and chilly too," agreed Alex.
"I don't feel a thing," countered Cy.
"Hey look! There's the ocean!" exclaimed Andrea as they stepped right over the last range of mountains.
"Finally! Oh wait... how are we gonna get across?"
"Uh oh... maybe we can generate a boat!" said Andrea snatching up the MSR and pressing a button.
Nothing happened!
"That can't be good," said Cy.
"No it can't. Well, now how are we gonna save the world? Hehe, that sounded funny," said Alex.
"Arggg... I shouldn't be living this long anyway!!" shouted Cy in despair as he dashed forward and slammed into Alex's legs. His legs flew backward, his upper body was pulled down, and his chin was smothered into the sand as he fell flat, with Cy streaming behind him and crashing into a small rocky cliff. When he hit it, a puff of dust exploded outward, and a crack formed throughout the entire cliff and a slab slid off like an accelerated glacier. The glacier hit the ground with a puff of sand, and fell flat.
"Wow," said Andrea with her mouth hanging open. The aroused sand whirred in the air for a while, but when it cleared a little bit, Andrea went into the cloud to search for Cy. Alex was trying to get up!
"Uh boy. I feel as if I crashed into a mountain at three thousand meters per second!" moaned Cy.
"Well, you kinda did!" replied Andrea. Then and idea struck her! No, that was a coconut.
"Ow!" she yelped.
"Ooooo oooo eeeee heehee oooo ooooo aaaa," screamed a nearby monkey who was dancing the Macarena on a coconut tree that seemed out of place in the middle of a whole lot of redwoods.
"Okay, uh, Alex, there's someone here," said Andrea hesitantly.
"Hi little monkey! Are we doing fine today?" said Alex as he creeped up to the Monkey. The monkey grabbed a coconut and bashed it on Alex's head.
"Oooo oooo eeee... me not little minki! Me big tough Harry agent call King Ong!" shouted the monkey banging his chest.
"Okay... Harry agent... ," Alex creeped up closer and grabbed the monkey.
"OOOOOOO!!!! Okay! Me quit! I harassed always!!! Me save the world instead!" screeched the monkey wildly flailing his arms.

Twenty minutes later, the monkey was on top of Andrea, and she was on top of Alex as they were floating over the ocean. Actually, Cy was carrying them in a living daisy chain.
"Quit squirming!" yelled Andrea at the monkey. That shook Alex.
"Andrea, just leave him alone," Alex replied shakily as another wave just barely missed him due to Cy's excellent flying.
"Ooo!!" said the monkey as some waste popped out of his behind. Cy let go of the chain, dashed at the waste, eradicated it, and caught them again when Alex was an inch from the water. A wave came up and engulfed his leg as he was slowly lifted up.
"Cy!! Why do you do that?!?!?" accused Alex.
"You can't blame a fly for following his instincts!" defended Cy. Alex just decided that a wet leg wasn't much. It wasn't such a big deal after all!
They continued to fly towards Hawaii for another hour or so. Eventually, they could see a huge banner held up between two palm trees that said "WELCOME TO HARRY'S HAWAII!"
"Talk about overprotectiveness of one's secret hideout!" exclaimed Cy.
"Yeah, well, let's land, and slowly, please," pleaded Alex. Cy hovered lower and lower, and when Alex could, he let go, and Cy jerked upward a bit because of the sudden loss of weight. Again he went lower and lower, until Andrea let go, and finally the monkey.
"Ooo ooo... Harry live here... me go back to work with him!" screeched the monkey as he ran out into the water, and slid to the other side of the ocean.
"Okay... well let's look for Harry then," said Alex.
"You know, there could be tons of fly eating animals in this forest!" said Cy as they entered a dark and spooky palm forest with the sound of unknown animals wailing warning calls. Suddenly, a crack appeared on the ground beneath them as the island began to tremble. They tried to escape, but the avalanche of dirt pulled them in, and Cy was pulled in by the vacuum effect created by the massive movements of the ground. Next thing they knew, they were in a long metal tunnel, with a metal roof, metal back wall, and metal sides. Cy whimpered.
"This place looks like a torture tunnel of doom or something," said Cy as they all suddenly realized what this could mean. They looked down the tunnel, and it seemed to be the same continuos hallway of tubes and lights. PANG! A loud noise was heard above them. Slowly, a crack appeared on the top of the roof to reveal a large spiked ball with flame-throwers spewing burning gas on all sides. Before it came down they began running for their lives! Cy tried pushing them along, but that slowed him down and his sense of self-preservation overwhelmed him as he dashed out in front of them. The boulder of doom was closing in on Alex and Andrea, but Cy soon found a deep pit, and got an idea.
