Chapter 14
Washington D.C.
July 5, 2049
Home.
PJ took a deep breath, smelling the nostalgia in the air. It was hard to believe he was finally back. He'd missed this place so much. After five long years, walking through the familiar halls of the White House again felt like a dream.
He was led by an aide to the white door of the Oval Office and told to wait outside in the West Wing. He climbed into a suede blue armchair and tilted his head back, remembering his short time spent working here as part of the Secret Service, and his even shorter time spent living here as a member of the First Family. After his meeting with Isabella, he planned to go straight to Marie's room to wait to surprise her there when she got home from school. Just imagining her reaction brought a smile to his face.
The president's secretary popped her head out the Oval Office door, pulling him back from his thoughts. "Agent PJ, the President will see you now." He hopped to his feet and strolled inside, enjoying the warm feeling glowing from somewhere above his navel.
Isabella rose as he entered. "Welcome, Agent PJ," she said, gracefully skirting the edge of her desk to meet him at the center of the room to shake hands.
"You have no idea how happy I am to see you again, alive and well, Isabella," he replied, shaking her hand for longer than normally prudent.
"Um, Agent PJ? Please, I'd appreciate it if you addressed me as 'President Flynn' or 'Madame President,'" she gently scolded, retracting her hand.
PJ was taken slightly aback. She'd never had a problem with him calling her by name before.
She didn't linger on it, quickly returning to her seat behind the desk. "And as for―well, I'd introduce you, but that seems counterintuitive," she said, gesturing with her hand towards―his time clone, PJ the platypus. He was dressed in full Secret Service regalia: black suit, white shirt, earpiece, and all.
PJ nodded. "Hi, me."
"Hi back," his alternate self curtly responded. Wait, something's not right.
Isabella quickly got to business. "Director Johnson has been detained under your authority, Agent PJ." She peered at him over interlocking fingers. "While I trust my bodyguards' judgment, in this case, I would like to know, in your own words, why you have seen fit to arrest the Director of the CIA, one of my trusted advisers, as well as a member of my extended family."
PJ blinked. "Is that a joke?"
"I would certainly hope not," Isabella said, deadly serious.
PJ's time clone stepped forward. "If he really is me from the future, he must be experiencing some chronal disorientation. He's obviously changed something about his past, sometimes it takes a while to get your bearings in the new timeline."
Of course! PJ mentally facepalmed for forgetting about that. "Yes, I stopped something very bad from happening in the future, but I guess it resulted in a few consequences that I'm not aware of yet."
He'd stopped Suzy from going back in time and ever trying to assassinate Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella as kids in the first place. More importantly, he stopped her from masterminding all of the Conspirium's operations, particularly the EMP and nuclear attacks. He'd saved the future. But at what cost? He needed to find out.
"All right, I'll tell my story from the beginning, and then we can compare notes to see what's different in this timeline," he suggested.
Isabella nodded. "But first, just to confirm you are really from the future, please tell Agent PJ here your contingency password."
PJ glanced at his time clone. "It's―" He lowered his voice. "Perry."
The other PJ nodded. "He is who he says he is, Madame President."
"Very well, you can leave now, if you wish."
"Thank you, Madame President. It's probably for the best if I don't know too much about my own future." With that, his time clone walked out, leaving only PJ, Isabella, and her other advisers in the room. All eyes fell expectantly on him.
He cleared his throat. "Let me start by asking you this, Madame President: when you and Phineas and Ferb were kids, do you remember a blonde assassin from the future ever visiting to try to kill you?"
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. "I don't―think so… We did have lots of wild adventures as kids, but I think I'd remember something like that."
"It would have been on the Fourth of July, 2014. Exactly thirty-five years ago yesterday. Are you sure you don't remember anything like that happening?"
Isabella shook her head. "I'm positive. The only times we ever messed with time travel as kids were when Phineas, Ferb, and Candace accidentally got stuck in 65 million BC, and this one other time they needed a tool that could fuse steel and wood at a molecular level."
