A Gulf of Civil Horror Chapter 5, a phineas and ferb fanfic

Hello, readers! Thank you for continuing to support me and this story. So, as you all probably know, we were just recently graced with a guest appearance by our favorite characters from P&F in the MML crossover! Due to the nature of the time travel-y plot of the episode, I find it expedient to remind us all that in this story, nothing from Milo Murphy's Law is considered canon. I don't think it will be a very big problem, but any similarities between this story and The Phineas and Ferb Effect are purely coincidental - unless I flatter myself by imagining that I really am that good at prognosticating future ideas and jokes that might be used in either show! Anyways, I hope you enjoy the next chapter!

Chapter 5

Somewhere in the Appalachian mountains
The future...

The King battered his way up the overgrown path, and the platypus followed, hot on his trail. A dense patch of thick, green brush with nasty thorns caught at his robes, flaying the expensive gold threads, slowing his movement. He braced against the snag and tugged himself free, tearing his cloak in the process. Onwards he rushed, willing himself to go faster.

Pine trees were everywhere, tall and mighty evergreens that blanketed the steep mountain banks. If his long legs were an advantage in flight, it was nullified by the slope he had to climb almost as it were a flight of stairs. Still, the crunching sounds of his pursuer seemed to fall behind. His goal lay just ahead. Only a few more bends in the path to go, if he remembered correctly. He was close, so close to reaching it―

The King burst into a small clearing. The grove of pine trees on the far side towered into the sky. He whipped around, still panting heavily, drawing his Glock. The platypus had to be close. Squinting down the sights, The King scanned for any signs of movement.

The platypus darted around the final bend and into view. The King pulled the trigger, flinching as the hammer slammed down on the barrel. He had always been repulsed by the weight of the weapon and by the dirty work of killing things himself, and his lack of training showed. He missed his mark, allowing the platypus to dive behind the cover of a big pine trunk at the edge of the clearing, quite unharmed.

Keeping the gun aimed at the base of the tree, The King backed away slowly. The platypus peeked around the left side of the trunk. He fired two more bullets into the tree to force him to retreat again behind it.

"You know, usually, this is the part where the bad guy starts to monologue," the platypus said. "Telling me about their evil plan, about how their tragic backstory set them on a path inevitably leading them along to this very moment."

The King cautiously took another step back.

The platypus peeked around the tree again. He fired one more round into the tree, but this time the platypus swooped out at unbelievable speed, close to the ground and practically on all fours. The King got off two more rounds before a beaver tail swiped across his hand, slapping the gun out of his grasp and knocking it clear across the grove.

This time, The King was ready. He ducked down and used his long legs to sweep the platypus' webbed feet out from under him, sending him tumbling to the ground. He tried to kick the animal, but missed as he rolled out of reach. The platypus pushed himself up and charged again, aiming a blow at The King's sternum. The King was too slow to dodge, absorbing the full force of the blow and knocking him back on his heels.

The platypus leapt in the air to deliver a vicious kick, and The King was just able to get his bearings in time to duck. He spotted the conveniently located branch just within reach, and snatched it as the platypus turned to face him once more.

Lifting the branch to strike, The King swung mightily at his foe. The platypus sidestepped to dodge the attack. Moving the more quickly, the platypus was able to leap on top of the branch and pin it beneath his weight, leaving The King without a weapon.

A barrage of punches landed on The King, packing far more power than their deceptively small fists seemed capable of unleashing. The King felt himself keel over in pain to face plant into the ground, making him spit dirt out of his mouth while his arms were craned behind his back and snapped into restraints. The platypus stood on his shoulder triumphantly. "Your Conspirium is no more," he sneered.

Only a few paces away, The King watched unnoticed, quite hidden by the trunk of another majestic pine, as his time-clone was cuffed by the platypus. It was clear to him that no matter how many notes he took or how many times he watched his opponent's moves, he simply couldn't match the platypus head-to-head in a fight.

