by Danny, Captain Sammitch, I'm Not Mister Mxypltk and TheTimeTrust
Danny Hearn wandered into the foyer of the building. He came across the future Mrs. Harrison, their receptionist, Shirley Francis.
"Hey, Shirl... have you seen Sam around this morning?"
"Uh... Actually, I was just coming up to tell you guys..."
"Tell us? Tell us what?"
"Sam... Sam left, really early this morning, before anyone woke up."
"Left? Where'd he go?"
"He said he was going back to study, in Italy, at a university there. He said... he was leaving the team."
"Well... bloody hell." Danny slumped against a wall, leaning there silently.
"Are you okay, Danny?" Shirley finally asked, breaking the silence.
"I think so, just... a bit surprised. This is a strange..."
"Yeah," Shirley said nodding in agreement. "But I guess we couldn't stop him."
"Right. If he really wanted to go, we should support that."
Shirley reached into her desk and pulled out the papers that Sam had given her. "He did give us the deed to the building," she said, smiling.
"Well," Danny said, grinning, "I guess that almost makes up for not saying goodbye."
Rain was falling outside, and the various members of MBL Consulting had either returned to their rooms or left the building, still too shaken to stay where they had been when everything had transpired.
Phil Smith sat in a chair in the middle of the kitchen, which looked like a trailer park after a tornado. Phil pushed broken glass around with one foot absently while staring at nothing in particular. He had never felt this lost or this disconnected before, although there of course wasn't much of a past in his memory to compare it to.
Danny walked in. "A bit early in the morning to be soul-searching, isn't it?"
Phil shrugged. "I... I don't know, Danny. I can do all this weird stuff without even thinking about it. The sandwich, the window, the cereal, you know. And then something like..." He gestured around him. "Something like this happens, and I have no idea what to do. I hid under a table, Danny. The guy wasn't even interested in me and I hid under a table. But you... he was trying to kill you -- or at least that's what it looked like -- and you were totally ready to throw down to save your friends. I'll never be anything if this is how I handle things. I... I don't know what to do."
Danny pulled up a chair. "You don't know what to do, because you don't know who you are."
Phil thought a moment. "Sounds about right."
"We can fix that."
Phil looked at him. "Do you know something I don't?"
Danny chuckled. "Nothin' that can't be chalked up to experience, mate." He looked at Phil. "But even if you can't remember where you're from or what your real name is, you can know who your friends are, and you can make it your purpose to look out for them, and look out for everyone else that matters to you. I don't expect you to come out guns blazing whenever anything bad happens around here, not yet. Because I don't know you. But any living human being can know for themselves just what they're made of at any given time.
"You can't just be a hero outright. You can't just instantly have the right plan, move, or catch phrase for every single moment. That sort of thing only happens in the comics. All you can do in that moment when it's all up to you is decide what you're made of, and what you have to do in that moment. Everything else? Well, there's not much you can do about everything else, anyway."
Phil smiled. "Thanks, Danny." His smile faded. "I dunno. I just feel like..." Phil looked out an imaginary window. "I just feel like something is coming, something big."
"You may be right. I feel it, too. Then again, the both of us just might be wrong. Either way, it isn't here yet, so no worries. And, if it does get here, I'm very confident you'll know what to do."
Danny looked around the wrecked kitchen. "What a mess," he said, letting out a low whistle. "It'll take all day to fix."
"Maybe."
Danny watched curiously as Phil closed his eyes. Nothing happened for a long moment. Suddenly, some of the shards of broken glass and splintered wood began stirring. Without warning, broken bits and pieces of everything imaginable began flying around the room in a maelstrom of debris. Danny ducked for fear of being hit with something that might hurt. Yet glass, wood, ceramic, and Formica still whirled above his head in a perfectly organized flurry of activity. Bits and pieces flew off and stuck to walls and furniture. The whirlwind shrank in size and finally dissipated entirely.
Looking around him in amazement, Danny saw that, from broken chairs to shattered dishes to gouged walls, absolutely everything looked like new. His jaw dropped. Phil opened his eyes and smiled. He hadn't even broken a sweat. "It worked."
Danny simply gaped in silence for a long moment before whistling again, a bit more fervently. He turned to Phil to find that he was already walking off down the hall. Danny just shook his head slowly before turning to leave, shutting the door on his way out. He'd wanted to confront someone all morning, but he had not had an opportunity to do so until now.
A few moments later, Danny was standing outside Kit Piper's office, leaning against the wall. He was looking mighty pissed off, and by an incredible coincidence, he was also feeling mighty pissed off. The synchronicity was almost perfect.
He counted to three silently and knocked on the door. "Kit!" he yelled. There was a brief pause, and Piper answered the door.
"Danny! Just the guy I wanted to see!"
"Liar."
"Well, maybe. But it's always polite to make your guests feel welcome. Come in, take a seat."
Danny did so.
"What can I do for you?" Kit began, sitting down behind his desk.
"What the fuck is the deal with this Priest guy?"
"He seems tough. Could be useful."
"You know what I mean, Kit. He barges in and wrecks our kitchen... while trying to KILL me. Then you're offering him a job?"
"I understand your concerns..."
"Of course you bloody well do. If you didn't, I'd think you were insane, or an arsehole, or both."
"Maybe I am, Danny, maybe I am..."
