In the heat of the moment, when she first seized on the idea - that she herself was going to be the one destined to tear holes in the universe itself to find her brothers - she never stopped to ponder what such a task would actually entail. But, since that moment, with it's overflowing courage and foolhardy determination had passed, cold, hard reality seemed to be getting the way. Candace couldn't help but feel as if she really wasn't up to the task. But she couldn't give up, not now, not yet. She dredged up from her memory the scene in her backyard yesterday, which was actually today, but that was unimportant. The giant metal superstructure that had been erected seemed even larger now that it had before, now that she had undertaken the task of recreating it. But no matter. Mentally, Candace created a list of things that she would need for the mammoth project, some things only making it on the list because she had heard Phineas describing their usage in the original machine.
1. ) A ton of metal. Sheeting, beams, supports, you name it.
2.) Concrete. For the foundation of the beast.
3.) Some sort of computer that would allow her to control it.
4.) A negative mass generator
5.) Something that can generate a large amount of electric current. A tesla coil, maybe?
6.) Pizzazium Infinionite. Hadn't Phineas said this was the main power source?
7.) Something that could create nuclear fission. Had Phineas and Ferb had a nuclear power generator inside that thing? She remembered that day when they had almost built a cold fusion generator, before getting distracted. Hopefully they hadn't used one of those.
Those were the things she knew were needed, based solely on the appearance of the machine and Phineas' exuberated spiel about its inner workings. She still had absolutely no idea how she was going to be able to put it all together, much less into a machine capable of tearing holes in the very fabric of reality. Nevertheless, she had to start somewhere. The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single footstep.
First things first: she needed tools. Hammers and nails, buckets and blowtorches, screwdrivers, mallets, jackhammers, and the whole lot. She'd probably need to use some sort of crane or cherry picker for the construction of the very top layers. It was time to go shopping - but not at the mall. Candace was headed to the hardware store. She knew where it was from her various experiences with her brothers. In fact, it was within walking distance of the building she was in right now. Slowly pulling herself up off the floor, and slightly adjusting the table to best resemble the position it had been in upon her arrival, Candace walked out of the penthouse, shutting off the lights behind her. Pressing the elevator button, she waited impatiently in the hall for its arrival. A few long seconds later - the doorway dinged, and the doors slid open, revealing the cab. Unlike last time, however, it was occupied. Candace was somewhat taken aback by the occupant.
"Oh...there you are... Perry?", she said, in a questioning tone, entering the elevator and pressing the Lobby button.
"What are you doing in an apartment building?"
The platypus stared at her with one glazed eye.
"Gr-rr-rr"
"You're not supposed to be downtown. Go home."
The elevator dinged once more, doors opening on the lobby.
Candace hesitated momentarily, feeling a little loath to leave the last real trace of her brothers behind in an elevator. But she had more important things to do. Scowling, she muttered under her breath "This is Africa all over again." Then she abruptly turned on her heel and walked out, leaving the animal to do - well, - whatever it was planning on doing. Platypi didn't do much, as a rule. She was rather surprised the lazy animal had found it in itself to walk all the way downtown. And who had pushed the button to the let him on the elevator? Maybe this was where he went everyday. Who knew?
Pushing the doors to the lobby open wide and stepping out into the sunny street, Candace looked left and right, orienting herself for her trip to the hardware store. Before she could even take one step, however, her phone buzzed in her pocket. Quickly scooping it up, she glanced at the caller ID. It was Stacy. Surprising even herself, she had to fight back the urge to just ignore the call. But it would be fine - she could walk and talk. Opening the phone and putting it up to her ear, she said "Hello?"
"Candace?" came the voice of her best friend from the other end of the line.
"Yeees?" she drawled, looking left and right, and hastily sprinting across the street.
"Are you going to be late?"
"Late?" the question surprised her. She had made an appointment with Stacy? For what?
"Yes, late! You're not with Jeremy are you? I thought we were going to the mall! It's the last day of summer, I mean, geez! We've only been planning this for, like, ever!"
"What? I mean - yeah, no! yes! what?" Candace had no memory of a long-standing appointment today. But as her thoughts raced while her friend babbled on the phone, it began to make sense. You see, she figured, as far as the entire universe was concerned, her brothers had never existed. She was, and had always been, an only child. So, in this weird sort of alternate timeline where that was true, her life would have been drastically different. She began wondering what else had changed as the result of various things no longer existing. Of course, there were holes in her theory - she was fairly sure, that, based on her memories, she never would have met Stacy in the first place so many years ago if not for her brothers. Perhaps the space-time continuum's self-repairing could only extend so far. Maybe it couldn't erase all traces of somethings existance - only fairly recent traces. It was all fairly confusing. Suddenly, an idea popped into her head. Of course! The museum! The time machine! She could use it - no, her brothers had been erased from the space-time continuum. That would include past, present, and future. But there was another person from the future she could go to - herself. Not that the future her would remember her brothers, but the future her would have access to future technology, and they could work together to rebuild the continuum warper. It would only be an issue on taking a DNA test to prove to herself that she was, well, herself. It wasn't a foolproof idea, and had a frightening possiblity of causing a terrible temporal loop or paradoxical situation, but what else could she do? Build the machine from scratch by herself, with todays technologies? Candace snorted to herself. No way, no how.
"Sorry, Stace", she suddenly spoke, cutting her friend off mid-rant. She knew that was the sort of thing that could put a friendship in jeopardy - but, she also reasoned that once she was able to bring her brothers back to reality, Stacy would begin remembering them again, and she could explain the whole fiasco then. It would be much easier to gain forgiveness than permission.
