All was still in the city of Danville as Wednesday, September 22nd drew silently to a close. The inky night sky, brilliantly accentuated by thousands of sparkling stars, hung silent and close like a blanket over the sleeping city. It was 11:52 PM - and as the clock ticked towards midnight all traffic had very nearly ceased. As the cold, pale moonlight crept over the skyline, illuminating in its soft glow the slumbering populace, with its roads deserted, its parks abandoned, all seemed well. The emergency crews, always ready to protect the inhabitants of the quiet domiciles, slept undisturbed through the night. No bells tolled, and no alarms sounded, harshly warning that somewhere, a catastrophe had, or was in the process of, occurring.
Yet, despite all appearances, not all was well within dormant township. But the issue that was plaguing this place, even through the peaceful night, was not bound to the current locale, no indeed. Although this spot was the epicenter, both the beginning and the end, it was not the only place affected. No, it was much, much bigger, affecting the universe in its entirety. And what was this massive problem, overhanging all that existed, both known and unknown with a foreboding shadow? Was there a gang of thieves or murderers planning on a nightly expidition? Was a group of terrorists planning an attack? Was another country plotting a nuclear-powered demise? No, it was nothing quite so simple. You see, put simply, originating here, in Danville, and slowly spreading all over the universe, the very fabric of existence was a risk.
Space and time itself was breaking down, as a crazy, half-cocked yet incredibly genius device, whipped up over an afternoon's time, powered by pizzazium infinionite, and held together by duct tape was preventing the progress of time. The natural laws of physics were strained to their breaking point as time attempted to flow onward, but was unable. The consequences of such a thing were disastrous. Time and space are inextricably linked, you see, and with time unable to naturally flow, space was put under enormous pressure. Time and space, the fabric of existance itself, were being slowly pulled apart like a wet paper towel. Temporal rifts had begun flashing in and out of existance, sucking up matter like a vaccuum as reality was rent in twain. If something was pulled into such a rift - it was beyond both time and space, and took up a new existance, beyond existance, beyond time, and beyond space, if such a thing made sense. All traces of the object would be wiped out, from both the minds and kitchen cabinents of the population of the universe. Indeed, if you had walked into one of the many homes right now , and enquired for a spoon - you would be met with questioning gazes and clueless looks of bewilderment. Spoons were one of the first objects that had been greedily devoured by the temporal anomlies, and all proof, all memory of their existance was gone. People stirred tea with forks, and drank soup straight from their bowls. Other objects had dissappeared as well - capri pants, oranges, and tigers, among others. Every so often, a rift would open, a tear in time and space, a hole in reality, and something would be taken. You could never guess what, but it was only a matter of time before everything in the universe was ravenously demolished by the rifts, before there was no matter left to seal the rifts when they opened, when they would turn on each other, and the entire space-time continuum would destroy itself, taking all that had existed in the past, existed now, and ever would exist with it. And no-one would ever realize what had happened, before it was too late and reality itself was gone.
All except two people. There had been two people standing next to the device when it was intiated, and these two people remained outside the self-destructive temporal loops that scooped up everyone and everything else. They alone could percieve the rifts, and remember the objects sucked through them. They alone were unaffected, as time itself was stuck, like a broken record, unable to proceed, resetting every twenty-four hours, and tearing the space-time continuum more and more as it was forced to loop again and again. They alone could see what was truly happening. And yet, when one of the two realized what was going on, and hastily disabled the machine he had so eagerly created, allowing time to begin flowing on again - the trouble wasn't over, not by a long shot. In fact, our story really only begins in earnest after he had done so. So what was the trouble? The world could go on without the things eaten up by the temporal rifts, right? Someone would surely reinvent the spoon, or elastic suspenders , right? Well, yes, but as one of the two would be forced to discover, what would happen if something near and dear to your hear was lost through one of the holes in the fabric of reality? What if something, say a family member you loved with all your heart, was taken through, lost in some realm beyond time, beyond space, beyond fathom? And that is the true story here.
As the clocks in Danville ticked closer and closer to midnight, all seemed still and peaceful in a certain brown-roofed, yellow house on Maple Drive. But the true situation belied all appearances. In the upper story of the house, in a room so glaringly pink that it was somehow still bright even in the pitchy blackness of midnight, the teenage Candace Flynn lay disconcerted on her bed - somewhat frightened - mulling over things in her head. Though she knew (all too well) of the imminent doom that was facing the world, and though she was not a little frightened of it, her mind was nonetheless filling with that sort of quiet resignation that merely sighs and says "Take me." At first, when the time loops appeared stable she had reacted similarly to what one might expect of a teenager who discovers that, since time is repeating, there are no lasting consequences to anything. She had done nearly everything one could in a twenty-four hour time span: and at first, it had been exiting, an adventure, one with no lasting affects on anything. She shopped for days, maxing out credit cards and breaking the bank. She tried over and over to expose her brothers' antics to her mother, albeit unsuccessfully. She drove, alone, with only a permit, at speeds far beyond the legal speed limit. But as time went on, or rather, as it didn't, and as she continously awoke, morning after morning, on the last day of summer, it grew stale to her. What was there to do?
Nothing lasted, nothing was permanent. So, yesterday, which had also been the so called 'last day of summer' she had done the only thing left she could think of doing that had a chance of restoring time to its natural state. With a long, depressing sigh, she turned on her side in the bed, pushing her long, orange hair out of her eyes, looking disconsolately on the digital clock by her bed, its glowing numbers fast approaching midnight, signalling the dawn of a new day, a day which she now feared would never come.
