The Once and Future King

by Nate The Ape

A KK Lion King crossover where Jack and Ann suddenly find themselves translocated to the LK universe, where they play an unexpected role in the Circle of Life... Chapter 56 COMPLETE!

38. Shattered Illusions

(Walks in and collapses, a quivering wreck.) Well, after nearly five long years, here it is. That pivotal, inevitable chapter we all knew would come sometime. According to my edition of Microsoft Word, this chapter is all of twenty-three pages in length. And no wonder, this chapter was a real struggle to write. Considering how crucial this one would be as a turning point, I pulled out all the stops with this one. Research, reference books, even role-playing with friends, I did it all to make this one special, as compelling and realistic as possible.

Most of the information about quantum physics in this chapter is at least fairly accurate. Still, there are some places where I did end up resorting to technobabble for the sake of the story.

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"Child, magic exists. There are powers and forces and realms beyond the fields you know." The Invisible Labyrinth, by Neil Gaiman, 1990.

"["I don't know what I say. I don't know what I think. All I know is that I wish all three of you had LEFT ME THE FUCK ALONE!"] Ralph Roberts raised his head toward the root-riddled ceiling of Atropos's den and screamed." Insomnia, by Stephen King, 1994.

"I tell you what I believe-shit happens!" Predator 2, 1990.

"A paradox is not a conflict within reality. It is a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality should be like." Richard Feynman.

"To the moon, Alice!" Ralph Kramden, The Honeymooners.

His nerves taut, so acutely aware of the present moment, Jack Driscoll fiercely gripped the hilt of his weapon, eyes and attention locked on his armored opponent, totally ignoring the mingled shouts of the excited crowd. Like the writer, the Roman gladiator held a two and a half foot sword known as a spatha in his right hand, the slicing blade pointing up and forward at about a 50 degree angle. On his left arm was a rectangular shield, held in place by leather straps.

"My name is Priscus," the gladiator gruffly addressed Jack. "Prepare to die under my sword."

"Heh, we'll see about that pal," Jack defiantly shot back, focused and confident as the sunlight bathed both men in harsh gold.

Then, bringing his sword backward, Priscus chopped at the playwright's chest. Swiftly, Jack blocked the blow with his own spatha.

There was a fearsome, grating pressure transmitted up the weapon and into Jack's arm as he forced Priscus's sword back and down.

Pulling free, the writer flung his shield in front of his abdomen as Priscus stabbed with his sword, preventing him from being impaled through the intestines.

Now Jack lunged for the gladiator's throat with the point of his spatha. But Priscus was ready, and at the last instant, deflected the blow with the flat of his own blade.

It was a wild, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants duel, where neither combatant could afford to slacken for a moment. Jack could feel the jarring impact as Priscus' blade clanged against his or smashed into his wooden shield.

Sometimes both men would part briefly, sweating and breathing hard as they sized each other up for a new weakness, an advantage to exploit-and then go at it hammer and tongs once more.

All the while, a desperate Jack Driscoll, often shocked by the tenacity and viciousness of the gladiator's attack, trying his utmost to keep that blade from connecting, would exclaim, "Oh Christ, Oh Christ! Nooo! Ahhhh! Jesus! Don't you try that with me pal! Hah, too slow Roman! Jesus! Didn't feel good, did it?"

These oaths and blusters made Ann laugh so hard her eyes nearly watered, but Jack steadfastly ignored her as his gaze remained glued to the crimson bar on the right side of the screen, sinking downward in a jerk every time the computer-generated gladiator's sword was able to get past the defenses of the playwright's first-person, warrior alter ego, represented by only a pair of arms extending into space on the screen.

With each slash or stab that tasted nonexistent flesh, the screen would turn rose for a second or two, Jack's avatar would give a muffled, grunting cry of pain, and yes, the life bar would decrease by another notch. At the same time though, Jack gladly gave as well as he got, an increasing number of PG-13 wounds appearing on Priscus' body as the playwright made swinging, chopping, jabbing motions with the controller he clutched in his right hand, and raised his left arm, a second controller strapped to his forearm acting as a stand in for a Roman shield.

An increasing desperation took hold as Jack watched both life bars drop in too-fast fits. Would he finally be able to beat this level of Ultimate Warrior 7 on Wii Third Millennium? Who would go empty first?

Now both bars were down to the wire. Then, with one good, final jab, giving it everything he had, Jack managed to impale Priscus deep in the chest with the spatha.

At that, the screen froze. A message appeared in orange, blinking letters, proclaiming, "TITUS WINS!" as the screen drew back to reveal and then pan around Jack's victorious game character, pulling the discreetly blood-tinged sword back and raising it to the sky while Priscus wearily slumped backward and down, dying.

As the fallen gladiator crashed to the ground on his back, dust bursting into the air from the impact, Jack's alter ego bellowed in triumph as the crowd shrieked all around him in excitement and ecstasy.

"Yeah!" Jack himself cheered. "Hah-hah! Boy did I fix him good that time!" he said smugly, turning to a giggling Ann.

"A nice performance!" she agreed. "I think you're finally beginning to get the hang of that level."

"Yep," Jack nodded as he turned back to the screen. "Cro-Magnon, Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite, Greek, Persian, and now Roman, I've gotten pretty good at licking them all in this arena, if I may say so. The Viking is up next though," he added, tone darkening as he clicked on a broadsword for his weapon, "and I've never gone up against that nasty Norseman yet. Let's hope I know what I'm doing," he muttered, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his right hand.

Both New Yorkers were currently in Jack's new room on DGDB. Now that they both were no longer in need of any medical attention, Ann and Jack had been moved to a pair of suites adjacent to each other to free up their hospital rooms.

Like any good hotel room, it had all sorts of excellent amenities. In Jack's, there were period-appropriate clothes and shoes in the dresser and closet. Vests, trousers, singlets and boxer shorts, swim trunks for the rec deck's pool, a bathrobe, and Polaroid sunglasses. In his bathroom, there was a safety razor and shaving cream (although, for some odd reason, he hadn't been able to find the former over the past two days), Bay Rhum cologne and deodorant soap.

For the first time in over three months, the writer had a decent, proper bed to sleep in, with a pillow to accept and support his head, and cool, soft blankets to slide under. Perhaps even better, he often chastely shared it with Ann, blissfully feeling the warmth of her body in his arms and against his scarred chest as their ribs expanded in rhythm, smelling the mixture of scents rising from her skin and sleek sleeping robe.

And every time they decided to fall asleep together, the playwright and the stage actress would engage in the same tender kissing ritual they'd done the night before Scar betrayed everyone. Yes, it was a wonderful thing, sharing one's bed with a woman.

As for the former vaudeville girl, her room too, had been thoughtfully furnished by the staff. Her bathroom contained all sorts of things from her time period for a member of the high-maintenance sex; a Mason Pearson brush, Frownies and Wrinkies, which were little pads that relaxed the facial muscles and got rid of lines, a metal-toothed comb, eyelash curlers, Vaseline, eyeliner, rouge, and even Jungle Gardenia perfume.

In her closet were various dresses, half slips, full slips, tap pants, skirts, blouses, sleeping robes, bras, sweaters, form-fitting cotton swimwear, and heeled shoes.

Right now, the actress was barefoot, dressed in a simple button-up teal blue blouse and pleated charcoal skirt, sitting on the end of Jack's bed as she watched him struggle through levels of Ultimate Warrior 7. Instead of being clad in the armor of his video game avatar, the playwright only had on a pair of brown Spaulding track shorts and a singlet, staying cool and limber as he parried and stabbed with the controller.

Looking in at that moment, a casual observer might've assumed that both Ann and Jack were as happy and content as one could possibly be, delighting in being alive, in each other's company, in the extraordinary wonders of Sector 12 Hospital, in the near-magical technology they got to experience and use on a daily basis, in the luxuries bestowed on them.

And they would be very wrong.

Certainly, after repeatedly coming so close to dying a violent, horrific death, so far from home with no one to lay their body to rest, both Jack and Ann were understandably filled with a newfound appreciation and zest for life, adopting an attitude of enjoying every moment to the fullest.

Then too, over the past seven weeks, both the playwright and his dame had grown ever closer and more devoted to each other, to the point where they were almost sharing blood. (Jack figured that since she'd already had her fingers crammed inside his belly to keep his entrails from spilling out, any other physical gesture short of sex fell pretty flat in comparison as far as intimacy went.)

And yet, vexingly, Jack still couldn't open that final gate. He still wouldn't smash that horizontal pane of glass which would allow Ann Darrow to fall into him at long last by uttering those three magic words, the phrase that proclaimed, "You have my soul and my heart forever. Will you take mine?"

It wasn't made any easier by the knowledge that Jack received from Ann through his private radio antenna, an uncomfortable, unspoken feeling that she wasn't all that pleased with him for running out on poor Simba and leaving the helpless cub to Scar or Nduli's tender mercies. It was silly of course. That leopard had savaged him to within an inch of his life, and Jack shuddered to think of what Scar could've done to them.

Still, it seemed to change the dynamic just a little, and now Jack was worried that if he told Ann so soon after, she'd snap back, "Well, if you love me so much, why didn't you at least let me try to help Simba, or get yourself down there with me!" or something to that effect.

It would be so much easier if Ann simply broke the barrier herself, and all he'd have to do was automatically respond back. Then, having told her once, it would become far less difficult to say it later on.

But Jack knew that was very unlikely to happen. As a proper woman, Ann had been conditioned to allow the stronger sex to take the initiative in many areas of life, including matters of romance.

The playwright didn't doubt that it irritated and disappointed her. It sure as hell irritated him. He'd managed to convince himself though, that it didn't really matter in the end. Surely, all his actions from the moment he began to regard her as more than just an acquaintance and fellow traveler made the depth of his love and loyalty and devotion abundantly clear?

After all, it had taken his middle brother an amazing seven months to admit out loud to Veronica that he loved her. What was a mere ten weeks? It would come past his lips any day now.

Infinitely more of a burden though, was the profound feeling of impatience and complete isolation that rasped at their psyches, the undercurrent of awareness that they were very much two fish out of water.

Yes, everything was a spectacular, wondrous novelty-certainly, these "video games" had Snakes and Ladders or Parcheesi beat to kingdom come as far as Jack was concerned, for one thing. And the staff treated them both like visiting royalty, trying their best to meet every physical, psychological, and emotional need, up to the point where they'd made their rooms like little slices of 1933 New York.

But that was the problem. It wasn't 1933 New York, but 2267 A. D. (although on a practical level, that date meant little or nothing to them) in a cylindrical, mammoth hospital station floating in the airless, freezing vacuum of space between two galaxies, inhabiting an entirely separate universe, for cripes sake. In the truest sense of the words, they were out of time, and out of space.

It wasn't that Jack and Ann were ungrateful. They truly appreciated the efforts the good-hearted aliens and humans around them made towards catering to their every whim and showing them a great time. This was especially true for Ann, who'd lived such a life of privation and struggle. Indeed, for the first time in at least a decade, she was beginning to actually get a bit of fat on her frame.

All the same though, you can take a wild-caught macaw and stick it in a nice big aviary. You can outfit the place with all sorts of perches and live plants; you can give it choice nuts and fruit, give it a fellow macaw for company, and give it plenty of attention or nice treats. But that will never and can never change the awful fact that that bird can no longer fly free over the rainforest, that it is forever separated from its flock, from the pleasures of wild fruit, from its very world.

So it was with Jack Driscoll and Ann Darrow. Having each other, and being aware that where there was life, there was hope, made the experience more bearable. So did the company of other human beings.

But Jack deeply missed his father, his mother, his brothers and sister. He missed his friends, the Stork Club, the El Morocco, the New York Public Library, his apartment, his theater, his typewriter, his fellow members of the drama and acting community, the diners and skyscrapers.

Ann, sadly enough, had much less to pine for. Yet she too, missed the scent of coal smoke, the fellas and women who shared her rooming house, Central Park, the East River, the vendors, the lights and the canyons of steel and concrete. Heck, she almost even missed Holden Moore, her unforgiving, stocky Irish landlord who had a face like a hateful St. Bernard.

