"Aaand checkmate. There you go. Pay up, guys."
Bill's victory was greeted by cheers and groans more or less in equal measure. His opponent roared and smashed the chess board - along with the table it had been on - but Bill didn't so much blink. He just leaned back on his seat and, while 8 Ball went to collect the bets, he held out his hand.
"First prize here, thanks."
For the outside word, the first prize of a chess tournament in prison would probably be nothing to write home about; but, when prison wine decanted in questionable ways in questionable places is all you get as a drink, a bottle of good stuff smuggled in in unclear ways is worth more than anything.
The loser - a human prisoner, and a hunk of muscle that easily surpassed most guards - glared at him. It had to be nagging him to death, how he couldn't lift a finger on him despite the fact a finger was all he would need to crush him. Still, an attempt at doing so would have resulted with Pyronica, 8 Ball, Keyhole, Paci-Fire and Teeth being on him in less than a second, and they all hit where it hurt. He wasn't stupid enough to risk it - or was too boring to do it, depending on how one looked at it.
Just being their friend gave Bill a sort of immunity, and he liked that. It was the best thing about the small gang he had found himself in: they protected their own, which was a lot more than could be said for… most people back home, really.
You let them take Liam away!
We need to be reasonable, Bill.
Someone must have told them. Someone must have spoken.
"Where did you even learn to do that?" Keyhole had asked once, after a number of chess tournaments he had won - never having lost any from the first one he had taken part to, which had earned them no small amounts of the goods that counted as money in a place like that.
"Learned from the best mind in my dimension," Bill had said, and left it at that.
None of the others had asked again, preferring to focus on what his victory had gotten them - like they were doing now, seated in the canteen and mostly ignoring their dinner.
"This is really good stuff," Pyronica was saying with a grin, holding the bottle up against the light. "Should keep it for a good occasion."
"How 'bout next time one of us lands in Solitary?" Teeth said, and there was some laughing over that, most eyes turning to 8 Ball - who was the one to spend the most time there out of all of them.
"Oh, ha ha," he grunted, still counting the bets they had collected - bars of a food called 'chocolate' Bill found he really liked, some magazines, a small radio, a couple of magazines, a deck of cards and so on. "Wanna bet Teeth's getting himself there first?"
"My money's on Pyronica," Paci-Fire said, and they waited for her to retort - except that someone else spoke, and it wasn't anyone from their group.
"Well, look at that. Second Dimension?"
Teeth, who had been showing off by shoving the whole tray in his mouth - well, all of him was a mouth, really, so that wasn't saying much - winced and began choking on it. There were some laughs, though Keyhole's stopped quickly enough when Teeth barfed everything up on him, but Bill paid no attention to any of it. He turned, and for a moment he thought his eye had to be playing tricks on him.
The guy standing before him was an Hexagon, bright red, with orange lips and a mustache. He was holding the tray with his meal in his hands, looking straight at Bill. Well, so to speak: with no visible eye, it was hard to tell whether or not he had means to look. But he was sorta facing him and clearly recognized him as a two-dimensional being, so he had to be able to see somehow.
Besides, Bill had more pressing questions to ask.
"Guilty as charged. Are you?"
"Nope," the guy said, and turned just enough to let Bill realize that he was much thicker than him, so definitely not from the Second Dimension. Maybe the fact he had colors should have been a big enough hint, come to think of it. And there was only one world Bill had heard of what was inhabited by three-dimensional geometrical shapes.
"... Hey, new guy. You don't happen to be from the same homeworld as Spheres, do you?"
The mouth curled in a grin. "My turn to admit guilt. Name's Hectorgon," he said, holding out one hand, which Bill reached out to shake. He instinctively liked the guy, if anything because he'd had the guts to approach. Kinda ballsy, that: most prisoners, even the most seasoned ones, steered clear of them; let alone newcomers who were hardly bigger in size than Bill himself.
All things considered, he had been pretty lucky by getting on Pyronica's good side right off the bat.
