This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, The Man With Three First Names.
A resounding scream came from the air.
The night sky erupted with light and static as two forms descended from the moonlit night through a cacophony of sound that shook the trees and caused three carloads of teenagers at various and sundry lover’s lanes to puke, and run from their cars in wobbly heaps. The two of them seemed a bit distressed, but was it something in the air? Was it just the fact that they were falling from an impossible height? Or was it the subtle laughter as they hit the earth and drove a hole in the soft ground as they did so?
There was silence.
Then there was laughter.
More silence.
Then there was easy giggling that comes from a couple who have been on the road together just a little too long.
Fred and Moxie pushed their way up to the top of the hole and looked around. They had made a considerable mess this time. They wore jeans, sneakers, and sweatshirts, and were wearing backpacks filled with everything they could think of. Everything seemed to be hanging from them including flashlights, several kinds, tennis rackets, pool cues, water guns. There was no end to it. They wouldn’t carry anything lethal unless it was explosives, but other than that, it was pretty much useful junk they just thought would be fun to carry.
On their wrists, they wore space-time-traveling locaters, not the most smooth form of travel. They enjoyed them just the same.
On their heads were ball caps. Fred’s had a pair of goggles pushed upon it, which he pulled down and put on, and Moxie’s had a pair of sunglasses perched on it, which she pulled down and put on.
She smiled and looked around.
“Where the hell are we?” she said.
“I don’t know, but I have a funny feeling that it’s…”
He checked his wristband.
“Yep,” he said, “it’s Earth all the time.”
“What is it with Earth? We’re always coming back to Earth again.”
“I don’t know, I think it’s the polarity or something, keeps zinging us back here.”
“Fred, how long has it been since we traveled anywhere else?”
He thought about this for a moment and allowed the thought to gel there in his mind.
“What, like a year or so?”
“That’s about right.”
“We have got to get off this planet.”
“Agreed, but first food! Hey Moxie!”
She scowled at him.
“What?”
“They’ve got the best burgers here, I can smell them.”
She walked to the edge of the trees.
“I guess I better clean up then.” He pointed his wristband at the ground before them. He hit a button, and the ground zipped itself back together as if nothing had happened.
“Hey, wait! Where are you going?” he said.
Fred trotted to keep up with her.
“Over here, I think,” she said. “I think there’s a burger joint over here.”
“What, have we been here before?”
“Yeah, it looks like it.”
Her wristband made a bleep.
“What was that?”
“I don’t know, I think these things are running low or something.”
“You know full well they get power from our bloodstreams. There’s no battery to lose.”
He shook his and looked down at it again. “There is a disturbance.”
“Shut up. It’s just us, crash landing as usual.”
“No, Moxie, it’s something more.”
“Food!”
She took him by the sleeve, pulled him toward the street. Cars were now going up and down next to them. Across the street, a twenty-four-hour burger house.
“Come on, burger house.”
He shook his head.
He held her hand. With a touch of their wristbands, they disappeared from one side of the highway and appeared on the other. They trotted up towards it.
He looked up at the place.
“You know, I think we have been here before.”
“See what I told you? Now get inside, you’re buying this time.”
They pushed their way into the little burger house. Tiled in black and purple, it consisted of a long counter of barstools. Around the outside edge were a series of booths. A jukebox and a cocktail table Ms. Pac-Man stood by the front window, which was open to the street and the parking lot.
There was a cook behind the counter, already at work on a griddle full of hamburgers, and a toasted sub sandwich, and there was a waitress. She bustled up to Fred and Moxie as they sat down at the lower end of the bar where it swept around the corner. Her little name tag said Jen on it. They swiveled in their chairs and watched the cars go by outside. Moxie was already fishing for change. They had lots of Earth cash on them, deep in the packs. She wanted to fill up the jukebox.
“What’ll it be?” asked Jen. She was already working up the bill on a little blue pad.
They ordered sodas and burgers, Moxie went for the fries, but Fred just opted for a second burger instead. “Hey Walter, I got three belly busters and an order of potatoes, cooked ’till they’re dead.” He acknowledged the order with a wave of his hand and went on about his business like he had two extra arms, which he didn’t.
“I haven’t seen you two in here for like six months,” said Jen.
“Has it been that long?” asked Moxie while Fred was asking “Have we ever been here?”
Jen looked at them both and also ignored them at the same time. She remembered them just fine. She wondered how long it would take them to remember. It had been just a couple of days in Fred and Moxie’s personal time.
Fred couldn’t remember this from the last three burger joints they had gone to, but Moxie did. She remembered it because of the bathroom. She remembered the way that the toilet in the ladies’ room creaked when you sat on it, and the stink bug she saw run across the mirror.
