The Waffle House at the End of the Metaverse

It all began, as things so often do, with genitalia -- the design of which can leave much to be desired, but the function thereof, well... Wait. That's not the point. In essence, there was a black hole, and something got lodged in it, and after a few thousand eons of wriggling it back and forth, Everything exploded.


Or imploded, depending on which side of the black hole you happened to be on at the time.


In other words, Everything was well and truly fucked.


But that is only tangentially germane to our story. For now.


What's important just now is the emerald-green Ford Ranchero -- hurtling through the Transtemporal Matrix at speeds only barely conceived of in the limited capacity of humanoid brains -- and her two occupants: Bonnie Blue and the Polar Phantasm.


"So, you're really Johnny Reb's daughter?" he asked, after a prolonged silence.


Bonnie gave him a sidelong glance.


"Who was y'expectin'? The Tooth Fairy?" She winked. "Technically, I reckon I'm a clone. Genetic duplicate. Whatever."


Cameron Bankston, Jr. stared through the window at the dazzling, dizzying interplay of colored light. Thoughts tumbled through his mind, one after another in a cascade of perplexity.


"But not an exact copy," Bonnie added. "We share certain characteristics -- tastes, preferences, attitudes. There are even some parallels between our respective histories. Beyond that, though, we are very different people. That's why it's easier to say I'm his daughter."


"Ok, I get that. And you're from seven hundred years in the future?"


"In relative terms, yes. Except that future is now my past. An' the past I knew -- all the hist'ry I learned growin' up -- is the present. But it's diff'rent. Some of the broad strokes are the same. Lotta the details ain't. Then again, it's been like that since Johnny Reb became the Timekeeper."


Cam nearly choked on the blunt he'd just lit. Bonnie snatched it from his unresisting fingers and took a long draw of her own.


"Reb did what? How?" The Polar Phantasm shook his head as if to clear it. "Hang on, back up. The last time I saw Johnny, he was... Well, he wasn't himself, you dig? And I remember..."


What? What did he remember? It was hazy, intangible. Something he was supposed to do. Put a team together, for some reason. Bonnie's gaze was locked on him, attention hanging on his next words. What was it he'd been planning to do?


"Ya don't remember it much, do ya?" she asked. "The heist?"


Of course! They had to steal...something. For Reb. An entity calling itself --


"The Dark Timekeeper!" Cam blurted out.


Nodding sagely, Bonnie passed him the blunt.


"In my timeline, the heist happened. You an' your team successfully stole a legendary diamond called the Magic 8-Ball from the Oakland Pimp Museum. It was on loan from Steve Orbit -- part of his personal collection, though he never did press charges. It was intended to power a device that would have, in theory, freed Reb from his imprisonment in the mirror and forced the Dark Timekeeper to relinquish his body...."


"I'm sensing a 'but' coming up."


"The tech was perfect. It would have worked. But someone warned the Dark Timekeeper. And then the heist... un-happened."


Polar considered the implications of what the young woman had said. If she recalled the incident as part of her own history, it only stood to reason that the erasure of the event had spun off a separate timeline.


"That's when you traveled to the past?"


"Almost. I was in the final stages of my trainin', hadn't even learned to operate the Ranchero yet, when that all went down. About a week after that's when the Chronovores attacked...."


A shadow flitted across the girl's face, darkening her features, as she glanced away. She'd found closure, but Bonnie hadn't yet made peace with the wholesale slaughter of her friends and classmates. Firmly, she shut her mind against those thoughts and forced a smile.


"Anyway, long story short, after a lot of fuckups, the Dark Timekeeper was defeated. But Johnny Reb's physical form was damaged beyond repair, an' there was only one way to save him. So the Timekeeper -- the good one -- kinda, I dunno... merged with him," she finished, shrugging.


"Wow. That's pretty weird. What does that have to do with why I can't remember anything before last week?"