Like no other human beings in history, they could understand the paralyzing helplessness, the anguish, the maddening, all-encompassing weight of soul-destroying despair and terror that seized H.G. Wells' Time Traveler when he woke to find his Time Machine taken away by the Morlocks all too well. And unless or until Rafiki showed up, there was absolutely nothing they could do about these circumstances.

Life just had to go on though, and they both put on a happy face.

As Jack got ready to press the START button that would launch him into virtual battle with the Viking warrior, dressed in a sheet metal helmet and chain mail, he told Ann, "Say, after I'm done playing this level a few times, would you like to go have dinner with me in the cafeteria? I've heard they'll be serving buffalo wings for us humans."

"Gladly," Ann happily replied. "I love buffalo wings."

"It's funny," Jack commented, "I've had Frank's Red Hot Sauce on all sorts of things, but it never occurred to me to coat chicken parts with it like that Teressa dame in our future will. I'm gonna have to introduce it to New York a little early."

"Not to mention chocolate chip cookies," Ann fondly added as Jack proceeded to clash with the Norseman.

The Viking's coat of mail meant that only his shoulders, neck, and face served as practical targets. Mr. Kvedvulf's legs and feet were also unprotected, but the playwright knew better then to put his head into the perfect position for the Viking to lop it off.

Abruptly, there was a knock at the door. "Mr. Driscoll? Miss Darrow? Are you both in there?"

Damn it. Putting the game on pause and mildly irritated by having to do so, Jack replied, "Yeah, we are. Who's there?"

"Nurse Hamilton," the female voice went. Ah, Nurse Cindy Hamilton. One of the folks who'd helped save his life in the operating room. Well, she was welcome in anytime. "May I come in? I've brought someone else to see you too."

"Come in," Jack said as he put down both controllers.

Opening the door, made from the beautiful polished turquoise wood of the Phanwee tree from the Orglian's home planet, Cindy walked in, her sandy blond hair held in a ponytail, dressed in a spearmint green uniform. Behind her came a hunched, gnarled figure, holding a staff in his left hand with three spheres that softly rattled and clicked with each step, regarding them with wise yellow eyes that peered out of a flamboyantly colored face.

Jack's eyes widened in his sockets, and his face lit up as a thrill of recognition seized him.

Ann broke off from saying, "How you doing Cin...," and a similar expression of joyful disbelief painted itself over her soft features.

"Rafiki!" Ann shouted, springing to her feet. It was a cry of thankfulness, of delight, of amazement, of the sheer joy one feels when a promise is kept, of utter relief at the certainty that at long last, they would once more be returned to all they knew and loved and understood.

Softly chuckling, the old mandrill was more than happy to accept her bended-knee embrace, gourds clacking as they hugged, Ann telling him, "Oh, Rafiki, am I ever gay to see you!"

Showing a bit more restraint, Jack nonetheless wasted no time in striding over to the monkey shaman as Ann stepped back and took a leathery, powerful hand in one of his own, shaking it as he enthusiastically told him, "Great to see you old boy! We were just tearing our hair out wondering if you'd ever come back," he half-jokingly quipped.

"Eh, old Rafiki is like a tsetse fly or a curious child full of questions," the baboon grinned. "He always comes back! How hav' bot' ud you been getting on here at Sector 12?" he cordially asked.

"Well, when not recovering from being torn to ribbons by a certain evil leopard, we've just been having good clean fun, spending time together, or silently contemplating the universe," Ann good-naturedly smiled, playfully shrugging her trim shoulders.

"I've had plenty of time for that last activity while lying in my hospital bed, that's for sure," Jack wryly put in. "But in all frankness here, I just have to tell you, thank you so much Rafiki, for finding and helping us. You have my thanks more than I can ever fully express."

"Oh, I just sent you to a place where you could be helped Mr. Driscoll," the mandrill downplayed, giving a modest smile. "Cindy and her fellow doctors were de ones who get de credit for really saving your life."

"I know, but you still played quite a big role in keeping my breath in my body, and I owe it to you fella," Jack fervently replied, squatting to hug the witch doctor himself now in gratitude, feeling the staff lightly pressing against his back. "It's not all that fancy, but from the bottom of my heart and Ann's, again, thanks."

"You are dery welcome," Rafiki grandly told the writer.

"And I also want to apologize about the way I acted toward you when you showed up," Jack added, standing back up and giving uncertain looks at the beige carpet. "Just keep in mind that I was in awful pain, in shock, terrified by the fact that I was dy-"

"Dere is not'ing to be sorry about Mr. Driscoll," Rafiki assured him. "Why, if old Rafiki had a custard apple for ed'ry time a wounded creature behaved dat way towards him, I would be fat as a hippo!" he lightly cackled.

Changing the subject as his yellow-brown eyes thoughtfully shifted between both survivors, he ventured matter-of-factly, "I bet both ud you are more dan ready to lead dis place and return to your proper home, aren't you?"

"You bet we are!" Ann passionately replied.

"Like you wouldn't believe," Jack said, slowly shaking his head for emphasis.

"Den follow me," Rafiki asked, turning and gesturing towards the door with a flip of his free hand. "We are going to go to anot'er room to do de teleportation spell dough."

Overjoyed as he was, Jack couldn't help but give in to a powerful urge to chuckle as Ann looked at him and broke out laughing as well. There had been quite a few times in the recent past when the realization of how absolutely insane their lives had become hit them with such force that laughing was really all they could do. A talking, mystical, all-knowing baboon witch doctor from another universe was about to help them take leave of a deep-space hospital in a second alternate universe staffed by humans and aliens, by forming a magical portal that would presumably bring them back to 1933 New York. He deeply hoped it would be New York.

Regaining her composure, Ann broke in, "Rafiki, could you first give me a few minutes to go into my room and change into warmer clothing? Jack as well, cause it'll still be pretty cold in New York, and we'll need some wool on us."

"Dat is already taken care of, Miss Darrow," Rafiki neutrally assured. "Dere is a suitable change of clot'ing for each of you in de room where we are heading."

"Good to hear," Ann said. "I just hope it's fashionable!" she jokingly added.

"I like your foresight," the impressed writer commented.

"Let's move on now," Cindy said simply, turning and heading out.

Aware that this was probably the only chance he'd have, the writer asked as he accompanied the baboon to the door, "Before you send us back Rafiki, there are a few questions Ann and I are absolutely dying to know, like why did-"

"Patience, Mr. Driscoll," the old shaman advised, holding up his hand. "When we get to where we must be, I shall make everyting clear-and dat is not far."

Accepting this, Jack nodded, and fell into step with Ann, both sweethearts holding hands as they walked down the hall behind Rafiki and Cindy. The mandrill's gait was steady and casual, his wrinkled Technicolor face directed firmly ahead.

Cindy though, seemed less confident in her demeanor for some reason. Several times Jack noticed her glancing over her shoulder at them, with what looked to be a troubled expression in her blue eyes.

Turning to Ann, Jack inquired, "When Rafiki sent us, well...here, from the baobab tree-it didn't hurt or do anything uncomfortable to you, did it?"

Ann's flaxen curls flopped as she shook her head. "Nope, no more than it did when we ended up in the elephant graveyard. It was crazy and scary as hell, but we've learnt to deal with those things in spades by now."

"Hah, that's for sure," Jack grunted. "Personally, I'm very much looking forward to never, ever having to be involved with the outlandish or fearing for our lives again." No more battles, no more strung-out nerves, no more paranoid worrying that every shadow or clump of brush or large plant concealed some monster with designs on killing him or Ann, no more weapons, no more memories to generate even more nightmares. Relief was too weak a word for the concept.

"Oh goodness, yes," Ann sighed in earnest. "Looks like we'll be back in New York presently however."

"Back where we belong. Don't know about you, but the first thing I'm going to do when we get zapped back is take a long, hot shower, then gorge myself on corned beef sandwiches and clam chowder at Max's Diner, and then never go any place outside the tri-state area again in my whole goddamned life," the playwright proclaimed.

"Me neither," Ann agreed with a firm nod.

Actually, Jack secretly knew that there would be heaps more to it than that. Having been essentially kidnapped and conscripted into Carl's foolish little adventure, no one could possibly know where he'd suddenly gone off to. No doubt the question of where he'd gotten off to or what had become of him spread all over town rather rapidly. Happily though, he'd paid the monthly rent for his apartment only four days before.

And later in the voyage, his so-called pal allowed him to dictate a few carefully worded messages to the radio operator, telling his parents in Philadelphia that he was doing okay, was "taking advantage of an unprecedented opportunity to expand both my horizons and career," that they were all in his thoughts, and was just having a grand time with a grand adventure before him. What an utter fish story.

But since the last telegraphed message, Jack hadn't contacted the outside world for about a week before the Venture ran aground on Skull Island, and had now been here for at least seven. Almost certainly, he'd been declared legally dead by now, his apartment put up for sale, and his personal possessions auctioned off or just sold.

Recovering even half of them was going to be a logistical nightmare, and with the way the economy was where they hailed from, Jack was not optimistic that the new owners would so easily want to part with such fairly classy items.

First though, he would go to the nearest police station and present himself as alive and well. Then, after some of the hoo-hah died down, he would use their phone to call his parents and his brothers, not only to remedy their fears, but to use the familial connection for a degree of support while he patched his life in the city back together.

And then there would be the legal battles. Jack pos-I-tive-ly despised having to get mixed up with the foot-dragging court system any more than he could help, but it was a necessary evil in this case. For one thing, he was going to sue Carl Denham six ways till Sun-.

His train of thought was derailed by Rafiki saying, "Look alive Mr. Driscoll! We're almost dere."

Snapping to attention, Jack registered that their stroll down corridors and around a few corners was leading them to a large swinging wooden door, set in the right side of the hallway. Now Cindy gave them another backwards glance, eyes almost containing...pity? Remorse?

The room was essentially a simple cube around 50 square feet in size, floored with linoleum the color of curdled milk. There were countertops along the walls on the left and right side, with locked glass-fronted cabinets above, containing a forbidding looking collection of syringes, IV tubing, needles, and vials of drugs. At the back was a door indicating a men's bathroom, and another indicating a women's. Jack's immediate impression was that this room wasn't so much a surgery bay or operating theater as a general storage area, and that the bathrooms were probably meant to be accessed from both this room and an adjacent hallway.

What really seized his attention though, (and Ann's), were the contents of the room. There was a stand-alone holovision projector. There were also two wicker chairs, each with a set of clothing draped over them.

On the right chair were the ragged pink slip and tap pants Ann had been wearing when the savages had absconded with her. On the left were the playwright's cotton undershirt, button-up silk shirt, his boxers, trousers, leather belt, socks, and rather malformed-looking dress shoes. The slashes in them from Nduli's claws and teeth had been repaired masterfully, and all the articles had been washed as well. The tears and tatters their clothing had sported before the cat's attack though, had not been repaired at all.

Huh? Was this a gift? A joke or prank of some sort? What was going on?

Totally baffled, Jack felt his eyelids crinkle in puzzlement as he turned to look at Rafiki, standing off to the right. The shaman and Cindy both looked like they hated being alive as his gaze touched them.

Then, like an arrow from an assassin's bow, the devastating, terrible understanding pierced Jack Driscoll as he put two and two together.

They weren't being sent back to New York City. They were both being sent back to Skull Island!

"No, no, you're kidding me, you're joking, you're joking!" Jack groaned, as Ann, also having come to the same terrible epiphany, cried, "God no! You can't be serious!" Her expressive cerulean eyes, wide with terror and understanding, looked like those of a doe in a leg snare.

A rotten, nauseating feeling roiled up in the playwright's stomach as something within him rocketed up to pound into his Adam's apple and then came plummeting down to burst in his entrails like an artillery shell, and he knew a few moments of wooziness where the strength went out of his legs, threatening to send him tumbling to the floor...or at least retch all over it.

Disbelief and dread gave way to a wild rage that exploded in his mind like a firecracker, like the sensation of a punch to the head. Right now, he deeply wanted to sock someone in the head.