"I've gotta go. It's a - a- family emergency. I'll talk to you later." With that she snapped her phone shut, not stopping to heed the complaints coming from the other end of the call. She abruptly halted in her path to the hardware store. She had a new destination in mind. However, the museum was much farther away than the hardware store. She'd need to take the bus, or a cab. Glancing around, she saw neither. Candace groaned to herself. It was in times like these when she wished she still had those super speed boots, even if they had ended up causing more trouble than they were worth. Whatever, she decided, after a moment's worth of internal deliberation. The bus stop was not that far behind her. She'd need to only to retrace a few of her steps, then wait for the - what time was it? Pulling her phone out, she was shocked to learn it was already eleven o'clock. The morning had flown by faster than she had anticipated. Candace felt as if she had been running all over town all day.
Walking back the way she had came to the bus stop went uneventfully enough. She wryly noted while sitting on the hard bus seats that apparently toothpicks had also been taken. She came to this conclusion while watching, with a mixture of horror and curiosity, an old man pick his teeth with the end of matchstick. Or maybe they hadn't and this guy was just weird. Who knew. People did freaky stuff sometimes. The bus ride to the museum couldn't have actually been longer that twenty minutes or so, but Candace felt like it took forever. She was forced to shrug off a phone from her mother, when she received a text wondering why her phone was not at the mall. It would be too complicated to explain the whole situation - and like with Stacy, would be infinitely easier once her brothers had been brought back. The bus brakes released an ear-piercing squeal, signalling arrival at their destination. Stepping out of the bus, she suddenly wondered if the time machine would even be fixed anymore - if her brothers had been erased from existence, they wouldn't have been here to fix it, would they? Candace didn't claim to understand the complex technicalities of the space-time continuum. She could only hope that her previous theory, that they had only been erased for a small chunk of time directly before and after their disappearances. But, how could that be true, if people didn't have old memories of them from years ago? Candace shook her head, and stepped around a sign reading, "New Wing Under Construction", and began walking up the steps to the museum's entrance. The finer nuances of the situation she would leave to someone smarter to understand. She would just take things at face value, and do her best to fix the whole darn thing. And, as it seemed right now, her future self would be her best shot at that. Pushing open the glass doors, she recalled the last time she had met the future counterparts of her family. Would they be the same? Or had the ripples in the space-time continuum changed the future? And if so, how drastically?
Turning left into the 'Gadgets Through the Ages' exhibit, Candace once again shook her head to clear it of all these thoughts. She couldn't be bothered by them now. Just up ahead sat the time machine. It was time to see if it worked. She chuckled slightly, sure that there was a bad pun somewhere to be made from her last statement. No matter. The time was, indeed, now.
She quickly closed the remaining distance between herself and the machine. Gripping the handrail on the side, she hauled herself over and into the seat, the ratty red cushioning not providing any actual cushioning. Candace took a moment to study the controls on the rail in front of her. They were rather unintuitive, so it took a few seconds for her to grasp how they worked. Pressing the button next to the largest dial, Candace repeatedly pressed it until it read 2037. Twenty years in the future should be good enough, she reasoned. It was how far she had gone back last time, and that had shown her a future of herself where she was stable, mature, married to - well, she hadn't actually ever seen or heard who future her was married to. Candace had assumed that it was Jeremy, but there was a possibility it wasn't, she now supposed. Her time of rumination was cut short, however, as an indignant shout echoed through the museum's corridors. Looking up, she saw a security guard hastily making his way toward her. It was time to go. Without giving herself a chance to second-guess, Candace reached for the time machine's activation lever, and gave a mighty tug. As she had hoped, a swirling purple light enveloped her. For a few seconds, she once again felt the strange feeling of time travel. It was a tingling sort of feeling, one that overtook your entire body and made you feel weak, yet at the same time, immovably firm. Then the purple glow flashed again, and it was gone. She was here - having not moved in space, but instead having moved in time. She glanced around. The museum was, for the most part, unchanged. A few exhibits had been rearranged, and a thick layer of dust had collected on everything. Of course, considering that, as far as everyone had seen, she and the machine had disappeared for twenty years, Candace was somewhat surprised that the museum had left the machines' podium empty and unchanged for all that time.
Climbing out, she steadied herself against the machine. Once ready to walk again, she began the trek out of the building. Remembering her last visit to twenty-years-in-the-future Danville, she knew what kind of technology and advancements to expect. It was to her surprise, and not a little pain, when she slammed her face right into the door of the museum.
"Owww", she muttered, rubbing her nose, "Aren't these virtual doors? Don't they open automatically?" She gingerly stuck her hand out and grabbed the knob. No virtuality about this particular door. Turning the knob, she winced at the prolonged shrieking of the hinges. Obviously this door hadn't opened in a very long time. Stepping out into the sunlight, a frightening scene presented itself to her. The city of Danville - well, it looked terrible! The park in front of the museum was gone, replaced by towering gray condominiums, the sides of which where generously plastered in graffiti and dirt. Shoving a sign out of her way down the steps, she turned back to glance at the museum building. The signs no longer read of the new wing.
Instead, they read: "Warning! Building condemned. Keep Out! By order of the mayor."
Something about the whole scene unervved her. Future Danville was no longer the happy, clean, place it had been before. It was dirty, and crowded with buildings, and smoky. There was absolutely no one on the streets. The only sound came from the whistling of the breeze, and the sound of the road crunching beneath her feet. It was in poor shape, littered with potholes, and practically crumbling to pieces in some places. But it matched the rest of the city. Candace made her way to the bus stop, or where the bus stop had been. Now, there was only a bent up, rusted metal frame left, the giant holes in it's construction evident as light pooled in the ground underneath it. Another official-looking document was nailed to one of the poles. Lifting it so that she could read it, Candace noted that, despite it's protective plastic sleeve, the paper had yellowed with age.