"So you don't remember meeting me in the year 2014?"
The President cocked an eyebrow. "Agent PJ, the first time we met was the day I was sworn into office, this past January. And travelling to anytime before 2043 is illegal, so I hope you aren't admitting to doing so."
PJ felt his shoulders slump. "I was afraid you'd say that. I really am gonna have to start at the beginning."
"So, Suzy was the leader of this criminal syndicate, this―Conspirium?" Isabella asked.
"Well, she wasn't the leader, more like the mastermind. The second-in-command. The leader is Kyle Konig. He calls himself 'The King,' and so do all of his followers."
"And do you have any proof of all this, besides your word?"
"No. But I have something even better: intel. I can tell you dozens of names, locations, and bank accounts to look into, that should be enough to corroborate my story."
"I'll ask you for them later. So then what happened?"
PJ paused to recollect his thoughts. "After I got flung into the alternate future, I was stranded there for five years before I finally stumbled across someone with a working time machine. I thought the best way to stop the EMP and nuclear strikes was by stopping the person behind it all, and there were only a few points in the timeline where I knew exactly when and where she'd be. So I picked the moment before Suzy first used the time machine in the Danville Museum to go back to the past. The point where it all started."
His story finished, the room fell silent. Isabella sighed, seeming to be deep in thought. "I believe you, Agent PJ," she uttered, "although we'll corroborate your story with the names you have later. But if what you're telling me is all true, then you have done this nation a great―no, your actions are beyond exemplary. You went above and beyond your duties as a Secret Serviceman to save us. You are a true hero. And you have my gratitude. I'll create a task force to arrest any other members of the Conspirium of which you are aware. If you'll please give those names to my aide and lifelong friend, Gretchen, here, I promise you that all your efforts will not have been in vain."
The one named Gretchen transmitted a gentle smile at being introduced. "I'll take those names as soon as you're ready, Agent PJ." She gestured for the secretary's office.
"That's it? That's all you need from me?"
"Once we've made sure that the crisis with the Conspirium has been averted, we can figure out what to do about your living arrangements in this timeline," Isabella said with a weary smile. "Now go get some rest, Agent PJ. You look like you've been through a lot."
PJ stopped before he reached the door. "Wait, I have one more thing I'd like to ask of you, Madame President."
"Oh? And what's that?"
"When Marie gets home from school, can you tell her I'm back? I can't tell you how anxious I've been to see her again after all these years."
Isabella paused uncertainly. "Um, forgive me for asking," she politely said, "but who is Marie?"
All the blood drained from PJ's face. It was like all the oxygen in the room had been sucked out. "N-n-nevermind," he stuttered. "I'll―I'll go work on those names now."
As he walked out of the Oval Office, he had to use the doorframe to keep his balance steady.
"Kyle Konig, Ezekiel Okeko, Senator Cash, Supreme Court Justice Benson, 'Detective' Markus Douglas," Gretchen read her list back to PJ. "Can you think of anyone else?"
"Those were the most high-profile targets," PJ admitted. "I can't remember the names of all the lower ranking Conspirium cultists. There was also a warehouse outside New York that served as one of their hideouts and storage facilities. Then they also had a Command Center out in the Appalachian mountains. Get me map of those locations, and I'll show you where. You should be able to round up hundreds more members if you can take them by surprise."
Gretchen scribbled furiously on her notepad.
"Can I ask you something?" PJ asked, unattached from the work they were doing.
"Of course," replied Gretchen.
"In this timeline, is President Flynn still married to―no, wait, the better question is, who is she married to? She is married, right? I think I saw a wedding ring."
"Isabella is married to Phineas in this timeline," explained Gretchen. "Phineas Flynn, the one and only. Along with his brother, he's the foremost scientist and engineer in the whole―"
PJ held up a hand to cut her off. "It's the same in the timeline I came from, thanks. Actually, I just realized that was a dumb question! Of course she's married to Phineas, otherwise she'd be President Garcia-Shapiro, not President Flynn!" He cleared his throat, then spoke again. "Do they, by chance, have any children in this timeline?"