She had gone to her brothers, at their usual place in the backyard. Surely, if anyone could fix the problems with space and time, it would be them, Candace had reasoned. How many times in the last month alone had she seen them treat the rock-solid rules of the universe as easily-ignored suggestions. In the past week alone, they had behaved as if the immoveable laws of thermodynamics and physics were so many twigs, easily taken over ones' knee and snapped into a dozen pieces. For so many years, it had been the same way, day in and day out. Of course, Candace was seemingly the only one who could actually grasp the enormity of what they did on a daily basis. All the other participants in her brothers' schemes went along, unassuming, not realizing how many natural statutes had been ignored in their creation. But that didn't matter now. As she walked up to them yesterday, sitting in the backyard, blueprints for fantasical devices spread around them in the grass, she thought, surely, surely, they could fix it. But first she had had to convince them that time was, in fact, looping in on itself. That hadn't been as bad as it may have seemed. To Phineas and Ferb, the fact that the space-time continuum was falling apart like a bad joke was probably the least threating end-of-the-world scenario they had run into. So they had believed her, as she thought they would. Smiling slightly despite herself as she lay on the bed, Candace's innermost self was immeasureably thankful for her brothers, and for the relationship she had with them. It wasn't the best, and indeed, they had done most of the work supporting it, but it was still there, strong and trusting. A bond forged first in the more typical fashion, and solidfied in the never-ending, icy cold, soul sucking darkness of deep space.
So it was that previous days' conversation had gone well, even though it was about the end of the universe, a frightening end that only one party could percieve coming. She had raced out of bed early yesterday, and caught her brothers as they were strapping some kind of rocket-powered hovering skateboards to thier feet in the driveway, leaving blueprints scattered everywhere.
"Phineas! Ferb!", she bellowed, dashing out the back door at them, still in her pajamas.
At thier incredulous looks, she knew they were going to point out the fact that yes, she was out of the house early, and yes she hadn't changed from her nightwear. But there was no time. So Candace interrupted them before they could even begin.
"Do you know what you are going to do today?", she asked.
Phineas shared a questioning glance other his shoulder with his brother.
"Well, no, not yet.", he answered cheerily, though there was still a 'what is going on' tone in his voice. "We were going to fly over the Isabella's and Baljeet's and ..."
Candace hastily interrupted. "There's no time!"
Phineas opened his mouth once more, but she ignored it and went on.
"Look, I know this is going to sound crazy but there's something wrong with time. It keeps repeating, like, every morning is today, no matter what, and I'm sure I sound completely unhinged but I've lived this same day over like twenty times know and it's really getting monotonous. Plus, strange portals are opening up randomly, and sucking stuff in, and whatever they suck in completely dissappears, and no one ever remembers it ever existed! Like, like, spoons and Mom's capris, and, and..." Candace stopped, gasping for breath.
"What's a spoon?", she heard Phineas ask.
"It doesn't matter!", she cried. "Just please, please build something that can look at time and see what's the matter with it." She was almost in tears. They had to believe her, they just had to. No one else would, and even if someone else did, no one else would be able to fix it.
"Alright, alright", Phineas said gently, walking over and patting her on the back. " I believe you. We will take a look at the continuum of space and time and see what's going on."
Turning to Ferb, he took a breath and announced, "Ferb, I know what we are going to do today!"
Even at the sound of those words, something in Candace's mind was comforted. Her brothers were on the case. Nature bent to their will, it always did, so she was saved.
"Candace", a voice buttered in a British accent sliced through the craziness going on inside her. She looked at her step-brother, somewhat stunned. Ferb rarely spoke more that once or twice a day, and never this early, so whatever he had to say, it was most likely important.
"If you truly are trapped outside a time loop, there's a phrase you should memorize.", he continued."Are you ready?" She nodded. "There's a tree growing on the beach. It's coconuts are out of reach. The sand around is white like bleach. You hear a bird above loudly screech."
"Oh yeah!", Phineas chimed in brightly. "That's our time travel passphrase. Ferb and I, we agreed on it in secret, so that the only way anyone could ever know it would be if they traveled through time to eavesdrop on us, or if they were us. Either way would be enough to prove that they are time travelers."
"And..." Candace deadpanned. She couldn't quite see the use of this new information, but then it dawned on her.
"So when time loops and tomorrow is this morning again, I can tell it to you guys and you'll know that I'm a time traveler, or at least that something is up with me and time. Because you wont remember telling me!"
"Exactly, sis.", said Phineas. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he retrieved it and glanced at the number. "That's the delivery guys", he said, then paused, missing a beat. "Hey, where's Perry?"
Candace glanced around, but the lazy teal blob was nowhere to be seen. Shrugging, Phineas flipped open the phone and put it to his ear. Candace could hear unintelligible murmuring from the other end of the line.
"Yes, three grams of pizzazium infinionite", Phineas said. Another pause, more murmuring, and then, "Yes, yes I am." Pause. "Alright, see you then." Turning to Ferb, he said "They'll be here in five minutes. Let's get started with our Space-Time Continuum Ripper."
Candace stood awkwardly in the garage, watching as Phineas and Ferb busily moved around, pulling stuff out and preparing to work. She couldn't help, for she didn't even slightly understand the science behind the stuff that they did.
