Stuart's first thought, wildly inappropriate as it was, went: Surely one of these Topangas will go out with me. They seemed to come from all walks of life; many were preppy, a few were gothic, and one with thick glasses looked like a Stuart in the body of his beloved. It took a minute for him to regain the power of speech. "Whoa… That's a lot of Topangas."
"Oh, they're not actually named Topanga - that seems to be a peculiarity of our particular reality," Topanga told him. They stepped into the house and she shut the door behind them. "Oddly, most of them seemed to be named Katherine."
"Hmm, interesting... Hi, Katharine!" he called experimentally, addressing the crowd. He received a variety of responses to that – "Hi" and "Hello" and even one "Hello, Stuart" (alongside the one "Hi, Kevin.") Most all of them were watching him intently, which he found unnerving and delightful in equal measure. One girl, seated on a folding chair set well away from the rest, ignored them completely, rocking back and forth obliviously. "Topanga, how did all of these girls get here?"
"Well, I brought them here, of course, from their respective realities. I figure when my parents get home, they won't have any choice but to accept that I've been telling them the truth. You know, it's the strangest thing, but none of them knows how to Jump?"
"Yes, that is highly interesting, actually," Stuart agreed, momentarily derailed in spite of himself. "You know, I have a theory about that. I speculate that the worlds that are absolutely closest to ours can only be accessed by the highest orders of the Jump Equations, where the math is still quite beyond me. In fact… wait a minute. Did you say you're going to introduce these very many Katherines to your parents?"
"Obviously," she pronounced loftily.
"No no," Stuart countered. "No no. No no no nonono. Let's not do that. We have to get these girls out of here, get them back to their own realities."
"Ridiculous. My family will be home momentarily. We won't have time."
Stuart wouldn't go down without a fight. "You forget, time is on our side. For us, there's literally no such thing as `not enough time'."
"Okay, you're right about that," Topanga conceded. "But I don't want to, and not all of them want to go home just yet, either. Especially that one." She pointed at the rocking girl seated far away from the crowd.
"What happened to her?" Stuart asked.
"She comes from a horrible reality, where Philadelphia has been overrun by zombies," Topanga told him. "I think I saved her life by bringing her here."
"Topanga…" Stuart began, but he didn't know what to say. There was absolutely nothing he could do about this, no way to change her mind. "What do you call me for? If you didn't want help getting rid of them, why bring me here at all?"
Topanga frowned, as if she hadn't really considered that question before. Whatever answer she might have made was cut off by the opening of the front door. The first one through was the older sister, Nebula, a short girl with curly, shoulder length hair. She stepped inside, looked around, and then froze in place. The first word she said was "Holy" and the second word would never be uttered aloud on network television.
Behind Nebula came another teenage girl, approximately the same age – a few inches taller, with dark hair done up in a sloppy bun, wearing a long black skirt and a denim jacket. Her reaction closely mirrored that of her friend. Moments later, Topanga's parents entered, and the whole awkward scene was complete. Silence gripped the room for several seconds, and it was Nebula's friend who spoke first, moving towards the door. "You know, Nebbie, It seems like you have a lot going on here, so let's hang out some other time, okay?" With that, she was gone.
Stuart, smart enough to work the mathematics behind time travel, was smart enough to see an opening. "Yeah, this is kinda of a family thing, I think, so I'm going to head out as well." He almost ran out the door. Beside the driveway lay his bicycle, which he wasted no time in hoisting upright. His urgency to flee was so great that he almost rode off anyway, in spite of the flat tire, which he must have suffered during his violent dismount only minutes before.
"You, uh, need a lift?" a girl's voice called.
Stuart looked up to see Nebula's friend, nearly at the end of the driveway, an unlit cigarette in her right hand. "Oh, no thank you. I can just walk it home. I don't live far."
The girl gestured to an old pick-up truck parked in front of the house. "Come on, we can throw your bike in the back. Besides, there's a couple of things I want to talk to you about." Her voice was deeper than his.
Minutes later, Stuart strapped himself into the passenger seat of the girl's aging Chevy. She slipped her key into the ignition, but her hand fell away before she cranked the engine. "I guess we haven't been introduced. My name is Stacey."
He could sense reluctance from her, like she didn't really want to have this conversation with him. "Stuart. Stuart Minkus."
"Minkus?" She started the engine, and eased the vehicle away from the curb.
"Yeah."
"I've heard of you. My little brother is in your class," she told him. "Shawn Hunter?"
Stuart's blood turned to ice. "Yeah… I know Shawn," he said noncommittally.