"You lying son of a bitch!" Jack roared, whirling to face Rafiki. "You said we were both going back to New York!"

Ann's usual sunshiny features wore an expression of dismay and disgust, her voice a soft growl as she looked from Cindy to Rafiki, saying, "I knew it. I knew it! I knew deep down something was going on, but I couldn't bring myself to look at it head-on or dig for the truth, either because I was way more worried about Jack or was just too damn scared. And I was right to be scared, wasn't I?"

"Yeah," Jack nodded heatedly, glaring at Rafiki, "looks like you were right."

"I never said you were going right back to New York," the mandrill replied, slightly puzzled. "You simply assumed that on your part."

"But you just said a few minutes ago that we were going back to our proper home!" Jack yelled. "What's the big idea?" he demanded, his being just glowing with outrage. He noticed that Cindy, intimidated by his fury, automatically took two slow steps backward at that instant. It made the playwright all the more hot under the collar.

This was all planned out. Rafiki had had Cindy, a woman, accompany him here because he knew that if a man was here-Zhong or Cortez, for example-Jack would likely end up attempting to clean the floor with them for such treachery. Being an honorable and gallant man though, he could never bring himself to strike a dame, and he knew that the shaman knew it as well.

"Dat is precisely what I meant," Rafiki said. "You must be returned to de time, place, and position dat both ud you were in when I accidently teleported you to de Pridelands."

"Um buddy," Jack sneered, "the last time we had dealings with Skull Island was a whole, oh I don't know, seven and a half weeks ago, with Ann and I being launched into space while I clung to some living gargoyle's wing claw for dear life. I'd say it's pretty difficult at best to get back to square one under those circumstances."

"And we'd also be trapped there, with no hope of rescue," Ann fervently added, voice becoming strained. "I guarantee you both, all the survivors on the Venture gave us up for dead and got outta there a long time ago. They're probably back in New York already, for that matter-or at least not more than a couple days away from docking there."

"Ah, but dat is where de current state of science in your period of history hinders your knowledge about de nature of time." Rafiki informed them. "First ud all, do you know what a Mobius strip is?"

A steamed Jack had enough control to nod, more than a little confounded by the idea that a baboon was familiar with such a thing.

"I've never heard of one, unfortunately," Ann shrugged.

"A Mobius strip," Jack explained to her, swallowing his ire for the moment, "is basically the shape you get if you give a strip of paper a half-twist, than join the ends together to make a loop. It's an interesting little figure. For one thing, if you draw a line down the strip from the seam, it will meet back at the seam, but at the other side of the paper, without ever crossing an edge."

"I see," Ann nodded.

"And correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Mystic Baboon," Jack said as he turned back to Rafiki, voice still icy, "but it sounds like you intend to pull a similar maneuver with us in time and space."

"Dat is correct," Rafiki confirmed. "Now, try to t'ink of all reality, all existence, as like a honeycomb, where e'drey cell in de comb is a single universe, one part of a much greater multiverse. You and Ann live in one of these cells, while I live in another, and dis hospital station is in yet another."

"Okay," Jack said doubtfully.

"Now ordinarily," the shaman continued, "one could no more penetrate de barrier between two universes dan a bee grub could get through de wax wall of its cell."

Realization dawning on her rose face, Ann put in, "But if you used really powerful magic..."

"Yes," Rafiki nodded, smiling. "Or went through a black hole-but de forces involved in dat would crush and kill you. Magic can be controlled far more easily."

"Say, what's a black hole?" Jack asked, puzzled. "I assume it's some kinda astronomical phenomenon from the context, but exactly what..." He shrugged.

"A black hole," Cindy explained, "is sort of like a pit in space from which nothing, even light, can escape, because the gravity is so amazingly intense. They're caused from the deformation of space-time by an ultra-compact mass, namely a dead star which collapsed on itself and had a mass at least 3.5 times greater than that of the Earth's sun, if I remember my courses correctly."

As a member of the intelligentsia and a devout reader of Scientific American, Jack understood immediately what Cindy's words meant, and their ramifications.

"I'll be damned," he gasped in amazement, grinning. "Just like Chandrasekhar calculated from Einstein's general relativity theory! Except the mass calculation is apparently off by a factor of oh, 150 percent," he thoughtfully drawled to himself as he looked up at an angle, tapping the tips of his fingers together.

Despite everything else, the writer was excited and thrilled. Yet one more piece of astonishing scientific knowledge he'd stumbled across in this futuristic world to share back in New York!

If we get back to the Venture alive that is, a grim, terrified part of him cut in.

Hopelessly bemused, Ann's gaze darted between her boyfriend and Cindy. "How in goodness can there be a pit in space?" she asked skeptically. "You must be pulling my leg," she told Cindy.

"No," Jack sincerely replied, shaking his head, "she isn't."

"Really?" Ann said, eyes slightly widening. "But I thought space is like the air in this room, something with three dimensions that anyone or anything can move freely within. And what is space-time?"

"Well, yes and no," Jack replied, extending his left hand and casually flipping it back and forth. "In the traditional sense, yeah, space is three-dimensional. But if you add time as a fourth dimension, and imagine each of the dimensions as kind of merging into one another, they combine to produce space-time. It's like a sheet."

"Now, what that has to do with this black hole stuff Cindy's talking about is that the mass of every heavenly body affects space-time by producing an impression in it from its gravity, like your body weight forms a hollow in your mattress when you lie down. Most of the time, these depressions in space-time are like bowls or platters. But if the force of gravity is powerful enough, it will actually punch right through space-time itself to form a 'black hole.' At least, that's the way I understand it," he ended.

"That's interesting enough," Ann said as she turned to Rafiki, "but it doesn't explain why you're so set on returning us to that awful island. Why can't you just send us back to New York or some other place that's a lot less dangerous?" she pleaded.

"I wish I could," Rafiki sighed regretfully. "But ed'ryting must be exactly de way it was when-"

Again a new flare of fury at such a brutally unfair injustice, exploding in his mind like a spark in old logging slash.

"Ya know, I don't give a damn about the way things need to be!" Jack sharply yelled, starling both women. "What I care about is US! Me and Ann!"

"You honestly want to send us back there? Back to where we've each already nearly died at least six times? Back to where we endured more pain and terror and stress and saw more horrors in two days than most people will in an entire lifetime?" Jack ranted, bull-throated. "That island is covered with horrors you can't even conceive of Rafiki! Just knowing a place like that exists scares me to death!" he shuddered in primal horror, voice becoming a momentary screech.

"And if I sound both spitting mad and scared out of my mind by any chance, you're damn right I am! I'm scared of and scarred by what almost happened to us. I'm scared of and angry about how the whole experience did things to Ann and I, forever changed who we are, in ways we didn't want or ask to be changed. I'm scared of the huge flesh-eating crickets the size of wildcats with jaws like shears. I'm scared of the crocodile-bird dinosaurs that have mouths like bear traps and claws like whetted knives. I'm scared of the damn fish that are as long as trolleys and look like an eel from Hell's aquarium. I'm scared of the Triceratops-type dinosaurs. Most of all, I'm scared witless of him, the ape."

He thought he heard Ann whisper insistently to herself, in the tone of one taking a secret vow, "It's Kong," but the writer was much too focused on other things to be certain or care.

"Yes, him," Jack went on darkly as his gaze locked with Rafiki's. "Kong. He's the huge gorilla that made off with Ann and made me and a lot of other fellas have to go to all that trouble to get her back, you see. You know what a gorilla is, don't you buddy?" he hotly addressed the shaman. He felt like he was strangling on sheer rage, like his brain was a merry-go-round spinning out of control.

"Yes, I do."

"Well, this one has fangs as long and thick as my calf muscle, and fists the size of your average boulder. Even better, he evidently thinks every bit as highly of Ann as I do, and is extremely protective/possessive of her," he said.

"And you'd better believe it," Ann carefully, timorously chimed in, giving her hero uncertain, cautious glances, obviously jittery about offending him by mentioning the ape. "Why, he took on and killed three vicious dinosaurs 60 times Jack's size just to save me!"

Giving his darling, his angel, a sidelong glance that he hoped wasn't too obtrusive, it suddenly dawned on him that she wasn't so much scared for her own safety as for his. In those expressive eyes he saw a terrible knowledge consuming her, the knowledge that whatever Kong meant to her personally, whatever their bond, he only meant death for Jack.

"I know dat," the mandrill said, sorrow and frustration wrinkling his painted facial folds, "and I am truly sorry for what I am asking both ud you to do. But you must go back home to the island, and at de exact same moment dat I accidently transported you to de Pridelands."

That got the attention of both New Yorkers like a yank on a bull's brass nose ring. Ann had already heard the revelation from the shaman in Mganga's greenheart tree of course, and Jack had found out from her in turn while recovering. But it was still astonishing to hear the facts straight from the horse's mouth so to speak, of how they'd arrived in such a surreal new realm.

"You knew that? But how? Even more amazing, you truly were responsible for teleporting us over there," Jack marveled. "But how did that happen, for cripes sake? How could that happen? Were you saying some chant to the sun and then garbled a verse, something like that?" he asked, making Ann involuntarily giggle.

Rafiki gave a wild, completely unoffended, cackle too, before saying, "No, not like dat. What happened," he said, taking on an expression of embarrassment and contrition, glancing at the tops of his feet as he gave a chagrined smile, "is dat I was practicing what we witch doctors call a 'looking glass' spell."

"Shades of Lewis Carroll," Ann muttered.

"In a looking glass spell," Rafiki went on, "a shaman takes a vessel, in my case a tortoise shell, fills it wit' a little water, some pebbles of rose quartz, and some magical powders. After saying de correct incantations, de water then becomes a sort of one-way tunnel de shaman can use to watch an event tru' space and time. Depending on de strength of de spell, and de wishes of de shaman, de event de spell reveals may be just a few miles away...or it may be in an entirely different universe, as in your case. And yes, de information gained by looking into dese portals is a huge reason why I and o'ter witch doctors have such encyclopedic knowledge of t'ings you wouldn't expect us to know. Dat and deep meditation," he added with a toothy grin.

"That explains quite a lot of questions already, to put it very mildly," Ann said in awed understanding.

"So it's almost like using a two-way mirror," Jack surmised. "You can passively watch one way, but what you're watching can't see or hear you."

"But how does the magic spell settle on an event to show you exactly?" Ann asked. "Is it just random chance?"

"Yes and no," the mandrill replied. "I know dis may be hard to understand, but as a rule, de magic orients itself towards something especially interesting-d'ough it contains a degree of chance as well. And again, it also depends on 'how far' de shaman wants it to go through space and time."

"We witch doctors," Rafiki continued, "are most concerned with de welfare and events of de kingdom we serve. Still, sometimes dere are o'ter events, upheavals, turning points, struggles dat catch de spell's eye, as it were."

"And we, or at least what happened when the Venture landed, were one of them," Ann guessed.

"Correct you are Miss Darrow," he said, giving a slow, smiling nod. "Why, just de dery fact dat you were part of de dery first group ot white men to officially discover and set foot on Skull Island was enough reason in itself for de spell to take notice. You were and are a pivot point, a new beginning dat it found dery interesting."

"It got a lot more interesting after landfall, to say the least," Jack muttered bitterly.

The mandrill's Mona Lisa smile then shifted into a glum, reluctant look, the look of a man about to divulge a secret that he knows will not only deeply upset others, but cost him dearly.

"De spell took at around de time Englehorn was battling for control of de steamer. T'ru de water in de tortoise shell, I viewed your separate ordeals and near misses with death in dat island's jungles, or at least a condensed version of it. So, I...I know what happened to you, and I am dery sorry Mr. Driscoll and Miss Darrow."

There was a shocked, quivering silence as the truth sunk in, and both New Yorkers goggled at the witch doctor. Ann's complexion, already quite fair, seemed to drain of color like an inverted pitcher.

"Good heavens. So you...you did see," she squeaked. "All of it!"