"Attention! Citizens of the Tri-State Area," it read, "the bus service has been discontinued, seeing as no one will need it anyway. Officially-approved buses will conduct you from your home to your daily Construction Time. By order of the mayor -" Candace stopped reading, shocked at what came after. She could hardly believe it. Was it true?
"By order of the mayor,
Signed, Candace G. Flynn"
Candace dropped the paper back. What was this? She was the mayor? That was new. But, - looking around at the state of the city, it's deserted streets and decaying buildings, she wondered whether mayor was just title, a title covering something more sinister. Of course, it couldn't be!, she reasoned. This was herself she was talking about. Maybe there was just a misunderstanding. Things looked kinda bad in this part of the city, and the paper she read had sounded strange. But surely there was a fair and decent explanation of it all. There must be. Maybe this part of town was just abandoned? And what was Construction Time? Candace was interrupted by the sound of footsteps crunching on the ground behind her. Turning, she felt somewhat relived. Someone who lived here! Surely they would be able to assuage her fears, explain the mundane reasons behind the grimy looking future. There had to be an explanation. There just had to be!
But it was no ordinary citizen who had come up behind Candace. Upon turning around, she came face to ... chest with a burly, frightening-looking man in a military uniform. Only, it was pink and covered in flowers. The look on his face, even though his eyes were hidden behind dark lenses, was enough to stifle any trace of mirth Candace might have had at his strange looking apparel. He continued coming closer until he was right in front of her, where his unusual height allowed him to tower over her in a terrifying display of intimidation. Now, Candace was not easily frightened by people. She had her fears, but few people where able to sway her. Phineas, strange as it may seem, was on that very short list, even though he almost never used it to his advantage. (And how could he not? Even though he was her brother, and Candace loved him and knew he loved her very dearly, how could you not be at least slightly intimidated by a person who held the laws of nature in the palm of his hand?) Anyone else? Not a chance. But this - this was different. This man's face was hard, and his measured breathing seem to indicate that here was a person who would feel no mercy, no regret, even as he extinguished her like so many candles. Even though she could not see his eyes, Candace felt as if his stare was burning into her soul. At last, he spoke.
"This is a restricted area, citizen", he said, his voice steely and deep. Candace opened her mouth, about to make an attempt at self-defense, but he continued before she could get at so much as a squeak.
"Do you have a pass for travelling into this area at this time?" he asked.
Candace knew she didn't, and also knew that this fact wouldn't help her situation. So she attempted to lie. "Y-yes", she claimed, voice shaky, "B-b-but I left it at my house. I, uh, didn't know I would be stopped."
The man paused for a second, just long enough for Candace to think her falsehood had worked, but her hopes were cruelly dashed just moments later.
"If you don't have them on your person, then you don't have them at all", he said, extending his hand and taking her arm in a vice-like grip. Then turned and began walking, half-dragging Candace behind him. "Come along", he said. "We are going to see the mayor."
He was walking slowly, but his strides were long, Candace struggled to keep up. The sound of the gravel and chunks of aphsalt underneath their feet was deafening. What was going to happen to her? Would her future self recognize her? Would she be able to convince her future self of her identity? What if she wasn't able to? These and other questions pounded themselves into her brain. As an attempt to take her mind off of them as she was half-escorted, half-perp-walked, and half-dragged down the road, Candace took to studying the back of the man's uniform. It had the word "L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N." written on the back, but it was struck through and sloppily scribbled over, as though someone was too lazy to fully cover it. Underneath, in equally sloppy writing was the phrase: "Mayoral Police".
Mayoral Police? Since when did the office of mayor come with a police force? Obviously, something had gone wrong. The term 'mayor' no longer meant what it did in Candace's own time. It was a little terrifying. Especially with the thought that she had done this. What had happened that had caused her future self to go through such a psychosis, that had made future her assume the office of mayor - a post which now seemed to more closely resemble that of a dictator. It was these thoughts, and others, that kept Candace occupied during the short walk to the end of the street with her silent captor. At the end of the street, he looked up in the sky and pulled a radio out of his belt with his free hand, his other not wavering in the unshakeable grip on her arm - much to her growing discomfort. The radio conversation was brief and to the point.
"This is Unit 12-B, reporting in from the corner of Wessex and Main. I've got an attempted truant and am requesting immediate transport for the prisoner to HQ. Over."
"Request granted, 12-B. Stand by for transport. Over."
That was it. The man slid his radio back into his belt and craned back his head, searching the skies. Quite literally moments later, a faint buzzing noise could be heard. It grew louder and louder - and then a red chair descended from the sky, hovering in mid-air by way of a rotor extending from it's back. It ceased moving mere inches away from them, it's propellors giving forth a low-pitched whine as they kept the strange device aloft. The chair was small-to small for a someone much larger than a toddler to sit comfortably in it, but that seemed like no obstacle to the officer. Turning to her, he effortlessly lifted her bodily off the ground and planted her in the small chair. Candace let out a surprised shriek, but it seemed as if it glanced harmlessly off the ears of the man. Pulling out a pair of handcuffs, he cuffed her hands behind the back of the chair, and then smacked the back, causing Candace to lurch forward in a frightening manner. The rotors began speeding up, and Candace had enough experience with flying machines to know what that meant. Uh oh.