United States Capitol Building
Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.
September 25, 2049

"I still think this is a bad idea!" PJ repeated, exasperated.

"PJ, I am not canceling my speech at the gala tonight, and that's final!"

PJ shook his head angrily. Isabella could be so stubborn sometimes. For as long as he had been on the Secret Service, he'd had to deal with it.

"Look, PJ," Phineas said, "we'll have the Secret Service, you, and your team there, plus Ferb and I have taken every technological precaution we can think of to make sure Isabella is safe."

"And if anything goes wrong," interjected Isabella, "we can always use time travel to go back and warn ourselves of what Suzy is planning. Our future selves haven't appeared to do so yet, so chances are it's nothing we can't handle."

Taking a deep breath, PJ sighed. "The President of the United States always gets what she wants."

"Yes. Yes, she does." Phineas and Isabella intoned in unison.

"Jynx! You owe me a soda!" exclaimed Phineas.

Ignoring her husband, the President added, "Besides, we've been waiting for months for Suzy to show herself. This is a risk worth taking if it means we can flush her out."

"Okay," PJ had reluctantly agreed. That was how it happened this morning. Now, as he waited in a saferoom inside the Capitol Building with Isabella, Phineas, Ferb, and Vanessa, he was still on edge.

He reminded himself that at least Marie was safe back at the White House. While Ferb and Vanessa had teleported up to attend the gala, Thomas and Marie were having a movie night, watching 2001: A Space Odyssey, if PJ remembered correctly. He didn't care for those really old movies, but Marie loved the science in this one, and Thomas apparently tolerated it, for the musical score, PJ guessed.

Deciding he needed to get rid of some nervous energy, PJ left the room to go check on the patrol schedule for the hundredth time. Coombs and Lee were working surveillance and running face-recognition algorithms to find Suzy faster. Willy and Tui were backup for the security detail and the bouncer. Olsen and Waters were undercover as attendees, the eyes on the ground, as it were; and Ramirez and Eliot were out in the camouflage van, reading satellite images off of thermal scans. PJ didn't trust Eliot not to draw too much attention to himself if he were working inside.

PJ also knew most of the folks on the unit dispatched by the Secret Service tonight, many of them his former coworkers. They had a perimeter of strong men with sharp eyes, highly trained, surrounding the convention hall. They were trained to notice movement, especially of peoples' hands, and to react quickly to potential threats. Isabella's top personal bodyguard was never more than a few feet away whenever she was out in public, a mountain of a man who wore over 25 pounds of kevlar armor under his suit so he could use his body as a shield if the need arose.

There was less than twenty minutes left until dinner would be served. The food was inspected thoroughly for safety and the President's dish was prepared under scrupulous supervision. At precisely two minutes before 7 o'clock, Phineas and Isabella would emerge from the saferoom they were waiting in, to be seated at their table on the hour, exactly. All the men and women protecting Isabella were well armed and well trained. PJ tried his best to relax and focus.

His job was perhaps a bit redundant, yet he had insisted on it. He had reserved himself a seat at the President's table, where he wanted to watch everything that was going on around her. He would be the last line of defense, alongside her personal bodyguards, who would be standing a short distance away. When there were five minutes left before they were to be seated, PJ returned to the waiting room. Isabella's sheer black gown was beautiful, and she wore a pearl necklace. Vanessa was no less stunning in a black dress and fur coat. Phineas and Ferb were each fitted in a modest tux. PJ wore the signature black suit of the Secret Service, but he took out the earpiece so he would look like he were simply wearing a tux at the table.

At last, it was time to go. They were led by Isabella's bodyguards through the wide double doors, gilded with silver and gold enameling, to the auditorium. The large banquet hall was decorated with gold banners draped across the walls, and a dazzling chandelier the size of an elephant lit the room high above. As many as four dozen round tables, seating up to six persons each, were arranged so compactly they were barely navigable. The largest banner at the front of the room read, "Omnia Reliquit Servare Republicam." As they entered, the crowd respectfully rose to their feet and waited until Isabella had taken her seat. Phineas sat next to his wife, while Ferb and Vanessa chose spots opposite them at the circular table. Perry sat to Phineas' other side, in the chair that had a booster seat already waiting for him. One other chair at the table remained unoccupied.

