"And now, to welcome a new, sprightly season of symphony and sound, please enjoy a performance by our new soloist… Miss Summer Smith."
As her black patent heels hit center stage and the bow touched strings, Mr. Smith couldn't have been more proud. Summer stood, and Jerry watched his daughter own that violin; he was counting the seconds to when she would also own the stage, the orchestra behind her, the audience, with a magical combination of diligence, skillful fingers, and sound…
…a sound that screeched, a sound that roared; a creaky, string-tearing sound that tore Jerry's dreams and eardrums apart and sent him and the audience running. Summer owned the stage, no one would go near her and her deadly weapon of audible assault, she held the orchestra's glares of contempt and disgust. She had the audience, too, under her power; the horrible violin playing made them scatter as far as their legs and instantly-called Ubers could take them.
Jerry stood alone. When that bow touched those strings, Mr. Smith couldn't even balance on his own two feet. He collapsed, fell to his knees—
And tumbled off the bed.
Groggily, the no-longer-dreaming, doting dad yowled out: "SUMMER! Do you need to practice now?!"
Another cacophony seized Jerry's already-damaged ears: father-in-law Rick's voice came through the hall. Sliding a pair of earmuffs off his head, the owner of these scratchy vocals smirked.
"Jerry, your daughter has few precious minutes before cramming her breakfast down her throat and hauling ass to school where her artistic prowess can only be hindered. So, in the meantime, the hills are alive with the sound of praying for music."
Jerry's face hit the pillow, groaning in the key of C minor.
"Excuse me for trying to reach my potential and explore my possibilities for awesomeness, Dad," Summer said, entering the kitchen with her instrument for her future in tow.
Jerry sputtered more than sipped on his morning coffee. "L-l-look, sweetie, nothing would please me more than seeing you reach your 'awesomeness' as a violin player." He continued, recalling his dream earlier. "Making beautiful music—someday—after lots, and lots…and lots…and lots…"
Rick rolled his eyes, quite nearly, floor to ceiling. "Whoooa, watch that over-encouragement, Jerry, or it'll go to her head."
Jerry finished: "…of practice, and you'll be on stage, commanding respect for your skills instead of cat-calls for your looks."
Her mother cast a sideways eye at Jerry, who was becoming more enthusiastic with his speech, as she set down plates for each family member.
"You'll have money thrown at you for your class, and never, ever for your ass!"
Beth, wanting only the best (as well as beauty) for her daughter, chimed in with an air of disappointment: "Yyyeah… great future, honey."
"I don't know, Dad," Morty began, using his mouth for words before food as he sat at the breakfast table with his family. "It'd be nice to have some music in the house… again…"
Beth lumped down pancakes for Jerry, for Summer who was repacking her violin, and then for Rick, who rested his chin in one hand and absent-mindedly twirled a fork in the other. She took notice of a sudden air of exhaustion on his face, an air that seemed to spread to Summer just as quickly.
"The—the sound of youth and femininity serenading us and teaching us about freedom of—of self, and stuff. A strong woman that can provide her unique take on society, and a soundtrack for our daily lives—"
Summer broke in with sounds of slamming her violin case shut and her own vocals.
"Morty, we get it. You're still not over Britt Bayonet's passing."
"Me, not over it?" Morty chuckled—or rather, choked out—a squeaky laugh. "I-I couldn't possibly be more over it!"
"Britt Bayonet is dead, she's done, she's gone." Summer's hands landed onto the table with a thump that synced with her last word as she levelled her gaze with her brother's. "Do us, and yourself, a favor, and go back to harping over some other girl who doesn't know you exist."
Morty sank into his chair. Rick let out a low whistle.
"Or, better yet," she continued, "grow up into an adult who recognizes a flash-in-the-pan floozy when he sees one. Britt Bayonet could've only dreamt of being a real musician, of being a siren that lures the boys with sweet sounds instead of synthesizers and silicone. She doesn't need good looks to rock their world."