Then it happened. At an insane rate of speed, it shot high into the air, and began traveling quickly over the city. The tiny seat threatened to capsize and dump her out at any moment, and so Candace sat stock still, terrified, bracing her wrists against the cold metal cuffs, as her only way of ensuring she didn't go tumbling off to her death in the dystopian city below her.
Then, just as quickly as it had risen, the flying chair began rapidly descending towards the ground. For a moment, a thought raced through Candace's mind - "It's going to slam into the ground and kill me." But it didn't. Instead, it came to an abrupt halt just inches above the ground. The sudden stop, at roughly the same height as a normal chair, set in motion some very uncomfortable feelings in Candace's stomach. She squeezed her eyes shut and began drawing in deep breaths in an attempt to ward off the nausea quickly welling up inside. It slowly subsided, and she re-opened her eyes when she felt the chair begin moving again. It moved more slowly this time, and (thankfully) along the ground. It slowly moved out of the parking lot where it had originally stopped, and towards a low, concrete building just a handful of yards away. There was a small sign over to the left, that said something about not paying attention to something. Candace wasn't able to catch the full text as she left it behind. The chair stopped once more just outside of the building's automatic doors. After a moment, an ominous hissing sound emanated from them, and they swiftly slid open. There stood another guard, wearing the same ridiculous outfit as the one before, but there was a slight difference. This one wasn't nearly as tall, nearly as thick, or nearly as muscular. In fact, he was rather gangly, and his helmet looked as if it was somewhat on the large side. As a result, this man was far less intimidating than the one before, although the large, weirdly-colored gun in his hand more than made up for it. As the new guard circled around back and undid the handcuffs, she craned her neck to make out the lettering on its side.
"Disintegrate-inizer"
That wasn't any comfort at all. And so it was, even though the guard didn't actually lay a hand on her, she willingly complied with his single spoken order.
"Walk." His voice was high and grating. But the Disintegrate-inizer was plenty of enforcement. Candace stood up out of the chair and began walking along with him, deep into the bowels of the building. When she heard the doors slide closed behind them, it felt as if all trace of hope had been left outside with the flying chair. What would happen to her? Would she be trapped here - twenty years in the future - forever? Or worse? Candace's original motivation for traveling so far into the future - saving her brothers - had not abated any since the time she had first made that decision. But it had changed inside of her. It was no longer a crazy, desperation fueled rush that would push her to insane actions to her quest. Instead it solidified - set like cement. It was now more of a quiet determination, partly because Candace had realized that if she were permanently incapacitated or worse - that her brothers would never be saved anyway. After a silent few minutes of walking with her new guard, their shoes echoing and re-echoing off of the tiled floor of the hall of whatever building they were in, they finally ceased walking in front of a large set of double doors. Stepping in front of her, but still keeping the gun trained, the guard rapped his knuckles on the door.
"Miss Mayor, I have a truant case for you to decide upon."
Candace heard a startled snort coming from the other side of the door. Then ...
"heh heh heh heh heh... *snort* B-bring them in."
The guard pushed open the door, and stepping back behind her, followed her in as he pushed her forward into the room. What a scene was laid out, both so strange that Candace felt inclined to laugh, but yet so frightening that she wouldn't have felt bad for breaking down in tears. At the other end of the room, sitting crouched on a ratty office chair, sat herself. Her future self of course, older by twenty years. Candace had seen her future self before, but this was different. What had happened to her now-future self? Her eyes were wild - one lazily out of focus - , her hair so dirty and unkempt, a long angry looking scar burned down her left arm, her teeth grossly yellowed and stained, her clothes tattered and splotched with dark red - Candace immediately put an end to that train of thought. It was too horrible a possibility to even be briefly entertained.
But even as she cast her eyes about the disorganized room, and her future self's callow, sunken form, she knew something bad had happened. Her future self crouched still on the chair for a few moments laughing quietly to herself, and it was not a happy laugh. It was a horridly disturbing sound which should never be heard from any person. Finally, Future Candace raised her head, and their eyes met. Her wild stare, like that of a cornered animal, struck an unholy terror into Candace's heart. This person was no longer her, she felt it. But - it had to be. Just what had the past twenty years done to her? Had Future Candace's brothers done this to her? Had she even found her brothers? All this and more passed through her mind. Suddenly, Future Candace lept up out of her chair, emitting an inhuman wail that shook her to her very soul. With a single quick movement Future Candace seized a long-silver colored gun off the battered desk to her right. Candace now saw that it was attached to a pack on Future Candace's back by a thick black hose. The straps of the pack were deeply sunken into Future Candace's shoulders, as if it hadn't been removed in years. With violently shaking arms, Future Candace pointed the silver gun in her direction. Candace heard the guard behind her step back, as if he knew what was about to happen.
Then Future Candace spoke, and her voice was a new horror. It was tremulous and quavering, harsh and very hoarse. Together with her restlessly roving eyes and scarred face, it presented the picture of a deeply disturbed person - someone whose spirit had stretched as far as it would go, bent as far as it could, and when time and trials had attempted to push it farther, had simply snapped. The mental psychosis had left a painfully obvious emotional trauma in its wake, that was plainly evident in the stammering, halting voice that that Candace heard.
"It-it's you! Me! Ha! Not this time! I remember! I know what happened! They won't save you like they did me! No! Think you can have what I did? Have what was taken from me! No! It's not right! That day was the end of my life! No one would believe me! Ha! Look at me now! They believe! They believe now! I made them! And you! I know how you feel! It's no matter. You won't be saved. I'll end you. Now."