"Hurry and run into this pit!" yelled Cy.
"Are you crazy?" yelled Andrea back.
"Well, you can't exactly jump over it," countered Cy. It seemed that they had no choice. They jumped into the pit, and darkness surrounded them as they fell, until the boulder lit up the area to reveal a ridiculously large room with a bottom made of Alligator infested water. The boulder was now closing in from above, but Cy dove underneath it, snatched the two, and maneuvered them around the boulder, and up to the other side of the pit. Andrea kind of just fell over.
"Cy... thanks, " said Alex still a little dizzy from the scare.
"No problem. Let's move on to our next near death experience," said Cy. They dragged Andrea along the tunnel until they got to a dead end. There were four large red buttons. One had an N on it, another had a S, and the other two a W and a E.
"What button do we press?" said Cy.
"I dunno, I guess we'll never know until we try one," said Alex reaching out for the N. He pressed it, and the top part of the wall disappeared.
"Cy, can you get to the other side and open it or something?"
"I'm on it," Cy went up and into the opening. The tunnel started rumbling again, and the entire wall began to tilt towards Alex. Alex quickly jumped back and dragged Andrea with him.
"How'd you do it?" inquired Alex.
"I didn't find any buttons or anything, so I just rammed it down," replied Cy as if ramming metal walls down were something he did every day! Andrea moaned awake, and thought she was dead until Cy's slap convinced her otherwise. They continued down the monotonous scenery of the tunnel, and after a while, a spiked wall that took up the entire tunnel slammed onto the ground behind them, and began moving forward. It was going slow at first, but it got faster and faster and faster!
"Not again!! There's a wall over there! Cy, can you knock it down?" shouted Alex.
"Here I go!" said Cy as he zoomed out in front of Alex and Andrea and slammed into the metal door. It didn't fall! Cy backed up, and tried again. Nothing. Alex and Andrea were running closer and closer to the wall, and finally, Cy knocked it down only to reveal more of the tunnel! Cy went behind Alex and Andrea and boosted them to twice their original speed. The spiked barrier sped up as well, and kept up with them! Then Cy got an inspiration. He slowed Alex and Andrea to a walk.
"What are you doing?!?!" yelled Andrea.
"Testing a theory," said Cy. Andrea and Alex looked at him as if he were crazy! They attempted to resist, but they were unsuccessful. Although, to their surprise, the spikes slowed to their pace as well!
"I guess they are just here to show us though that door," said Cy. Alex and Andrea looked ahead and saw a door. When they got closer they could see that it said, "Welcome to Harry's base of operations." Just then, some of the spikes opened up to reveal small rounds of rockets.
"So that's what they're for!" said Cy.
When they opened the door, they saw a huge dark room full of computer screens. There were circles full of rows of computers hanging from the distant roof, computers jammed into every wall. Each and every one of them said, Welcome to the wonderful world of Harry. In the center, there was a large hologram hovering in midair, with the same message in red letters with yellow outlines "Welcome to Harry's base of operations!" Alex went to the center, and looked down what looked like a well, and in there, he saw who he knew instantly was Harry. He jumped down the well and slowed down as he got nearer to the floor.
"Ah! A new worker?" asked Harry from his throne in a high-pitched voice that belonged to an eight-year-old. Alex just stared at him with what seemed to be an evil eye.
"Okay, uh... can you not look at me that way," said Harry. Alex continued staring. Suddenly, Andrea and the fly zoomed down from the well and fell on top of Alex, knocking him down.
"Are you workers?" asked Harry.
"You guys! I was staring Harry down!" said Alex, very annoyed at them.
"Oh... sorry, we'll help you," they all stared at Harry. The whiteness of the throne room got whiter and whiter, until it seemed not to exist. The entire room was nothing but white, and Harry's wild eyes. Alex finally moved his eyes, and saw that he was in his bed again, with a light ray blasting his eyes out. He got up, and saw a fly buzzing around.
"Cy? Is that you?" he asked.
"Sure is... what happened?"
"It seems that I stared Harry down," Alex replied.
"Well, then you saved the world?"
"Yeah, but now we're back home."
"Oh okay, so now what?" suddenly, Andrea popped into existence a few meters away.