A speaker approached the microphone at the front of the room. "Welcome, everyone," he said, beaming brightly. "I know we're all eager to eat, so let's make this quick! Lance Quail will offer the invocation. Dinner will be served as quickly as our chefs are physically capable; plates will be taken at quarter-till. At 8 o'clock, we will be pleased to hear some brief remarks from the President of the Society of the Cincinnati, Kyle Konig. After which, we will hear from the President of the United States of America, Isabella Flynn. She will be followed by the unsealing of the George Washington letter which was discovered by one of our members, Darren O'Neil, last month. The benediction will be given by Frank Henderson. Finally, we want to take a moment to give a big thanks to you all for coming, and especially to all the people who have worked so hard to make this gala possible. Thank you."

The conductor stepped down and after a brief spout of polite applause, an opening prayer was offered. PJ kept his eyes open and vigilant, no disrespect meant to any higher powers. After the invocation, the food began to be brought out, and a general background din of chatter and clanking silverware slowly grew to fill the room.

"Ferb, 'Nessa!" Isabella addressed, as a waiter lowered a dish in front of her first. "Thanks again for coming!"

Ferb merely nodded. Vanessa spoke. "Sure, it's always nice to get away for a bit."

The rest of the table was now being served. "By the way, how's your father doing, 'Nessa?" asked Isabella.

"Dad's still kicking," Vanessa half-grinned, half-grimaced while she poked a spear of asparagus with her fork. "The nursing home says his kicking problem is getting better, though. He isn't trying to kick every wall, table, or chair he sees, anymore."

"I—must not remember. Where did he pick up his kicking problem again?"

Vanessa sighed. "When he was a small boy back in Gimmelstump, his mother's love was always inexplicably linked to kickball, and even though she passed away years ago, he's still trying to 'kick his way right into her heart,'" she recited, as if from memory after hearing it so many times.

"Aww!" Isabella placed a hand over her chest. "Like the Love Händel song? That's so sweet!"

"Yeah, I guess it is, in my father's own weird, twisted way..." Vanessa drifted off. "His dementia could have taken worse forms."

"Are you still staying in touch with Candace?" Phineas asked.

"Yeah. Jeremy and she are doing fine. They of course just got back from celebrating their thirty-first in the Bahamas. Jeremy seems to be taking the news that his sister turned out to be a traitorous, time-travelling assassin petty well, at least."

"Well, that's good," Phineas said, jovially. "We haven't had a chance to catch up with them since last Christmas."

PJ was the final one to be served. He only half-listened to the conversation, focusing on paying attention to his surroundings. He kept a watchful eye on everything going on in the room, from the people at the neighboring tables to the movement of the waiters and waitresses to the flow of guests in and out the doors at the main entrance. He caught the eye of Coombs a few tables away, who sent him a curt 'so far, so good' nod. Meanwhile, the empty seat next to PJ had also been served a plate of steaming hot food, and he wondered where their host, Kyle Konig, the President of the Cincinnati Society, was.

A few minutes after dinner had been served, PJ saw an overweight man with a round face and a salt-and-pepper beard and mustache approach the table. In his tweed jacket that mismatched the color of his slacks, he reminded PJ of a college professor. PJ tensed as the man shuffled his way through the tight spaces between tables towards them.

"Ah, Phineas Flynn, what a coincidence seeing you here!" he said once he reached the space behind the empty chair.

Phineas' eyes darted up to see who spoke. "Dr. Turnstead! Oh, good to see you!" He rose to his feet to shake his hand. "And you remember my wife, Isabella?"