"Bill Cipher. I happen to be thanks to a Sphere to begin with, really. Know the guy? Or are there many of those in your world?"
"Several. Not many compared to the rest of us, anyway. They're pretty much the elite guys."
Like the Circles, then. Bill couldn't say he was surprised. "We got one who came over every thousand years, or claimed he did."
Hectorgon let out a hum. "Impossible. None of us lives that long - I don't think our life span is much longer than yours. It's got to be a different guy each time, but I guess pretending to be the same one makes them look better. Like actual gods or something, except that they're not. Bunch of jerks."
That, too, wasn't anything Bill hadn't half-expected. "Sounds a lot like the Circles, alright. Could have been the same one, though, if he used time travel."
That caused Hectorgon to laugh. "Really, now? Haven't seen where that has landed us? Those guys can travel through dimensions, very rarely, but never through time. They may be hot stuff in our world, but to Time Baby-"
"I love your mustache!" Pyronica suddenly shrilled, leaning over the table and knocking off a few more trays in the process. It looked like watching Teeth choking had lost its appeal. "I want one just like that!"
Hectorgon grinned, and reached to smooth it, the tray in precarious balance on his other hand. "Why, thank you, ma'am. I love your hair, too."
"Aww, a gentleman! That's so cute I could eat yo-"
"Don't," Bill was quick to cut her off. "That's gonna land you in Solitary. Don't wanna let Paci win the bet, do ya?"
"Hey! Not fair if you stop her!" Paci-Fire protested, then he seemed to notice Hectorgon for the first time, and immediately scowled. "I have slaughtered millions of hundreds moons," he announced to his benefit.
"Wasn't it thousands just last time?" Bill quipped, causing Paci-Fire to scowl.
"Are you up to ruin everything for me today?"
"He ruins everything for everyone all the time," Pyronica pointed out, and held out her fist. Bill bumped it with his own.
"What Ronnie said," he muttered, and turned back to Hectorgon. "How 'bout you sit down? The guys don't usually bite. Except Teeth 'cause, well, what else would he do?"
Hectorgon took the invitation right away, sitting next to 8 Ball with no hint of worry. "Good evening, everyone," he said, and looked straight ahead. "I assume you're Teeth?"
"Hey! How'd you guess?"
"How do you think he guessed, dumbass?" Bill muttered, rolling his eye. "Yeah, that's him. These are Pyronica, Paci-Fire-"
"I have slaughtered millions-"
"Shut it. This is 8 Ball, and that's Keyhole right over there. Say, what are you in for?"
"Yeah, is having awesome mustache a crime where you're from or what?"
Hectorgon shrugged, putting down his tray. "I tried to travel back in time to the beginning of my species and use my future knowledge to make Spheres pariah as opposed to the jerks they are. Sadly, the Time Police was on me right away. I had no idea they even existed until that moment," he said.
"Yeah, they tend to ruin everything," Pyronica muttered. "Them and their stupid rules. Hey, no, don't eat that!" she exclaimed, holding up a hand to keep Hectorgon from taking a spoonful of his slop. He seemed taken aback.
"Why not? Is it poisonous?"
"Probably, but that's not the point," Bill said. "Not one of us until you start a prison brawl. Just grab it and throw it at a guard - it's got to be a guard or someone big."
"Yeah, throw it at that ugly mug over there!"
Hectorgon hesitated. "To be honest, I am rather hungry and-"
"Aw, c'mon!" Pyronica urged him, and hit the table. "I know what you need to do it! Have a drink first!" She exclaimed, placing the bottle Bill had won at the chess tournament the previous day on the table. Bill had never really asked where exactly she kept stuff hidden under her prison uniform, but she could stuff a lot of things there somehow. "Gotta celebrate a new member, right?"
"Right!"
"Good idea!"
The bottle was opened, and to be fair it was good stuff. Strong, too. Probably a bit too strong, and Bill… well, he was kind of a lightweight, so maybe he should have been more careful.