Gretchen shot him a surprised look. "No, they don't. Did they in yours?"
That confirmed his suspicions. Devastated, PJ's gaze sunk down to the floor. Then just as quickly, he perked back up to pretend like nothing happened. "Of course not! I was just making sure!" He waved it off with a hand.
Gretchen eyed him suspiciously, but ultimately decided not to press him. "Okay then, is there anything else I should know about the Conspirium before I give Isabella my report?"
Washington D.C.
August 14, 2049
6:00 am. Exercise.
7:00 am. Breakfast.
7:30 am. Morning walk to feed ducks at pond.
8:00 am. Empty.
12:00 pm. Lunch.
12:30 pm. Empty.
5:00 pm. Dinner.
5:30 pm. Empty.
10:00 pm. Bedtime.
After a month of this daily routine, PJ's life in his empty little bachelor pad was beginning to feel as empty and incomplete as his schedule. His only other regular activities were buying groceries once per week and cashing in his monthly allotment check, awarded to him by President Flynn as payment for his services to the country. He'd tried job hunting with little success; not many businesses wanted to hire an anthropomorphic, talking animal as an employee. Just going out in public was as much of a hassle as it had always been for him, if not more so. About the only positive memories he'd had over the past few weeks came as a result of his newly discovered affection for soap operas.
This was better, right?
He didn't have to hunt, chop wood, mend nets, sew blankets, start fires, cook food, bake bricks, or live on the lam from UNA Kingdom soldiers constantly searching for him. No more freezing winters or dark, hungry nights.
The great war between the UNA Kingdom and the Afro-Eurasia allies, which had taken billions of lives, had been prevented. And its resultant nuclear winter had likewise been averted.
The untold suffering brought on by Konig's and Suzy's reign of terror, which could have made Stalin's hair curl. The widespread poverty, the living conditions representative of the Middle Ages, so that the Conspirium's leaders could live their lives in luxury. The screams of the people of Villagetown being slaughtered, down to the last child, for ransacking Governor Bevermont's mansion.
None of it would ever happen.
Phineas and Isabella were alive. The Conspirium had collapsed on itself without Suzy and Konig. The country was intact, and indeed, prospering. Everything was the way it should be.
So why did he still feel like he'd failed? And how come the homesickness and loneliness still hadn't gone away?
As if he even had to ask. He knew exactly why.
Even though she never even existed in this timeline, PJ still felt like he'd lost Marie. Somehow, it didn't matter that she had never been born, there was still a gaping hole in his heart. He felt the same way about Isabella and Phineas, too. It was true he had basically saved the world, yet it didn't feel that way to him. It felt like he'd still lost.
The same depression he'd plodded through five years ago after being marooned was settling back in. If anything, it was worse this time; he couldn't simply make himself busy, having no need to work to survive the elements anymore. And it wasn't just that. Sure, he was no stranger to loneliness, to the feeling that he didn't fit in anywhere. But after having tasted what it was like to have someone, to be part of a family for the first time, it stung more this go around.
The Phineas and Ferb he knew would have called and asked him about his day weeks ago. This timeline's versions of them hadn't reached out to him once. Marie would have been the first to notice he was feeling down in the dumps, and would have tried something to cheer him up, like throwing him a surprise birthday party, fully knowing it wasn't really his birthday. Even Isabella, despite being extremely busy, would have probably slipped him a hand-written note or something in passing, likely including an inspirational quote of some sort. Well, he didn't work for her now, there wasn't space for him to have his old job back in the Secret Service. His own time clone was already filling that post.
Meanwhile, the most social interaction he'd had over the past month was getting stared at while waiting at the bus stop on his grocery runs.
The boredom, the loneliness, the depression, it all came to a head. He was sick of it. There had to be something he could do about this.
So he finally decided to make the call.
