0000

Chapter Three

0000

The world of fiction, known more commonly as the Hub, was…different.

Of course, all worlds were different. Some less so than others, but all different. If the endless dice rolls of existence were parallel, then the Hub would have been the transversal. But the worlds twist and intertwine, sometimes merging only to separate again, zigzagging and clashing everywhere, linked in some inexpressible way. They invert on themselves, resulting in temporal anomalies usually explained by scientists as "just marsh gas", loop around, causing history to repeat and billions of people to brush off that odd sense of wrongness as just a spot of déjà vu, slow down and speed up depending on if the subject in question is either sitting through a meeting concerning the cabbage production of the last quarter or on a date with someone nice. The innumerable worlds are bound together, and around them, somehow touching all and none of them, the Hub.

It has always been. Its exact nature is unknown, but strange things happen in the Hub. Things slip through. Rifts in reality can be opened to and from it at will. Its landscape is endlessly shifting, in such a manner that can only be predicted through advanced narrative physics, or occasionally common sense. What is known, however, is that it was originally home to the creative marvels of imagination, and that sheer force of its potential creative energy began to attract the slightly realer denizens of the other worlds when the a Greek scribe first sat down and thought, That Homer, he wrote a good epic, I ought to add on to it!

This is the Hub, and if you have read about it, you will find it here.

"Still sounds like a load of nonsense to me…"

Oh, shut up.

Aline arrived in the Hub with no intention of recognizing the magnitude of the fact.

"—WITH A TEN FOOT POLE!" she concluded, fists balled in rage. Nikki clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Shh," she hissed, glancing around nervously. "We're in enemy territory and the Canon Retreat Chamber is still a way away from here, and I'd prefer we die sooner rather than later if that's alright with you."

Having thought her response through with unusual speed and eloquence, Aline said "Mmfrrmmmfl." Nikki removed the hand.

Aline sulked. As a teenager, she felt perfectly within her rights to do so. Hunching her back and crossing her arms, she looked around, though she didn't need to take in the full variety of the landscape. She was in the same blank white space as the last time—infinity contained in finite space. The difference was that it was completely deserted. No chattering preteen girls. No loud shrieks. No squeals. Nothing except the occasional squeak of Nikki's sneakers as she pivoted, looking for something in a sea of nothing.

The silence rolled over her in waves.

Aline shivered.

"You know, this doesn't look much like a world torn in brutal civil war," she commented. "I expected some torn up mounds of dirt, crater bombs, shouting, running soldiers—at least something."

"Physics don't work the same way here," Nikki replied quietly, shielding her eyes from an imaginary sun. "Things aren't permanent. They occur, and people remember them, but you'd have a time proving they actually happened. Reality is thin here."

Aline thought about this. "Does that even mean anything?"

Nikki shrugged. "If you want it to."

The oppressive silence reigned for several minutes. Just as it was getting comfortably settled in, it was broken when Nikki said, "It's this way. Come on." With that, she set off decisively from their little island of nothing toward another, presumably somehow superior stretch of nothing. Aline hung her head resignedly and followed her. You can't fight fate, she reasoned. Or Tuesday.

"If we're lucky," the older girl whispered. "They won't notice we're here and we can get to the Chamber without incident. I don't think they're expecting us, so we have a chance."

"And if we're unlucky?" Aline whispered back.

"Well," Nikki considered, chewing her lip. "That would depend on the level of un-luck. If we're only mildly unlucky, we'll have to return to your dimension and try again. I've been there a few times, so it's easier to open plot holes to it. If we're very unlucky, we run into the horde, be unable to lose them and unable to plot hole our way out of trouble, and eventually be forced to hide in the Canon Retreat Chamber lest we get mobbed, which would reveal its secret location and cause all the canons currently hiding there to be evacuated into a different dimension, in this case yours for the sake of convenience, which would cause mass chaos across the multiverse—people aren't really supposed to go universe-hopping, not in those numbers."

"Or we could just die," Aline pointed out with a touch of bitter accusation that made a slight whoosh sound as it flew over Nikki's head.

"Nah," said Nikki dismissively. "We won't die. Our author is becoming attached to us."

Aline blinked and looked at Nikki in a particular expression of fearful incomprehension that she spent an increasingly large chunk of her life wearing. "What do you mean, our auth—?"