"Wow... what happened?" she said.
"It seems that I stared Harry down," Alex replied.
"Well, then you saved the world?"
"Yeah, but now I'm back home."
"Oh okay, so now what?" suddenly, the monks popped into existence a few meters away.
"Wow... what happened?" said the un-hooded monk.
"It seems that I stared Harry down," Alex replied.
"Well, then you saved the world!"
"Yeah, but now I'm back home! How does that work? If I undid something in the future, and now the timeline is continuing in the past, what's to stop it from happening again?" asked Alex.
"You," replied the monk. "In the future, your past self will still go there and save the world, so don't worry about it. That's why we had to get someone from the past. If we got someone from the future, that person's history might be altered, we wouldn't be able to make contact again, and that person would have never saved the world. You won't be alive then... unless I can bring stuff from the future... but then that might cause a paradox. Any how, that doesn't matter right now," said the monk as the monks disappeared.
"Alex! Wake up!" Alex heard his mom yell.
"Uh oh... what will my mom think if she sees you in my room?" said Alex a bit panicky.
"Uh... a project from school? No..." the footsteps got closer.
"Cy! Close the door quick!" Cy dashed over and slammed the door.
"Alex! How many times have I told you not to slam the door!"
"Andrea... jump out of the window or something!"
"Are you out of your mind?!?!"
"Who was that?" asked Alex's mom.
"Uh... my radio!" said the now enlightened Alex.
"Okay, but hurry up and go to school... and remember, don't ever slam the door again!"
"Roger that," replied Alex. "Andrea, aren't you supposed to be with your family?"
"Um, I don't know, I just kind of popped into this universe. Maybe you can convince your mom that I'm an exchange student or something," replied Andrea.
"Okay, well, we'll give it a shot,"
"How primitive is life now a days?" asked Andrea. The guy and the fly looked at each other...

To Be continued...

This is more like a sequal than a conclusion...

If anyone is reading this, I could use a little feedback... like, any errors, or changes that should be made....

Here it goes:

By none other than Silver Quasar

“Wow!” said Andrea as she entered the school campus. She was very unaccustomed to being around so many people, for she had come from a future where groups of just five people were considered a huge gathering!
“What?” asked Alex, not knowing what Andrea was so amazed about.
“Back home, we would never be able to get this many people around! If we wanted to gather people around like this, we would have to go across the nation!”
“But back home to you it wouldn’t be so hard to cross the nation,” replied Alex.
“On the contrary! It was a small stroll from the plains to the Pacific Ocean, but from the plains to Mexico?”
“Oh yeah, I forgot the Unit… I mean Plexinorta had the entire North American continent,” Alex said. Just then, the bell rang, and Cy the (relatively) old and super-strong fly who had managed to achieve this achievement by going to a fly-friendly future, zoomed into the scene and gave Alex a spy report.
“Hey Andrea. Hi Alex. I saw the stack of transfer student records and I managed to sneak in Andrea’s sheet.”
“Cool, will she be in my classes?” replied Alex.
“It has been arranged,” confirmed Cy.
“All right… get in,” said Alex, motioning for Cy to get into the transparent, bulletproof, 12 cubic inch aquarium where Cy stayed and he posed as Alex’s pet fly. Cy buzzed in and settled down on his favorite dirt chunk. Alex then closed the aquarium and Andrea and him walked through the triple archway to the central hallway that contained all the hallway branches that led to different classrooms. Andrea opened the heavy, blue doors as Alex and Cy entered. Andrea went it after them, and next thing they knew, they were on a large patio deck with a small pasture near it and a pool in the center.
“Well, isn’t this nice,” commented Andrea, slightly scared and slightly amused, waving her head around causing light reflections from her golden hair to flash at Alex. “You guys learn in holographic pool parties? Geez! That is like… not educational compared to the Datanet back home!”
“It’s not really supposed to be this way,” said Alex, turning around towards the doors. He saw some quite postmodern furnishings and decorations in a simple kitchen and living room. Cy destroyed the bulletproof aquarium and decided to give his opinion.
“In my opinion, this is probably some sort of temporal gateway,” said the Fly.
“What? In your school? Where’d all the kids go?” asked Andrea looking straight at him with her too blue eyes.
“In my opinion, they should all be here somewhere,” said the fly.
“But there isn’t anybody here,” replied Alex.
“Well, I don’t think you were really home when you thought you were,” said the fly, in an ominous way.