Future Candace ended her tirade, and left the threat hanging in the air. She licked her lips, as if tasting the mortal fear that now completely froze Candace, permeating every limb of her body. Suddenly, her unfocused eye shifted and looked at Candace. Her eyes narrowed and she began giggling maniacally while slowly squeezing the trigger on her silver gun. A low-pitched whine drifted from it's end, which began glowing, first dimly, then slowly brightening, until it lit the whole room, almost blinding Candace with its intensity. Future Candace was still laughing like a madman.
Suddenly, a terrible shaking seized the whole building. Candace and Future Candace both looked up, as the entire roof was suddenly torn off, and tossed aside. An alien green light shone down through the gaping hole where the ceiling used to be. Above them, a flying saucer was hovering effortlessly, showering the area underneath it with the light. Candace had seen many alien ships in her time, but this wasn't one she oh. The light dimmed slightly, but brightened in the circle around Candace, and she found herself floating into the air. Suddenly coming unglued, she let out a scream. Surely this was the end? Her only hope was that she could use her connection with Meap to secure some sort of safety with her intergalactic kidnappers. If Meap even remembered her brothers - which he probably didn't.
"Nooooooo! Not her! Take me! Me! I can sing it too!" screamed Future Candace, the hoarseness in her voice becoming more apparent as she attempted to shout over the incredibly loud, yet somehow unnoticed howling noise of the tractor beam that was pulling Candace into the flying saucers' gaping maw.
"Nooo! They won't! Bwahahahahahha!" She suddenly burst into horrifyingly bitter laughter, then fully pulled the trigger on her gun. Another loud sound manifested itself, competing with that of the tractor beam. But this one was different - Candace recognized it. It was the distinctive shrieky tearing sound that resulted from something ripping a hole in space and time. Candace knew it from when random holes had appeared during the time loops. But this one was different - it coming from a hole created purposefully by Future Candace. She was trying to swallow her up in a temporal rift! A bright white beam shot out of the tip of the gun. But then, the unexpected happened. The beam, aimed directly at the hovering saucer, reflected off of it's silvery surface, and rebound in the direction it had come. With a freakish ripping sound , a hole in space and time was torn open in the floor beneath Future Candace. Her insane eyes and hollowed features suddenly flashed over with fear, a fear so raw and brutal, that Candace had a feeling of pity shoot through her, even as the tractor beam was pulling her through the air.
A cloak, which had been lying innocently on floor, suddenly stood up straight, behind Future Candace. Someone had been hiding underneath it this whole time? A hand shot out from under the cloak and seized the pack on Future Candace's back. The straps holding the pack on stretched, but did not give. Future Candace reached up and wildy failed her arms around, her visage frozen in terror. In her mad efforts to save herself, however, Future Candace elbowed her savior under the cloak. Even though she couldn't hear it, Candace could tell it had hit somewhere painful. The cloaked figure crumpled to the ground, dropping it's grasp on the pack. With an ear-splitting schloomp! Future Candace, pack and all, fell straight through the rift and was gone. A blink of an eye later, the hole slammed closed, leaving no evidence that it had ever been there. Candace covered her on eyes with her hands. She had seen her future, and this was how it ended? This? No! She would, she had to change her future. If someone changing the past would change the present, then changing the present would surely have an equivalent effect on the future. This wouldn't be the end of her. She wouldn't allow it. There was too much riding on her for her to allow her life to end so suddenly in the future.
In all this thought, Candace had almost forgotten the fact that, right at that moment she was being pulled through the air by a tractor beam into an unidentified alien spaceship, and that someone else was still in the room, disguised by a cloak, although now they were lying motionless on floor, presumably in pain. Whoever they were, they would be no help now.
"Pull yourself together!" Candace thought, giving herself an internal smack in the face. Whoever these aliens were, they surely knew Meap, or at least the Shooting Star Milkshake Bar. And if there was one thing aliens (or everyone, really) would know to take advantage of, it would be a person blubbering incoherently. She had to have a straight face on when she finally met them. The howling of the tractor beam intensified, then stopped. Candace felt the sensation of a solid floor materializing underneath of her. She was inside the ship. Now was the time to be brave. She felt a heavy thing being set on her head. Were the aliens beginning brain probing already? She knew enough of alien culture that it was highly unlikely. It was considered rude to begin such procedures without at least greeting the victim. At least, so Meap had said.
Candace took a deep breath and forced herself to open her eyes. But the scene which met her eyes was not one which she was expecting. There were no horrible-looking aliens ready to slice and dice up her insides in the name of science. The aliens were short, and green, and had a multiple vertically stacked eyes and large overbites. Their antennae came just up to Candace's stomach height. They were Martians! Candace reached up and felt the heavy thing resting on her head. It felt suspiciously like a crown. One of the Martians reached behind his back and produced a crude photograph. Studying it, Candace realized it was her - from when she had been abandoned on Mars after her brother's portal had malfunctioned. They had come back to Earth to find her, the person they had crowned as their queen. Candace narrowed her eyes. How come, if her brothers and all of their inventions had been wiped from the universe, how come the Martians remembered her? Hadn't history been rewritten without them? It was the same thing with the time machine that Phineas and Ferb had rebuilt. Although it was no longer looping, it was obvious the space-time continuum was still very much messed up. Perhaps rewriting history without a person was much harder than rewriting without, say, spoons. Who knew.
Seeing her sitting still with a suspicious look on her face, the Martians took it on themselves to snap her out of it. One of them stepped forwards slightly and produced another crude photograph, this time of Candace, Phineas and Ferb all sitting on a Mars rover, driving towards a purple portal that led back to Earth.