"It's okay," Phineas said, seeing her standing and staring at them, "You don't have to wait there for us. What we are planning to do will revolutionize all understanding of about ... uh ... I'd say twenty-seven scientific fields. We'll call you when we are done. Should only take like, forty-five minutes or so."
Candace thankfully, though somewhat guiltily, turned and walked into the house. Her mom was just leaving, talking to her dad in the other room, although she knew exactly what words where passing between them.
"I've gotta run some errands", she mimiced to herself, "They never run themselves. They never do."
Sighing, she thought of breakfast. But with all spoons erased from existance, how was she supposed to eat her favorite Smile Cereal? Certainly not by slurping straight out of the bowl like soup, the way her dad had begun doing the day after spoons dissappeared.
"I'll just use a fork," she muttered to herself, stalking into the kitchen.
Outside in the backyard, she could hear the sounds of trucks pulling up, and the whine of saws, and the distinctive hissing sounds that blowtorches made. Pulling the cereal out of the cabinent and pouring it into the bowl, one thought filled her mind. Forty-five minutes just couldn't pass fast enough.
After struggling through the ardous process of eating cereal with a fork, changing into her regular clothes, and mindlessly pacing around her room, she heard Phineas' voice echo through her open window.
"Candace! We're done. You can come out now."
Leaving her messy room behind in her haste - not that it mattered either way, since time was looping, after all, she rushed through the door and into the backyard. Sure enough, sitting next to the tree, was a thirty-foot-tall metal 'Y' that was arcing thick electric bolts between the arms of the 'Y'. It was hugely massive, taller than their house, and easily ten feet thick at the base. "How do they do it?", Candace thought to herself. Even after at least six failed attempts to 'bust' her brothers on this very day (or previous iterations of it), a small part of Candace still wanted to whip out her phone and scream at their mother to get home as quickly as possible. Okay, more than a small part. But, nonetheless, she stifled that part of herself and turned to face her brothers.
"How does it work?", she asked.
"It's simple", Phineas beamed.
Just then, the fence gate behind them creaked, singling to them that it had been opened.
"Heee-y Phineas. Whatcha' doinn'?", a familiar voice said. Then, "Awww, I can't believe you guys finished it without me. What is it?"
"Oh, hey Isabella,", Phineas said, cutting off his former train of thought. "We didn't want to start without you, but Candace is in 's stuck outside of an unstable time loop. At least, that what she says."
"It's true!", Candace exclaimed, suddenly upset that she needed to justify herself.
"Oh, I believe you," Phineas rejoined, smiling at his older sister, "But obviously you know that we cannot percieve the time loop from the inside, as I'm sure you have experienced."
Candace nodded.
"That sound serious", Isabella said, "But also cool. Can I help? I'm trying to get my "Revolutionize the Modern Understanding of Quantum Mechanics" patch today."
"Sure thing!" Phineas replied. "So, here's how this works. There's two negative mass generators powered by pizzazium infinionite that, well, generate negative mass. We set up a reverse polarity defusion device that will create a nuclear fission reaction, which should be enough to compress to negative mass into nothing - so it creates a pile of nothing, something that is tangible, has mass, takes up space, but has no weight, which we can use to bend local space-time enough to create a rift in space and time, with a powerful electrical current. Depending on the strength of the current required, we can judge the state of the space time continuum. If what Candace said about the time loops is true, and I believe her, then the square root of the current will divide evenly into this picture of a circle. If not, there will be a remainder, which will tell us how close it is to looping or not."
Candace nodded in agreement, but had no idea what he was actually talking about. She had always struggled in math - it had taken her all of three hours to solve a simple question like "What is the square root of soon?" The answer was never, of course, but the fact that it had taken her three hours and almost an entire notebook to figure that out was testament enough that her mathematic ability fell far short of her younger brothers'.
"Alright then", said Phineas, turning towards a control panel built into the base of the giant machine," Let's make like a banana and invert our molecules through the space-time continuum!"
"Hang on!", interjeced Isabella, stopping to glance around behind her. Then she asked, "Where's Perry?"
"I already took care of that", Phineas said over his shoulder, punching various commands into the keyboard that had unfolded from the panel as he had drawn near.
"Oh." Isabella looked somewhat dissappointed. But Candace hardly took note. She couldn't. She was about to be saved, her problems solved, and the world righted. Of course, it was her brothers that had done so again, but, who cared? She didn't. Not anymore.
But all her hopes and dreams were cruelly shattered just a moment later as a sound carried through the backyard, causing Phineas to glance up from his post at the keyboard. It was a car horn - their mom's car horn. She had come home early.
Why had she come home early? Candace wondered frantically. She hadn't come home till much later in the afternoon on all the other times Candace had lived through this day. There could only one cause, she reasoned, obviously something must have been swallowed by the rifts, something that caused her mother to return home early because it wasn't there anymore. But of course, no one else could percieve that.
"Oh!" Phineas said excitedly, "I'm going to get Mom! She'll be super curious about the time loops too, I'm sure, and we can show her this awesome machine we've built!"
"NO!", screamed Candace, a bit louder than she intended. But she was terrified, terrified because she knew that as soon as their mom stepped foot in the backyard , the machine would dissappear, as her brother's inventions always tended to do. Candace sprinted over to the machine and clung to it for dear life, reasoning in vain that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't dissappear if she was hanging on to it. But she was too late. Even as Linda Flynn-Fletcher rounded the corner of the house, a blue-green beam of light shot from the sky and struck the gargantuan metallic structure, causing it to dissappear into thin air. Suddenly finding herself with only air beneath her, Candace plummetted three feet to the ground, landing squarely on her tailbone.