“Huh? Whadyoumean?” asked Alex.
“Well, I’m gonna have to get a bit scientific, but here it goes. There is a universe for every possible location, time, charge, velocity, and configuration of every atom, group of atoms or entire molecules of atoms. So there is probably a universe were you’re school was a nice home at some time, future, past, or present. And unfortunately, when someone travels through time without a controlled portal, you never know what universe you will end up in, and I am afraid that just by the unimaginably lucky chance, we all got into one of the universes were we all meet in the same universe after a journey through time… although you never know, maybe another me has gone to a past that has me as the king of a huge, space faring empire, and another where you popped into existence in space and died. In the universe that we were in, there happened to be a time portal right in front of your school, which led us into this strange universe that we don’t recognize. But if you tried going back though, you would probably end up in even a different universe. I just learned this, so I was reckless about time travel at first, but I really recommend being more careful. You never know where you’ll end up,”
“You lost me somewhere around there is a universe for every possible location,” said Alex.
“I understood it perfectly,” said Andrea, walking towards the pool.
“I was being sarcastic.”
“Sure you were,” she replied disappearing behind a gate.
“You kids,” said the fly.
“So now what?” said Alex.
“I’m gonna go get famous. Good hunting!” said the fly as he zoomed over the house and out of sight. Alex looked around again, and set off in the direction that Andrea went. He got to the edge of the pool, but couldn’t see Andrea anywhere. He decided that she probably went with Cy, so he went out the gate to find himself in a road. It looked pretty much deserted, except for Cy whizzing around Andrea.
“I thought you were gonna get famous,” said Alex.
“I am, but first I want to help you get home… if you ask me, saving people from a different universe is a good way to get famous,” replied Cy.
“True, very, very true,” concurred Andrea. Alex rolled his eyes in frustration.
“By the way, you might want to work on your frustration!” said Cy.
“How would you know that I’m frustrated?!?!” yelled Alex.
“First of all, you just demonstrated it, and second of all, I have developed a primitive telepathic ability… the ability to detect emotions. After that, I suspect I will be able to read minds,” said Cy.
“You don’t seem so happy about it,” said Andrea, sounding concerned.
“Well, I don’t know what’s in store for me after that. I’m afraid of the future, and believe it or not, you already have limited telepathic abilities as well Andrea. I noticed it in you just two days ago,” replied Cy.
“Wow,” she said with some doubt discernible to Cy.
“Cool! What about me?” asked Alex eagerly.
“Well… you are kind of primitive compared to Andrea. You probably won’t ever get it unless you live two thousand years or so,” said Cy to the saddened Alex.
“Okay, so let’s get down to business. We gotta find a way to get home in a controlled temporal portal or something. The problem is that all these houses seem to be deserted. The first thing we have to do is find anyone,” said Andrea. Then a lemon fell on her head. She yelped in more surprise than pain.
“Where’d the lemon come from?” asked Cy.
“I don’t know,” answered Andrea. Then a plush monkey fell on Alex.
“Where’d the monkey come from?” asked Cy.
“I don’t know,” answered Alex. Then a vaccume fell on Cy.
“Where’d the vaccume come from?” asked Cy, his voice echoing and muffled in the metal of the vaccume.
“I don’t know,” answered Alex and Andrea together. Andrea took a good look at the lemon, and then took a good look at the sky. Then she realized something!
“Hey! There’s no sun!” she yelped.
“Well wadda you know? I guess it’s night!” answered Cy.
“Yeah, but then why is the sky so blue?”
“That’s a good question Alex,” said the fly. “It might be possible that the laws of physics and all that mumbo jumbo might be different in this universe.”
“Wow, well, let’s go somewhere else,” said Alex, just as two monk-looking people popped into existence one meter in front of them. They looked like monks except their robes seemed to be made of golden chain mail. One had his hood on so that his face was not visible, and the other didn’t. They walked right up to Alex, Andrea and Cy.
“Remember us?” said the un-hooded monk.
“I think so… what’s up with the golden chain mail?” asked Alex.
“No time for that now! You must find the rock!” yelled the monk.
“The rock?!?! What kind of rock is this?” asked Alex. Then the monks disappeared.
“Oy, I don’t like those dudes,” said Cy.
“Why not?” asked Andrea.
“They pop up, give us a senseless mission, and go away. That’s why,” said Cy.
“Might as well find this, ‘rock’ they speak of,” said Alex.
