The boys sit at the table they sat their bacon shakes on. They each push a neodymium magnet threw the straw hole in the bacon shake lids. Leading from the magnets and out the straw hole, are copper wires which trail back to an old Atari 2600 console.
"Okay, boys, I've written over the memory of these two E.T. games with temporal coding; no great lose. The one marked 'PAST' will take you back one day before Chef died and the one marked 'NOW' will bring you home. Just put it in the slot and flick on the power button. You may have to jiggle the game a little. Got that?" Maphesto asks them.
"Got it," says Stan.
"The neodymium magnets in combination with the bacon shakes will warp space and time as well as use the kinetic energy of the magnetic for to power the unit. At least in theory. Now, I don't know much about the time travel, so to play it safe I have programmed the NOW cartridge to bring you back ten minutes after you left; I don't want you possibly wiping out on gnarly temporal waves."
"Do we have to drink the bacon shakes again?" Eric whines.
"Yes, it is imperative you drink half of your bacon shakes, each. Bacon shakes negate the terrible physical temporal affects of time travel; they act as TPP – Temporal Physiological Paradoxium, which temporarily protect you from temporal aphasia or some such thing. I don't know – was pretty vague. When you get there you can hide out in my spare room that I don't use so you have some place to sleep."
"Thanks Doctor Maphesto," says Stan.
"Okay, you all ready to time travel?" Kyle asks them all.
Butters speaks up, "But, ah, I can't time travel – my parents will ground me!"
"Butters, don't wuss out on us. Name one person who's ever died from time travel," says Eric.
Butters replies, "The first chrononaut test pilot on 'Seven Days', that guy with the glasses in that boring 'Timeline' movie, Captain Garrett and Lieutenant Yasha Yar-"
"I'll stay here!" Kenny blurts out.
"I meant in real life, Butters," says Eric.
"But … but, no one's ever time traveled before," says Butters.
"Exactly. It's as safe as flying. In planes not from Malaysia," Eric replies.
"Oh, well, all right," says Butters.
"Kenny, if we don't come back and you live, make sure our eulogies at least once contain the word 'ironic' in them," Stan says to Kenny.
"Okay," says Kenny.
Maphesto speaks, "Now, remember boys: you'll each have to drink half a shake or so again to get home. It is imperative you do not spill them as Jack in the Box at that time has not invented them yet – one or more of you could be stranded in the past or die during time travel."
"Whew!" Kenny exclaims.
"I'm not good with complex orbital calculations, so I don't know where you'll wind up. Maybe here, maybe in the lake, maybe on the other side of town. LOL, could be a hundred feet underground," says Maphesto.
Kenny exhales in relief.
"Okay, then I guess there's nothing left to do but chug 'n' travel. Ready Chef clone?" Stan asks.
Chef clones sings, "You got stinky britches!"
Maphesto replies, "Sorry about that – most of the news videos had him singing."
Stan inserts the PAST cartridge into the slot on the Atari console, "One … two … three … CHUG!"
They all down the bacon shakes. Maphesto and Kenny quickly back away two dozen feet.
"Oh, God!" Kyle exclaims.
"AGH!" Butters cries out.
Eric exclaims, "It's like Gordy the pig pissed in my mouth!"
"Oh! I'm forgetting what to do! Must … flip … switch…" Stan leans in while trying not to vomit and turns the Atari consol on.
The lights flicker on and off in the room. On the wall the minute and second hands of a clock slow to a stop and a compass at a work station cracks open as the needle spins around wildly. Orange and yellow streams of light stream outward from the Atari unit. The lights in the room dim to the point they might as well be off and the clock on the wall stops. The boys disappear in a fiery swirl of the orange and yellow streaming haze. The lights slowly illuminate back to normal and the clock on the wall slowly starts moving again.
"Woo hoo!" Kenny exclaims, raising his fists in excitement.
Maphesto speaks up, "Holy crap – that actually worked. I guess I won't have to use my spare body bags after all. Well, lad, I'm glad you stayed; you can help me feed my pet raptors."
"Whut?"
.