The aspiring songstress hefted her violin case under her arm. With her free hand, she thumbed to herself. "She said goodbye to pilates and hello to inner beauty. And that siren is up-and-coming. Recognize. Boo-yah."
As she left the room, Beth's concern followed.
"Um—Summer—" Beth began, "About that, uh, inner beauty…!"
With Beth's departure, and Jerry's having slinked away ages ago, Morty was left alone to receive some wisdom from his grandfather.
"She has a – uuurp! – point, Morty," Rick noted, with a belch, as he used his fork to manipulate some last few drops of syrup on his plate. "Oversexed infatuation, death and self-introspection are the three inevitables in life. Oddly enough, sometimes in that order. But most of the time, the order can change, with equally varying and devastating consequences."
"She's right," Morty winced. "Aw, jeez, I gotta get over this. It's not healthy." He put his head in his hands. "I haven't even noticed Jessica over the last couple of weeks, y'know, and she's been showing off this new top she's got, and it's really tight and…"
"Then again, it's not over 'til the dead pop princess sings."
"Huh?" The boy was puzzled as he watched Rick slap down his napkin on the table and rise.
"So, if it'll put a cork in it and shut down the whine cellar… wanna go see her sing?"
Morty gaped as if Britt was there, alive and shaking her silicone assets in all their glory right in front of him. He had a feeling that that wasn't about to happen— not yet. Rick didn't waste any time.
"Your mouth's hanging open with nothing coming out. I'll take that as a yes."
He grabbed the still-unsure Morty by his wrist and pulled him up to his feet. Facing a wall, Rick drew his portal gun and fired, blazing a green, glowing pathway into the unknown. With the barely-there acknowledgement of daily routine, the two stepped through the swirling light, and were gone.
The breakfast table was vacated, except for Jerry—who came back toting a bottle of sweetness that might've come in much handier earlier.
"Okay, so I went to get more pancake syrup because the one on the table was sugar-free, and man, you don't want to know what happened to my system the last time I had sugar-free, or maybe you do because of the whole toilet-exploding thing, so—… where'd everyone go?"
The spacecraft flew through inky skies and even blacker abysses for what felt like hours. Even so, the fact was—Morty knew—that they'd left no more than twenty minutes ago, and it was the question of the destination rather than the passing of time that hung heavy over his mind.
"Rick," came Morty's hesitant, squeaky voice through the silent space. "I know we've done this a hundred times, like three seasons' worth of times, but… I still have some questions."
The wise man of science and sixty-proof took a swig from his flask, barely stifled a belch, and coughed out a "Shoot."
"Okay, well… one: where are we going?"
"Dimension D-735, Morty. 'D' for 'departed,'" he elaborated. Stashing away the flask and leaning forward, closer to the craft's windshield for some arbitrary precision, Rick played the role of interdimensional tour guide. "If you've ever wondered where people go when they die, it's often the case that this is the place."
Morty looked confused. "I thought people went to Heaven or Hell when they die."
"False advertising." Rick cut the end of 'die' with quick contradiction. "If you were good, you go to a good place; if you did bad things you go to a bad place. Pfft," he scoffed. "Where did they go when they were good and alive? Did they—did they wind up in cushy, comfy places after doing all their goody-two-shit? No. They still wandered around their whole lives. There are bad people living in luxury, and good people going through Hell. And that's what they're still doing here, Morty. They're lost souls still looking for that 'good place.' And, you know, what with all the—the grey area between 'good' and 'bad' when it comes to people… believe me, Morty, it's—no wonder people stick to this system—it's just easier to follo—uuurp—ow this way of thinking."
"Holy crap, is dimension D-735 that bad?"
"I wouldn't know, haven't been by there that often."
"Why not? Is it too much of a ghost town? Ha-ha, ha…" Morty awkwardly giggled, tried launching a joke; but he knew it crashed and burned before it left the orbit of his mind.