Summertime Industries
Danville, USA
August 16, 2049
At two-hundred-thirteen stories tall, the central location of Phineas' and Ferb's world-renowned toy store was as imagination-defying as any of their other projects. While it certainly couldn't hold a candle to the boy's skyscraper on the far side of the Moon by size, it nevertheless remained one of the tallest free-standing structures presently on Earth. Not only did it serve as HQ for the massively popular business the boys had created together, it was also one of the largest storefront locations in the world, easily rivaling most malls in the square-footage department, and on top of that, twenty-five of the stories were dedicated to its own indoor theme park.
It was hard not to be awed in its presence, no matter how many times one had visited it before. This was no different for PJ, who had teleported in that very morning. The view from the window on this, the two-hundred-ninth floor, was stunning. As for the rest of the waiting lounge he had been ushered to, it was no less glamorous. The walls and carpet reminded him of the Oval Office―they might even be the same shade of gold, he thought. It certainly presented a facade that was comparable in power and influence to the President's. Depending on who you asked, maybe Phineas' and Ferb's was the greater of the two.
Eventually, a door opened, and Phineas emerged, wearing a white shirt and tie and a pair of tan slacks. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. Ferb shadowed his brother, donned in a gentleman's suit that PJ guessed was imported from his home country. Phineas put on a smile. "Welcome, Agent PJ," he said pleasantly. "I'm Phineas, and this is my brother and business partner, Ferb."
"Do you really need to introduce yourselves?" asked the platypus, accepting their handshakes.
Phineas shrugged. "Our reputation doesn't always precede us. I think it's a good habit to stay in." He coughed to clear his throat. "Anyways, I think I can guess why you're here. Ferb?"
Ferb produced a briefcase and proceeded to set it on a nearby desk before flipping it open.
"You're here because of your history, correct?" asked the redhead.
PJ thought that was a funny way of putting it, but, "Yeah, that's why I needed to talk to you two, and nobody else."
Phineas sighed, glancing at Ferb, looking like they were uncomfortable. PJ started becoming confused.
"Of course, it's only fair that you know the truth," admitted Phineas, before extracting some documents from Ferb's briefcase. "Agent PJ, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you are actually a clone of our former pet platypus, Perry." He cordially extended PJ a bulging manila folder that looked like it had been seared in red ink.
PJ blinked. "What?"
"It's true," Phineas explained, dropping the file in PJ's hands. "I'm sure you must be very confused by all this, so let me explain. It all started when Ferb and I were brought in on a top secret project―"
"What? No, that isn't why I came here at all!" PJ slammed the manila folder back on the desk.
"Huh?" Now it was Phineas' turn to be confused. "You mean you already knew about Perry?"
"Of course I do! I learned all about it eons ago! I'm here because when I fixed the timeline, I think I screwed up and caused something else just as bad to happen! And I want to know if I can fix it!"
The inventor prodigy looked like he was still held up on something. "So, you're not still blaming us for what they did to you at OWCA Academy?"
"Oh, no," PJ shook his head. "I got over that a long time ago."
"Whew! Boy, are we sure glad to hear that!" Phineas and Ferb exhaled in relief in unison. "We felt terrible about it, we really did, but OWCA didn't give us a choice! Our hands were tied, legally, there was nothing we could do but watch as they took you away to enlist in the Academy."
"I know, Phineas. You told me that already, in my original timeline."
"Still, we are truly sorry for it. Ferb and I need to apologize. So what's this about messing up something in the timeline?"
PJ briefly recounted his story once again, although he was careful to leave out the details concerning Marie being Phineas' and Isabella's nonexistent child. "So once I had been in the current timeline for a little while, I realized that someone very important to me in my original timeline never existed in this one. If it were as easy as undoing the change I made, I'd do it, but then I'd be dooming the whole world by letting Suzy and the Conspirium win. It just feels like no matter what I do, I can't put things back to the way they're supposed to be."
Phineas' chin was in his hand, PJ could practically hear the gears turning inside the man's head. He nodded at Ferb before meeting PJ's eyes. "Agent PJ, if what you say is true, then the entire body of scientific evidence Ferb and I have amassed over our lengthy and distinguished careers is all completely and utterly wrong."