At that point, however, she was cut off by a sound that even the hardiest of men feared. The sound evoked a creeping tingling at the base of the spine, which then flowed up and out into the chest until it emerged as blind, animalistic panic, usually in the form of a scream or in some unfortunate cases, a gurgling choke. It was a sound that Nikki had once spent a week of her specialized training learning to discern and classify. It was a sound that a technician in Lab 19 had spent several months and half his budget developing sufficiently strong earplugs for.

It was the piercing keen of the fangirl.

More specifically, it was a Fangirlius obsessoris. If Aline had known that the Cliché Compendium was in her jacket pocket and not lying abandoned on the kitchen table, and if she had not been too busy wondering why she suddenly had a deep, primal fear building in her chest, she might have found out what it had to say on the topic of the Fangirlius obsessoris, which was this: 'A particularly nasty, sporadic and mercifully short-lived breed of fangirl, characterized by their utter lack of inhibitions and a complete disregard for self-preservation. They have an ability to frenzy ten times quicker and stronger than more common breeds, which has a singular upside of being very easy to control with their targets of obsession. Where most fangirls retain at least some vestiges of humanity, obsessoris is all but completely mindless.'

Nikki sighed.

"Aline," she said calmly. "Listen very carefully. We are being followed by fangirls. Judging by the intensity of the pain in my eardrums, they can't be more than a mile off. If they catch us, we will in all likelihood be torn apart."

"You mean…like zombies?"

Nikki considered for a moment. "Yes, exactly like zombies, come to think of it. Point being, we can't hope to outfight them, and outrunning them doesn't seem like a hopeful option, either."

"Oh. They're the running kind of zombies."

"Exactly. Which is why we need a brilliant plan that will save us both from certain doom."

Aline was painfully aware that Nikki was looking at her expectantly. "What?"

"Well, like I said, you're the underdog. At this point, the underdog saves the day, proving themselves to be capable individuals worthy of respect. Why else would I bring you along?"

Several seconds passed in silence. Aline looked around helplessly, panic blooming in her chest and threatening to overwhelm her as the claws-on-blackboard squeals grew louder and louder.

Suddenly, "I've got it!"

"Great! What is it?"

"We walk through this door," she said, pointing a stark, utilitarian door to her right, which had not been there a second ago. Nikki noted it breezily, long past the point of being surprised at things popping into existence from nothing. Besides, she recognized it—it was the back entrance to the Canon Retreat Chamber. Normally, she used it by entering a sequence on the number pad, speaking the ancient words of Arachmatuton, invoking the rite of the Ancient Ones and turning the doorknob. Unfortunately, the keypad was smashed. Buttons were missing and surges of electricity sparked along it.

She tried Plan B: smacking it. When this had no effect, she tried jiggling it, fiddling with some of the wires sticking out, and asking it very nicely to start working. The door remained closed.

"…bugger. Well, have you got any other brilliant plans?" The squeals were louder now; Nikki estimated they would be upon them within minutes, and not very many of them, either.

"Um…" Aline looked around, vaguely hoping that some other handy means of escape would spontaneously materialize. "Maybe I could try to talk to them?" she said meekly.

Nikki treated her to her flattest look of exasperation. "If you're not going to take this seriously, then we're going to die horribly and it'll be all your fault."

"Okay, okay! Let me try this. I saw it on TV once."

Nikki tried to look encouraging. She failed.

Aline positioned herself directly in front of the door. She tapped it in several places, tested the air for nonexistent wind, and stared at it for several moments.

She kicked it. The door ignored this and continued standing there resolutely. She kicked it again, slightly more forcefully. The door, rather perturbed, continued to stand there and ignore her.

Nikki coughed politely and looked away, acutely aware of the increasing volume of the squeals.

Another kick. Insofar as the door had a face with which to express things, it glared.

With a grunt, Aline kicked it another several more times in quick succession.

Kick.

Again with the kicking, the door thought.

Kick.

Whatever happened to respecting doors, the door thought.

Kick.

In my day, doors were revered, the door thought.

Kick.

Oh, if Mother could see me now, she'd laugh, the door thought. Oh, Bill, you useless thing, I told you not to go into this business and now look at you, she'd say.

Kick

Why do I even bother, the door thought.

Kick.

The door, now entirely fed up with this entire business, decided that banging open and nearly flying off its hinges would be the best course of action, which it promptly did. It hung there, creaking in indignation as it swung pathetically back and forth.

"You just nearly destroyed a door by kicking it," Nikki said, gazing wanly at the strained hinges. She could have sworn a minute ago it didn't have any hinges—what sort of door that opened by number pad had hinges?

"Yep. Call it a hunch," Aline said proudly.