But the pain wasn't the only reason that tears threatened to leak from her eyes. Now that the machine was gone, she'd have to live through this rotten day again and she just wasn't sure how much more she could take of it. The last of day of summer had lost all of its novelty and excitement, and was fast becoming exceedingly miserable.
"Why...?!", Candace cried out, to no one in particular. "Curse you, Mysterious Force! Why can't you give me a break for once!? I wasn't even trying to bust them!? I just want everything to be normal again." Candace was abruptly cut off in the middle of her rather loud lamentations by her mother's voice.
"Well, I'm home early", she said, "and I see I didn't miss anything." She shot Candace a dissapproving look, the same look she had been seeing on her mother's face for years now. In a nutshell it said "I'm sure I was just as bad when I was younger, but I swear I don't remember doing this crap". Candace had long ago learned to shrug off these looks, so this one too, slid off like water on a duck's back.
"Since I'm home early, I suppose we can have snacktime a bit earlier", her mother continued, "Sound good, everyone?"
"Yes please!" The exclamation from the other children in the yard was unanimous.
"grrrrr-rrrr-rrrr"
"Oh, there you are, Perry."
"You know, the word underground is the only word in the English language to start and end with U-N-D."
Candace inwardly cursed the Mysterious Force and everything it stood for. She had been so close! But Perry had come home, Ferb had had his one-liner, and the kids had gone in for snacks. She knew what that meant: there would be no more inventing today.
Refusing to give up just yet, Candace picked herself up off the ground and pursued her brothers and their friends into the kitchen.
"Phineas?", she asked, desperately hoping she would be able to convince him to break with the pattern, and create multiple large projects in one day.
"Yeah?", he replied, mouth full of pie.
"Can you please, please, rebuild that thing today so we can try again?"
"I'm sorry, sis," he answered, "But it's just not in the budget."
"Budget?", she questioned. Of course, Candace knew the stuff her brothers built with wasn't free, but the thought that they had set a budget of sort was new to her.
"Yeah, budget", Phineas explained, "We don't have unlimited money, you know. The royalty checks from the different things we've made - you know, like Gitchee Gitchee Goo - only go so far. And I doubt we would be able to persuade the city council to invest in this particular project. Even considering Ferb's excellent bargaining skills, I doubt we have the funds to reconstruct anything on that scale today."
"But...but...but..." Candace stuttered. She'd never even remotely considered the fact that her brother's inventing and building was limited to a budget. She definitely hadn't realized that they were earning royalty from some of their creations - and no small amount, it would seem.
"I'm sorry, sis", Phineas said, turning back to his plate. "But we are just kids, you know. And even if we had the funds - we have no way of powering a device of that scale. The pizzazium infinionite we ordered today was the last of our supplier's stock. They won't have more in until sometime next week." He paused, then as was his wont, finished on (what was to him) a positive note. "But no matter! If time is really looping, then you can just have us rebuild the device again tomorrow - which will be today. Just have us build it in the front yard, or something."
So that was it then. There would be no more large-scale inventing today. There was no other choice. She let out a long, dramatic sigh as she dejectedly plodded off to her room. Probably too dramatic, she thought to herself, but still appropriate. There was nothing left to do but go wait around for tomorrow - the beginning of the last day of summer. Again.
And that was pretty much how she'd gotten this point - lying awake on her bed as the clock neared midnight, mind slowly filling with despair. She almost wished there were a friendly colony of monkeys nearby that she could flee to, to live out her days away from the rest of humanity. But she knew it was useless. Her roving eyes settled on the clock before them.
11:58 PM, Wednesday, September 22nd
11:59 PM, Wednesday, September 22nd
12:00 PM, Wednesday, September 22nd
and...
12:01 AM, Wednesday, September 22nd
Fighting back the urge to just give up, allow the universe to tear itself apart, and accept her fate with dignity, Candace fell at last into a restless sleep. Even in her dreams she could find no peace. Tossing and turning, she dreamed of the horror she had felt when forced to spacewalk through the endless void of space. She dreamed of the T-Rex that had chased them in the year 3 million BC - how when it had smashed the time machine, she had raged at her brothers, but deep down was terrified, frightened that she would be killed, or, perhaps even worse, be forced to live out the rest of her days in ancient prehistory. She dreamed of the time in Africa when she had thought Jeremy was breaking up with her. She dreamed of a anthromorphic zebra, speaking to her in a soothing yet terrifying voice - "I voted for you, Kevin. I'll always vote for you." She dreamed of squirrels, her deep-rooted, if irrational fear of them keeping her tense and frightened all through the night. Suddenly, she was jerked from her sleep by the buzzing of her alarm clock.
"Beep! Beep!"
"I know what we are going to do today!"
"Beep! Beep!"
"I know what we are going to do today!"
"Beep! Beep!"
"I know wh-"
Candace slammed her hand down on the off button. It was the beginning of Wednesday, September 22nd. It was the last day of summer, yet again. From the backyard she heard her brother's voice.
"Ferb, I know what we are going to do today!"
She sat bolt upright in bed. She had to catch them before they left. Jerking the covers off of her, she kicked open the bedroom door, sprinted down the stairs and out into the backyard in her PJs.