"How could I ever forget?" smiled Dr. Turnstead, shaking hands with her in turn. "And I assume this is Ferb Fletcher?"

"Yep, that's my brother and his wife, Vanessa."

"Splendid to meet you, I've heard so much about you!"

"And this is PJ the platypus. Dr. Turnstead was my research advisor as an undergrad," explained Phineas. "This man is a genius!"

"Hardly," Dr. Turnstead humbly shook off. "My greatest contribution to science was having the lucky draw of mentoring a student who went on to receive five Nobel prizes by his forty-fourth birthday."

"But only three of them were in physics," Phineas clarified.

The professor took the empty seat, and PJ forced himself to relax next to the intruder. "If I may, I wanted to ask your opinion on some of my latest research," he stated, "and Mr. Fletcher, I'd appreciate your input on this subject as well."

"Sure," Phineas quickly agreed, "what have you got for us?"

"I have been experimenting with mixing Pizzazium Infinionite with Cutetonium under high pressure isothermal conditions, resulting in a plasma-state substance that gives off large amounts of energy but produces less than a trillionth of a Becquerel of dangerous radiation." Dr. Turnstead was making circuitous shapes with his hands.

Phineas' eyes widened. "That sounds like it could work as an alternative time machine fuel source!"

His former teacher nodded. "That's the idea. It could eliminate time machine radiation pollution. However, the problem is that the reaction is only spontaneous at extremely high temperatures, on the order of a million degrees Fahrenheit. That doesn't make it too viable as a fuel source."

Phineas put his hand to his chin in thought. "And I assume you tried putting the reactants under pressure to decrease the temp threshold?"

"Yes, that was our first idea. At around ten thousand kilobars, the reaction point drops down to only one hundred thousand degrees."

Phineas clicked his tongue. "Hm, that isn't much of an improvement. Ferb, do you have any ideas?"

The green-haired Brit shrugged his shoulders.

"Our best bet at this point is finding a potential catalyst that doesn't react with the cutetonium, causing it to―"

"Causing it to decay into its constituent parts of cuteacetic acid and cesium triphosphate," Phineas finished for him. "Yeah, that would be bad."

"You can appreciate that my lab doesn't feel like financing a thousand different trials that could all end in an explosion big enough to demolish the science building at Tri-State State, just to find a working catalyst." Dr. Turnstead guffawed loudly. "And it goes without saying that Pizzazium Infinionite is too scarce to ever truly replace our current fuels, so with all pretense of practicality lost, the experiment will be shut down if we can't find another solution soon."

"You could ask Baljeet if he could run catalyst simulations on his quantum computer," Isabella suggested. "His models were able to predict the behavior of the supercritical neutron soup in the cores of white dwarfs."

"Isabella, that's a great idea!" Phineas turned to beam proudly at his wife. "Yes, Dr. Turnstead, I could hook you up with our good friend, Dr. Baljeet!"

The professor was impressed. "Madame President, I had no idea you were so intimately familiar with cutting-edge science!"

"Most people don't realize that I triple-majored in chemistry and biology along with political science," she grinned.

Dr. Turnstead stroked his beard between his thumb and forefinger. "If you don't mind my asking, with such a scientific background, what made you push for the legislation against time traveling to the past, to before 2043?"

"Just in case," she dodged coyly.

"How do you kill somebody if someone can just go back in time to save them?" asked Meathead #1. Suzy didn't care enough to even try to remember their names, not when all three of the men walking behind her equally stupid, muscular, and ugly.

"The same way you kill someone as always, while making sure nobody actually does go back in time to save them," she said over her shoulder.

"But this is the freaking President of the United States we're talking about here!" Meathead #2 keenly pointed out. "Doesn't the President have a whole bunch of people who are paid to do that kind of stuff?"

"Aba―" stammered Dr. Turnstead, taken aback by Isabella's firm response. "I daresay, I hardly need to remind you that it was―" he gestured between Phineas and Ferb, "―these two who discovered the first three Laws of Chronodynamics."