"Of course," Nikki realized. "You said you saw it on TV. That would make sense."

Aline beamed, the unfamiliar feeling of usefulness blossoming in her chest. Suddenly, she frowned. "Hey, why couldn't we have just used a plot hole? I mean, it's—"

Another fangirl squeal cut her off, closer than ever now. "And now," Nikki said tightly, "we run." Aline caught her first glimpse of a truly far-gone fangirl just before they made it in. She—it—was visible only for a moment before the door slammed shut, but the image seemed to imprint in her memory like a cattle brand. The wild, knotted hair…the torn clothing…the feral snarl, the pointed predator's teeth…most of all the eyes, more beast ruled by instincts than actually human, blazing with rage and concentrated obsession…no, she wasn't forgetting that in a hurry.

It was a small space, made even smaller by the abundance of heavy objects crowded in it. There was a shiny grand piano in one corner, with spiders competing for real estate in its crevices. Quite a few encyclopedias were strewn on the floor, along with bewildering bags of sand and just plain old rocks. Aline discovered their purpose as Nikki began frantically dragging them to the door.

This struck Aline as somewhat strange, seeing as there was another perfectly good door to run through on the opposite wall. "Uh," she began.

"Seventh law of comedic chase scenes," Nikki said without looking up.

A pile of cinderblocks were topped by a Chesterfield sofa (which Aline had been sitting on), followed by a combination safe (which Aline narrowly avoided being crushed by), and then with the ebony grand piano (which Aline thought was bordering on the absurd side, but shrieked and dived away from when it came her way nonetheless). It occurred to her that there was no possibly way Nikki could manage to lift a grand piano, no matter how much wiry muscle she was hiding. A voice, sounding irritatingly like D's, informed her of the ninth law of comedic chase scenes.

At the thought of D, a small pit of dread materialized in her stomach. D and the girl-shaped essence of evil were alone in her house. She was suddenly imagining her neighborhood annihilated—houses nothing but smoking wreckage, rivers of fire in the streets, the tormented screams of the unlucky living piercing the air—

Stop that, Aline told herself. She was being ridiculous. It's not like they would actually do that. It was illogical and unhelpful. Besides, where would they get the lava? It was silly.

Wasn't it?

0000

When Nikki had left D and Jenna to their own devices, she had either not counted on or not cared about the fact that one of them was deeply disillusioned and easily bored, and the other was her psychopathic admirer. Barely a minute had passed before D forgot about whatever it was she was told to do and wandered to the living room to watch TV. She had flicked through only a few channels, which involved golf, Oprah Winfrey, and people in high school singing, before she could feel the detrimental effect on her brain cells and had to turn it off. At that point, Jenna brought her coffee, which she had to drink quickly to avoid the mug disintegrating in her hands.

"So," D said, kicking aside the empty former mug. "You want to learn from me."

Jenna nodded so vigorously D was mildly impressed that her head was still attached to her neck when she finally stopped.

"Well, I don't know much about straightforward evil personally, but there are some things I guess I could show you."

"Oh my gosh! I'm so excited! Thank you! Thank you!" Jenna shrieked. "What are we going to do first? Intimidation tactics? Minion acquisition? General malevolence?"

D thought about it. She was in a universe that was not hers, annoyed at having been disturbed, and therefore keen on taking out her annoyance on the environment she was in that was not her corner. "I've got a better idea," she said, snatching car keys off the coffee table as she got up.

"Oooh! What is it?"

D's face did not move from its usual expression of bored contempt, but somehow she gave off a sense of grinning maniacally anyway. "You'll see. First we're going to the hardware store."

0000

It's not like they were going to blow up the neighborhood, Aline thought. It wouldn't be practical. It'd attract all kinds of attention—inconvenient attention. They wouldn't do that. D might destroy some more of her kitchen appliances, but that was probably it.

Probably.

0000

"Um." Jenna bit her lip nervously. "I'm sure you know best, but are you sure this is the best first lesson? I mean…what about domination plans? Torture techniques? The practicality of unstoppable superweapons?"

"Oi," D barked. "I'm the wise old mentor here. I bet you wouldn't be doubting me if I had a beard and a long grey cloak." She was leaning on Aline's brother's slightly wrecked car. She'd learned to drive some decades ago and had managed to swerve it to one of the less legal suppliers and back without maiming too many people. She still wasn't very good at parallel parking, though.

"You're right," Jenna sighed. "Sorry."

"Ahem?"