He would remember how much noise they were making, and he would remember a grim-looking guard approaching their table with a taser to threaten them into silence. He would remember, vaguely, standing up on the table to snap back at him. He would remember nothing of what happened next, though he would hear pretty wild accounts later on.
The only thing Bill Cipher would know once he regained consciousness was that he had apparently started a full-blown prison riot through the sheer power of rambling, and everyone was absolutely certain he had done it on purpose.
He never tried to correct them on that. Would have been kinda embarrassing, admitting he was just blind drunk.
Surprised, leader-less, attacked in front by invisible foes, and finding egress cut off by the Convicts behind them, they at once-after their manner-lost all presence of mind, and raised the cry of "treachery."
This sealed their fate.
"This is so much fun!"
"A lot better than the usual brawl!"
"We got all the guards locked up, except a few who escaped!"
"Who wants to go poke them with electric sticks!"
"Me! Me!"
"Best day of my life!"
"Hey, look! That's him!"
"That was great, Bill!"
"Yeah, you told it how it is!"
A couple thousand eyes turned to him the moment he walked in the common room. Everything around him still wavering a bit - it had stopped spinning, at least - Bill blinked.
Okay, okay. Play it cool, Cipher. Act like you know what in the Circles is going on. Don't topple over. Don't throw up.
"... Hey," he said, waving. The reaction was an uproar.
"BILL! BILL! BILL! BILL!"
Well, wow. Bill still wasn't entirely sure what he had done or said to cause all that, but he wasn't gonna complain. That was fun. And, considering how Time Baby was probably not going to leave the Infinetentiary in their hands for much longer, it was probably best to enjoy it before being turned into a pile of smoking ashes.
… Come to think of it, Bill wasn't looking forward to being turned into ash. Maybe it would be best to call for a very quick meeting while everyone else was busy poking guards with sticks, after all.
Then the wretched rabble of the Isosceles, planless and leaderless, are either transfixed without resistance by the small body of their brethren whom the Chief Circle keeps in pay for emergencies of this kind; or else more often, by means of jealousies and suspicious skillfully fomented among them by the Circular party, they are stirred to mutual warfare, and perish by one another's angles.
"We could try to escape before that happens."
"Those who tried to get out were already destroyed. This place is ours, but we can't leave it."
"Kinda like a siege. No chance of breaking it, though. And how long before food runs out? Wonder who's gonna be eaten first."
"Hey now, don't be so negative!"
"He's right. Bet the only reason why Time Baby's not here already to turn us into jam is that there are still guards alive in here."
"Don't think it's gonna keep him away for long. Don't have him pegged as the sentimental guy."
"Yeah. He'll turn them into mush as well the moment he decides he wants to get back to his nap."
"So, in short, we're dead meat."
"Heh. 'Twas fun, though. Even if we're gonna die for it and stuff."
"So, Bill, what do you think?"
Bill, who had been following the conversation with a deepening scowl, snorted. "All I can think right now is that I'll set this place on fire and burn with it before I let that dumb baby do me in."
Pyronica laughed and lit up her hand. "I can do that. We'd go out with a bang!"
"Turn that thing off! I don't want to die! I have more millions to slaughter on more moons!"
"... How about we invoke Globnar?" Hectorgon spoke up for the first time in a few minutes, and seemed surprised by the blank looks that got him. "Globnar, guys. Globnar. Haven't you… oh, wait. You've been in here for a while, huh? It was reinstated only recently. The Time Police was talking about it when they were taking me to Time Baby."
A few glances were exchanged, then a few shrugs that clearly spelled 'no better plan anyway'. Bill turned back to Hectorgon.
"Okay, I'll bite. What's Globnar?"
Hectorgon spoke quietly, but hearing him was not a problem: as they grouped around him, everyone was unusually silent. Even the faint crackling noise of Pyronica's flames could be easily heard.