“Yeah, might as well,” said Andrea sighing. “You know, you kinda remind me of a brownie.” They set off into the un-wild, un-dangerous unknown…

A trillion years later, the city became a wide pasture with green grass and blue skies. 999,999,999 years, 11 months, three weeks, six days, 23 hours and 59 minutes before that though, there was a dilemma in the hands of Cy, Alex and Andrea. It was smooth, round, and blue. The dilemma said that they kept ending up in the same place! It was like some sort of maze of homes!
“We should probably try mapping it,” said Andrea as they reached their starting point for the fourth time. “And these dilemmas are getting really annoying to carry around!”
“Tell me about it! By the way, mapping is a great idea,” said the floating blue ball that was actually Cy. He gave a fly kiss to Andrea and went into one of the houses. He came out clutching a paper and pencil.
“Okay, let’s go,” said Andrea. Alex and Cy followed her lead, and finally they found something they hadn’t seen. It was a large platform with a glowing green liquid underneath a glass floor. Alex peered over, but didn’t step on the platform.
“This looks like some sort of teleporter!” remarked Cy.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to go through it,” said Alex.
“Me neither,” said Andrea.
“Let’s hold hands and jump in together!” said Cy. Alex and Andrea looked at each other, and then at Cy.
“Uh…”
“Yeah! C’mon! Let’s get through this like a family!” restated Cy.
“But we’re not a family!” said Alex.
“When I say let’s go in, I mean let’s go in!!” a red beam shot out of Cy’s eyes, linked Alex and Andrea’s hands, and they both fell in. Cy followed them. As soon as they touched the surface, they were falling through a tunnel with walls made of the glowing green liquid. They were rushing by water that seemed like it should be falling, and Cy grabbed on to Andrea’s flailing hair. They screamed until they hit sand. Next thing they knew, they were on a sand dune, and there was a deep, scary rumbling sound coming from everywhere.
“Look!” yelled Cy as he motioned towards the horizon. There were what seemed to be millions of black dots rushing at them. After a little while, they looked like chariots, except mechanical horses were pulling them, and the chariots were hovering above the sand. That didn’t keep the sand from blasting upward behind them though! The people riding the chariots were waving swords in the air as they got even nearer. Only then did Alex, Andrea and Cy realize that there was another mass of chariots on their opposite side.
“It’s been great working with you guys!” said Cy, forgetting that he had wings. Alex and Andrea increased their handgrip to a hug, and closed their eyes. The sound disappeared! Next thing they knew, they were on a platform high above the sea. Behind them, there was a city.
“Uhgh!!!” yelled Alex and Andrea, pushing each other away from each other as if they were piles of sewage.
“Nothing like brotherly love,” said Cy, flying off towards the city.
“You know, this is very weird,” said Alex.
“Hey, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that some guy from the fifth dimension is trying to teach us a lesson,” said Cy.
“Yeah, well, good thing that you do know better,” said Alex.
“We are very high above the ocean,” said Andrea, her voice a bit panicky.
“Let me check it out,” replied Cy, zipping down into the abysmal air below. Abysmal air?
“Hey, you guys, I can actually breathe down here!” yelled up Cy.
“Coming!” replied Andrea as she jumped off the platform. It took a while for Alex to gather enough courage to do it, but eventually, he did, and next thing he knew, he was lying down.
“You have a nasty tendency to faint at the wrong times,” said Andrea harshly. Alex realized that he was lying on top of the water!
“Coolness!” he exclaimed, about to dip his head underwater. He hit his head hard on the water, and came back up rubbing his head.
“Hehe, I guess this watery ground is too much for your primitive mind to conceive,” said Andrea.
“I’ll get used to it!” answered Alex, annoyed at Andrea.
“Of course, anyone could’ve guessed that,” she replied, not sounding sarcastic, which made her sound sarcastic. Then a lemon fell on Andrea’s head.
“Ow! Geez! What is up with the lemons?!?!” she yelled, angry at the sky. Alex quickly put his arms over his head.
“He can be taught!” said Cy. Alex started chasing after Cy, when a plush monkey fell on his head.
“Arg! Better watch out Cy,” said Alex. A vaccume fell on Cy.
“Oh poo,” said Cy, as a rock plopped into the water right in the middle of them.
“Do you suppose that was the rock?” asked Andrea.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was,” replied Alex.