"I'm gettin' there. See, here's the thing: that was the end of the Timekeeper Wars. The rest of it ain't entirely played out yet. And when I finally found my way back to the Prime Reality, it was overrun with all manner of darkness. Shadow-wraiths, extraterrestrial demons, an' monsters -- all posin' as regular human bein's." Bonnie beamed with satisfaction. "Didn't take too kindly when I pointed 'em out, neither."


Polar hit the blunt again, digesting this new information. Had she been anyone else, he would have found her claims ludicrous. But Bonnie Blue was truly the daughter of Johnny Reb; had to be -- no one else could have driven the car, aside from himself and Chuy. He'd personally designed and installed the biometric security upgrades after Frank Venable had "borrowed" the Ranchero and nearly caused irrevocable damage to the timeline.


"All right, so what you're telling me is that the dimensional barriers surrounding our Prime Reality had been compromised, right?" he asked at last.


"Pretty much, yeah."


"Then we're talking about cross-dimensional bleedthrough?"


"I'm...not so sure," she replied, hesitant.


"Where are we going, anyway?"


"To see someone who might know more."


They both fell silent, then, wrapped up in private thoughts as they passed the blunt back and forth. It wasn't long before the rainbow maelstrom faded away to deposit the green Ranchero in what appeared to be a quite ordinary parking structure. Bonnie selected a spot next to a small spacecraft; all sleek lines and of a black so deep and intense that light itself fled from it. Polar gazed at the thing until it hurt his eyes, and even then, Bonnie had to pull him away from the ship.


She led him to a series of clear tubes that ran from the concrete floor and disappeared somewhere overhead. With some hesitation, Cam stepped into one, while Bonnie took the one beside him. A slightly unpleasant sensation, like being compressed into a singularity, accompanied a loud whoosh! of air whisked the pair up into the fathomless heights above -- all of which lasted approximately 4.2 nega-seconds. They stepped into an all-out assault on the senses.


The structure was enormous, vaster than the parking lot -- or hangar bay, to be entirely accurate -- and dominated at one end by a transparent wall that afforded a magnificent view of the expanse beyond, where brightly colored nebulae and shimmering galaxies appeared to be converging on a central spot. Five stories up, with ample seating on every level, the restaurant terminated in a translucent ceiling supported by girders. A titanic stainless-steel griddle ran the length of the floor, manned by a number of multi-limbed creatures busily frying, flipping, and plating an array of objects that could tentatively be identified as "food." Drones delivered orders to the tables with unerring inaccuracy. Curving around the open kitchen was a long counter, at which a lone figure sat, drinking from a mug and watching the other diners with detached interest. Somewhere, a jukebox played a Patsy Cline tune.


A cheerful, slightly heavyset woman with pink skin and pointed ears gave the pair an encouraging smile and beckoned them forward.


"Welcome to the Waffle House at the End of the Metaverse! Party of two?" she asked, looking them over shrewdly. "Date night, huh? Couldn't have picked a better place!"


Bonnie and Polar exchanged a glance.


"Uh, no," he replied, trying not to stare. "I'm married."


"Don't worry," said the waitress, winking. "I won't tell. Do you have a reservation?"


"Several," Bonnie quipped. "But we're looking for a friend."


"Aren't we all?"


"A specific friend," Bonnie clarified, and gave the other woman a name.


"Right this way, please!"


And she swept them along in her wake, leading them all the way across the restaurant, to a booth in the corner. There she left them to confront the solitary human form already stretched out across one of the hard, plastic seats. Slowly, he looked up at Bonnie Blue and the Polar Phantasm; a corner of his mouth turned up in a wry smile.


"It really is you," said the young woman. "Everybody thinks you're dead."


"I was," he assured her.


"Um, sorry, out of the loop. Who's this guy?" asked Polar.


For reply, the man rose from his seat, stepping into the light as he stuck out a hand in greeting.


"Jay Omega, at your service."







THE GUARDIANS' GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
Book Two: The Waffle House at the End of the Metaverse
Series conceived by Jay Omega, Bonnie Blue and the Polar Phantasm
Episode written by Bonnie Blue


NEXT: Life, the Universe, and Everything


[(c) United Championship Infinite 2016. All rights reserved.]