"It's a sort of gladiatorial time combat. From what I gathered, anyone who feels they have been wronged can invoke it and name the person - or people - they want to face in combat. There are several trials to win, if I got that right, and those with the most points win. The winner can decide the fate of any losers, and receives a Time Wish."
"... A what?"
"Oooh! I heard of that!" Keyhole exclaimed, reaching to pull at Bill's arm. "A Time Wish allows you to wish for anything - anything at all! And with no risk of time paradoxes!"
Anything at all? Now that was interesting. Very interesting.
"What are the trials like?" Pyronica asked, to which Hectorgon lifted his hands.
"I don't know the details, I'm afraid. Dangerous ones, I assume, but if Time Baby flattening us along with the others in here is the only other option," he paused, not really needing to go on.
"Then we may as well take the chance," Bill heard himself saying, and laughed. "Guys? I think we've got our ticket out of here. Here's how we're gonna handle this..."
In half an hour not one of that vast multitude was living; and the fragments of seven score thousand of the Criminal Class slain by one another's angles attested the triumph of Order.
"You invoke what?"
The look of surprise on the guard's face - one of the few guards who had a face left, anyway - was so funny Bill couldn't help but laugh. It was Paci-Fire to answer on his behalf.
"You heard him just right," he grunted.
"That's folly!"
"Just our thing, then," Bill muttered, and pushed the radio communicator in his hands. "Get in touch with the Time Police, or Time Baby, or whoever, and tell them just that. Bill Cipher is invoking Globnar. Oh, and them as well," he added, gesturing towards Paci-Fire and Pyronica.
The guard hesitated, but all that was needed for him to go ahead and do as he had been told to was one look at Pyronica, who had lifted and ignited her hand. He swallowed hard and turned on the communicator. "A-alright. Who are you challenging?"
"Those guys over there," Bill said with a shrug, gesturing to his left. To their credit 8 Ball, Hactorgon, Keyhole and Teeth were doing a pretty good job at looking the part of the challenged enemies. "Oh, everyone else is on the Eastern wing at the moment, by the way. Card tournament. An easy target. Thought Time Baby would like to know which part of the prison to destroy. He's welcome. Now call him."
He called, and gave Bill's message.
Sure enough, the Eastern wing was reduced to dust with everyone in it the next minute. But it didn't matter, because they were still around, and they had… well, an approximation of a plan, at least.
It wasn't like Bill had ever tried to claim it was a reasonable plan to begin with.
No less than one hundred and twenty rebellions are recorded in our annals, besides minor outbreaks numbered at two hundred and thirty-five; and they have all ended thus.
"... Well. If we die in here, at least we got to see something really cool."
Eye fixed on the sheer vastness of the arena, on the seemingly endless sea of spectators waiting to watch them fight, Bill barely heard Pyronica's comment. Better hope they would be able to play the part convincingly enough, because if anyone realized they were only pretending-
"SILENCE!"
The booming voice of Time Baby was familiar as it was unpleasant. He emerged from the ground as he had the previous time, in that white void Bill had first found himself after his arrest. Everyone watching immediately fell, well, silent. Kinda impressive, Bill had to admit, but it made Time Baby one sucky event host. He didn't even look like he wanted to be there.
… Neither did his friends, by the looks of it.
"What was Plan B again, guys?" Pyronica whispered, cuffed hands held up in front of her. Like that would be of any help if that dumb baby had a tantrum and decided to strike them down.
"This is Plan B," Keyhole muttered, his voice sounding much like a whine.
"You mean Plan Bill."
"Bill, seriously-"
"Don't burst a blood vessel, guys. We'll be fine. Don't you trust me?"
"Should we?"
Bill thought about it for a moment. "Well, no. But on the bright side- wait, is it that screen or my eye is really that big?"
His question would get no reply, because the next moment Time Baby lifted his arm, casting a shadow on all of them as they stood in the arena, and spoke again.
"WELCOME, GLOBNAR TRIBUTES. THE LEADERS OF EACH TEAM TAKE A STEP FORWARD NOW."