"The first three theories of chronodynamics," Isabella corrected. "They haven't been proven."

Phineas held out his spoon to interrupt. "Isabella and I have talked about this a hundred times, Dr. Turnstead, and it's really just best if we―"

"All outcomes must abide a self-consistent loop of narrative causality," he quoted over Phineas. "Hundreds of peer reviewed studies show this to be the case, again and again and again. The flow of nature has a very defined chronological structure that we can't seem to permanently change, no matter what choices we go back and alter."

"And what is it, Dr. Turnstead, that you want to go back in time before 2043 so badly to do?" Isabella asked.

"Yeah," said Meathead #1. "The Secret Service has a whole armada of time machines. They'll send somebody back to stop us, zip, zap, zoop."

"They won't," Suzy stated, "because my strategy has all the subtlety of a mosquito."

"What does 'subtlety' mean?"

"It means they won't even know we were ever there."

"Well, for me personally," said Dr. Turnstead carefully, "even with all the scientific progress we have made and will make in the future, there are still some puzzles that science hasn't solved. If it were up to me, I would use a time machine to get all of history's greatest scientific geniuses and inventors together in one room and see if they can crack some of them. Guys like Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Galileo, Einstein, Phineas and Ferb, you get the idea."

"Scientific problems like what?"

"Well, wormhole stabilization, for instance. We still don't know what happens inside of black holes. We still don't know what caused the Big Bang, either. We may never know, but assembling the A-listers of humanity's all-time greatest thinkers is our best shot."

"And you feel that this is worth the chance that we might accidentally reset the timeline, possibly upheaving everything that has happened since or ever will happen?"

"Sure, because the chance of that happening is, as far as we can tell, zero―or next to it," Dr. Turnstead appended. Isabella cocked an eyebrow. "Look," he continued, "take Roberts' and Heinrich's experiment in 2120. They couldn't get their time traveling mice to be able to go back in time and kill their own grandfathers. They proved the Grandfather Paradox obeys the first 'Theory' of Chronodynamics, thereby resolving the paradox once and for all. Something always happened to the mice before they could commit parricide. Nature seems to always predicate a particular chronology."

"You're taking an example from a paper that, if I remember correctly, was condemned by the scientific board of the time for its unethical treatment of the mice," Isabella countered.

"Wow, you do know your stuff," huffed Dr. Turnstead to himself.

"Not only that," Isabella continued, "but last time I checked, mice aren't humans. It will take more than a computer chip malfunction or a bout of flu or an unanticipated chemical imbalance in the brain to stop a human determined to upset the timeline, all things that confounded the results of that particular study."

"They only confound the results if you are assuming the first 'Theory' of Chronodynamics is untrue. Which, last time I checked, most physicists don't."

Isabella, rather than immediately answer back, simply smiled as she chewed and swallowed the last bite of her dinner. "You know, Dr. Turnstead, there is at least one other well known puzzle that science has not yet been able to fully figure out."

Dr. Turnstead frowned. "And that is?"

"How to shrink down to the microscopic level," Suzy read aloud, for the benefit of the brutes who admitted they weren't so good at it. "Step one, enter the shrinking capsule and put on your seat belts. Step two, push the button that reads 'Shrink.' That will be the red one." She glanced at Meathead #1 to make sure he understood.

Meathead #1 turned to Meathead #2 once they were strapped in. "Do you have the poison?"

"I got it right here." He inserted the flask into the injection apparatus on the control port, then patted it gently.

"Human behavior," Isabella replied. "It can be reduced to chemistry, certainly. It can be explained by psychology, true. It can even be statistically modeled by biology. But only generally speaking, as in, with populations. An individual's behavior can never be predicted or modeled perfectly by any combination of these, or other, scientific disciplines. And all it takes is one individual to misuse a time machine to destroy the whole world, or at least everything as we know it."