Stacey laughed. It was a strange sound coming from her, higher pitched than her normal voice, and girlish. "I guess you guys aren't really buds. Should I turn here?" They had arrived at the end of the block.
"Yeah, take a right here, and then another right on Lafferty," he instructed her. He didn't want to talk about Shawn anymore, so he rewound the conversation even further back. "You said we had some things to talk about?"
"Sure. We could talk about the Sixers or the Phillies if you want," Stacey responded, not taking her eyes off the road.
"Well, I'm not exactly an aficionado-"
"Or we could talk about the room full of Topanga clones back there," she quipped.
"Actually, they aren't clones, they're quantum copies. It's an interesting distinction, in that…" Stuart trailed off, realizing that this was one lecture he probably shouldn't be delivering.
"You mean they're from alternate realities?" Stacey asked. Her voice was strangely casual, as if they were actually discussing the Sixers or the Phillies.
"Yes." He couldn't imagine the point in denying it – that much was obvious.
Stacey nodded, drummed her fingers idly on the steering wheel. "Nebbie told me all about it, but I didn't believe it. Hell, she didn't believe it. We had a good laugh over what her kooky little sister had said and then we went on with our dinner, right?"
"Right."
They pulled to a stop at a red light, and Stacey paused a beat in her conversation. "So, is it all true then?"
Stuart desperately wanted to play dumb at this point, but he figured the ship has had already sailed on that one. Still, it was better not to give away more than he had to. "You mean about Cory's World?" he asked.
"Is that what you call it? We always called it The Matthews Family, you know, like the Addams Family?" Stacey said, sounding as calm and collected as ever. "Eh, we've known about that for awhile. No, I meant the crazy hotel and the chick from the future and all the parallel universes. Is all of that true?"
Stuart could only shake his head. He made a mental note to have some stern words with Topanga, but he doubted it would do any good. She was as irrepressible as ever – or maybe she was just getting more like Moon. Curiously, the thought didn't bother him as much as he might have expected. "Yeah, that stuff is all true."
"So... you could open a wormhole, right here, right now, and take us ten years into the future?"
Stuart frowned. "I wouldn't."
"Well, obviously, but… you could?"
"Yeah, I guess so… Um, this isn't my turn."
Stacey had put on her right turn signal and began slowing down as they approached a nondescript residential road. "I know," she said, as the nose of the truck began rounding the curve. They went down a few houses and she parked in front of a nice looking two story home. Curiously, they sat in silence, facing one another. She looked him up and down, not in a prurient manner, but simply taking the measure of him. Her gaze met his and they locked eyes for a moment, then her attention drifted away, so that she was staring into space just over his head.
"Uh… Stacey?" he said after a couple of minutes.
"Stuart Minkus," she said, meeting his eyes again. "Will you take me away from here?"
It took weeks, but eventually the details began to fall into place.
Topanga, having achieved her purpose, returned all of her quantum copies to their native realities. At last report, the Lawrence family was examining the existential ramifications of their position in the multiverse, and their youngest daughter seemed confident that they would be ready to leave when the day came.
Darren did not have to resort to theatricalities to persuade his parents that a move was in order; he employed bald bribery. With a couple of quick Jumps, he succinctly demonstrated the potential financial windfall that time travelling offered. In exchange for a six million dollar house, Darren's parents agreed to relocate to a new dimension.
Hillary did not want to talk about it.
Stuart kept meaning to have the conversation with his mother. He had planned out a few possible opening lines ("Did you ever want to live somewhere else?" or "What if I told you I could make all your problems disappear?"), and even prepared to deliver them over breakfast on a couple of occasions… But he didn't. He would sit across from her at the kitchen table, plates full of scrambled eggs and toast between them, and try to tell her about everything, but he never could. Guilt plagued him as he watched her working two jobs to pay the mortgage and as he considered all the things he was keeping from her. Stuart burned to take her away from her struggles in the quotidian world; when that bombshell dropped, everything was going to change. So each day he put off the inevitable, purchasing one more pleasant breakfast with his mother at the rock bottom price of twenty four more hours of guilt.
As a group, they never even approached consensus about the world they should all move to. Topanga and Darren nearly came to blows over her Tolkienesque realm. (He said he wouldn't live on a planet with goblins; she said she wouldn't consider one without elves). Hillary championed a new cause each week – from Picard's Enterprise to Avonlea – and seemed passionately dedicated to each. Stuart solved the controversy with autocratic efficiency. He made his announcement one afternoon when the four of them had assembled in Ned's bedroom.