There goes nothing, Bill thought, and took a step forward. A few feet from him, 8 Ball did the same. Time Baby's eyes turned to them, but there was no sign of recognition, even though he had sentenced them both to several square lives sentences each. Then again, they were just a couple of the people he must have thrown in there; what reason would he have to remember them?
He'll have reason to remember me soon. So many reasons.
"YOU EACH ACCUSE THE OTHERS OF STARTING THE RIOT IN THE INFINETENTIARY. I HAD TO STOP NAPPING AND PULVERIZE HALF OF IT, AND THAT MAKES ME CRANKY."
Plenty of things do, Bill thought, but for once he knew better than saying as much aloud. Not that holding back the remark didn't cause him almost physical pain, because it did.
"I WOULD ERASE YOU WHERE YOU STAND HAD YOU NOT INVOKED GLOBNAR," Time Baby went on, eyes narrowed, and this time Bill couldn't resist.
"But law is law, huh?"
Circles, I love irony.
If gaze could kill, Bill would have dropped dead right there and then. Well, that baby's gaze could kill, if some tales were to be believed, but he didn't seem up to use that trick at the moment. And, hopefully, he wouldn't get a chance to later.
"INDEED," he very nearly growled. "YOUR FATE WILL BE DECIDED THROUGH GLADIATORIAL COMBAT. LET THE GLOBNAR BEGIN!"
The public cheered, loud as thunder. The handcuffs fell off their wrists. 8 Ball roared. Pyronica lit up her hands. Keyhole fainted, causing Bill to roll his eye.
The plan was simple, almost embarrassingly so: they would put up a show, pretending to be really battling - but it was already agreed that Bill's team would be the winning one, earning themselves their freedom.
"Why Bill?" Teeth had protested, but Pyronica had shut him up quickly enough.
"'Cause he came up with the plan, Dentures," she had said before giving Bill a fistbump that had thrown him on the floor.
With that settled, what followed was obvious: when asked what fate he chose for the losers, Bill would choose to free them as well. As for the Time Wish… Bill had plans regarding that, too. But, first, they needed to play their part convincingly.
Make it worth something, Nora had pleaded in what had been their own world's third Millennium, Circles knew how long before. In the year 197̃019, Bill laughed.
Oh, I will.
One of the battles involved spears. 8 Ball very nearly smacked Bill out of shape. His act sure was convincing, but also painful. His team took the point.
Chess was easy. Bill won it with four moves. Teeth reacted by chewing up the chess board and got a pawn stuck between his molars.
The hot dog eating competition was even easier. Pyronica grabbed her whole tray with her tongue before Hectorgon even took a bite. A time droid tried to explain her the competition was won, and did not require her to eat the table as well. She ate the droid and then the table. The public loved that.
The motorcycle race was kind of fun. Especially when Pyronica climbed off it and it turned out she vomited fire, along with charred remains of hot dog, a droid's arm and a table's leg.
Paci-Fire's attempt at running on the wheel without falling off was kind of a disaster, and the stadium was gonna need a new wall on the north side. Bill didn't mind the lost point too much. It was just too much fun to watch. Almost as much as watching Keyhole failing so epically at time Jenga that 8 Ball had to dig him out of the rubble.
The Being Whose Name Must Never Be Said was kind of a mouthful to say, really, so Bill didn't mind too much Pyronica renaming it Xanthar after defeating it. When she declared they were going to keep it, however, Hectorgon very nearly began crying.
The ancient game of Laser Tag ended almost as soon as it began, if anything because Pyronica immediately grabbed Bill and threw him towards the sphere they were supposed to get at. Bill didn't really touch it as much as he slammed against it, before landing painfully on the ground with it.
But it did count as touching it, and with that Globnar was over.
"IT IS FINISHED!"
The cheering that ensued drowned out even Time Baby's voice, and members of the Time Police were in the arena before Bill could even blink, surrounding 8 Ball's team. Time Baby approached as well, hovering lower - which didn't really change much, considering how huge he was compared to Bill's eleven inches of height. He had to lean forward a lot to watch him up close.