The mere sight of her brothers, even if it was only in a photograph, caused Candace to catch her breath. How were they in a photograph if they had never existed? Perhaps the space-time continuum ripples hadn't spread this far into the future yet. Or perhaps the ripples had just missed the photograph. Either way, Candace snatched the picture out of the alien's hand and studied it closely. She could still remember that day like it was yesterday, even considering that yesterday had been the same day in a row for over three months. The picture gave Candace hope. Her brothers weren't completely erased from the memory of the universe yet. But she had to get to them before they were, and not in least because she had to divert the terrible future she had just seen play out before her eyes. Perhaps she should be thankful, considering she now had a loyal army of Martians and thier flying saucer behind her, ready to support and cater to her every whim. Being truly in charge felt nice. She could get used to it.
Suddenly, Candace realized what she was thinking. The universe was trying to get her to follow in the path of her future self - to become the version of herself she had seen just moments earlier. "No!" she thought. "I have to do something different. I will not let that become my future." Candace stood up at last, towering over the Martians. The group of aliens split in two, clearing a path to what was apparently the front of the saucer. Waiting for her was a control panel, and a chair, far too large for Martians, but just the right size for her. They had designed this saucer with her in mind, apparently, and now they wanted her to fly it. Candace knew she would have to abandon them, but not before getting back to the time machine. She needed it to get back in time, but also, more importantly, needed it to get Future Candace's rift gun. A crazy paradox-creating idea had popped into her head. If she used the time machine to go back in time just a handful of minutes, she could take the rift gun from Future Candace like that strange cloaked person had tried to do. Whoever that was, Candace was sure she could convince them she needed it more. With the two of them together, surely they could manage to take it from Future Candace. She could take it back to the past and use it to tear open the fabric of time and space and pull her brothers back into reality.
Stepping forwards towards the seat, Candace ran her eyes over the array of buttons and levers on the saucer's dashboard. Just who did the Martians think she was, assuming that she would be able to pilot their ship. Subconsciously, Candace reached into her pocket and patted her wallet, assuring herself that her driver's permit was with her. A moment later, the silliness of that smote her, as she realized that, not only had her permit surely expired in the past twenty years she had skipped over with the time machine, but she was fairly sure that it didn't cover flying saucers anyway. Also - there was the fact that the Tri-State Area was now a dystopic regime, cruelly marred by its half-insane ruler, Future Candace.
Sitting down on the seat, Candace was surprised at its comfort. It was the first chair she'd sat down on in hours that was actually comfortable. Studying the controls more thoroughly, she decided that maybe she should not touch any of the buttons, but only use the joystick directly in front of the seat. Taking a firm grip on it, she was interrupted by the sound of a time machine. The cab of the saucer was momentarily filled with a flash of purple light. Turning around in her seat, she saw a time machine - literally just like the one she had left back at the museum - sitting in the middle of the spaceship. The Martians all ooh-ed in wonder. Sitting on the seat of the time machine, was, herself? It was a version of herself, to be sure, Candace thought, but this one was so identical that it was obviously from either the very recent past or very near future.
"Oops," the new Candace said, gawking at her like an idiot. "Too late." She pressed a button rapidly several times on the time machine and, in a flash of purple light, was gone.
"Weird", said Candace, the sound of her own voice startling her slightly. The Martians cheered upon hearing it. Turning back to the controls, she couldn't hold back a smile. The Martians had really worked on a spaceship for twenty years to travel to earth to rescue their queen? They were awfully trusting, especially of a person who'd done literally nothing except smash a couple of Mars Rovers, and then sing a song with them. Maybe introducing their culture to the concept of music was what had had such a big impact. It kind of saddened Candace to think she'd have to abandon them. Of course, she didn't have to. She could just as easily turn a course for Mars, and live out the rest of her days ruling over the red planet. But as attractive as that sounded, she knew she would never do such a thing. Her brothers needed her to save them, and she was going to save them, and hopefully avert her scarring future into something more - well, more pleasant.
Candace reached forwards and grabbed ahold of the joystick. Giving it a slight push, she felt the saucer smoothly drift in same direction. Okay, so that was how it worked. Perfect. Time to find the museum.
You might think that a teenager would be woefully ill-prepared to pilot a flying saucer. Now, if it had been anyone except Candace, you would probably be right. But, Candace was a Flynn after all, and she had been in her fair share of spaceships, and had discovered that they were mostly the same. They varied in shape, and size, and color, but for the most part, if you flew one, you could fly them all. Now, Candace wasn't able to work out all of the abilities of the saucer, and was unable to interpret the vast spread of buttons and dials before her. But the basic steering was intuitive enough.
As she piloted the saucer over Future Danville, the Martians were all standing behind and around her, watching her move the joystick. They seem enraptured by even the slightest of her movements. Candace momentarily wondered why the Martians had taken her, instead of Future Candace. Weren't these Martians twenty years older as well? At first it was odd, but she realized that it made sense in a way - if the Martians had only a picture of her to go by, then how would they know she had aged? Maybe Martians aged differently, or even not at all. They were aliens, after all. It was just dumb luck that she had happened to time travel to this day, right when they were ready to find her.
"They must have been tracking future me", Candace thought with amusement, "But I look just like the picture and future me didn't. At least, she doesn't anymore. No wonder future me was upset."
The flying saucer traveled much faster than the flying chair. It didn't feel as if it had, but Candace saw the museum below them, and realized that it had indeed. Standing up too quickly, Candace's vision blurred and dimmed, and she collapsed back onto the chair. The jet lag of time travel was starting to catch up with her. Looking at her phone, she saw that it read 3:11 PM. She'd spent over five hours running all over the place, and travelling through time on an empty stomach. Standing up more slowly this time, Candace willed her suddenly present hunger pangs to go away. Now she needed to tell the Martians that she had to leave them, and was slightly nervous as to how it would go. Turning to face her waiting audience, Candace cleared her throat.