Standing fully erect, his lanky form vibrating and soul filled with disbelief and scandal and even a sort of curious embarrassment, Jack coolly asked, in a husky, fierce whisper, "You'd damn well better be kidding me. You really saw the whole awful business? All those horrors? Everything?" He could feel his cheeks burning, his eyes narrowing with fury and lividness and mortification in a reaction that was the opposite of Ann's.

"Yes, I saw," Rafiki replied, his eyes intent and brooding all at once. "I saw what no human being e'der deserved to go t'ru, your friends and companions from de ship die in ways dat no human being deserves to die. I saw and heard your terror and despair, horrors dat e'den made old Rafiki feel sick come rushing out at you, grit my teeth as I wondered if dis time, your luck would run out, and de two of you would ne'der reunite again. So yes, I saw, and I heard, and in some ways e'den felt, Jack and Ann. E'dryting."

For a few moments in time, the playwright just stood there, fuming. It would not have surprised him in the least if he'd realized that there was an actual thread of steam rising from his head.

If I had a gun, I'd blow your ugly monkey face to bits, you evil son of a bitch, he silently snarled.

"Why didn't you do anything?" both New Yorkers yelled in tandem, voices overflowing with accusation and horror.

Apparently not daring or willing to say anything at the moment, the baboon was the very definition of quiet observer. Just like you probably looked while you watched me desperately try to avoid getting squashed by the Brontosaurs, with an Aquilasuchus snapping at my head for good measure, Jack though icily. Once more, that sensation of suffocating on anger, like he'd swallowed boiling olive oil.

"Why? Why didn't you a damn thing to help us?" Ann screeched, her eyes starting to water miserably.

"ANWSER HER YOU FILTHY APE! WHY DIDN'T YOU DO ANYTHING!" Jack roared. "You saw, you knew, and yet you didn't lift a finger! Why! WHY! WHY DIDN'T YOU DO A SINGLE THING TO PROTECT US! TO PROTECT ANN!"

"WHY didn't you help us!" Ann gasped and sobbed, crumpling to the floor. "Are you that sadistic? Did you enjoy watching us suffer? Watching good people die? I hope you got your money's worth!"

Her tears and distress made Jack all the more angry, and he stalked toward the unfeeling baboon, who shied and raised his staff in the air.

"I wouldn't come any closer if I was you Mr. Driscoll," Cindy interjected wholeheartedly. "I think he knows how to use it."

The writer had just enough sense to stop in his tracks and turn to look at her. A graphic, sickly appealing little film briefly played on the movie screen of his mind, of seizing the traitorous nurse by the neck and shaking her, pounding her against the cupboards and counters until her neck snapped-but how could he do that to an unarmed woman? Especially to one who'd helped keep his heartbeat going?

No, Ann was the priority. His anguished Venus needed him right now, at her side and not trying to tear these unfeeling heels to ribbons, much as he wanted to do it.

Kneeling down to her, like he'd done near the gorge seven weeks ago, he clasped her in his arms tightly, agreeing with her angry, anguished mutterings, trying to soothe her with his touch and the awareness that even if Rafiki hadn't cared or done a thing to help, he most certainly had.

"How could you be that damn cold?" Ann wailed in accusation, over his right shoulder. "You inhuman creature!"

After both of them had calmed down a touch, Jack heard Rafiki's voice again, clipped and stern.

"Bot' o' you are naïve and dery mistaken indeed it' you tink I would be dat cavalier of a witness. Yes, I saw what you and de crewmen of de Venture endured, but what would you have wanted me to do? Appear in de native village and start beating de savages to wit'in an inch of deir lives with my stick? Paralyze all de giant insects and crabs with my magic? Firmly tell Kong to leave you and your friends alone, Mr. Driscoll? Tell de Tyrannosaurus dinosaurs dat dey were being dery bad and den turn dem into stone, Miss Darrow? Conjure up a magical barrier to protect de rafts in de swamp?"

"Well yeah, for starters," Jack replied sarcastically. "It would've been nice of you." If looks truly could kill, the one Jack found himself giving Rafiki, would've at the very least put the mandrill in a hospital bed himself.

"But I cannot do dat," Rafiki said desperately. "At de nexus of de honeycomb, dis hive of universes, dere are beings far more powerful dan even de most accomplished witch doctor. Dey make de rules in magic, of how it must be used, and I can only follow dem."

You have a biggie to answer to, Jack realized in understanding, and you have to play square with him. Suddenly, he felt a surprising race of sympathy for the witch doctor, and it cooled the flames of his anger somewhat.

"Can bot' o' you understand dat it is not my job or de job of any o'ther shaman to fight battles for someone outside the concerns of their kingdom...especially in ano'ter universe? Dat I am not some all-powerful nanny-type entity dat can or should change everyt'ing to make e'derybody's life safe and perfect and happy? Even Ngai himself can't do dat!"

"But why couldn't you stretch the rules just once?" Ann said weakly. "Why couldn't you help save us by at least influencing things in our favor?" Jack stonily nodded in agreement.

"Because dat is not my responsibility or my domain to meddle in as dictated by Ngai!" Rafiki barked angrily, losing patience.

"Look here," he said firmly, "de Greater Powers like Ngai-or God, as you call him-don't e'den really like it all that much when we merely form a 'looking glass spell' to ano'ter universe, much less interfere wit' it. It's playing wit' fire, a huge taboo dat-"

"Okay, all right, we get the picture," Jack said curtly, sighing in irritation. "What's done-or not done-is done, anyway. Neither is dis really explaining how de world dat de looking glass spell chucked us from Kong's lair into de Elephant Graveyard," he mocked the shaman.

"Den I shall explain dat aspect," the unruffled mandrill replied. "But first Ann and Jack, know and remember dis. I did not ignore your angst and pain and sorrow," he said sincerely. "I did do somet'ing on your behalf."

"What?" Ann snorted.

"I was concerned...and I hoped for the best, for your sakes."

After a few minutes of brooding, touched silence had passed, Rafiki spoke once more, mechanically. "Now, most looking glass spells are meant to be like windows. You want to know how dey work?"

Jack empathatically nodded.

"Well, in de fabric of space-time, dere are dery tiny little openings, like pinpricks, always forming and disappearing. Smaller dan an atom, dese tiny openings are called wormholes."

"Wormholes," Jack said thoughtfully. "Fitting name."

"In a looking glass spell, magic is used to take one of dese wormholes, and stretch it out to cover de entire surface of de water. De magic also generates and controls somet'ing called negative gravity, which is used to keep de window open until de shaman is done, and cancels de spell."

Jack, still seated but now a little way to the right of his under control dame, closed his eyes and sighed as quietly as he could. This is one hell of a lecture, his mind gaped. A talking baboon is explaining concepts of theoretical physics to us that scientists probably won't even start to guess at for another twenty years. This is insane.

"Unfortunately," Rafiki said contritely, "somehow-perhaps de negative gravity's force was too powerful-de wormhole my spell formed, unbeknownst to old Rafiki, changed from a passive, one-way window, to a passageway dat teleported de two o' you to de Pridelands."

All Jack could think was, Good jumping Christ. Charles Fort, eat your heart out.

"So you have no idea how it all went wrong?" Ann asked.

"None," Rafiki said, shaking his head. "I didn't e'den know somet'ing had gone wrong until later."

"But if you cast the spell in your home, which I assume was a tree like Mganga's," Jack said, puzzled, "then why is it that we suddenly found ourselves crashing into the Elephant Graveyard and not your place instead?"

"I really don't know Mr. Driscoll," the mandrill shrugged. "My guess is dat the energies, electrical forces, de negative gravity, somet'ing, made de wormhole twist and twitch a bit. It's like when you grab a snake by de neck and it begins to thrash. You don't know where de tail shall strike de ground each time."

"Makes sense," the writer shrugged himself. "Just the luck of the draw then."

"Um hum," Rafiki nodded. "Dat was a big reason, by de by, why I had trouble finding exactly where de two o' you were."

"Well, you sure did a good job of showing up when and where it counted in the end though, and that's good enough for me," Jack replied grudgingly.

"This is all so very confusing," Ann said helplessly, her head in her hands.

Jack barked out a knowing laugh. "Hell, reality itself has become plenty confusing as of late!" he chuckled. "You might as well explain that to us too while you're at it, oh Mr. All-Knowing Baboon," he joshed in lunatic glee. "Tell us how the whole entire scheme of things works in this multiverse!" he cried, leaping to his feet.

It was meant as a joke. A joke by a man driven half-batty, meant to blow off steam that badly needed to be released.

But Jack got more than he bargained for with his request.

"Alright den, Mr. Driscoll, I shall," Rafiki grinned. "And I'll e'den make it simple and fun!" he promised with a little laugh.

"To explain life, de multiverse, why you must go back, and e'deryt'ing else in a nutshell," the witch doctor grandly proclaimed, "old Rafiki is going to start in wit' a little brain teaser now, a thought experiment."

"I can do that," Jack grinned. He loved brain teasers. And anything that delayed what he secretly knew was the inevitable was definitely a welcome thing.

"Dis one is called 'Schrodinger's Cat.' Essentially, it's a scientific principle about stasis, tings being stuck in limbo. Now, de idea is, you take a cat and you put it in a box wit' two sealed dishes of food. One is poisoned, de o'ter one is not."

"As a cat person, I find that deeply disturbing, to put it mildly," Jack replied, brought back down to earth.

"That's horrible!" Ann gasped.

"Dis is only theoretical," Rafiki reassured them. "As I said, dis is just a thought experiment. Indeed, in your future it will become like de mascot of quantum physics. A scientist by de name of Erwin Schrodinger will be de one to conceive of it. But really, neit'er he or anybody else actually put a cat in a box with poi-"

"We both used to have cats. Please, I can't bear to even picture such a thing!" Ann implored.

Rolling his citron eyes slightly, the shaman sighed, a tone of irritation on his breath.

"Okay Miss Darrow. How about if I use a rat instead?"

"Fine by me," Jack dryly replied. "Rats are disgusting. I've even been bitten twice by the bastards, and each time I bled like a stuck pi-well, never mind that. Go on."

"I also hate rats with a passion," Ann concurred, shuddering. "Make me want to vomit."

"So we'll make it a rat den I guess. 'Schrodinger's Rat,' instead of adorable cat in dis made-up scenario," Rafiki conceded with an amused smile.

"And in this box it's either gonna eat the safe food or the deadly food," Ann said.

"Yes, but dere's more to it dan dat Miss Darrow," Rafiki replied. "Remember, bot' dishes are sealed. Which lid will end up opening will depend on de random decay of a radioactive sample."

"Radioactive? What?" Ann grunted, her brows furrowing. "I've heard that word before somewhere, but what does it mean?"

"It would be too complicated to explain right now, Miss Darrow," the witch doctor told her. "But it doesn't matter anyhow for our purposes. What's important is dat's it's somet'ing dat can't be predicted, influenced, or even measured from de outside."

"So then what? You just wait?" Jack asked with a shrug.

"Exactly," Rafiki nodded. "The box is secure. Dat rat can't find or make an escape."

"As much as I hate rats, I find that rather creepy all the same," Ann said.

"Well, what's the point of this?" Jack prodded impatiently. "Is there a point?" Nervous and angry, he was not in the best of moods.

"According to dis theoretical experiment, one can just walk away from de box, and as long as no one ever opens it, de rat inside is in what's called an indefinite state. It's not alive to our knowledge-but it's not dead either."

Puzzled, Jack said, "That makes no sense to me. Either a living creature is alive, or it isn't. You're just playing mind games with us now, aren't you?"

"I am not Mr. Driscoll," the shaman earnestly replied. "What I meant is how de rat is in de observer's mind and perception. Yes, of course de rat is either alive or dead. But to you, or any ot'er would-be observer, dere is always dat shadow of a doubt."

Leaning his head back with a sigh, the playwright ran his fingers through his thick black hair, shutting his eyes as he put forth, "Well, if the rat has gotten the safe food, how much is available exactly? And how much water? I mean, after a time, isn't someone going to notice, 'Huh, I'm not hearing any more scratching or other rat noises?' Or realize that there's this horrible, putrid smell coming out of the box?"