"We're going to Philadelphia in the next universe over," he informed them flatly, holding up his hand to forestall any further debate. "The decision has been made. I know that isn't what any of you wanted most, but it should meet all of your needs. I think, for the sake of our families, we should ease their transitions as much as possible. What could be more like Philadelphia than Philadelphia? The sitcom of that universe is set in Chicago, 750 miles away, so we should be safe from being a part of a new show. If any of you wish, you always have the option to relocate, but for the time being we stay together."
Maybe his arguments convinced them, or maybe they simply acquiesced to his authority. Whatever the cause, the chrononauts agreed to his plan. They established the evacuation protocols, planning specifically where and when to meet when the signal came. "But how do we signal everyone? Topanga asked, as they sat in her living room one afternoon, brainstorming. "Our group is getting bigger all the time."
"We need one of those whatsits – a calling tree? Something like that. When the signal goes out, everyone on the list calls the next two people on the list, until everyone is notified," Hillary suggested.
"But what if someone isn't home?" Darren asked. "What then? Sorry pal, you missed the bus to the next reality, so good bye and good luck!"
"Pagers. We need pagers," Stuart decided.
"Well, that would work, but who's going to pay for all of that?" Darren said.
"Oh, for god's sake!" Hillary exclaimed. She stood up and grabbed her backpack. With jerky, exaggerated moments, she dumped all of its contents on the floor – textbooks, a spiral, and writing utensils fell in an untidy lump. With a final, surly look, she disappeared – and then reappeared almost instantly, her bag now full of bundles of hundred-dollar bills.
Darren gave her a stupefied look. "Where did you get that?"
Hillary gave a little shrug. "I robbed a bank."
Topanga sputtered; Darren gasped. Both looked first at Hillary, and then at Stuart. "Hillary…" he began.
"Look, I'm just sick of it, okay? We have these incredible powers to go anywhere at any time and we all stand around talking about how we can't afford pagers. It's ridiculous!" she exclaimed. "Besides, no one's going to even miss it."
"I'm sure someone's going to miss this," Darren disagreed. He reached into the bag and pulled out a fistful of bills, which he waved in the air. "That's a lot of money."
"Well, I didn't take it from anywhere in this dimension. I went to the place where Topanga found all of those zombies. I mean, in that reality, the United States government had collapsed, and all of this money's just worthless. Trust me – no one's going to miss it," she explained.
"Huh!" Darren remarked. "That's clever."
A lull developed in the conversation; it seemed like the group was waiting for Stuart's reaction. "Okay, good work," he said. "But let's not take any more trips to the zombie apocalypse if we can help it. I don't want anyone bringing back an infection."
Stuart scratched the back of his head, but the itch persisted. Initially, he had found the phenomenon more puzzling than irritating, but once he had identified the sensation, it became progressively harder to endure. He noticed first a gentle twitch in his scalp that only seemed to manifest in Cory's presence, joking to himself that he was allergic to the Matthews' middle child. It didn't take long to correlate the occurrence with those moments when everyone around him began to behave strangely, slipping into their on-screen personas. As time went on, the light itch became a burning pain, as if some insect were lodged in his skull, just under his skin. His memory of his scenes on Cory's World remained nebulous and incomplete; sometimes he realized only belatedly that the invisible cameras were rolling. Other times, however, when he felt that familiar, unwelcome itch, he seized the moment, lacing his words with greater sarcasm, trading verbal barbs with Cory and the dutiful sidekick, Shawn Hunter. He sought out ways to rebel against the producers.
Once, Mr. Feeny put them all together for a group project. Sickeningly, Cory and Topanga were named the parents of their model family, with Shawn and himself their unholy progeny. Stuart attempted to subvert the group's efforts, flaunting his assigned elders by getting a large (and obviously fake) tattoo on his chest. Feeny glossed over the whole affair, but the chrononauts all had a good laugh about it later.
Later on, presumably in another installment of the show, Feeny tried out a new wrinkle on the group project front. He broke the class in pairs and had each duo create fake businesses attempting to maximize the returns on an initial investment of one thousand hypothetical dollars. Cory and Shawn made a mockery of the project by gambling at the horse track with actual money. Stuart and Topanga also made a mockery of the project, but in a different way. The numbers they presented to the class looked authentic, because they were sampled from their actual portfolio. The chrononauts were playing the stock market in the alternate Philadelphia with breathtaking success, building the fortunes they would utilize after the move.
His favorite moment on screen had to be in the sixth grade play. When Cory abdicated the lead role in Hamlet, Stuart took over as the troubled Dane. Just to torture everyone, he performed his lines with a deep southern accent, and laughed all the way home.
He knew that his behavior was juvenile, but he didn't care. For the first time since the whole mess had begun, he was having fun on the set of Cory's World.