"Uh, I, well I don't know if you can understand me - but I assume you can somewhat, because we did sing that song together on Mars." She paused awkwardly. "I kinda hate to tell you this, especially since I know now that you guys spent like twenty years getting off your planet to come find me. But, uh, I kinda need to go. Partly because this isn't actually my time - I'm from twenty years in the past. But mainly because my brothers are missing. They're the ones you guys thought were kidnapping me, so you did that whole merge-into-one-giant-alien thing."
Candace paused again and studied her audience. Seeing no visible response, she continued "I hate doing this to you guys. I'd really love to go back to Mars with you and be your queen. But, well, I just can't." To help make her point, Candace reached up to her head and removed the crown. That garnered a response. The Martians collectively gasped and opened their multiple eyes widely. She smiled and sat the crown down on the head of the nearest Martian, careful to not touch his antenna.
"There you go", she said, stepping back. "She can be your new queen. Or king - I really don't know how to tell."
Candace turned back to the control panel, and she heard rapidly muttered gibberish from behind her back. Hoping the conversation was one of acceptance, Candace swept her eyes over the various controls. Now which one of them controlled the tractor beam? They were all labeled with various strange symbols, which she assumed were Martian words or letters.
Candace felt an alien hand tap her on her lower back. Turning, she saw it was the one she had unceremoniously crowned. He extended his lower and and pressed down a few of the jutting teeth, playing a tune. Candace smiled, remembering her surprise at finding out that their entire bodies were basically entirely musical instruments. The tune was one that she recognized.
"Yes, I know what I sang. But I really have to go. Can one of you guys make the tractor beam work again? I need to get inside the museum."
In response to her request, one of the Martians lept up onto the pilots' seat. Having been designed for her, it was comically too large for him. Pressing a few buttons on the controls, Candace heard the howling sound beginning to sound from outside the ship.
"Wait, guys", she said, as she saw what they were doing, "You don't have to te...tear the roof off. Well, whatever. I suppose I don't have to walk at all now."
Candace cringed as a resounding crash thundered through the air after the saucer carelessly tossed the museum's roof aside, sending it flying into one of the delapidated apartment buildings across the street.
Spouting gibberish, the Martians cleared a path for her to walk back onto the pad where she had appeared after originally entering the ship. Stepping onto it, Candace gave a thumbs up, and felt the floor disappearing out from under her. The space ship around her slowly faded out of view, being replace with the air directly under it. Once again, she was in the howling green tractor beam, levitating in the air. The difference this time, however, was that she was being let down. Bracing her legs for impact, the beam sat her on the museum's tiled floor with a surprising gentleness. The sound ceased and the green light shut off. Candace stood and waved as the saucer circled in the air several times above her head. Suddenly, a hole appeared in the bottom of the saucer, and a Martian tossed a small gray box down at her. Catching it, Candace saw it had one red button on it, covered in what appeared to be a hard plastic cover.
"What does this do...?", she shouted up at the ship. The saucer flashed its lights and then soundlessly rocketed away into the sky, quickly becoming a distant black speck. Shaking her head, Candace jammed the strange box into the pocket with her phone, and turned around. The time machine sat on it's podium behind her. The Martians had put her down right next to it. Stepping over and hauling herself into it, Candace found a surprising amount of comfort in its ratty red seat cushions.
"Alright", she said to herself, "I've got to figure out how to get this thing to move not only in time, but also in space. There's gotta be way."
The time machine's controls were much less complicated than had been the saucer's. After a few minutes of studying, Candace decided that the heretofore untouched by her buttons on the left was a directional steering device. Pressing them, Candace realized they rewound to parts of her life, placing the machine nearby whatever part she rewound to. It was a crude directional steering mechanism, but it would do the trick.
Pressing the buttons until they rewound to about fifteen minutes ago, Candace reached to the right and grabbed the large start lever on the side of the machine. A flash of purple light enveloped her as her molecules were inverted through the space-time continuum. When the light faded, she was... back in the saucer? It was fifteen minutes ago in her life - and the past version of herself was up front piloting the saucer. Turning around, Fifteen-Minutes-Ago Candace cast a questioning gaze on her.
"Oops", said Candace, smiling sheepishly at her past self, "Too late." She spammed the rewind button and pulled the start lever. The purple light of time travel once again swallowed her up.
As the purple light disappeared, Candace looked around and saw that she had pressed the rewind buttons too many times in her haste. The time machine was now sitting behind ... was that Good Future Candace? From her first time traveling trip? Indeed it was. Good Future Candace was sitting on a park bench, headphones on, singing to herself.
"Who's a quantum spacial anomaly? You are!
Who's a quantum spacial anomaly? I am!
I'm the future version of a person who traveled up to meet me;
But they had to mess with time and I became an anomaly!
In the mere blink of an eye my timeline was erased;
Wiped out of the universe without a single trace!
I came out of nowhere and I've got no where to go;
My DNA always denies all my supposed family ties;
Because I'm a temporal paradox, you know?
The folks who were my parents never even thought to birth me;
I just sort of popped in - quite spontaneously!
I suppose that I could settle down, get married, have some kids;
But their family tree would always end with me;
Because you see, quite technically, I really shouldn't even be!"