"You are right dat e'den if it did get de safe food, de rat's provisions would run out eventually," the mandrill agreed. "But while it makes sense dat de rat would den be a former rat-"

Ann giggled at that. "A former rat. That's a good one!"

Even Jack, despite his current sour mood, had to crack a grin too.

"Glad you liked it. De bottom line is dat until and unless you open de box and check, you can't know for sure what de rat's fate was. Of course, dis is all theoretical."

"I get the picture," Jack said.

"Good. Now bot' of you hold dat thought, and use dat as a foundation for ano'ter thought. Like you just said Mr. Driscoll, de rat in dat box is actually either alive after eating de safe food, or dead from eating de poisoned food. On its terms, dere is no indefinite state."

I am talking quantum physics with a monkey, thought Jack, dumbfounded. Jesus help my fragile little mind.

"But!" Rafiki interjected, flicking up a gnarled finger, "dere is a way to resolve dat problem, de paradox, for us ignorant observers!"

"When de radioactive sample begins to decay, dat is an event dat has two possible outcomes for de rat. And so it becomes a fork in de road of fate, dat can either lead to a meal for de rat-or its death."

"Awfully poetic there," Jack commented.

"Now dis is de important ting," the baboon emphasized, ignoring the playwright for the moment. "Imagine dat each of dose branches of de fork leads to a different cell in de honeycomb of de multiverse."

Jack swore his chin came close to touching the floor, the way it dropped. The realization, the sudden blast of knowledge, an awareness of existence's inner workings that was so profound even Einstein himself probably couldn't have imagined it, almost staggered the playwright with its implications. And a baboon had prodded him into it, no less!

"Oh. My. God," he whispered. "That would mean...everything-literally, everything!-not just could take place, but has taken place somewhere, at some time! And that means there are no real contradictions, not really. The whole damn system is self-correcting!" he shouted in astonished wonder, grinning and flinging his arms wide.

"Excuse me Jack, but I have no idea what you're going on about," Ann said, looking at him in a wary, peculiar way. The way a woman looks at a man she suspects is insane.

Managing to get his excitement under control, Jack reminded himself that comparatively speaking, Ann wasn't as 'clever' or 'knowledgeable' intellectually as he was (Not that it made his Venus, his angel, any less delightful or less of a woman worthy of sharing his heart and soul with).

"What Rafiki's saying Ann," he said helpfully, turning back to her "is that reality, all of it, is like the labyrinth from Greek mythology, where every path splits into two different routes that you can potentially take. Every possible outcome of every event exists in its very own world or history. That means there's an enormous-maybe even infinite!-number of universes, and everything that could've happened in our past, but didn't, still occurred in the past of another universe or universes anyhow. It's like an invisible, barely understandable labyrinth, constructed out of space-time!"

The stage actresses' rose features sank for a few moments in bemused incomprehension, eyes questioning as she wrestled to grasp the concept that her boyfriend already had taken in. Then they goggled in astonished wonder, and even a hint of enchanted delight.

"That is incredible," she enunciated. "Pos-I-tive-ly fantastic! It boggles my mind, but it's almost wonderful to think about too! And also explains a lot," she added thoughtfully, more to herself.

"Yeah, it does," Jack grinned merrily.

"Still, I only partly get this crazy 'labyrinth of reality' business you two fellas are talking about," she said. "You see, I'm the sort of girl who dopes out something like this the best either through seeing the thing done or having a good real-world example put down before me. Could you help a poor dumb Dora out?" she requested, laughing good-naturedly at her own joke.

"By all means Miss Darrow," Rafiki purred in that xylophonic voice. "For an example, let's say a man by de name of Hank is walking along when he encounters a stray dog. Clearly, dere are several possible courses of action Hank can take: he can ignore de dog and go on his way, he can pet de dog for a little while before moving on, he can decide to adopt de dog and give it a home with him, he can give de dog some food, but den have not'ing more to do wit' it, he can ignore de dog but call de pound about it later on, or have a change of heart and go back de next day to look for it, and so on. De point is, dat in dis grand multiverse, all potential outcomes occur somewhere, wit' each one being de point where ano'ter branching occurs, each a new path dat leads to ano'ter cell in de comb...and may e'den result in a brand new cell being formed!"

"And like I said, it would automatically correct any paradoxes," Jack said excitedly. "Let's say for example, that I went back in time 21 years and to the bridge of the good ship Titanic. Now let's say I was able to convince Captain Smith or Lieutenant Murdoch that yes, they had a collision with an iceberg coming in the near future. I'd end up saving a ship that ended up sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic," he grinned wryly.

"But that couldn't logically happen. If what you're saying is correct though Rafiki, I could save the liner and the lives of everyone on it-but then that outcome would split off into an entirely separate universe, without making a difference in 'ours.'"

"Right," the baboon witch doctor confirmed.

If I haven't already, I am going mad, Jack thought, and I'm headed there on a runaway train rather than a bicycle. Still, press onward brave soldiers.

He allowed his gaze to rove between Rafiki and Cindy. His mind had divided, it seemed, become a five-ring circus, and in each expanse of sawdust shrouded earth, he was the ringmaster. In one ring, he was terrified beyond words by the awareness that they would be sent back to Skull Island, and the gruesome, painful death that almost certainly awaited them there. In another, he was both dumbfounded and elated by the literally world-changing knowledge Rafiki had just revealed to him about the way existence itself operated, knowledge that the most brilliant physicists could spend a lifetime searching for and never find-to say nothing of the fact that the baboon shaman knew this to begin with. In another, despite the knowledge that they wouldn't be dropped off at the safest point of arrival, he was deeply thankful and relieved to at last be going back to a sane world, the world where he and Ann were born, belonged to, and would die in, where there were no aliens, animals didn't talk, and the people he loved would be waiting. In yet another, he smoldered like an active volcano with rage towards Rafiki for springing this on them, for throwing them under the train like this.

The last part was remembering a Chinese curse Choy-poor, ever accommodating, garrulous Choy-had once mentioned to him in conversation, a curse that in its understated Oriental way sounded deceptively pleasant and even bland until you really thought about it: May you live in interesting times. For the last eight weeks, he and Ann had lived in extremely interesting times, yes indeed. He felt that one more interesting thing would drive him totally, off the deep end, handcuff-me-to-a-bed, wacko.

Abruptly, Ann became even more of a bundle of nerves. Looking at Rafiki with a species of entranced horror, she backed up to a bemused Jack and slipped behind him.

Confused, Jack felt her delicate hand tremble against his back, through his undershirt as she said quaveringly, "How do you know all this? Where did you get this power from? Who taught you?"

"My teacher, Mwaguzi did," Rafiki replied, slightly perplexed.

"NO." Ann said nervously. "Where do you get your powers from-and I don't believe that 'greater powers in the nexus' silliness for a moment."

"She's worried that you've made some sort of pact with Satan. Like voodoo or something." Jack clarified for the shaman, reassuringly touching Ann's flank with his right hand. Indeed, that possibility, perhaps influenced by memories of the ghastly, despicable she-shaman from the native village, had occurred to a paranoid part of the playwright's mind as well, although in truth he really didn't know what to think.

At his words, Rafiki burst out in a screeching laugh that made them both jump about three feet. "Oh sakes alive Miss Darrow! My, my! Old Rafiki, Mganga, and ot'er proper shamans are de last folks beings like him want anyt'ing to do wit'! We work in de favor of de light! Bwaa-haa-haa!"

Ann gave a hesitant smile, and Jack felt her muscles relax a touch, but she still looked nonplussed and wary.

"Well, you seem good, more or less, and since you helped Jack and I to medical help here, you can't be all that wicked. But tell me Rafiki, about being a shaman...Why?"

It was strange, the amount that could be contained in just one simple, demanding word. Why are there shamans, witch doctors? Ann was saying for both of them. Why are you a shaman? Who gave shamans a role in every universe in the first place?

Fortunately, Rafiki understood right away. "De answer to your question Miss Darrow," he replied, musing, "is a profound one. But its somet'ing no amount o' words could explain. You'd have to feel it for yourself, experience it for yourself."

Suddenly, a delighted inspiration bloomed across his rainbow features. "But you're de type of woman who likes to see t'ings for herself, right? So how about if old Rafiki sends de two o' you to one last place before Skull Island (at that, Jack mentally winced), where ederyt'ing shall make sense to you about why I am who I am, and be a grand treat in de bargain too! And do not worry, I shall be coming along wit' you," he quickly added, "so don't worry about any treachery taking place."

"If that's the case, I'm giving you guys plenty of room," Cindy commented, turning and walking to near the door.

Her attitude made Jack uneasy, and he turned back to the baboon, asking, "Is this spell dangerous?"

"Potentially," Rafiki idly replied, still insanely grinning like a child. "But not to fear, you are in de hands of a skillful shaman who has safely done performed dery complicated, hazardous spells just like dis one many times before."

"Somehow that doesn't make me feel any better," Ann said dryly.

"But before I do," Rafiki droned on, "because this spell is going to be so complicated, so difficult, wit' many ways in which it could go wrong, dere is some personal information I must know about you first, Jack and Ann."

"What, my phone number and address?" Jack quipped, feeling the corners of his mouth turn up in spite of everything else.

The shaman hooted in amusement. "No, not dat much, Mr. Driscoll," he chuckled. "Just de bare minimum...and I've already gathered most of dat simply by looking at you."

"Now Miss Darrow, when is your birthday?" the mandrill asked, turning to her.

"September 16th," she answered, slightly confused.

"Mr. Driscoll?"

"July 1st."

"Okay, let's see," Rafiki said thoughtfully. "T'ree ud us...assume each breath will involve a cubic foot of air. Allowing for a higher respiratory rate due to excitement, even playfulness-32 breaths per minute. And since dat is de same number as your age Mr. Driscoll," Rafiki added in pleasure, "dis will make de process dat much more streamlined!"

"Um, guess I'm glad to hear that."

"Anyhow, times three...Dat equals 96. Multiplied by three again is 288. Okay, dat number times 20 is 5760...divide by three and you get 1920."

"A very good year," Jack joked.

Turning to the playwright, Rafiki asked "Mr. Driscoll, what's de volume of a cylinder again?"

"V equals pi times r squared times the height," he replied, more than a little baffled.

"T'ank you. Now how did dis go before? 5760 divided by pi is 1833.4...divide by 7 and find the square root of de result...So de circle shall be 32 feet in total."

"Now Miss Darrow, could you stand on dis twine, please? And no matter what, do not go near de edge of de circle after I form it."

"Okay," Ann conceded.

With one end of the twine under her left foot, Rafiki let out 16 feet of twine before stopping, clipping the strand with his teeth and then placing the butt of his staff on the other end to hold it in place.

"Dis spell is going to take a few moments to get going," he informed them. "Do not move or say anyting. And you will probably want to hang on to each o'ter too. You ready?"

"As we'll ever be," Ann replied.

"Go ahead," Jack said with a curt nod as he drew up to Ann and held her close.

Then Rafiki began to chant out loud. A curious, listening, attentive stillness began to drift down and settle around the three of them like January snow, becoming ever more potent with each phrase, as their little patch of the universe waited to hear its orders.

An electric, humming charge seemed to be surrounding and infusing them, a sense of expectation, of anticipation, of sheer potential energy that grew and throbbed around their heads. Slowly, it transformed into a blend of power and terror and amazement and delight that could almost be breathed like sweltering jungle air.

Abruptly, some of that charge exploded out from the bottom of the shaman's staff and raced around them like fire tearing down a trail of gasoline, like a foxhound on a fresh scent, glowing green like a hundred thousand fireflies. Shooting off to the left, it curved behind all three primates before meeting itself back at Rafiki's staff to form a perfect circle of foxfire.

Pulling the stick back, Rafiki continued to chant, his voice containing way more self-assurance than Jack and the woman he was clutching felt. It was the vocal equivalent of the expression on the face of a cowboy on a bucking horse, a sailor at the wheel of his ship in a savage gale, an animal trainer working with tigers in a cage. It was the demeanor of someone who is contending with terribly dangerous, raw power, but is riding that danger like a surfboard, long skilled at mastering both the colossal power and their own private fear, knowing that the results are worth it in the end.