The grave seriousness in his voice made PJ freeze, worried he'd offended them. "I'm… sorry?"
Phineas only broke into a boyish grin PJ recognized from days long ago. "Don't be. That's actually―exhilarating!" He stood from his seat and began to pace back and forth. "Baljeet helped us do the math years ago, but the empirical evidence just never lined up with the numbers! Why, Ferb! This might be the answer we've been looking for!" He rubbed his hands together at the prospect.
Once again, Phineas was talking about something far beyond PJ's comprehension. He waited patiently while Phineas paced and mumbled to himself, frequently exchanging glances with Ferb, who'd nod in reply, before Phineas would return to pacing and mumbling scientific gibberish again.
"...And that experiment with the frogs in Amsterdam, where the cheese was all transmogrified back into those billy goats? Remember what Baljeet calculated for the probability of that happening? Ten to the power of two-thousand eight-hundred and sixty-four against! And that experiment with the meteorites from Antarctica, where the tuning forks all started resonating at the same frequency as the pulsar from Cygnus Gamma? Ten to the power of eight-thousand, six-hundred and twelve against! If our results were skewed that time as well, that's more improbable than the entire continent of Pangea suddenly reforming itself! Taken all together, the chances of all our time travel experiments being statistical outliers is practically on par with the prospect of entropy decreasing in every experiment for only one team of researchers, while every other scientist in the universe observes the second law of thermodynamics exactly the way they're supposed to! I mean, we've suspected our data has been outliers since that time, but now we might finally have actual evidence!"
PJ didn't understand a lick of it.
"And if that is true," Phineas stopped pacing to bring his hand back to his chin, "then there must be some underlying force that overrides probability mechanics at the quantum level, but only in certain cases. And for some reason, those cases always involve whatever we're doing, Ferb. We'll need to run some more experiments to be sure."
"Um," interrupted PJ, "I'm not sure what you're going on about, just please tell me it has anything to do with bringing back Mar―I mean, the original timeline."
"Whoops, sorry, I did the thing again," Phineas said, sheepishly. "Listen, Agent PJ, when Ferb and I were exploring the laws of physics regarding time travel, our experiments always gave us the following result." He rolled a whiteboard up to the group and uncapped a marker. "Time can be defined in a number of ways, but when it comes to time travel, one way we are able to measure it is as a function of cause and effect." He drew a straight, horizontal line through the center of the white board. "This is the flow of time. The cause is here," he placed an 'X' at the left end of the line, "and the effect follows." He placed another 'X' at the right side. "Normally, time always flows in one direction, and the cause always happens before the effect. Make sense so far?"
"Uh-huh." PJ nodded.
"When we introduce time travel, an observer gains the ability to do one or more of several things. First, going to the past. From the observer's point of view, the effect appears to happen before the cause. Also, the observer can alter the initial conditions of the cause, which can lead to different consequences." Halfway down the line, he drew a diagonal line branching off in another direction. "However, our experiments showed that whatever initial conditions we varied, the end result never had any statistically significant changes." He reconnected the diagonal line back to the original line.
PJ remembered the time he sat in Marie's time travel class. "I think I've heard this before. It's supposed to be impossible to change the future, right?"
"That's what we thought," Phineas said. "But there was no reason why this should be the case. When Baljeet helped us with the math, he agreed with our initial estimates, that wildly different outcomes should be possible. Yet for whatever reason, we just never saw any. So, we shrugged our shoulders and forgot about it.
"But according to Baljeet's calculations, it should be possible for branching timelines to exist, under the right conditions." He drew another offshoot, then another. "These timelines could be vastly different from each other. Ferb and I never managed to find a way to see one, but it sounds like you have."
"Really? You're saying I managed to do something even you couldn't do?"
"That's right." Phineas smiled. "In science, theory and mathematics are important, but observation trumps them all. Ferb and I have been wondering lately whether it was possible some mysterious… force, for lack of better word―for a while, we've been calling it 'Force X'―was affecting our experiments."
"In what way?"