"Wait!" she yelled, and not a moment to soon. Phineas and Ferb had those flying rocket boards out again, and looked just about to fly off into the distance.
"I've got something very important to tell the both you," Candace huffed, suddenly feeling the exertion of having run across the house after them. When they came towards her, she bent down and paused for a second, to make sure that she could recite perfectly the little poem Ferb had given her the day before. Then she said it: "There's a tree growing on the beach. It's coconuts are out of reach. The sand around is white like bleach. You hear a bird above loudly screech." Her brothers eyes both widened and they shared the briefest of glances with each other.
"Is it really you Candace?" Phineas asked, just a moment later, "What time are you from? Do you need something? Where is your time machine?"
"I don't have a time machine", she replied, "I'm, uh..." Candace paused, trying to recall exactly what Phineas had said the day before. "I'm existing outside of an unstable time loop. There are rifts opening in space, devouring matter, and only I can percieve the fact that the twenty-four hours in this day are endlessly repeating."
Phineas ran his hand through his hair. "Hmm", he said, "Unstable time loop, huh? Sounds easy enough to detect. Ferb, we'll need some pizzazium infinionite. I'll call - - -"
And then catastrophe truly struck. Right behind her brothers, with a horrible screechy noise, a fracture opened in space-time, and with a horrible howling, it swallowed them up! Then it was gone. Candace froze, unable to move, or think, or even breathe. Her mind raced.
"Where are they? Are they okay? Can I get them back?" But most terrifyingly, "What now?" Her brothers, her genius brothers were gone. Just like that, gone. Vanished without a trace. No one would remember them. It would be as if they had never existed. But what could she do about it? Would she be able to bring them back? And if so, how? She knew in her heart that she wasn't nearly smart enough to do the things they did - including the enormous device they had built yesterday. But who could? As her thoughts circled madly through her head like so many fish in a toilet, a name came to the forefront. Of course. Baljeet, the little Indian boy. He was just as - almost as smart as her brothers. Her sense of pride, subconscious though it was, would not allow her to place Baljeet on the same pedestal of brilliance that her brothers took. But he could do it. Phineas had told her that Baljeet had been the one who had designed the portal that transported her to Mars, so many months ago. If he could do that, then maybe he could also see what was going on with, and even fix the space-time continuum. But there was just one problem. She didn't know where he lived.
But Isabella for sure did - and she lived in the house right across the street. Not even cognizant of the fact that she was still shoe-less and in pajamas, Candace hurriedly ran across the street to the Garcia-Shapiro home. The aphsalt burned her bare skin, and the concrete of driveway felt less than pleasant. But that mattered not, if it meant she could get her brothers back. Once across the street, she pounded on the door like a person gone mad.
"Open up!", she shouted. "Open up! It's important! I swear it!"
"I'm co-o-oming", Isabella's grumbling voice sounded behind the door. A few seconds later she swung it open.
"Do I know you?"
At first stunned, Candace shook the shock of her brother's longtime crush not recognizing her off. Of course she wouldn't, when as far as Isabella was concerned, Phineas had never existed.
"Yes you do", Candace started, "But that's not important. I need, like, desperately need you to tell me where Baljeet lives!"
"Baljeet?" Isabella said questioningly.
"Yes!", Candace almost shouted in exasperation, "Surely you know him, I don't kno-"
"I know him, I know him," Isabella interrupted, obviously wanting be rid of Candace. "He lives on 232 Sycamore Lane. You know which house..."
"Yeah, thanks!", Candace shouted over her shoulder as she turned and sprinted back down the driveway, leaving Isabella wondering what the heck had just happened to her next-door neighbor. She ran down the street as quickly as was humanly possible (and perhaps a bit quicker), ignoring pain inflicted on her feet from the rapidly heating asphalt. Baljeet's house was just the next street over from Maple Drive. After a short ten minute run, she finally arrived, feet burning and lungs heaving, at the door of 232 Sycamore Lane. Thankfully, Baljeet's house had a doormat in front of the door. Even though it was rough and scratchy on bare feet, it was infinitely better than the fiery hot concrete. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, and help steady her heartbeat, Candace reached to the left and rang the Tjinder's house's doorbell. There was no answer, so she rang it again, and even more impatiently, a third time. At last she heard the sounds of the door being unlocked. Becoming agitated at Baljeet's apparent propensity to take his own sweet time opening doors, she yelled, "Hurry it up! This is important!"
"I am coming! It is open!" he retorted, opening the front door. "What is such an important matter anyway? Wait... Do I know you?"
Ugh. This again. Candace didn't have time to reintroduce herself to all of her brother's friends.
"Suffice it to say I'm Isabella's next-door neighbor", she huffed out. "And I know you are a nerd so I need you to go get or make some gadget that will let you look at the space-time continuum so can prove to you what I'm about to say."
Baljeet glared. "I am not a nerd. However, I do possess a space-time scanner. Seeing as Isabella must have sent you here, I will oblige you and scan the continuum. Allow me to retrieve it." He briefly dissappeared into his house, only to emerge a few seconds later carrying some weird sort of calculator-looking thing that had a small satellite dish plugged into it.
"I have just checked the state of the continuum yesterday", he said, as he pressed some buttons on the device. Candace assumed he was turning it on. As Baljeet talked, the small satellite dish began to rotate. "The continuum is remarkably stable, and has been so since - whoa!"
"What?!" Candace breathlessly exclaimed, even though she was fairly sure what he was going to say.