That mastery bound the witch doctor's spell ever tighter around the circle-squeezing air in, squeezing power and tension in, pushing inward with such sheer force that the circle and whatever was in it had no alternative but to be somewhere else.

At the same time, Jack had a sense that something else was going on too, something that was the polar opposite of this, right above his ebony-haired head. It was an impression that, as impossible as it seemed, the very air was slowly parting, like bread dough being pulled apart by a baker's hands.

This'll be the way out, Jack realized. Rafiki's gonna send us up right through it with his magic, just like a lift going up in its shaft.

Faster and faster the baboon went, as all around everything faded away to jet black, streaked with jade green. The silence began to sing with the roiling power. This was a song that was without sound, was felt in the muscles and bones, like a church organ, like a ringing gong.

And then the last felt-sound, like a silent thunderclap, louder, like sixty sticks of dynamite going off, so potent that reality itself seemed to be destroyed in that insane darkness, striking Jack Driscoll deaf and blind as he hunched over Ann, quaking and hoping for the best, teeth clenched so hard they hurt-

Then total silence once more, and darkness.

"We're here," Rafiki whispered. "Mr. Driscoll, Miss Darrow, feel free to open your eyes and have a look around. Just don't go near de edge of de circle."

Very slowly, cautiously, Jack uncoiled his muscles, relaxed his grip on Ann and raised his head.

At first he thought Rafiki had teleported them to some tropical beach at night. There was darkness above, and a glaring white surface below.

Like a toad gulping down a ground beetle, the playwright swallowed air and momentarily closed his eyes as he began to get his bearings. It was partly a reflexive action, because his eardrums were receiving nada in the way of input right at the moment. Under the circumstances, that was to be expected; after all, this stillness was more complete then anything which could be experienced on Earth. The frozen, alabaster wastes of Antarctica's Dronning Maud Land, the blistering expanses of sand in Saudi Arabia's Rub' al Khali, the massive plain of salt called Lake Eyre in Australia-they couldn't compare to this stark, ringing silence.

Jack's other motive for gulping air was a more practical one, to force down a sudden, churning, inexplicable feeling of nausea that made his esophageal sphincter dilate. He didn't realize it yet, but the sudden transfer to 17 percent gravity had been hard on his stomach.

That was better.

Instead of coral sand, Jack became aware that he was standing on a mixture of gray gravel, little spheres of black or clear glass, and gray pebbles, interspersed with rocks ranging in size from as big as his fist to as big as a small cantaloupe. All of them were coated in a silvery dust, never blown about by wind and possessing the consistency of talcum powder.

"Jack, look up," Ann whispered in a hushed, awed voice, absently touching him on the arm. So he did.

Seeing is believing, some people will tell you.

But just like when he'd heard a bull elephant speak, like when he'd finally seen the seething, monumental hulk that was Kong for the first time, an overwhelmed Jack, struck speechless, needed to stare at the sky several times to grasp what his eyes were taking in.

When he did seize the truth, shining and laid out before him like a hoard of gems, an exotic emotion welled up in his breast. His eyes began to water and sting with tears. They were tears generated from the very much bearable anguish of an impossible, wholly impractical dream that suddenly comes true after decades of hopeless longing, a forgotten, subliminal childhood fantasy fulfilled at last.

Yes, that sky could easily move even the most stalwart of souls to weep with its beauty. It was pure velvet black, an expanse of primal, seductive darkness that was studded with tens of thousands of stars, miniature cauldrons blazing with a cold, implacable, fierce brilliance that human beings wouldn't be able to appreciate for about another three decades-and then only a select few. It was a night sky that paradoxically had a ravening, emperor sun glaring down from its zenith, pooling their shadows jet black and razor sharp around their feet.

Rafiki himself was getting misty-eyed. "Now look over dere," he said quietly, as if in a place of worship. "On your left. Several hundred yards away."

On their left was a steep slope that plunged down and down and down to meet a deep chasm that had never known water or wind, filled with blackness as forbidding and stark as a pit in hell, without even the presence of air to gentle it. On its far side stretched a flat, stony plain that seemed to stop too suddenly, pulling up at an abnormally close horizon.

Out on this plain was something Jack could never have expected.

If you spend enough time roaming an Earthly desert, you can expect to see some indication of the presence of animal life eventually. Here though, in this empty, wondrous lunar wasteland, devoid of any air or water, subjected to unimaginable, roasting heat by day that would casserole a man in his own blood, and beyond bone-chilling cold- harsh enough to freeze oxygen solid-at night, there wouldn't be so much as a mite or rotifer to find.

Yet, jarringly, like something out of a magical storybook, a dazzling, inviting blocky glow of gold and copper sat on four spider legs. For a wild moment or two, Jack wondered if this was the lunar equivalent of the great, heat-pitted, crimson sphere in London's The Red One, a mysterious object left behind in this barren panorama by an extraterrestrial race.

A line from the tale flashed through his thoughts. A child of intelligences, remote and unguessable, working corporally in metals, it indubitably was.

Then he noticed a silvery pole about a hundred feet from the shining platform on stilts, with an American flag standing out at a right angle, held straight by a rod running through the upper edge. A vital requirement-for here, no wind would ever stir it.

"Christ in a trashcan," Ann said matter-of-factly, her voice brimming with amazement. "Oh my goodness."

"No," Jack said in hushed disbelief. "Just impossible." Memories flooded back into his head, of reading H. G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon, John Jacob Astor IV's A Journey in Other Worlds, Burroughs' The Moon Maid, and other tales of mankind successfully breaking the bonds of Earth's gravity to travel through the reaches of space. And here was proof of that first enormous step.

The patriotic part of Jack was immensely pleased to see that not only was this proof that his own species had landed on the moon, but that fellow Americans had clearly been the ones to do it.

"Is this...is this in our future too?" Ann haltingly asked Rafiki.

"Dat it is," he confirmed with a slow nod. "Thirty-nine years to be precise. But dis is not de site of de dery first lunar landing. Dat one, from de American Apollo 11 mission, is in de southern Sea of Tranquility, while we are in de Descartes Highlands, looking at what was left behind from de Apollo 16 mission. De reason we can't go dere instead," the mandrill added, anticipating their disappointed questions, "is because dat'll be de place where future generations of humans will build de first permanent base on de moon as a symbolic gesture-so we witch doctors never go down dere for fear of leaving footprints where someone may find dem."

"Understood," Ann said.

"Holy Mackerel, they even brought some sort of car over with them!" the writer exclaimed, extending one of his elongated fingers in the direction of the abandoned landing platform of the LEM Orion, gaze focused on the first Lunar Rover, a delicate, deceptively sturdy, wagon-like little vehicle neatly parked alongside a boulder. Still in excellent condition, it had been used only three times by astronauts John Young and Charlie Duke Jr. of Pasadena for trips to Flag Crater, Smoky Mountain, and Stone Mountain, on which the playwright now stood.

Almost overwhelmed by it all, Jack slowly sunk down on one knee and brushed his broad right hand along the pale, ageless, bone-dry lunar soil, turning over and examining stones that hadn't been moved or acted upon in at least four billion years. Selecting a chunk of breccia about the size of a golf ball, he picked it up and clutched it in his fist, looking around once more as he whispered reverently, "What magnificent desolation."

"Jack," Ann said, her face turned upward. The tone of her angelic voice made him look up as well-and confronted with the sight, he forgot all about the moon rock, letting it fall in a puff of silver dust.

What both New Yorkers found themselves looking at was home. It was a slice of a disk four times bigger than the moon as seen from Earth, and the Moon's truncated horizon made it seem even more massive. It wasn't the Earth in full view, but a waxing crescent, streaked with swirls of ivory clouds and blazing with a potent green-blue radiance-a rich, sensual light, like the sparkling fire exuding from the heart of an opal. That light forever dismissed the idea that blue and green were "cool" colors; it seemed like one could warm their hands at that vibrant, welcoming crescent.

Home! Jack's soul sang like a wood thrush, a silent paean of longing and wonder and awe and yearning.

"So gorgeous. So wonderful. Yes, so gorgeous," Rafiki said softly, putting Jack's thoughts into words. "In all de universes I have e'der seen or visited, dere is no greater beauty and glory t'an dis planet. In ten thousand worlds, no greater artwork or marvel dan dis."

"You wanted to know where my power, de power of all shamans comes from, and why I have chosen to work with dis magic-severely at times," the mandrill said solemnly, turning to look at the humans. "Well, whatever force made dat made de power too, de power of life, of healing, de power to balance de darkness with de light and to set t'ings right. It's all one and de same."

"And as for 'why,'" he went on passionately, "dat's 'why.'"

There was no need for him to indicate "that."

"Not just for excitement, or for fun, or for prestige, or for convenience-al'tough old Rafiki will admit dat is a part of it. But more importantly, we do what we do because somebody must take care of dis place, of de Circle of Life that flows around it. And not just part of it-not just one kingdom or nation, or one way o' t'inking and relating to de world, or one set of rules, or one species, at de expense of all de o'ters. It needs to be everyt'ing dat lives. All twenty-odd million species, with nothing left out, nobody ignored. One whole planet. Somebody's got to make sure it develops and thrives as well as it can. Or just dat it hangs in dere. Dat's what shamans do."

Shuffling, Jack put in, "That's kind of like what I believe as a socialist. It also reminds me of something my father would often say when I was growing up: 'If you don't take charge of something yourself, it might not get done properly, or even get done at all.'"

"Exactly." Rafiki nodded. "And no matter which universe you live in, we can't afford to let dat get ruined and messed up. Dat's our home after all, and we have nowhere else to go. O'ter folks will have to live dere too, in de future. So we can and must all be shamans in our own way, doing what part we can to keep entropy and irresponsibility and carelessness from devastating dis planet...Like Scar and his hyenas are going to devastate de Pridelands," he sighed mournfully.

As Jack chewed on that, the mandrill abruptly seemed to become aware of something.

"Jack, Ann, I'm sorry, but we must go now. De fragment of atmosphere we have surrounding us acts as somet'ing of a thermal shield, but we're taking up heat fast all de same."

"Now that you mention it, yeah, I'm getting rather warm," Ann remarked, tugging at her blouse with one hand and fanning her face with the other.

"Can I bring this rock back with us?" Jack requested hopefully. "I can't tell you how much it would mean to me," he added quietly, gravely.

The shaman gave the writer an uncertain, considering look that then shifted to one of acquiescence.

"Considering what you've had to go t'ru on my account, and what I must have both o't you go back to, you deserve dat much at least. Besides, taking a little extra mass back on de return trip should provide some leeway, just in case de spell goes slightly off one way or de o'ter in its parameters... Just do not tell anyone about de rock, or how you got it though. Dat could cause difficulties, both for you, and de way your nation's history is supposed to progress."

"Understood. Others would just think I was either talking nonsense or hopped up on drugs anyway," Jack dismissed. "And thank you," he gratefully added.

"You're welcome. Now let's go."

This time, Ann was the one to reach out and protectively pull her white knight close this time. "I assume it'll be like before?"

"No, actually," Rafiki said, wagging his head. "It just takes a lot o't effort to make a hole in de fabric of space-time, move all dis air and ourselves tru it, resisting de pull of gravity all de while."

"Wait a moment," Jack said hurriedly, panting against the blast-furnace heat rapidly permeating his flesh. "I thought magic wasn't beholden to physical laws like that."

Rafiki gave an it-is-what-it-is sort of shrug. "Eden wit' magic," he said, "one must obey de way physics works. Cutting a path tru a forest is much more grueling dan walking back along de result, after all. Now get ready."

Not fully sure what to expect, Jack inhaled deeply as Rafiki did the same, then said just five short words of gibberish.

There was a flash of green neon, a sensation like being yanked down by the feet, then WHAM!-and both New Yorkers tumbled onto their butts and backs as they left the lunar noontime, 1990 A.D., for Sector 12 General Hospital, 2267 A.D. and in another separate universe, getting back to their feet in the room they'd just left.