Moxie winced at the memory but brightened when she remembered that the food was pretty good. She could say that it was something that not only could you write home about, but she had opened her computer and done so.
She wrote her mother a letter each Monday, in her own personal timeline that would reach her mother in hers. It was more of a space mail, and sometimes she included a video of her and Fred in various places around the galaxy, but that didn’t matter. Her mother rarely returned the letters, though she did read them. She sometimes responded with single-word messages like “Cool,” and “Keen.” “Wow” was one of her favorites, as was “Fun.” Sometimes she just responded with “Hmm.” When Moxie was being rather wordy about Fred, her mother would fail to respond at all. It was better than getting a response like “Crap, Boring,” or Moxie’s favorite, “Fuck.” Her mother didn’t like Fred so much, which was a shame. Moxie rather loved him, even if she had no idea what the hell she was doing with him. He was rather helpless at times.
He was currently trying to feed a quarter into the Ms. Pac-Man machine, with a crow-bar.
“No silly…”
He looked up because, with that tone, he knew she was both talking about and to him.
She took the quarter from him and dropped it in the slot. The machine made a satisfying plunk noise. He nodded thanks, and hit the button for a single player, he could make it from here.
A few moments later Jen was calling them, their food was up. She brought it to the bar and dropped it down in front of them, first Moxie’s with a deafening crash. Now that was wrong. It sounded like a whole ton of dishes breaking in the back there. She set Fred’s down, and he jumped as he heard the sound of a car crash outside.
They looked up at Jen.
She shook her head and shrugged it off. She’d seen weirder in her time. Much weirder.
She turned and went on about her business, taking care of the couple of other customers she had tonight. Walter cleaned the griddle, pouring mounds of kosher salt on it, and scrubbing it around to pick up as much grease as possible
After a few minutes of nothing but the sound of soft chewing from around the room, Jen filled everyone’s sodas and coffees and she and Walter sat down to a quick meal themselves.
Outside, the sky began to cloud up. The moon disappeared behind storm clouds, and a fog rolled in. Not much of a fog, just a misty one that was good for getting behind your eyes.
Fred saw it and made a mental note not to try a jump in this, it tended to make it a little messier at the other end.
Moxie was deep in her tunes, she had the jukebox going. There was a little rock, a little country with the change of scene. Enveloped in the smell of her french fries, she jumped and fell from her stool as one of the cars in the parking lot was grabbed by a huge half-mechanical tentacle and then thrown into the sky. A moment later a resounding thud rocked the ground along with the sound of tinkling glass.
Walter picked up the phone and dialed it like he was calling his mother. The phone rang a couple of times, and you could hear a customer rep answer on the other line.
“Yes, said Walter, I believe I’d like to remove a car from my insurance policy… Yes, I have the Vehicle Identification Number for the Car… Nope… I just decided to get rid of it, you know how it is…” He read the number off and waited a moment. “Thank you,” he said and hung up.
Moxie got back to her feet. She and Fred watched the landscape outside of them twist and stretch as shadowy creatures with strong limbs continued to lumber across the parking lot. They kicked cars, and smashed windows, but stayed away from the diner.
Walter shrugged his shoulders. “What could I tell the insurance? Destroyed by an alien monster?” Everyone agreed and went back to their burgers. You’d think they’d all be screaming and running in every direction, but the burgers really were that darn tasty.
“I love this place,” said Moxie.
“Yeah, the jalapeños are particularly good,” said Fred.
Moxie and Fred looked at their wristbands and tried to make sense of what they were reading there. “It was definitely dimensional in nature, but how?”
“Have we ever seen anything like this?” asked Fred.
Moxie shook her head. She was reading intently.
In the distance, she could see people trying to get in their cars from the other stores and businesses in the little strip mall with them. Once in their cars, people were either drawn up into the ant-eater-like nose of a great beast floating above the clouds or if they were unlucky, they were torn apart by small strike teams of monkey-headed warrior wasps that were patrolling the perimeter.
There was no need to panic, everything was just about as ridiculous as possible already.
Fred waved to Jen. “Could I have a refill?”
“Sure hon, no problem.” The aging waitress brought the refill and set it down in front of him. She marked it on her bill pad as she ignored the scene around her. The steaming pile of cars in the parking lot of the ice cream shop next door didn’t seem to phase her a bit. She just marked it down and went on about her way. She dropped her pen behind her ear, and adjusted her visor a little bit, fiddling with her name tag a little.
Fred just looked at her, away, then back at her.
Something fresh came on the jukebox.
He waved and snapped in front of her face, and looked around.
“Yep.”
“What?” said Fred.
“I can see them out there.”
“You can?”
“Of course.”
“Aren’t you scared?”