"The continuum of space-time is showing up as if it was wildly unstable! Why, with readings such as these, a rift could open up and swallow me at any time, and no one would ever remember my existence!"
"Okay then", Candace took a deep breath, "With that in mind - what you just said about rifts and all - let me tell you about my brothers."
"Brothers?" Baljeet raised a questioning eyebrow, without removing his gaze from his devices output. "Are you not an only child? I heard you say you were Isabella's next-door neighbor."
"No, remember-" Candace started to explain, but she was cut off.
"The space-time continuum is stable again." Baljeet stated. "It must have been some sort of strange booting-up error. I will have to debug my code this afternoon."
What. Okay, just what. Stable? How was...
"It's ... it's ... stable?" Candace stammered out.
"It is as stable as it has always been. I thought your story sounded somewhat unbelievable."
"But it is believable! It's true! I swear! Maybe your ...thing!... is broken. Let me see it." Candace made a move to take the scanner, but Baljeet jerked it back away from her, clearly growing impatient with her.
" There is no way the space-time continuum would destabilize on its own, and the technology to do so is many years in the future. If this is your idea of some type of joke, allow me to inform you that it is patently terrible."
"But...but...but...but..."
Baljeet's eyebrows arced up, as he cut her off again. "Allow me state it more plainly. Go away. Your story is almost guaranteed to be entirely falsehood and I do not have the time for this today. I will have to bring this awful attempt at humor up with Isabella when I see her next. Also, your appearance is ... embarrassing."
It was true - she hadn't brushed her hair or gotten dressed or brushed her teeth or anything. Her orange hair was tangled and knotted wildly, her pajamas were now dirty, and her bare feet were blackened from asphalt. But to Candace, none of that mattered. She only wanted to get her brothers back. And at that very moment it seemed as if her last hope of doing so had disappeared with Baljeet as he shut the door on her, in a not very gentle manner.
She continued staring open-mouthed into space on the Tjinder porch for some time after Baljeet had abandoned her. What could she do now? Then, an idea struck her.
"All this started happening when I pressed that button on that machine that Vanessa's dad had", she thought to herself. "What did he call it? A Do-Over-Inator? I think so." Maybe, she thought, if Vanessa's dad had built the machine to start it, he would be able to bring her brothers back. And also spoons. Spoons would also be nice to have back.
"Okay, think", she told herself. "Where did Vanessa's dad live? And what is his name?" She could only remember the building where he had lived. It was the oddly-shaped purple building, the one with the big sign that read 'Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated'. But that was enough. She had to get downtown to that building.
"But first,", she thought grimly to herself, as she put one of her feet back on the apshalt and drew it back quickly in pain, "First I need to go home and get some shoes. And probably change my clothes."
Now that some of her adrenaline was worn off, walking barefoot on the apshalt was entirely more painful. Candace attempted to walk in people's grass whenever possible, but still had to cross the road twice, and even though she sprinted as if her life depended on it, it still burned badly. Even so, she still made it home in once piece. When she finally made it, she threw open the back door and immediately ran up to her bedroom to get changed, ignoring the incredulous looks on her parents faces. Upstairs, she couldn't resist the urge to look into the room that had once been Phineas and Ferb's, and was horrified to realize that it was now a guest bedroom. All traces of her two little brother's existence was gone. She darted into her room and changed, threw on her shoes, and half-heartedly pulled her brush through hair once before tossing it aside and going back downstairs. But she wasn't able to brush off her parents as easily on the way back out.
"Young lady", her mother called, sounding somewhat stern, "Where do you think you are going?"
"Uh..." Candace stammered, and then paused. She couldn't mention her brothers, since Linda wouldn't remember them, and it would only serve to make her sound like a lunatic. "To the ... Googolplex Mall?" she weakly offered.
But it seemed to satisfy her mother. "I don't want you running out of the house before you've gotten dressed, even this is almost the last day you have to shop before school starts again.", she chided, although the disciplinary tone in her voice had faded. "Now be sure to not spend as much as you did last time. And say hi to Jeremy for me when you see him."
"Uh huh", Candace answered noncommittally as she speed-walked out the door. Once outside, she broke into a run. It was already 9:51 AM, and the bus stop in their neighborhood was a good ten minute walk away. If she wanted to make it on the ten o'clock bus, she knew she had to book it. Sprinting the entire way to the bus stop, Candace finally reached it with two minutes to spare. Bent over, with her hands on her knees, Candace struggled to regain her breath after such early morning exertion. It felt as if she'd been running a lot these past few days. Then something on the bus stop's newspaper dispenser struck her eye. It was the headline of the Daily Danville, which read: Scandal at Local Zoo!
In slightly smaller text beneath the headline, Candace read:
City Accountant Rodney Rodenstein discovered today that the local zoo has supposedly been funneling city funding into an empty exhibit, probably as a cover for embezzlement of city funds. The zoo's books indicate that it has poured over $1M in food and care for creatures in said exhibit over the past twelve years - but it has always been entirely empty. Brought in for...more on page D4.
Standing up straight and stretching, Candace chuckled to herself. No one else in the universe would ever truly understand what had happened; but she knew. Some poor animal had gotten swallowed by the spacial anomalies, and as far as everyone but her was concerned, had never existed. She wondered what animal it was that was taken, but her thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of brakes hissing behind her. The bus was here. Turning around, she quickly climbed on the bus, flashing her bus pass as necessary.