“Let’s just get over to that island over there,” said Cy, looking a little greener than usual. They all walked over to the island to think, but when Andrea plopped down onto the sand, she fell right into the sand! Alex and Cy just stood there for a moment.
“That’s not normal,” said Alex, with a twisted face.
“Of course, it could be assumed due to the fact that you don’t fall into water,” replied Cy.
“Yeah, I guess,” then Andrea popped out of the water, looking wet, and spat out a stream of sand.
“The water’s great, c’mon in!” she said.
“No thanks, we’re fine,” said Alex.
“I’m not!” said Cy, zipping up to build up some acceleration when he came down.
“Come on Alex. There are underground… I mean, underwater ground streams, and take a guess where the rock went!” said Andrea. A drop of sand fell from the tip of her nose.
“Uhhhh… I dunno… okay…” said Alex. He crept closer to the island as Andrea smiled and disappeared into the sand again. Alex slid in, and felt around. The sand felt like water… he opened his mouth, and realized that is tasted like water as well. He opened his eyes, and saw that it looked like water, but after about five meters, it looked like sand. He swiveled around and saw a leg waving around five meters below him. It disappeared, and he started following it. For some reason, he didn’t really need air, and swam fast enough to catch up with the leg again. When he got close enough, he grabbed Andrea’s foot, and she twisted around, and screamed. Sand-coated water-balls flew up from her mouth, and then she settled down when she saw that it was only Alex. She motioned for him to follow her, and they got to a cave that led horizontally a little, and then up into a chamber with watery walls. Cy was already zipping around with a rock in his clutch.
“You got the rock!” said Andrea. Then Cy exploded, and the rock fell on the ground. Then the rock exploded, and there was a small piece of paper in its place with charred edges. Andrea screamed, and Alex picked up the paper, wide eyed. The paper said:
If you ever want to see your fly again (smirk) you must bring the lemon, the monkey, and the vaccume to my new evil, top-secret hiding place in the Himalayas. All you need to know is this number: 4860932. That is the way.
P.S. Staring doesn’t count this time.
“Oh no,” said Alex.
“What?” asked Andrea with a quivering voice.
“Don’t worry, Cy’s not dead, that was a robot or something. Cy is being held captive by Harry, I think,”
“Harry, again?!?! I am going to… gnuh!” She stomped off deeper into the cave, making wet squashing noises as she went due to her wet shoes.
Later that day, they were still walking through the terribly humid tunnel, and they saw a fish bobbing in mid air.
“Stop right there,” said the fish in a big, ugly, mean, raspy voice.
“Oh yeah? Well I have this!” said Alex, thrusting out his hand that was clutching a lemon. He squeezed it, and lemon juice squirted all over the place when it popped. The fish was screeching, slapping walls getting Alex and Andrea wet all over again. They carefully walked passed the spasming fish, and kept going.
“How did you know that fish were vulnerable to lemons?” asked Andrea.
“And you said we didn’t learn,” said Alex, a sideways smile on his face. Andrea pushed him into a nearby sand puddle.

Heat tends to diminish as one gets farther from the sky, but in this case, that wasn’t happening. Far in the sand caves, Alex and Andrea were truging along, wondering if the cave had an end. Then they came to a sign that said, “Warning: Endless Tunnel.
“Well la-di-da,” said Andrea.
“Wait a minute… what if Harry wants us to think that this is an endless tunnel so that we wouldn’t go through it?” asked Alex.
“Hmm… good question. I don’t know, but there’s only one way to find out. We go in until we can’t see the sign, and look back. I have a bit of experience with endless tunnels, so I’ll know what to look for when we get to that point,” replied Andrea. Alex just went along with her. They walked about five meters, and looked back. To Alex’s surprise, it looked like they had only gone one meter! Andrea motioned to keep going. The walked and walked until they got to a corner. They went around and looked back. Alex could still see the sign!
“Wow, Cool!” said Alex. Then Andrea disappeared. Alex went over to the sign, and took a bite from the pole. It tasted like fried fish! He thought that was weird.
“Hey, you know what, this pole tastes like fried fish!” Alex exclaimed. Next thing he knew, he was on a fried fish! He trudged through the thick, slimy… well, all he knew was that he wasn’t on the crispity crunchy crust. He took a while to look around, and realized he was on the eye! He ran away towards the tail, and saw Cy eating chunks of the fish.
“There you are! What happened?” Alex shouted out to Cy.