“You seem to be.”
“Well, of course, have you ever seen anything like it?”
“Dear, when you’ve seen as much as I have in this business, there ain’t nothing that could scare me.”
She winked at him and toddled off to check what was left of the rest of her other customers.
“Moxie, did you hear that?”
“Yeah, have you been watching?”
“I, well… no?”
“Look.”
He turned around and there was a flash across the sky as if for just a moment and a half a second moon appeared to be there.
“What the hell!”
“I know, right? Look at it.”
He cupped his hands to the glass of the window and looked out at the second moon.
“We are definitely talking multi-dimensional here,” she said.
“No shit,” he said. Then he sat down with a thud, and began to check his wristband. “Do you know which one?”
“How should I know, there are thousands of them, you know that.”
“Yeah, I know, but you know.”
“Yeah.” She looked out, and in a brief flash, the moon was again alone in the sky.
“It hasn’t finished yet.”
“Yeah, it still looks pretty unstable.”
“How long do you think we have?”
“I don’t know, I think it might have just started.”
“You think it was an accident?”
“Has to be.”
“Does it?”
“I don’t know.”
“It looks like it’s getting lighter out there.”
“Yeah, some of it’s gone with the moon, like it’s still pulsating in and out. Another pulse and it could all be over.”
“Hell, one more pulse, and we’re just as likely to be in the hot tub with your step-mother.”
Fred closed his eyes, it was a vision he did not need. He tried to un-see it with his mind and failed. He gave her a dirty look.
She laughed at him.
Somewhere in the distance a helicopter flew over the local mall and was sucked into another dimension. The crew was all eaten for dinner at a grand wedding banquet. The helicopter itself was given to the bride’s nephew Kenny as a present for being so good during the rehearsal dinner.
The only evidence that it happened at all was the thump of the rotors on Fred’s wristband, and the lack of them on Moxie’s just a moment or two later.
“What was that?”
“Food’s up!” called Jen from behind them.
In a single insane moment, they forgot about their worries and decided to trust in a good hamburger instead.
Moxie looked at hers, slice after slice of cheese with fries. Fred had two burgers, spicy and hot. They stood there and allowed the smells to waft up through their noses like it was the most cherished thing in the world.
There is little in this galaxy that can please better than a good hamburger, no matter what the cost, the kind of beef, where the lettuce came from or even what color it is. Also, beyond the simple, well-cooked hamburger, there is nothing better in the galaxy than one cooked for you by someone else.
They lifted them to their mouths, each took a bite and settled in. They allowed the creatures who were still kicking and lumbering around the parking lot behind them to linger in the backs of their minds for a few moments. They were no longer exactly concerned anymore with the day’s events. This was a safe haven and one that tasted good.
While they were eating, one of the creatures, something at least seventy feet tall with great huge silent pads for feet, strolled up to the burger joint and lowered its fantastic head into view. It looked at them with eyes the size of truck tires.
“I think this is the best hamburger I’ve ever…” said Fred.
“Shut up,” said Moxie. She took another bite and persisted in ignoring him until there was nothing left.
Behind them the creatures snacked on cars, played kick the can with a Mustang convertible, and made a mess of most of the signposts that they could find, snagging them and chewing them like great huge metal flowers.
Fred let out a monumental belch. “Can we look yet?”
“No.” She was still nibbling.
She took the last bite of the last french fry and then turned to him. “Now,” she said.
They turned around and looked out at the landscape around them.
The parking lot was gone.
“Don’t suppose you’ve checked your wristband again?”
She nodded.
“We can’t jump now.”
“Don’t know where we’ll end up right?”
“Yep.”
They turned, it was Jen. She was sitting on a stool behind the counter flipping her hair with a third hand and arm that she then quickly put away.
“You’re a—”
“Alien, yep.”
“But you’re—”
“Living on Earth as a waitress, yeah, I know.”
“Why?”
“Partly to avoid shit like this.” She pointed out the window. “Not much used to happen on Earth. It’s a helluva place to live lately though.”
“Do you have a way out of here?”
“Personally? Nah, I junked my ship years ago.”
She poured herself a cup of coffee. She poured cups for Fred and Moxie as well.
“I think I stay for coffee these days.”
“Right. The coffee.”
“You have no idea, traveler. The coffee on the Earth is the best coffee this side of the galaxy.”
“We keep hitting the earth, you know.”
“Yeah, and I’ve seen you in here before anyway. Are you both from Earth to begin with?”
She took a sip of coffee.
“Yeah, well Moxie is half-human,” said Fred.
“Shut up.”
Fred smiled at her, he loved her just the same.
“I don’t like to talk about that,” she said.