Walking towards the back of the bus she, settled into one of the uncomfortable plastic seats. Now it was just a matter of waiting on the driver. Even as the bus groaned and lurched forwards, Candace leaned forwards, as if to urge the vehicle onward faster. Surely, the driver wasn't going the speed limit, Candace's mind told her, even though, at the same time she knew he probably was. The longer she sat in the cold seat and rode the squeaking machine, the more her emotions built up inside her. By the time the bus finally reached the stop across the street from her distinctively purple destination, she felt as if they had reached the breaking point. Fear, anger, worry, and countless others swirled around like a maelstrom in her mind. As the bus agonizingly slowly pulled to a stop, they began draining away, or rather, coalescing, into one form: determination. Candace knew, no matter what she had to do, or how she had to it, she was going to get her brothers back. So what if no one else in the entire universe would know what she was doing. So what if the Mysterious Force continued to make her miserable. So what if she had to delay her plans for marriage to and life with Jeremy - and Xavier and Amanda, her future children. Blood was thicker than water, after all.
Standing at the bus stop on the busy street, she thought of the time on the drawbridge over Danville's Metropolitan Ovular Access Trench, when the proof she had always dreamed of having - that DVD disc of all her brother's inventions had been teetering on the brink of falling off - offering her a last chance at saving it, and vindicating herself and all her stories to her mother. But she hadn't taken that chance - and why? Because she had saved Phineas' life instead. Because when it all came down to the bitter end, her brothers were more important to her than her mother believing in her tales, more important to her than lots of things. She just didn't like to admit that.
"Get a move on girlie", came a gruff voice behind her, shoving her roughly out of the way, and its owner moved brusquely past her down the sidewalk. Somewhat miffed, Candace was still somewhat glad for the reminder to come down out of the clouds. She couldn't afford to be up there now. She had a mission. She was going to save her brothers. And possibly spoons.
Crossing the busy street and walking up to the entrance of the oddly-shaped and colored building, Candace was momentarily stymied in her progress by finding the entrance locked. Glancing around, she saw a buzzer panel on the left wall next to the door.
"Shoot!", she thought, "How am I supposed to get in now?" Looking over the panel, she chose one button at random and pressed it.
"Hello?", a quavering voice responded. An elderly person was on the other end of the line.
"Yeah hi", Candace rushed out. "I'm Candace Flynn, a friend of Va- Mr. Doofenshmirtz. I seemed to have lost the key he gave me, and was wondering if you would be so kind as to let me in."
"I'm sorry, hon", the voice returned,"I can't hear very well any more. You'll have to speak louder and slower. Did you say you have a Kansas violin?"
"Kansas violin?" she inwardly questioned. Turning back to the box and raising her voice, she yelled, "DOOF-EN-SHMIRTZ. I NEED TO GET IN. I'M HIS FRIEND."
"Did you say Doofenshmirtz? He's a nice man. Why I borrowed sugar from him just the other day. His daughter is nice as well. I see her every other weekend around here."
Candace resisted the urge to shout at the person as they continued babbling on.
"And that's when I said, Vanessa, I think that your father is- ohh, Vanessa, is that you?"
"What? I mean, Yes! Yes it is.", Candace quickly took advantage of this turn in the conversation. "I'm Vanessa Doofenshmirtz, and I seem to have lost my key. Can you buzz me in?"
"Why, Vanessa, I'd be glad to. But what are you doing here on a Wednesday? I've only ever seen you here every other weekend?"
Candace searched through her mind for a believable sounding lie. "I left something of mine at Mr - my father's apartment and I need it back." She was growing irked at the length of the back-and-forth. Why couldn't the other person just shut up and let her in?
"Oh, alright then", came the voice. "If you have time, be sure to drop in and say hello." With a a satisfying bzzzzzzzt! the door finally unlocked.
"Yeah, sure, whatever", Candace tossed over her shoulder as she dashed inside. The lobby was small and plain. The tiled floor was rather smudged, the posters on the wall were beginning to peel and the roof had a large water stain in the middle. A plastic plant stood in each corner. Candace ran through the minuscule area to the elevator. Pressing the button to summon the elevator, she ran through in her mind what she would say when she got up to Mr. Doofenshmirtz's penthouse apartment. He had made the machine that had started the time loops - would he remember the loops? Had he been the reason that the continuum had suddenly gone stable? Candace couldn't tell if the loops were indeed over, she couldn't be sure of that till midnight, but Baljeet had said that the continuum was stable - wasn't that what that meant? And there had been no more time rifts, at least not that she had seen.
Dinging loudly, the elevator doors finally slid open. Walking inside and pressing the button, Candace leaned against the wall as the elevator lurched upwards. Elevator music filled the empty space, and Candace recognized the tune. It was Gitchee Gitchee Goo. How had she not heard this before. She remembered the day when Phineas and Ferb had formed their little band and written that song - their one-hit wonder that had shot to the top of the charts in thirty minutes and stayed there for only as long. Phineas had claimed that they had turned down a lucrative contract with Huge-O Records, in favor of being a one-hit wonder, but apparently they hadn't divested themselves of everything related to the song. Candace felt her heart melting as she remember standing up on the stage, singing with her brothers in the middle of the mall. But the time for melancholy memories was not now. The elevator groaned and creaked to a stop, and with a ding! the doors slid open. She was on the top floor. Now was the time for action.