Shaking his head, the professor was already making more gestures with his hands as if it helped him contain himself while waiting for his turn to speak. "But you're missing the bigger―"

"Dr. Turnstead," interjected Phineas as politely as he could, "you'll never convince her, believe me. If you want to do something about the time travel law, you should try running for president."

That caused him to take a deep sigh and push himself up from the table. "Well, it was very nice chatting with you all," he said, pushing the chair back in as he stood. "I should get back to my own dinner, it's probably getting cold. Good to see you again, Phineas."

"Good to see you too, Dr. Turnstead," replied the redhead.

The King had just finished padding and prodding his bowtie into the perfect shape when Suzy Johnson called. "We're ready to begin," was all she said. Humming to himself, he glanced one last time at the mirror before walking out of the bathroom and back to the gala. There was President Flynn, seated at the table with her family. He checked his pocket to make sure its contents had not been left behind, then strode up to the table.

"Apologies for my lateness," he said, taking his seat next to the platypus. "A call came in for me, had to take it."

"No problem, Mr. Konig," Phineas Flynn said, ever so cheerfully.

No sooner did The King sit down than some winged creature, smaller than a flea, ejected itself from his trouser cuff and crash landed under the table, completely unnoticed.

PJ had run a background check on the president of the Cincinnati Society earlier that week. Kyle Konig owned a small but very successful business that helped people research their family history and genealogy. Konig himself was descended from some soldier in the Revolutionary War, one Major John Armstrong, Jr. With his sandy blonde hair and emerald green eyes, the bachelor looked regally young for his almost-forty years. His profile had indicated nothing that connected him with Suzy Johnson except for one item: he was born in the Tri-State Area. It seemed to be a complete coincidence though, his family had moved away when he was barely a toddler. As the Secret Service had already thoroughly checked his person, PJ didn't see much need to be suspicious of him, so he kept his attention on what was happening elsewhere in the room.

Dinner was halfway over, so far without incident. That was not reason enough to let up his vigilance, for there was still ample opportunity for Suzy to make her move. PJ idly munched on his roll and trusted that his team were all doing their parts to guard the President, too.

"So is anybody going to talk about the reason we're here?" Isabella asked the table. "The letter?"

"It's kind of exciting, I guess," Phineas tried to say with his usual gusto. "Even though I could just hop in a time machine to tomorrow if I really wanted to see what it says."

Isabella elbowed him.

"What?" he asked, defensively. "All right, so these antique sorts of things were more my parents' cup of tea than mine."

"Perhaps if there were a rollercoaster involved," suggested Ferb.

"Bro, you said it," replied Phineas with a grin. "Maybe we could use that banner to make a slide, we'd just need to order a few parts…" He trailed off when he saw the look his wife was giving him. "What? You know I'm joking."

"That banner?" Konig asked, jutting a thumb over his shoulder. "The one with the Cincinnati Society motto displayed on it? Omnia Reliquit Servare Republicam. 'He left everything to serve the republic.'"

Phineas' face twisted into a rare frown. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean any disrespect."

Konig didn't seem to hear. "It was chosen in reference to the Roman citizen, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. According to legend, in 458 BCE, he was a farmer who answered the call to protect Rome from invaders. He assembled an army and conquered Rome's enemies, then turned around and freely gave up his dictatorial powers, trading in his sword for a plow, all in about two weeks." He paused to take in everyone's looks of surprise. "Oh, don't mind me, I'm just practicing for my speech."

Isabella opened her mouth. "I thought the quote was a reference to George Washington?"

Konig nodded. "The Society of the Cincinnati reveres George Washington so much because he likewise gave up all the power Congress had given him at the end of the Revolutionary War to return home to his farm and a life of peace." He tilted his head and looked at the President. "A lesson, I think, every President of the United States takes to heart?"

"Ever since I was a little girl," Isabella responded, "George Washington has always been a personal hero of mine. His leadership, his military achievements, his convictions, they have always inspired me." She glanced around the table. "That's why I wanted to speak tonight."