"You are utterly correct, O High Empress D, Mistress of the Subtle Arts. Please forgive my impudence lest I suffer the fate of a thousand flattened insects," Jenna recited, hands clasped behind her back.

"Thank you." It wasn't often that D got her ego fed, and so she was going to milk the moments she had for all they were worth.

Jenna placed the last charge, syncing it and checking her watch. She backed up to where D was standing at the edge of the cul-de-sac. D shoved a pair of goggles into her hands, slipping on her own. "Put these on."

"To protect our eyes?"

"No, this is a controlled blast. These are just to look cool."

Jenna's forehead furrowed. "Um, controlled blast? Is that physically possible at this range?"

"I think you'll find," D said sagely, "that the laws of physics are really just a bunch of upstarts that need a firm guiding hand to tell them what's what and to not try any funny business."

Jenna had grown up in the Hub, and was reasonably familiar with the laws of narrative physics and how they functioned in her own dimension, but she nonetheless spotted the flaw in the scenario. "But this is the other world. The real one. This could actually kill us."

"No, it's not."

"But—but we went through the plot hole and everything, and—"

"It isn't," D said. "It's only a representation of the real world. The real real world is on the other side. You know. The other other side. The fourth side. It's all a matter of perspective. There are countless worlds, and a world which we believe we are subject to, we are subject to its rules; but a world that we recognize for what it is, a hollow facsimile of true reality, that is ours to manipulate to the whims of our blackened hearts." The disconcerting bout of metaphysics ended. "But all of that is highly complex narrative physics, and you're only what, six years old? I'm an anthropomorphic personification; I know these things, so just accept it and press the big damn red button."

Jenna was ten. She by no means was planning on mentioning this, and so instead did as she was bid.

The resultant blast was glorious. The first charge detonated in the kitchen, blowing out the glass in the sliding door. The timed charges in the living and dining rooms went next, destroying some vital supports in the walls and causing most of the game room on the second floor to collapse. The last to go were the bedrooms, and then the final charge on the roof, the remains of which caved inward in short order. Orange flames were everywhere, the blast blowing back their hair dramatically in a questionably plausible manner, every scrap of shrapnel missing them by some curious error in the source code of the universe.

The pair observed.

D sipped her coffee and enjoyed the feeling of the roof of her mouth disintegrating. She imagined the 1812 Overture playing in the background, and was unsurprised to find that it was. Most people wouldn't hear it, or assume it was just their imagination, but that was because most people were idiots. In a sense, they hadn't left the Hub. The rules still applied, though limitedly. D allowed herself a small, brief smile that failed at making her look any more cheerful. D smiling was an event that had last occurred in the 1920s, though the accounts of it are questionable, seeing as they came from a man who slept in a cardboard box and had been sober twice in five years.

"So…" Jenna started as the prize-winning lawn began to blacken. "Why did we blow it up?"

"If you have to ask, then clearly you have learned nothing."

Jenna wondered if this was supposed to be a lesson in how information could be obtained from any source and how it was important to keep experimenting, and eventually decided that it wasn't.

Sensing her discontent, D said exasperatedly, "Because explosions make any situation better, and knowing how to cause one will make your long and dull career as an evil overlord more entertaining, how does that suit you?"

"Perfectly!" Jenna nearly split her head in half with her smile.

"You learn quickly," D said, nodding. "So, do you remember what we were supposed to do while those two schlubs try to do recon?"

Jenna shook her head.

"Me neither. Let's go find the canons before those two get themselves killed. You can find an evil overlord to torment, and I can find some entertainment..."

0000

Next door, one Margaret Finklestein looked up from her knitting and gazed out the window.

For a moment, she examined the burning wreckage and took note of the figures disappearing into what seemed to be a rift in reality, glowing with otherworldly forces. The swirling purple vortex hung in the empty air for a moment, and then shrunk to nothing, leaving a nice colonial house in flaming ruin. With a loud crash, the rest of the roof caved in, instigating the bachelor in the house next to it to shout for them to keep it down, he was trying to watch TV. After a few minutes had passed, her beady eyes returned to the steady clicking of the knitting needles.

She tsked. Strange folk, those von Niermands. She'd always said so, but did her crotchety old oaf of a husband ever listen? Called her a gossip, he did. Called her nosy, he did. Told her to mind her own business, he did.

Well. She peered down her hawklike nose over her half-moon glasses. Now he'd know better, now wouldn't he?

What sort of shifty folk invited people in trench coats to their homes? No one decent, that's who. She'd always said so.