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right dear.” Jen stroked Moxie’s cheek. “That’ll pass. There’s a station near the edge of Town, several that have been messing around lately. I figured it wouldn’t be long until someone hit the nerve, and opened a portal up. Looks like they don’t know how to close it this time.”
“May not,” it was Walter.
He strode in and sat down on the counter to look out at the parking lot. “All this will be normal again. Probably in the morning or something. That’s the fun of dimensional rifts they usually snap back sooner or later.”
“You too?”
Moxie and Fred turned to look at him.
“Yeah, Jen and Me, we were travelers too once.”
He shook his head.
Moxie went to the window. “Why can’t they get in?”
“What? In here?”
“Yeah.”
He smiled. “Because of the force field, honey.”
Her eyes bugged.
“What did you think? We wouldn’t protect the place. You watch. This is the most fortified burger joint in the western hemisphere.”
“There are others?” said Fred.
Walter addressed Moxie. “Is he a little dumb dear?”
“No, just a bumbling idiot in the face of trouble.”
“Ah,” Walter nodded, “one of those.”
“Hey!” But it was too late, they were all laughing at him.
There was a pulse.
You couldn’t hear it, not like anything else on Earth. It was a ripple in time and space, centered on the station, and right on the portal, still buzzing away next to Simon, the janitor, and Michael.
“What’s your name?” asked Simon, still groggy from the blast, and not at all sure of what or who he even was anymore.
Michael brushed himself off and helped Simon Up.
“My name is Michael David Christopher. Some call me the man with three first names.”
“I like it. It’s got a ring to it.”
“You think?”
“No.”
The pulse exploded from the gate in a silent wave and knocked them both over.
They pushed their way up and looked around. Nothing seemed to have changed except that the night and the monsters seemed to have vanished. Suddenly, daylight was upon them.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Come on, it won’t be long before another pulse sends them all coming our way again. We have to figure out how to close this sucker without harming as many people as possible.”
At the little burger joint, they watched as the pulse went out across the land. Buildings returned to some semblance of normal, while at the same time, cars reappeared, or were replaced with mopeds for the few and unfortunate.
The sun seemed to appear on the horizon as though it were a fresh day.
“Fun,” said Fred.
“I call it the yo-yo effect,” said Jen.
“The what?” said Moxie.
“The yo-yo effect. It’s like a rubber band, stretching and popping as the dimensions expand and contract. You never know what could be next. Could be dinosaurs, could be vampires.”
“Could be giant flowers or bunny rabbits too?” said Moxie.
“True,” said Jen. “but much less fun.”
“It could also be something boring like a great dessert or a starry plain with dragons in the sky.”
Moxie and Fred were fascinated.
“Strange, right?” said Walter, “It could be hell next, at least a fire world, I’ve seen that before.”
“You want to know the fun bit?” said Jen.
“What’s the fun bit?” asked Fred.
“The fun bit is unless you are in a force field like this, or at the epicenter, somewhere like that when it starts, you won’t even notice until it’s all over if you ever do at all.”
“Why is that?”
“Because it’s not them that’s in trouble really. It’s us. We’re the ones moving from one parallel universe to the other as the pulses go, call it a dimensional quake ripple or something.”
“How long do you think it’ll last?” asked Fred.
“I’ve seen one that lasted a year, most are a day or two. It depends on who started it, and what they are doing about it if they are still alive.”
“You think it was an accident?”
“I don’t know. Most likely.”
“This happens all the time in nature, it’s just not that often that we realize it.”
“And those people aren’t getting killed out there?”
“Yeah well, in their own dimensions they are. We just keep slipping around looking at the different versions of dimensions, and what’s going on in them.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” said Fred.
Jen caught Moxie’s eye. “He’s slow on the uptake.”
“But I love him anyway.”
Moxie beamed despite herself.
Fred watched out the window at the normal world out there standing as it was when they first arrived, except for the fact that it was dawn instead of dusk.
“Is the time differential normal?”
“If that’s the least of the permanent changes that’ll be a blessing,” said Walter. “Sometimes one or two of the creatures gets left behind after we swap.”
“Sometimes a building or something goes missing, leaving a patch of forest or something behind.”
“Funky,” said Fred.
Moxie looked out in the parking lot. “What’s that?”
She was out the door before Fred, who did have it together despite their having fun at his expense, could catch her. He flew out of the door behind her. “Hey, come back!”
“I’ll just be a minute.”
She left the confines of the force-fielded burger joint and headed out to one of the cars in the parking lot that was now some kind of a short-backed hairy beast about the size of a hippo. It was a cross between a sheep and a bison with purple fur. The creature wheezed and moaned at them with as much compassion as you can show with a single eye.
“Can we keep it?”
“Moxie!”