Rafiki went to each compass point of the circle, breaking it with a muttered incantation and a swipe of his staff.

After what seemed like forever, Jack gave an unhappy sigh.

"Rafiki," he said, "if you were watching our trials on Skull Island-and I have no reason to doubt that it's the truth, surely you must know that it's nothing short of a miracle ten times over that our hearts are still beating. And surely you must know that the chances that one of us, and probably both, is going to end up dead long before reaching the beach are almost a given."

"I know dat," the baboon said, raising and then dropping his hands in a helpless gesture.

"So please, at least send Ann there, where I can know she'll be safe," Jack begged. "Don't endanger her by-"

"Jack no!" Ann protested. "You'll never make it by yourself! I want to help you-"

She was cut off by an unhappy, frustration-tinged grumble from the shaman.

"Mr. Driscoll, what I said must not have sunk in. Everyt'ing must be de way it was! It can't be helped. If I change t'ings in any little way, de fabric of reality, of space-time itself, will be compromised. It will make an echo that will tear t'ings apart, make t'ings melt!"

"I don't care," Jack said defiantly. "I'm sick and tired of being put in danger, of nearly getting killed, of watching others die, of being forced to be in places I don't want to be and do things I don't want to do, of being bamboozled and lied to, and so is Ann!"

"I second that!" his dame chimed in.

"Mr. Driscoll-," Rafiki intoned, mouth half open as he groped for words. "Dis isn't something dat I'm just doing to be mean or cruel! Any shaman wort'y of de name knows no callousness, I can assure you. But if I don't send bot' o' back to exactly where and when you were when I made de mistake, dere are going to be serious consequences, rifts and upheavals dat will affect and warp at least t'ree different universes, probably more! And dey'll start out in de places you've had contact with-dis hospital station, de Pridelands, Skull Island, and your Manhattan! Dat's not a maybe! It's a certainty!"

"You're worried about not surviving de return journey to de Venture?" Rafiki continued. "Well, bot' o' you will end up dying, crushed atom by atom, if you choose to stay here just one more week, or produce any quantum inconsistency at all! And how do you tink Manhattan will fare? It already has four unstable geological faults of its own, running right t'ru de bedrock! One small tear, a twitch in space-time, will leave de place looking like a giant went at it wit' an enormous broom!" The witch doctor was flailing his arms and staff in the air now, agitated and desperate. "At least two and a half million people and o'ter sentient beings could die, maybe-"

"Could," Jack interrupted, desperately grasping at straws. Agitated himself now, he realized he was pacing about and weaving, breathing hard, like a wild beast in a cage.

Cindy shook her head. "Will," she said, and there was such a weight of certainty and misery and terror in the way she uttered the word that Jack quit pacing and Ann quit fidgeting, and they both goggled at the nurse in amazement. "I don't like to be brutal like this," she told them, eyes suddenly, disturbingly dark and hooded and savage like a hawk's, "but I guess you're both saying that you don't give a damn whether I and all the other staff who've healed your wounds, saved your life Mr. Driscoll, made you comfortable, given you the royal treatment, and given you medications, whether more than two million people in New York City, your surviving friends and comrades on the Venture, and all the inhabitants of the Pridelands would die, just as long as you two don't have to risk your necks."

Ann spluttered in consternation as she took refuge behind Jack, "No, it's not that, it's just that if Kong catches up to-"

"Say, sister, I didn't mean it that way," the writer hurriedly gabbled, raising his hands in protest. "Of course I give a care! But what about us two?"

In a flash, a memory came to him, of a story he'd read slightly less than three centuries ago, it seemed, called The Lady or the Tiger, by Frank Stockton. In it, an accused man was given the choice of two doors to open in an arena. Behind one was a ravenous tiger that would promptly make cat food out of him if he opened that particular door. Behind another was a looker of a woman who he would be instantly married to, regardless of martial status, if he opened that one.

Suddenly, Jack knew the sickening, paralyzing terror that must've torn the poor man apart when the moment came, when he had to make such an awful decision. It was just that two lives now, not one, were in the balance.

"You don't e'den care dat they might die, dat entire universes might die," Rafiki judgmentally went on, "so long as you and Ann are okay. You'll run dat risk regardless d'ough, won't you?"

"Please stop!" Ann implored miserably.

"No, I'd never do such a-"

Suddenly, Jack realized in another searing flash of white-hot fury that he was being manipulated a third time, this time through one big cruel guilt trip. His own values were being used against him! Even worse, Ann, his beautiful angel, was being bullied and played with too!

Although he already knew, deep down, what the inevitable outcome would, must be, this infuriating awareness automatically made him want to resist all the harder. He was not going to dumbly, quietly go into the deadfall this time, no siree, not without some squealing and kicking.

"Button your lip, you filthy ape!" he roared. "I've had enough of your bullshit voodoo scare tactics! You will send both of us at least to where the drawbridge crosses the chasm! Good God, even the damn bugs in that jungle are vicious monsters!" the writer cried, a spasm of absolute, visceral revulsion and terror momentarily sweeping through him at the nightmare memories.

"You've already survived far worse," Rafiki pointed out, in what Jack regarded as the lamest attempt at reassurance ever spoken.

"That's right-and it was by both the grace of God and the skin of our teeth!" Jack shouted, flinging his arms up and to the sides. "How many times can we be that lucky? How many?" His voice, normally droning and nasal, was taking on a high, keening, strange quality.

Dodging away just in time from the trawl net of hysteria about to encompass his mind, he turned his back on the witch doctor, snarling, "My response is, we're not doing it, we'll never let you chuck us back into that green hell, and that's final!"

"Mr. Driscoll, and Miss Darrow," Rafiki said sympathetically, "you are mistaken if you tink I don't feel pity for bot' o' you, or regret what I need to do. I'm dery sorry. I really, really am. I wish so much I could place you back on de shore or in New York. But I don't make de rules!"

"Christ damnit Rafiki!" the playwright bellowed, his vocal cords stinging from the force. The rage multiplied exponentially, feeding off itself in a literal vicious cycle. Now it was feral and primal, the crimson, dynamite anger of a grizzly running wounded. Suddenly he found himself flying at the mandrill, totally out of control, propelled by desperation and an eagerness to feel his fist colliding with that ugly, garish dog face.

Crouching low, Rafiki met him with a sideways sweep of his stick. There was a firecracker sound from the playwright's kneecaps, and a shocking, white-hot burst of agony that stabbed right up into his scarred thighs, sending him tumbling to the floor as his legs folded.

For a few moments, Jack was agog, just lying there and fiercely clutching his throbbing knees, groaning as Ann shrieked in rage, "You bastard! You leave my man alone!" before flying at Rafiki herself.

Instead of whacking her with the stick as well, the mandrill had enough chivalry to merely hold it crosswise and parry her attempts, scratching and yelling, to lunge at him, shoving her back in an eerie imitation of what the writer had himself done to keep a walleyed leopard tom from his throat.

The searing pain in and under Jack's kneecaps softened in the meantime, as well as the shock, and he worked them carefully. No problems, no grating torment of broken bone rasping together. A thick tendril of relief sprouted through the red-brown pavement of ire inside him at the realization that he'd still be able to walk and run.

Great to know I'll still be able to run for my life alongside Ann for a few moments before that murderous ape or some vicious dinosaur or other abomination catches up and snuffs my life out, he thought ruefully.

As it passed through his head, Ann, with Cindy unsuccessfully trying to pull her back, somehow managed to sneak past Rafiki's defenses and kick the baboon hard in the belly. As Jack unsteadily levered himself off the linoleum, massaging his knees all the while, it gave him extreme pleasure to see the monkey's eyes bulge in shock as he gave a short, sharp, kUH cry and clutch his abdomen.

The shaman recovered quickly though, eyes narrowing as he gave a deep grunt, as mandrills do when enraged. Head lowered, fangs bared like awful bone knives, he strong-armed Ann with the shaft of the staff, clutched lengthwise once more, catching her just underneath her breasts and knocking her to the ground.

Jack thought he'd been he'd been wild with wrath before, wild as a man could get. The way his hatred multiplied at the sight of Ann being knocked down, even if Rafiki's intent was simply to defend himself, proved him wrong.

Springing forward, features twisted by vindictiveness, he grabbed hold of the witch doctor's left arm, thick with dense muscle. He was going to fling this bastard, this lying traitor, to the floor and mop it up with him. What of it if this ugly creature was stronger and would soon turn the tables with his dagger tusks and gouging nails? He'd make him pay! He'd beat him and stomp him and kick him and rip out tufts of pelt-

Swinging around, even as the writer tugged back and down, the shaman raised his stick high in the air. It hung there, suspended for a moment, before smashing into his skull, the dark length of it bisecting his field of vision. Jack tried to lash out, but to no avail.

An awful, too-familiar crack burst out as the staff connected with bone, the sound of a bullwhip's lash. A single loud tone, pure and silvery, mantled in hurt, filled his ears. It was like there was a huge triangle or tuning fork inside his head, and someone had just struck it. The room went as gray and grainy as an Edison film for a few seconds, sparks of green flashing inside his eyeballs.

"Jack! Oh God!" Ann screamed in horror as his legs became boneless.

I'm getting so goddamned sick of this sensation, the playwright thought through the agony as he dropped like a lead weight, eyes watering with pain. Sprawling onto his right side, his hands went to his upper forehead, clutching it as he pitifully whined-groaned, "Yeah, just inflict more pain on me, why don't ya! It's not like Jack hasn't had his crown nearly broken enough times over the past eight weeks, after all."

"You brought it on yourself by trying to grab and attack me," Rafiki curtly snapped back at the dazed New Yorker. "And don't even tink about retaliating Miss Darrow," he addressed her icily, even as he heard the soles of her shoes rhythmically slapping in his direction.

Then, gratefully, Jack registered Ann's smooth arms sliding under his shoulders through the pain in his head, lifting him up into a seated position. Coming around, she squatted on her hams before him, her face a picture of concern as she said, "Are you okay Jack?"

Through the dissipating giddiness and pain, he managed to reply, "Yeah, I'll be alright in a bit," as he rubbed what was already shaping up to be an impressive purple lump above his hairline with his left hand. Her dread-widened eyes brought back grim, unwanted memories of the first, more serious blow he'd received during this horrible misadventure.

Leaving the welt from Rafiki's stick, his fingers, more suited to typing than struggle or war, reached back and slowly stroked the slight depression and healed, ragged scalp wounds inflicted by the tiger shark teeth set in that length of wood. It had all occurred so quickly.

As he'd thrown punches, stomped bare fudge brown feet, and generally fought like an enraged wildcat, there had been a deep whistle as the club whisked down through the rain-stitched air, a stick of dynamite going off inside his head, accompanied by the red gouging of the serrated, angular, inlaid shark teeth through his skin, and then a despairing blackness engulfing him, unhurried yet unstoppable.

An excruciating headache, a bleeding, torn head, and time torn away that he should rightly have been using to stand guard over his angel, possibly keeping those filthy savages from abducting her. That was the price he'd paid for resisting the ghastly islanders.

That blow hadn't been an ending after all, but a pulled trigger. So had begun those 36 hours that had made an utter wreck of him, in mind as well as body, racing and climbing through a jungle that actually stank of malice and hate, to say nothing of the nature of most of its inhabitants.

And now they were going to be cast back into that death-forest.

"I am dery sorry I had to do dat to you, Mr. Driscoll," Rafiki apologized, "but dere was no alternative...just like dere is none to what must be. I understand dat you feel betrayed, hurt, upset and angry. I don't blame you. But I'll still do what I must do as a witch doctor."

"Yeah, you're a witch doctor alright," Jack gritted out bitterly. "I wish you'd just left us at the gorge," he said mournfully, hunching over and putting his knuckles into his eye sockets, as if to squeeze out the despair, black as that lunar gorge, which pressed against the backs of those jade orbs. "Why couldn't you have just followed my request and let me die in Ann's arms, let the nightmare end?" It wasn't a question, but a lament.

Ann gasped. "Jack, don't you dare say that!" she said pointedly, taking his hands in hers. "As long as you're alive, there's always some hope to hold out for. I should know that better than anyone," she added for emphasis.