Danny leaned back in his seat and glared across the desk at Kit. "So where is he now?" Danny asked, quietly.
"Priest? Went out. Said he had to pick up some things, clothes and weapons and the like, I'd imagine."
"Damn it, Piper, stop it!" Danny said, slamming his hand down on the polished wood.
"Stop what?"
"Pretending there's nothing wrong here! Pretending you haven't just done something stupid!"
"Hey, I know what I'm doing!"
"And since when is it your decision, Kit, and your decision alone as to who gets hired? We're a team!"
"You may have a point there, Danny... but listen to me. Just give it a chance. Trust me. One chance."
"I'm not going to put my team at risk," Danny said, standing up.
"You're not their leader."
"You're not our boss."
Kit, for the briefest of moments, glared at Danny. Then he regained his friendly exterior and said, "Trust me!"
Danny walked out.
Somewhere in the eighth dimension, a fifth-dimensional being was imprisoned. He had been there since he walked through the portal to leave the Castle of Crossed Destinies, where he took part in an epic battle between two powerful teams, and, most importantly, between himself and his nemesis.
If his form was conceivable by three-dimensional brains, he would appear badly injured, with his arms tied, his head lowered, and his mouth sealed.
He was confused. He could only guess why he'd been taken there. He knew for sure that, whatever the reason was, he wouldn't like it.
He also knew that he would be there for a long while.
La Perdita:
"Hey... Mick, is it?" Phil said, putting his hand on Mick's shoulder. He removed it immediately, as he felt electricity striking it.
"Did I do that?" Phil asked, looking at his hand as smoke emanated from it.
"No, it was him," Shirley said.
As Mick turned, Phil noticed his eyes were illuminated.
"M-I-C-K is not here right now," M'xy said. "You can leave a message for him if you want!"
"Uh..." Phil began, confused, and then turned to Shirley. "This guy takes his double identity really seriously, doesn't he?"
"Nah, he really isn't Mick. He's M'xy right now," Shirley answered.
"Then who is M'xy?" Phil asked as M'xy, distracted, started disintegrating in the form of bubbles.
"A fifth-dimensional being that uses Mick's body whenever Mick says his name."
"Ah," Phil said. "Hey, that explains why I got a slight headache when I approached him. His mind must be too complex for my powers."
"Mick called him when Priest attacked, and we haven't been able to get rid of him yet."
"Get rid of him?"
"Get him to say Mick's name. You can give it a try, if you want."
"Okay... Hey, M'XY!" Phil yelled.
All the bubbles popped at the same moment, and M'xy appeared in front of Phil.
"PHIL!" M'xy yelled to Phil's face.
"Uh... Say, you like cartoons, don't you?"
"Yes! How did you know?"
"It's a wild guess. Do you happen to remember the name of that Disney cartoon? A black mouse with a red tie and shorts."
"Of course I know his name!"
"Really? What is it?"
"It's M-I-C-K-ey Mouse!"
"Oh... uh, thanks..."
"Heh heh heh... He's learning," Shirley said. "It won't be so easy to fool you this time, will it, M'xy?"
"Nope!" M'xy said. "I'm no fool."
In the eighth dimension, if we could conceive the face of the imprisoned fifth-dimensional being, we'd notice his eyes were filled with light.
Pete "the Chimp" Glover's wake and memorial service the next morning was a small and unassuming affair, just like the man had been in his life.
A few of his partners in MBL Consulting were present, such as Kristofer Schanz, Danny Hearn, Mick Harrison, and Shirley Francis, but most of the newcomers neglected to pay their respects. Pete was a stranger to them and hadn't worked with them enough to really get to know them. Edulcore Cicciotto was the sole exception to this, and he came out of respect for this little man who was ironically labeled the world's luckiest man. And the others who knew him somewhat, if not all that well, such as Tobias Christopher, Lance Lorenzo, and Marv Velo, had been on leave when Pete died and still didn't know the news. And Sam Dawson was nowhere to be found. Of course, Pete was just such a weirdo to most that few saw him as little more than comic relief.
Dr. Henry Quantos said the eulogy for poor Pete, followed by a few brief words from Kit Piper. Then the seven broke open a few bottles of Guinness and drank to Pete's memory. There was no body, but a gravestone for Pete was bought with the money Pete left behind for the team, as stipulated in his will.
The day was a rainy, windy one as the six left the Puerta Mibela cemetery and headed back home to their apartment home. And as Chance turned back to look at Pete's little grave marker one last time, he could've sworn he caught a shadowy glimpse of a little figure walking the other way. He wondered if he would ever see Pete again.
Chance had told the others that Pete was dead and that there was no way to bring him back. Yet, Dr. Quantos had believed the same thing about him, and here Kristofer Schanz was. Not the same Kristofer Schanz, but in a way he had returned from the dead. He wondered idly whether his own ghostly counterpart was now living in the timeline he had come from. And he wondered whether the ghostly Pete of his timeline now possessed a body. If so, that meant that there was still a chance, however remote, that the Pete of this world could still return to life, even if it meant denying his own Pete the chance of being alive again.
This was too big a decision to make in one day, but he knew he had to decide it himself. Pete was his responsibility, and his alone. It would be his own private, secret mission. There was no way he would burden his teammates with the knowledge that Pete might somehow come back to life. But as long as he lived, he would never stop looking for a way to bring him back. It was only fair.
The End