"And on behalf of the Cincinnati Society," Konig said, raising his glass with a gleam in his eye, "I thank you for offering."

Everyone at the table jumped when PJ slammed his paw down on the table, knocking over his plate and sending what was left of his food everywhere.

"What the?!" Isabella recoiled, her bodyguard jumping to her side immediately.

PJ was gasping for breath, clutching at his chest. He tried to push himself away from the table, but his arms were like jello.

"PJ, are you okay?" Phineas asked, catching PJ's swaying body. "What's the matter?"

"I―can't―breathe," he managed to say. He glared at his plate. "Food―poisoned!"

Ferb had come around the table and together, he and Phineas lifted PJ out of the chair and laid him on the ground. "Is the food poisoned?" Phineas looked up to the table and asked. Everyone looked at their empty plates with disdain.

"There's no way the food was poisoned," Isabella's bodyguard relayed, while listening through his earpiece. "It was prepared under careful supervision."

"Nobody else is having a reaction," Isabella said, looking around. Some of the nearby tables had vacated as people approached to watch.

"Ma'am, we should get you out of here," the Secret Service agent said, putting his hand around Isabella. She tried resisting.

"No, I'm fine!"

PJ was still choking for air on the floor, clawing at his left shoulder.

"He looks like he's having a heart attack," Konig observed.

"Ferb?"

Before Phineas' request was verbalized, Ferb had already extracted a scanning device that highly resembled a barcode reader. He pointed it at PJ's torso and held it at arm's length, watching the readings. After a couple of seconds, it beeped, and he nodded solemnly at his brother.

"It is a heart attack," Phineas confirmed.

Konig sighed with relief. "That's good." He caught what he was saying. "I mean, that is unfortunate for you," he told the brothers, before rising to his feet. "It's okay, everyone," he told the crowd with a loud voice as it was gathering. "It's not poison! The food is safe. You can all go back to your tables."

That did nothing to disperse the crowd, however; if anything, more people were gathering around to see what was happening.

"You're gonna be okay, PJ," Phineas said, kneeling over the platypus. Ferb stooped down as well, already having donned a stethoscope. "How are his vitals?"

Ferb answered with a look.

"How is he having a heart attack? He isn't seven yet, he's in great health; in platypus years, this should be the prime of his life!"

Ferb offered Phineas another glance.

"You're right," the redhead admitted, "he is cloned from Perry's DNA, his internal organs might have aged more quickly than in nature. PJ, hang in there, buddy!"

PJ was losing consciousness. Ferb gave Phineas another sharp look.

"He's going into cardiac arrest!" Phineas shouted at Isabella's bodyguard. "Get us a defibrillator, stat!"

The man nodded and turned aside, his finger pressed against his earpiece.

"PJ," Phineas said, "PJ, stay with us. Focus on the sound of my voice. We're gonna save you, okay? Just hold on!" He looked at Ferb, seeing the fear in his brother and best friend's eyes.

"He's not breathing! We need that defibrillator!"

Isabella looked away in horror when she saw Phineas bend over to start applying CPR.

Somewhere in the Appalachian mountains
The future...

The King cautiously took another step back.

It was time for a new plan of attack. He ducked down and used his long legs to sweep the platypus' webbed feet out from under him, sending him tumbling to the ground. This gave The King a second or two, all the time that he needed. He shifted his weight backwards until he found the switch hidden in the dirt under his boot, then stepped on it.

A steel cage fell from somewhere in the canopy above where it had been hidden. The platypus looked up just in time to see it threatening to ensnare him, and rolled out of the way.

"No!" The King shouted. He tried to move, but his boot got caught up by the lever.

Only a few paces away, The King watched unnoticed, quite hidden by the trunk of another majestic pine, as his time-clone was cuffed by the platypus. His likeness was surely humiliated beyond degree, as he was led on a leash like a dog by the platypus back down the path they had just come up. Waiting until they were well out of earshot, The King finally stepped out into the clearing and approached the digital tree his other self had been striving to reach.