Candace frowned. Good Future Candace was a terrible singer. She was also right - she was a quantum spacial anomaly. After the space-time continuum had been altered by Phineas and Ferb's disappearance, Good Future Candace should have ceased to exist, since the future she was from no longer existed. But, and Candace heard Phineas' voice as she thought this, remembering his lengthy explanation of time travel after the first incident, "Good Future and Bad Future Candace both used a time machine - meaning that they became quantum locked: basically, the timeline can change around them, without changing them, unless something happens that deliberately questions the reasons for their continued existence. That's why Bad Future Candace disappeared when asked if her future no longer existed. Because at one point Bad Future Candace was Good Future Candace, she was just an older version of her."
"Well," Candace thought to herself, "I won't destroy another version of myself. Might as well leave her be." She pressed the buttons again, taking extra caution to ensure that they were set on the correct time and space : Crazy Future Candace's office, directly before Candace had encountered her. For the third time, Candace reached and pulled the time machine's start lever. With a flash, the machine traveled through space and time, stopping once more, inside what appeared to be a closet of some sort.
The closet was dark and dirty, with cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. The door was hanging half open, and Candace stepped out of the time machine and walked over to it to listen in on the conversation going on the room attached to the closet.
"-was the end of my life! No one would believe me! Ha! Look at me now! They believe! They believe now! I made them! And you! I know-"
That was enough. Candace knew where she was: the encounter between herself and her horrifying future self. Looking around, she saw a ragged, grimy cloak laying on the ground. Gagging at the repulsive stench wafting off it, she grabbed it and pulled it over herself. Candace lay on the ground, and slowly, inch by inch, crawled out of the closet until she was less than two feet behind Crazy Future Candace, who had by now finished her rant, and was charging up her silver gun. Looking around, Candace saw no sign of whoever had been here when she had met Crazy Future Candace, but that was probably for the better. There would be no need to fight whomever it had been over the pack on Crazy Future Candace's back when she finally got ahold of it. Candace was jarred out of her thoughts by a loud rumbling, and the entire building shaking beneath her. Sure enough, right on cue, the Martian saucer ripped off the buildings roof, and hovered above, filling the roofless room with unearthly lights and sounds, as it tractored Candace's past self into itself.
"Nooooo!" Candace heard her future self shout. It was almost time. "Not her! Take me! Me! I can sing it too!" The saucer continued it's tractoring unabated.
"Nooo! They won't! Bwahahahahahha!" Even when she heard it for the second time, her future self's wild raucous laughter, ringing out as she attempted to swallow Past Candace and the saucer with a rift filled Candace with dread. Was this really her? There was no time to ponder. It was time.
Crazy Future Candace's rift gun had reflected off of the silvery surface of the Martian saucer, inadvertently forming the rift beneath her. Candace quickly stood up, reached forwards, and seized the straps holding the pack on Crazy Future Candace's back. Crazy Future Candace was extremely unhealthily skinny, but still weighed a considerable amount more than Candace could reliably support. She staggered forwards, but the straps refused to break. The aged fibers stretched, but would not snap. Crazy Future Candace began flailing her arms and legs about wildly, in a vain attempt to save herself. In her efforts, one of her elbows solidly nailed Candace square in the nose. The sudden rush of pain made Candace stagger back, releasing her hold on the straps, allowing Future Candace to tumble to her doom inside the space-time rift. Tripping over the cloak still disguising her, Candace tumbled onto the ground, clutching her face as blood began streaming from her injured nose. A wave of revulsion filled Candace, as the warm sticky liquid gushed onto her hands and clothing. In the background, she heard the howling of the saucer's tractor beam cease, and heard the spacecraft's engine rev up, then fade as it accelerated into the distance. Kicking away the now bloody cloak, Candace staggered back into the closet where the time machine was waiting.
Nosebleeds had always been an issue for her - they bled for ages and often made her extremely light-headed and prone to fainting before drying up on their own, if they did at all. It was due to a rare but fairly weak version of hereditary thrombocytopenia, a disorder which prevented Candace's blood from clotting large wounds as well as it should. It was weak enough that the doctors had said it would rarely, if ever become an issue, but they had prescribed some cheap blood coagulant to be taken if she ever began bleeding severely. The only problem was that the medicine was under the the bathroom sink at home; back in Candace's own time. Blood pouring profusely down her face, Candace rolled up her shirt and pressed it hard against her nose, attempting to stifle the flow. She hauled herself back into the time machine and pressed the buttons quickly. Pulling the time machine's start lever, purple light shone brightly as Candace was dragged back to her own time.
With a flash, and a scream from a surprised family visiting the museum, Candace and the machine materialized successfully in 2017. Already reeling from the pain and loss of blood, trying to climb out of the time machine as quickly as she did was the final straw. Swaying back and forth at the edge of the time machine's display podium, Candace's vision dimmed, and then went black as she went crashing forwards towards the shocked museum visiting family. The husband of the family stepped forwards quickly, and saved her from cracking her head against the hard tiled floor.
"Quick!" he shouted, "Someone call an ambulance!"
"I left my phone in the car!" his wife replied face whitened with fear. " Oh, oh - I got it!" She paused and cleared her throat.
"What, do you think that a phone is just going to fall out of the sky?" She waved her hands in exasperation. A loud crash came echoing from the museum's roof. With a thunk, a phone flew through the air and landed directly in the palm of her hand, doing exactly that.
"Thank goodness", she breathed, looking down at it, as she swiftly flipped it open and dialed 9-1-1. Sidestepping to avoid a sudden avalanche of thousands of phones tumbling from the ceiling, she hastily responded to the operator's questions.
That night, the Daily Danville had new breaking local headlines: FAINTED GIRL APPEARS AT MUSEUM! followed closely by CARGO PLANE SHIPMENT OF NEW PHONES FALLS OUT OF PLANE.