"Uugh," Rick made no secret of his disgust in the ghastly pun. "They can still feel pain in this dimension, Morty. Just sayin'."
"Anyway, second question: why did I have to get dressed up?" Morty raised his hands and gestured down to his current outfit. Rick had told him to change into formal wear, dark grey dress shirt and matching pants, set off with a bright red tie.
"You wear Sunday best to go to a funeral, don't you? Show some respect for the dead, Morty."
They arrived in a place that seemed all too urban and lively to be a land of the dead. The reddish-gold twilight hue of the sky, however, was the singular aspect of Morty's surroundings that he found abnormal.
Buildings, businesses and residential areas decorated the landscape, just as they did back home, he observed. As he and Rick walked through the streets, even the neighborhoods looked welcoming. Children ran and played, adults talked as if they had their whole lives ahead of them and some drank as if they were going to die tomorrow rather than, perhaps, beginning their afterlife today. The young traveler did admit to himself, though, that the tombstones in front of each house where mailboxes should have been were just a little creepy.
"S…so, do you think we're gonna find Britt…?" Morty was hopeful, his heart, laced with teenage hormones, leaping a few bounds. Not that he'd ever let on, in front of Rick, how keen he was on seeing her—he kept a cool, smooth face.
"Yeah, she's somewhere around, I'm sure," he assured his grandson. "Just so you know, though, it might not be that easy to find her."
Rick kept his hands in his lab coat pockets as he strolled beside Morty, perhaps a little too casually in a dimension where dead men (and women) literally were walking.
"Whenever someone dies, when they arrive here, they'll take on the form and appearance of the last person they saw before they passed on. So you might want to put the blonde hair, big boobs and applebottom jeans out of your head, and think of another way to find her."
Morty felt all the butterflies in his stomach drop dead at once. No way. Britt's famous looks comprised the majority of his knowledge of this woman. When it came to Ms. Bayonet, the image was all he really knew. How was he going to track her down now? He felt a little sick all in a sudden; he wasn't sure if it was due to the feeling of anxiety, the eating of breakfast, or Summer's words about women being more than just their appearances rising up from the pit of his stomach. He decided to follow his dad's example and blame the sugar-free pancake syrup.
"Morty? Don't… d—don't tell me y-you don't know any other identifying factors that we can use to find this woman."
"Uh…"
Rick's palm raked down his face with a pressure that could have left indentations—physical evidence— of his frustration, apart from the grimace.
"Morty!... you can't just st—stare at a woman and think you've got her, trust me, that doesn't work. You're no genius, you're still a freakin' groupie, not her biographer or—or— do you even know any of her song lyrics, for f—k's sake? That could clue you in as to any distinctive marking of personality inside the peroxide-blond skull." His aggravation rounded out in a gravelly groan.
"Morty… l-look, that's it. "
He took out the portal gun and aimed it sky-high.
"I'm not about to waste my time on a mindless idol-chase. We're getting out of here. MORTY! Dammit, look at me when I'm talking to you!"
He looked down to discover Morty nervously watching a crowd of D-735's inhabitants, approaching far too close for either of their comfort. A policeman grabbed hold of Rick's wrist.
"Sir? Put down the weapon, now."
"Weapon? What—this? This is just a portal gun, look—"
He fired it, and the spiraling, viridescent cyclone lit up the sky for everyone to see. If it wasn't for the other policeman joining the first in seizing both Rick's wrists, the interdimensional backpacker would have leapt through that vortex to go home, right that minute, grandson in tow.
The small crowd screamed and yelped in awe and terror.
"Seriously? Don't tell me this is something totally new to you guys. From the looks of things around here, you're all human, so most of you must've watched a crap-ton of Star Trek by now."
"Witchcraft!" shrieked one woman, clad in black Puritan garb and clutching a cross. Her crucifix's metal was either badly tarnished or exposed to open flame at one time. She kept pointing, in horror, to the portal.