"Dat's well said," Rafiki sagely nodded. "Dere is always a chance."

It was the thinnest of ledges, a sliver of comfort to hang on to.

"A lot of people will die at best. At worst, dese upheavals will destroy entire worlds, sooner or later."

"But we only have your word on that!" Jack protested.

"Yes. But wouldn't you tink a shaman's word and knowledge any good? And why would I lie to you about dis? Considering dat I'm going to and through all dis trouble for de sake of being honest wit' you."

"He didn't have to tell you two," Cindy pointed out. "But then he would've been lying, in a way-and we both think you don't deserve to be lied to."

"I could easily have used trickery, or used my magic to make you return through taking away all your free will," Rafiki informed them, taking up the nurse's lead, "but I didn't...and wouldn't."

"Old Rafiki may be just a zany, half-crazy, wise old baboon," he went on, "but he is mature enough and disciplined enough to tell de truth, harsh though it may be. And to take it. Are you?"

His question wasn't a taunt or an indictment. It was honestly meant.

"You bet your bottom dime I am," Jack replied. "It's just that I don't want to see Ann or I end up dead, especially after we've already come so close there, so many times. Seriously, all we did on that island, right from the moment we first saw it, was run smack into one crisis after the other and barely escape with our lives. We're like some pathetic baseball team that never wins a game, for God's sake!"

"And the next time we take the field, we won't be headed to the playoffs," Ann added glumly.

"You say that like it's a sure thing," Cindy replied. "But it isn't, not at all. I mean, who can tell if a baseball team with a losing record won't have its fortunes change with the next game?"

"You can't," Ann admitted. "But there's just a one in four chance that Jack and I will ever see the Venture again, and the deck is stacked against us like you can't comprehend, Cindy. And if Kong catches up to us, he'll ri-"

"Ann, enough," Jack urged desperately.

Ann turned, giving him an apologetic, ashamed stare. It then turned into a considering, lost one. He stared back, holding that sapphire gaze.

"Jack..." she whispered helplessly, defeated.

"Yeah. I wish like hell we had a choice."

"I don't think we have one." Her eyes darted from Rafiki, to Cindy, then back to him. "If they're even halfway right about this...I can't even imagine such awful things."

"Millions of lives," he said in meditative concurrence, more to himself than her.

So which is it, Jackie boy? The lady or the tiger? Which one shall the playwright-prince choose?

Suddenly, Jack Driscoll's body just slumped, the posture of a corpse hanging from the hangman's noose. He felt and looked like the Indian in Frederic Remington's bronze "End of the Trail." It was that awful, impotent, despairing moment of surrender.

"All right," he said thickly, "Alright, you bastard. You win. You have to follow the greater good after all, set things right again. Just too bad it comes at our expense," he said bitterly.

Jack's feet moved at a snail's pace, feeling like concrete blocks as he numbly walked to the chair on the left. Despondently, telling himself this wasn't actually happening, the playwright lifted up each article of clothing with his right hand, draping it over his left arm. Haltingly, giving Ann sad, helpless glances, he bent down to pick up his socks and shoes, whispering, "I'm sorry," before ripping his gaze away and retreating into the men's bathroom.

Taking off the singlet and track shorts felt like preparing himself for his own sacrifice. Putting on the old clothing felt as if he was donning instruments of torture, like the angina-inducing jacket in The Star-Rover.

Ann was already outside when he paced out the door, his movements the ones of a man with severe palsy in his legs.

The helpless expression on her face, twisted by helpless futility and frustration and fear, almost hurt him more than his own inner pain.

Rafiki was standing there, in the middle, holding out his stick, butt-end first. Jack knew what he wanted them to do.

With a churning, impotent resentment, the playwright gave Ann a short, curt, grim and apologetic nod, silently telling her "Ballgame's over."

Jack's heart was pounding in his ears as he plodded up to Rafiki, Ann behind him. He knelt down, feeling like a medieval prisoner exposing his neck for the sword.

Before he grabbed the stick, he looked up at the mandrill's face. An odd mix of emotions did battle within the playwright. He wanted to spit in the witch doctor's eye, tell him he dearly hoped Scar's hyenas would eat him alive and slowly, maybe even give him a sly punch in the nuts. He wanted to do it. He really did.

And yet...that wasn't the kind of man he was. Without Rafiki's help, he would be dead, for cripes sake! Ann would be left grief-stricken and alone, and the consequences from such a discrepancy in the fabric of reality would've been disasterous.

If it hadn't been for Rafiki's mistake, they never would've gotten to experience the fairy-tale world of talking creatures the baboon called home, met the Mzima Pride or the painted dogs, or any other of the talking creatures they'd encountered-even if it did ultimately turn out to be very much a 'in the wrong place at the wrong time,' situation. But Rafiki couldn't have known that.

Last but by no means least-he'd given them the supreme, barely conceivable privilege of being the very first humans in their history and timeline to stand on the moon!

"Before I grab this stick Rafiki," Jack fumed, voice seething, "I want to tell you that I hate you, and I will hate you for doing this to us for the rest of my life, whether that can be measured in minutes or decades. I won't ever forget nor forgive you for this despicable trick, and neither will Ann."

"But in the spirit of a classic paradox, of Schrodinger's Cat, I also want to tell you thanks, in spite of everything," he added, a reluctant, grudging gratitude flooding into his words. "Thanks for getting me to this hospital where my life could be saved, and Ann's own wounds could be stitched, most importantly. Thanks for giving us the chance to marvel at and experience both your world and this one. Finally, I really want to thank you for taking us to-well, up there," he finished simply, ecstasy seeping through his breast at the raw new memory. "So although you don't fully deserve it, thank you for all that, Rafiki.

"And I want to thank you," Rafiki said in turn. "On behalf of de three million lives, minimum, dat will keep on living, and de three or more universes dat will remain stable. They'll ne'der know of course. But Mganga and I will...and we won't ever forget."

"Whole lot of good that'll do us!" Ann said, caught between desperate laughter and impotent tears.

"Miss Darrow," Rafiki said, with a weary smile, "I'm afraid dat if you're in dis universe searching for comfort and fairness, you've come to de wrong place...whether you're a witch doctor or just plain average, sentient or simple."

Giving a deep, shuddering breath, Jack looked back at his angel, at the tight look of harried, tearful misery on her face that just broke his heart. It was all the same mess, the same goddamn mess, and all they ended up doing was plunging into the shit again. It goes on and on and on and on, and where's the happy ending, the place of refuge, for us?

"One cat in a sealed box with a dish of water, two covered dishes of food, and some radioactive atoms for company," Rafiki's voice droned mechanically, optimistically from somewhere above the writer's head. "Until you open de lid of dat box, he has a fifty-fifty chance. Dere's still hope to cling on to."

"And when you do open it, you've just got to take what comes. Welcome to de way our universe and all reality works, folks," the shaman snorted, a sound that was sardonic and scornful and bitter and helpless all at once.

"Here we go then," Ann said softly into Jack's ear from behind him, her hands slowly, deliberately sliding, warm and fragile and sleek, down each of his flanks, where her arms then wrapped around his abdomen above his belt like lengths of taut cable. "We're about to open the box now, and run down that forking path blindfolded, aren't we?"

Through the pure white noise of helpless terror that Jack's mind was now drowning in, he had just enough rationality left to answer, "Christ yeah. And Christ help us. But if we didn't do this, and we chose to play it safe, not worrying about what might or might not happen to our friends, family, or fellow humans...Well, even if Rafiki and Cindy are lying through their teeth-we may be in one cell of the honeycomb, but we belong to and know another. No matter what comes, I want to least try to get back, and most of all get you back to the ship safely."

"And even though Carl's camera is destroyed now, which means no film-and isn't that just a crying shame-" he added sardonically, "we still don't know how things'll work out in the end. If we just got sent back to New York, we'd end up living our lives in an indefinite state ourselves, asking questions, always wondering if we could've changed what did-or didn't-happen before the Venture left at last."

For a few beats of his heart, Jack Goralski Driscoll realized how much more frightening that would be than facing Skull Island a second time.

"All I know is that whatever happens, I'd rather die with you than without you," Ann whispered, kissing him behind the ear, on his cheekbone.

At that, Jack completely broke down. Tears threatened to leak from his eyes as he turned and swept Ann into his embrace. She reciprocated as he kissed her fiercely, cradling the back of her head as he did so, feeling her silky curls of hair, her warm, luscious lips against his own, her breasts pressing against his body as her arms squeezed his trunk like bands of sun-warmed iron. It was a last kiss in Jack's mind, and they held onto it until his lungs cried out for oxygen.

They parted, breathing heavily, taking and holding each other hands.

"Ann," he told her, gabbling past his nervousness, "while I still have the chance to do it, I want to tell you that I...I...I lo-"

"Ssssshhhhhh," Ann cut him off, her voice a silky whisper as she pressed two of her fingers, delicate and soft and warm, against his lips. "I know Jack. I've known for a very long time. Some things are better off left unsaid between a man and a woman," she told him, thinly smiling.

It's not about words! Jack thought in delight, grinning in pleasure from ear to ear. That was a wave of emotion he definitely wanted to leave on.

"Okay Rafiki," he commanded, drawing a deep, fortifying breath as he turned back towards the witch doctor. "Let's get this over with."

Silently, the mandrill sage placed his staff upright on the floor. Ann wrapped her arms around the playwight's abdomen with the strength of a boa constrictor, knowing that in ten seconds, there would be only empty air and jungle beneath her.

Reaching forward, Jack Driscoll seized the stick like a drowning man grabbing on to a life preserver. Through the blood drumming in his ears, he heard Rafiki chanting. The staff rapidly began to glow green, shrouding his broad, clenched hands in neon light.

One last time there was that impression of expectation, of potential energy building on itself like an electric charge, of the air itself opening up below them.

Then there was an explosive burst of green light, like the Emerald City of Oz being blasted to pieces, and Jack's stomach heaved underneath him as everything fell away.

And then, all at once, he was once more desperately clinging not to a magic staff of wood, but white bone shaped into a terrible Grim Reaper scythe, the wing claw of a living, stinking gargoyle that gibbered and gasped and growled in distress as it plummeted earthward in a half-controlled fall, the canopy and warped terrain of Skull Island's rainforest flashing by in a moonlit blur two hundred feet beneath them.

---

For such a gargantuan chapter, I felt an equally impressive collection of epigrams was warranted.

Charles Fort was a man who could justifiably be called history's first paranormal investigator. Indeed, he was the individual who first coined the term "teleportation." During his lifetime, Fort developed a great interest in, lectured about, and wrote both books and magazine articles about various strange things honest, observant human beings from all walks of life and nations had documented. While some of his ideas may seem far-out by both the standards of his time and ours, such as his belief that all existence is a vast, invisible organic pseudo-entity, or that the heavens are a rotating shell just a scant few light-years from where we stand, many of the occurrances he examined, a.k.a falls of frogs, shellfish, fish, and so on, animals like big cats being seen in places they shouldn't be, mysterious lights in the sky, religious statues producing bodily fluids, spontaneous human combustion, and so forth, continue to puzzle and fascinate people today.

Jack's inner monolouge about how Ann isn't as clever or knowledgable as he is by no means meant to degrade or deride Ann's character in any way. Remember, in this story I have Ann's mother, the single parent in her life, dying of typhus when she was 13. It would've been a miracle for Ann to manage to stay in the education system even for just one more year at best. Nor should it be meant to imply that she's stupid. Then as now, a single woman doesn't last long on the streets of New York City by being a fool-and for 16 years at that!

The example I picked of the Titanic to illustrate the Many-Worlds hypothesis is another nod to Adrien Brody, who was born 61 years to the day after the great ship went down.

Jack's awed comment about magnificent desolation is of course, a respectful tribute to Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on our moon and similar words he uttered.

Finally, I must give a huge, grateful tip of the hat to Jorge Luis Borges and the stunning Discovery Channel series Through The Wormhole, for introducing me to concepts that were invaluable in writing and understanding the science in this chapter.

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