“Well for one thing I can tell you got used to the weirdness of this place… your not going crazy like you always do when something like that happens! Other than that, I just appeared here and though I might have a meal,” replied Cy.
“Oh. Where’s Andrea?”
“Up there,” said Cy as Alex looked up and saw… it was hard to make out at first, but it was silvery, and moving quite fast for such a large object. Then Alex realized that it was Andrea about to stick a fork into the fish! Luckily, she noticed Alex, and picked him up by his shirt. When Alex got about twenty meters from the fish in his perspective, Andrea suddenly shrank, as did the vast chamber he used to be in… it was not a tiny room with not much decoration.
“Wow!” shouted Andrea in surprise. “Where’s Cy?”
“He’s on the fish,” replied Alex.
“Eeew! I was eating that fish all this time!”
“Ehehehe,” mocked Alex. Then Cy bloated to the size of a fly.
“I heard that!” he said. He tripped Alex and Andrea, and shrunk back onto the fish again.
“Hey, it seems like that fish is surrounded by some sort of shrinkification field!” said Andrea.
“Your right! Of course, anyone could have seen that!” said Alex. Then a lemon fell on his head. “I thought lemons were supposed to fall on your head!” Then a plush monkey fell on Andrea.
“Ha! I got the soft, litt’l ol’ monkey!” yelled Andrea victoriously as a tiny vaccume floated down over the fish.
“Look out Cy,” said Alex. The vaccume accelerated, and a tiny clank was audible. Suddenly, a silver dot grew to twice the size of a fly, and said, “Okay, let’s go,” as it tore down a wall.
“Uh… you’re not Cy… are you?”
“Of course I’m Cy!” said Cy.
“What, you think I’m some sort of Alien blob from the city of Trig on the planet of Riploar owned by the United Planets of Wakanabakaba and I want to help you escape from this evil dungeon that is fifteen billion parsecs, five hundred kilometers, and thirteen centimeters from my home?!?! Of course not! So let’s go!” Alex and Andrea followed, wide eyed. On the other side of the corridor they broke into, there were two fly-proof doors with little computer pads on them. Then Alex remembered the code in the note.
“Cy, do you know the code on the paper that was in the place of your blown up machine self? I forgot,” asked Alex.
“You humans and your forgetfulness,” said Cy as he tapped in the code. The door opened, and there was Harry, looking a lot older than last time they had encountered him, looking ready to draw some sort of weapons from two leather holsters on his side.
“So, we meet again, Alex Yahoo… for the last time. Prepare to be obliterated!” yelled Harry in a deep, western-old-guy kind of voice. He drew out one of the gun shaped devices, and tossed in front of Alex. “Five steps, and we draw,” declared Harry. Alex picked up the gun, and stuck it into a belt loop on his pants. He too got into the ready-to-draw position.
“Alex, are you bloby?” said Andrea. Alex turned his head and looked at her funny. “Uh, are you rackety?” Alex leaned his head to one side, confused. “How about, are you nuts?” Alex understood, but ignored the comment, and looked back at Harry.
“Step it,” said Harry as they turned away from each other. One step. Two steps. Three steps. Four steps. Five steps. Alex whiled around and saw a rock between him and Harry. Harry had also noticed it, and began to run. Alex pointed, and shot his gun as a foam pellet smacked Harry in the face. Harry cried out, and fell to the ground. Alex grabbed the rock, and he was back home.
He was in his bed again, and he had the rock in his hand. Cy, who looked like a flying metal ball landed on the roof.
“Well, you have the rock,” said Cy. Andrea fell out of Alex’s closet, a bit dirtied up.
“What happened to you?” asked Alex.
“I went through some sort of temporal dump before getting here,” she replied. Alex nodded as the monks appeared.
“Thank you for retrieving the rock,” the un-hooded monk said as he took it and disappeared.
“Arg! Those monks and their ideas. They should be more considerate of other people! And this time they didn’t even tell us what in the cosmos the rock was for!” said Cy in despair.
“Yeah well that’s life,” said Andrea. “It’s for the greater good.”
“That shows how much you know,” said Alex. Andrea started chasing him, and without thinking, Alex bolted out of his room, down the stairs, and smacked into his mother. Andrea smacked into him.
“Alex, who’s your friend?” Alex’s mom said in that mom-ish sort of voice.
“Uh… well, it might be a little hard to accept, but let’s start with the basics,” said Alex. His mother was nodding her head skeptically. “Her name is Andrea…”

To be continued??