"In only the most positive outcome possible, every time. That's the only way I can explain it. For every cause, Force X inexplicably always leads to a positive consequence to Ferb's and my actions. It mostly seems to affect just us. But you, on the other hand, like most people, haven't been targeted by it the same way we have, for whatever reason. So you were more susceptible to getting thrown into negative outcomes." He reached up to circle one of the branches in his drawing. "Like a bad future timeline."
"That's an understatement," muttered PJ. "It was horrible."
"PJ, from what you're telling us, this proves we were wrong! That means there is more science to be done! Ferb and I are so excited to be discovering this!" Phineas said boisterously.
"That's―great," grunted PJ, feeling somehow belittled for his ordeal being reduced to a scientific breakthrough.
"Yeah, I'm gonna have to call Isabella later and tell her she was right," Phineas added as an afterthought. "The timeline can be changed after all. So in the end, it was a good thing we outlawed traveling to the past. Ah, science continues to move forward."
Losing his patience, PJ raised his voice. "Look, is it possible for me to correct the timeline I was originally from, or not?"
Phineas looked at him, jolted out of his train of thought. "Oh, sorry, I forgot about that! Here, let's take a look." He erased the whiteboard and started with a new horizontal line. "Okay, so from what you told us, in the original timeline, let's call it T-1, Suzy and her cabal used an EMP attack to takeover the country, is that right?"
"No, in the original timeline, none of that happened. That was all part of what Suzy did to change the timeline."
"Aha. So T-1 was a good timeline, and something Suzy did caused a branch-off into T-2, which was a bad timeline?"
"Correct."
"So you were stuck about a hundred years down the timeline before you finally found a time machine and used it to arrest Suzy at some point here, before the branch-off?" He drew an 'X' a short distance before the fork.
"In summary, yes."
"So you should be back in T-1, but you say that there are some differences between what you remember of T-1 and what exists right now?"
"Mm-hm."
"Then that would make this T-3. And what, precisely, is different about T-3 from T-1?"
"Uh…" PJ hesitated. "I can't tell you."
Phineas glanced at his brother. "Agent PJ, we want to help, but to do that, we need to know all the variables."
He didn't want to tell them, and had planned not to this whole time. Despite that, on a whim, PJ blurted, "I need to save Marie, your daughter."
The jaws of both brothers dropped. "Wh-what?" stammered Phineas.
Sighing, PJ clarified. "In T-1, you and Isabella have a teenage daughter who is like a sister to me. In fact, after I went back in time to save you from the blonde haired assassin when you were kids, we became friends, and after that, you and Isabella adopted me into the family. In 2049. We were all a family. You, Isabella, Marie, and me. And Ferb and his family, too; Vanessa and Thomas."
The boys were speechless.
"We all lived together in the White House. Sure, we were all busy and had our separate lives going on. Isabella had a country to lead. You and Ferb worked together when you could, but you left most of the company in Ferb's and Vanessa's hands so you could support Isabella with her job and Marie with school. Then I was hard at work hunting down the Conspirium. But at the end of the day, we would all come back together. We called each other by name. No 'Agent PJ,' no 'President Flynn' this or 'Madame President' that."
Surprising himself more than anyone else in the room, his eyes began to blur. PJ blinked the water away swiftly, before the boys could notice. "I would give anything to go back to that. But I can't throw away the lives of millions of people, either. That's why I needed to know―if you two can tell me, unequivocally, that going back won't change the future, I'll stay here. I'll sacrifice my family for the greater good of the country. But if there's a chance I can save both, I want to try. I have to try..."
His voice faded away into nothing, and a heavy silence descended on the room.
Phineas turned to his brother. "What do you say, Ferb?"
Ferb's lips parted, but his face remained as stoic as ever. "I say, go for it."
Phineas turned to PJ and smiled. "Then it's settled. We'll do whatever we can to get you back to T-1, Agent―I mean, PJ."
A flood of gratitude flushed over him. "Thank you."
Thanks for reading, and have a Merry Christmas!