Looking down the hall, Candace located a door with a 'Doofenshmirtz' nameplate bolted into it. Ringing the doorbell, she waited impatiently for an answer, but there was none. She rang it again, and again, and a third time. But no one came. She could feel her annoyance growing, so she laid a hand on the doorknob, and, to her surprise, it yielded easily. The swung open, and light from the hallway streamed into the dark penthouse.
"Hello?" she called into shadows.
"Hello?" came back an echo.
"Is anyone there?" she called. Only the reverberations of her voice responded.
Swallowing, she took a step forwards into the apartment and felt along the wall for a light switch, but there was none. That's right, she remembered Vanessa complaining that her dad had hooked the lights to a huge floor-mounted lever. Slowly walking into the room, she reached forwards with her hands in an effort to find the switch. After a few moments of wandering in the dark, she felt a large metal pole protruding from the floor. This had to be it. Readjusting her hands for a better grip, she took ahold of it and gave it a pull. It moved surprisingly easily, like a well-oiled machine. A deafening 'woomph woomph woomph' filled the room as large industrial lights slowly turned on, illuminating the area. But what she saw in the light was no more encouraging. The entire room was completely empty. When she had been there before, the room was full of random gadgets, tools, and even a kitchen setup in the corner. And now... it was all gone. No wonder her voice had echoed. The cavernous roof of the penthouse enclosed an entirely empty space. Candace didn't know where Doofenshmirtz had gone, but one thing was for certain: he wasn't here.
In the very center of the room, a small plastic table stood, with a piece of paper on it. Drawing near, she discovered it was a letter, left by Doofenshmirtz to someone named Perry. A friend, perhaps? Picking up the letter, Candace caught a whiff of perfume. The letter was scented? Waving away the scent wafting off the paper, she read it.
Dear Perry;
I've finally gone and done it. No, for real this time. I've given up evil - and I swear I'm being honest. I know I did this before, like twice, but this time I have a very good reason. You see, I recently discovered Vanessa wants to start interning at OWCA - and you know that she is pretty much the most important person to me. No offense, Perry. Not that you are person anyways. She's convinced me to give up evil, for good this time. No pun intended. Of course, by that I mean, totally tended.
I decided to pack up and move somewhere else - somewhere closer to HSWCA, where she will be going very soon, and also closer to OWCA. If I'm going to give up evil, I need to be away from my old lab. I've broken down and sold all my inators - that money, plus my alimony was enough to rent a little house in the suburbs. I wish I hadn't gotten rid of the one I had before. This one is much smaller, and there is no pool. I'm sure you won't believe it, and I suppose that's justified, although I must say, I am a little offended by the idea. I'm sure I'll be seeing you drop by sometime in the future. Maybe we can play checkers or go bowling or something. Don't let old Monobrow keep you away from me, or I may have to whip up a little evil.
Vanessa says to write that she won't let me. I'm so proud of her, making her own way in life. It's been hard to watch her grow up, and even though she won't be going into the family business, I intend to support her in her decision. If I learned anything from my childhood, it's how to not raise a child. I don't intend to make those mistakes again. I've had a long chat with Vanessa, and it turns out that she's wanted this for a long time now. I suppose it took me almost destroying the entire universe to realize what was really important in my life.
But let's let bygones be bygones. Come and see me sometime, I may get lonely out in the suburbs on the weekends when I'm not at the school. I've kept Norm though, since I didn't have the heart to actually break down that walking junk pile. I hope you don't mind. He never was truly evil anyway, unless you count the crunchy eggs he makes. But I've written too much already.
Your nemesis,
Heinz Doofenshmirtz
Candace sighed and dropped the letter back on the were gone. Moved out - somewhere closer to OWCA, whatever that was. Whatever it stood for, it was not a cool acronym. But whatever it was - she didn't know where it was. It could be across the Tri-State Area, or even over in the Quad-State Area. Heck, it could even be across the country, or even across the globe. Candace knew she didn't have Vanessa's phone number, so even that link to the scientist had been severed. There really wasn't anyway she would be able to find them. Unless one of them contacted her, they were as good as gone.
Candace sat on the floor next to the table, with despair beginning to well up inside and fill her soul. So that was it then. Doofenshmirtz - Heinz Doofenshmirtz - was gone. She didn't know where, and couldn't really tell why. She didn't even know if he had been the one to actually build the machine. Maybe he had just bought it online? Vanessa had never told her that she was starting an internship. But they'd not been that close, so that was somewhat understandable. But with Doofenshmirtz gone, who could she get to build something that could get her brothers back? Who had the resources to create and intelligence to operate a device like the one she needed? Candace once again felt the urge to just run away - far, far away. There were no monkeys in Danville, but maybe there were some other animals that would take her in and let her life out her life isolated from humanity - from her failures, both to bust her brothers, and now to help them.
But she couldn't. Couldn't give up. Not just yet. Her brothers were somewhere, she could feel it. Wherever they were, they needed help, help to get back - back to where they belonged. Making impossible things in the shade of the tree in the backyard, while she blustered about busting and safety, where her heart was filled with resentment that they could get away with so many things, while her innermost soul was deeply impressed and even more deeply, loved them both. But if they needed help, there was only one person that Candace knew could understand the situation enough to give them the aid she was sure they required. Herself. For the first time in a long while, her brothers needed her help.
What was it that Phineas always said? Seize the day? That was it. She had to seize the day. If no one would, or could, build the things she needed, then, by God, she was going to do it herself.