"Before I give you your time wish, tell me - what fate do you choose for the losers?"
"Death!" Came a chanting from the public. "Death! Death! Death! DEATH!"
Bill cast a quick glance at the losers in questions. They were doing a pretty good job at looking terrified, he had to give them that. Either it was great acting, or they didn't fully trust him not to choose death.
As if he'd rid them of his presence so easily.
"The losers are free and are walking out of here with us," Bill said, and 8 Ball's sigh of relief was probably heard across the stadium - immediately followed by a collective sigh of disappointment, and Pyronica's fake cough. Bill rolled his eye. "Okay, okay. Them, and The Being Whose Name Must Never Be Said. Or Xanthar, whatever. We're gonna keep that, too."
"Yay!" Pyronica exclaimed somewhere behind him, throwing up her arms.
On the other hand, Time Baby frowned. "He is not among the losers."
Bill crossed his arm. "And why not, huh? He was in the arena. We fought him. He lost. Makes him a loser. The law is law, right? He'll fit right in with the rest of the losers over there," he added, waving his hand towards the others.
"Hey now-" Hectorgon began, only to be tackled on the ground by Keyhole before he could say anything that may reveal their trick. Probably wouldn't have made much difference, though, since Time Baby's attention was fixed on. He didn't look happy, but he didn't seem to have a retort, either. When he spoke, it was with a scowl.
"VERY WELL. THEY WILL ALL LEAVE WITH YOU," he said, and made a gesture with his hand, causing the handcuffs to fall off 8 Ball, Keyhole, Teeth and Hectorgon. Some time droids brought forward a chained Xanthar as well, which didn't fail to make Pyronica shriek in delight. "NOW, YOUR TIME WISH, SO I CAN RETURN TO MY NAP."
Bill blinked when he saw the golden, glowing orb descending in front of him. Wait, was the thing he was literally thrown against only minutes earlier the Time Wish? Really? Good thing it hadn't broken in the landing or something.
The orb hovered before him, painfully bright against his eye, and surprise faded into something else entirely - euphoria and complete, unbridled triumph.
It's happening! It's finally, finally happening!
"ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS TOUCH THE ORB AND THINK OF YOUR WISH. MILLIONS HAVE DIED OVER THE CENTURIES FOR A TIME WISH, SO YOU MUST CHOOSE WISELY-"
With a laugh that sounded unhinged even to him, Bill slammed his hand against the orb. Choose? He had chosen already, had known what he wanted for a long time, so why wait now that it was all within his reach - literally within his reach?
I want power! I want knowledge! I want it all!
The orb faded into pulsing, blinding whiteness. Bill kept laughing while he felt himself being lifted in the air, when the light around him began crackling with energy - but his laugh broke off when energy began cracking within him. All of a sudden he was burning, then freezing, then burning again; there was pull, as though every molecule in his body was coming apart and then falling back together in a way that no longer fit, only to be torn apart once more.
The echo of his laugh had barely faded when he began screaming - one single, endless, wordless scream as the world around him went from white to bright red, and then turned black.
Because, as it turned out, the process of turning matter into pure energy is amazingly painful.
An unspeakable horror seized me. There was a darkness; then a dizzy, sickening sensation of sight that was not like seeing; I saw a Line that was no Line; Space that was not Space: I was myself, and not myself. When I could find voice, I shrieked loud in agony, "Either this is madness or it is Hell."
"It is neither," calmly replied the voice of the Sphere, "it is Knowledge; it is Three Dimensions: open your eye once again and try to look steadily."
Bill Cipher opened his eye. He looked.
And he saw everything.
I looked, and, behold, a new world! There stood before me, visibly incorporate, all that I had before inferred, conjectured, dreamed, of perfect Circular beauty. [...]
"Behold, I am become as a God. For the wise men in our country say that to see all things, or as they express it, omnividence, is the attribute of God alone."