He placed the palm of his hand against the bark, and the digital illusion vanished to be replaced by a biometric scanner and pale blue door. Also materializing was the outline of a tiny shed, the entrance to the Conspirium's secret underground bunker. When the scanner recognized his prints, it hissed softly and the door slid open, letting the soft glow of the interior lights shine on him. He regally paced down the steps to where his time machine awaited, stepped into its chair, and with the press of a button, he disappeared.

He arrived back in his present. The blonde, golden curls of his first lieutenant, Suzy Johnson, were covering her face as she kneeled before him. "Welcome back, My King," she greeted.

"Your plan failed," The King abruptly stated as he brushed across the room to plop himself wearily into his throne. "The platypus lives."

Suzy bowed her head. "Forgive me, O King."

With a snap of his fingers, The King got her to look up. "This recent string of failures is starting to get on my nerves!"

His tone made Suzy wince. "We were very close to killing him! And it was brilliant, too, because if we outright killed him, the Flynns were always going to send someone back in time to stop us, just like what happened last summer. But if they were made to think he died of natural causes, they'd have mourned and buried him. We just had bad luck. At least we hid our tracks well enough that they still do not know we poisoned him. The shrinking drone was able to administer the dosage completely undetected, with no wound or mark left behind on the skin."

"Close isn't good enough!" The King slammed his fist down. Lowering his voice, he continued. "Right now, the platypus is the only thing stopping us from achieving our goals. I. Want. Him. Dead."

Suzy lowered her eyes and took a deep breath. "I understand, My King. Perhaps there is still a way to eliminate him."

Washington, D.C.
September 26, 2049

The room PJ found himself in was brilliantly lit. As he came to himself, he realized he was lying in a human sized hospital bed that was far too big for him. Every muscle he tried to move was sore.

"Hey, PJ," somebody said to his right. PJ looked over to find Phineas there, watching him rest.

He let his head fall back to be enveloped by the pillow. "What happened?"

"You had a heart attack," Phineas said. "We almost lost you."

"Did Suzy attack the President?"

Phineas sighed. "After your accident, the rest of the gala went off without a hitch. Kyle Konig gave his speech, Isabella gave hers, and then the letter from George Washington was read. Suzy didn't attack. As far as we can tell, it was a false alarm. Maybe the information you got was bad."

That didn't make sense to PJ. "No," he said, after thinking for a minute, "the information was good, our assumption about President Flynn―I mean, Isabella―wasn't. She wasn't the Conspirium's target. I was. The poison was intended for me."

"Now PJ, don't get ahead of yourself," Phineas said. "There's something you should know. Since you're a clone, it's very possible that your internal organs are aging faster than normal. It happens sometimes―you weren't poisoned. The cloning process occasionally results in the chromosomes forming shorter telomeres than normal births, and―"

"No," PJ said, confidently. He sat up in his bed to make his point to Phineas. "I must have been poisoned. I know it. Isn't there, like, some blood tests you can run, to check for toxins, or something?"

Phineas paused to consider it. "It's possible, maybe. I just don't think―"

"Then let's do it!"

"I―" Phineas hesitated.

"Are we going to test my blood, or not?"

"Okay, we'll run some tests, if it makes you feel better. But the blood tests they run in hospitals aren't exactly calibrated for a platypus. It'll take some time." Phineas took a deep breath, and PJ could tell he wasn't convinced. "Look, whether you were poisoned or not, we're just glad you're okay. Now get some rest, PJ. Marie's been dying to see you, so you're gonna need it."

He stood to leave, and PJ settled back down under the covers. His body may have been weak, but his mind raced to try to figure out what he'd missed about the Conspirium and Suzy. Any small detail he could have overlooked. He had to be close to finding out what they were planning next.