Rick snarled. "Oh, for—"
"Look, mister, we understand," the younger policeman offered consolation. "We know how you got here, we know what unfortunate circumstance must've befell you. After all, you do look a lot like Rick Sanchez—"
"Bitch, I AM Rick Sanchez!" Declaring his identity was not of much help. He was received by gasps and flinches, and then was restrained, and led away towards the crowd.
"Come with us."
Morty heard the policemen, and tried to follow. The same two policemen, however, held out their arms to block his passage. The panicked boy called out to him.
"It's okay, Morty," Rick returned the call. "I'll be back, just stay there!"
Before Morty could question everything with a squeaky "what," Rick was gone—disappearing around a creepy little white picket fence that framed one of the creepy little houses in this idyllic cul-de-sac. Unnerving, pastel-colored and plastic; like something out of an old 1960's B-movie, in what felt like an abandoned movie set. Just fourteen and nowhere near any Boy Wonder, Morty sat and steadily kept his stare on the ground.
He soon got up, started wandering around on the street. Not like he was needy; not like he wasn't already fourteen and could handle himself and had the reasoning and muscles of a man already. He was nowhere near lacking in quick alertness, akin to his grandfather whenever he misplaced his favorite flask of booze—
Morty yelped when someone bumped into him. A young man, clad in a business suit with a lively check pattern, was in such a hurry that he did not notice the boy by the park bench—which, like Morty himself, blended into the scenery. The stranger seemed nice enough, his facial expression of mild shock turned quickly to pleasant understanding.
"Hey, watch it, huh?" Morty extended both hesitant friendliness and annoyance.
The youth chuckled good-naturedly, then uttered a series of blurps, grrowgs and gnyeeefas and started on his merry way. An alien…? Shock hardly even registered with Morty anymore. While still on his highest guard, he was amazed with his nonchalance. Perhaps he really was growing up and getting accustomed to the ups and downs, the good and bad, the everything's-gonna-be-fines as well as the scared-shitlesses of the world he lived in, as well as the other worlds Rick introduced him to so far. Either that or Rick was corrupting him entirely.
Only a boy like Morty could stumble over his own foot—a toe bumping into a heel as he was looking up while walking—and fall, plop, onto his bottom right back onto that bench where he started from. He sighed, both from his own klutziness and comic relief in how he had a safe, rather comfortable landing: butt-first. When he looked up, just slightly, so did the circumstances. A familiar white-labcoated figure approached him.
"H-Hey…" Morty didn't look up to meet faces with Rick. He'd rathered not look at Rick's most likely furious face right now, nor did he want to know what was going on with that other Morty. The little-grandson part of him just wanted to hear Rick's voice near him and know life was returning to normal again, one dimension at a time.
"Glad you're back, Rick. Where'd you go?"
No answer. Great. Rick was pissed at something—as usual.
"Come on, man, it couldn't have been that bad." Silence.
Becoming fed up with Rick's attitude, a surge of very adult aggravation overtook the adolescent. He did not stand, but chose to "sit" his ground, and tell his reckless, self-absorbed grandfather a thing or two.
The view from this sit-in was not what Morty expected. If he'd opened his mouth, he would have been scolding the barrel of a gun that was aimed inches away from his white teeth.
Standing over him was a madman in a white labcoat, all right—but a labcoat of a different cut, different sleeves, accented by a light brown skirt, long legs clad in tall boots. A silhouette that was set off by white spiky hair and a hand holding a gun was not unfamiliar to Morty, but this one was smaller, stranger. Curvier.
This madman looked like Rick—but looked even more like a woman.
The only thing more disturbing than the cold steel Morty could feel brushing his upper lip was his assailant's holding him down with the familiar Sanchez stink-eye.
"Bad? Oh, but it is… but it is. Give it up. And while you're at it, die, rot, biodegrade, and let society recycle you into something worth existing like the piece of garbage that you are..."
Her eyes narrowed as her contempt grew.
"…Morty."
The aforenamed boy let out a scream.