There's a bright white flash of light and the view goes completely white for a couple seconds before disappearing to an endless expanse of dark grey with lighter grey clouds of smoke on the bottom half. Crappy computer-generated heads rise up out of the smoke as the view goes forward and passed each head.
Stan's head passes by, "No, I'm not okay."
Kyle's head passes by, "No, Chef! Don't' do it!"
Kenny's head passes by, "Fwuk yu!"
Scotty's head passes by, "Admiral – there be whales in here!"
Eric's head passes by, "Wow – a time when there was no such thing as bacon shakes. Better days."
And finally butters' head passes by, "Wow! I'm on a rusty venture!"
We suddenly see the dead whale Willzyx in front of us. It gets closer, and closer, and closer still.
The screen goes white again, then it dissipates to reveal the five of them sitting in a field, holding their bacon shakes and starring out blankly. After almost half a minute they start to blink and come back to reality.
Butters puts his hands on his stomach and moans, "Buuuaaahhhaaa…" and he then vomits the bacon shake out.
One by one they each set their shakes down, then hold themselves up with their hands and vomit. The Chef clone, however, sits there and vomit slowly runs out of his mouth, too dumb to even vomit.
"Oh, God, I think I found something possibly worse than pumpkin spice!" Eric exclaims.
Kyle speaks up, "Where are we? When are we?"
"Check out the sky," Stan points up, "It's early morning – we've at least gone back a few hours for sure."
"Guys, it worked! Do you know what this means?" Eric comments.
"Bacon shakes should come with many warning labels?" Stan comments.
"They probably still make Reese's peanut butter covered Whoppers!" Eric says excitedly.
Chef clone blurts out, "Put 'em in your mouth and suck 'em!"
"Exactly," says Eric.
Stan stands up, "Okay, we'll need to divide up into two teams: one to drop the Chef clone off at Maphesto's place to hide him, and another to track Chef down."
"I call Kyle," says Eric quickly.
"Damnit. Come on, we'll go drop off the Chef clone," Stan says to Butters.
Stan and butters walk off after Eric and Kyle unplug from the Atari console; Stan carries the console with him.
"Kyle, can we-"
Kyle interrupts Eric, "We're not stopping by a store so you can fucking get peanut butter Whoppers."
"Goddamnit. Fine – next time we time travel, I'm not gonna let you buy anything either!"
"We're here to rescue Chef, remember?"
"Yeah, yeah. How do we find him anyway? He quit his job at school."
"We'll have to try his place, but we'll have to be careful sneaking around town so our parents don't see us and hopefully nobody they know sees us; out past selves are in school right now."
"I know," Eric reaches into one of his pockets and pulls out some folded paper, "we can tear up these pieces of paper and pretend to hand out fliers – that way everybody will ignore us."
"Hey, that's a good idea. Let's go."
.
Stan and Butters near Doctor Maphesto's house, with the Chef cline in tow.
"Why, ah, this is the boringest rusty venture I've ever been on."
"You keep using that phrase; I don't think it means what you think it means," Stan stops and tries the door knob, but it's locked.
"Oh, no, now what? Butters asks.
"Suck on my chocolaty salty balls, put 'em in your mouth and suck 'em!" Chef clone sings.
"Yeah, we're gonna have top teach him new words. I guess we'll just have to find someplace else to stash him. Maybe Eric's basement. We can't risk knocking, you know – a butterfly flapping its wings and what not."
"Fapping?"
"Flapping," Stan speaks more clearly.
"Oh, okay."
They turn to leave and as they head away, Maphesto's door opens to reveal Maphesto.
"Oh, boys, what brings you here? Ah, Jerome – I haven't heard from you in a while. Did that electronic thing you wanted work?" Maphesto asks Chef.
"You got stinky britches!" Chef clone blurts out.
"Um, well, perhaps I do – thank you for pointing that out."
"Look, Doctor Maphesto, we're gonna level with you. I'm Stan and this is Butters, but not from now, but from in the future. We traveled back in time to bring past Chef with us into the future with the help of this clone made with a 3-D printer," says Stan.
"Hummm…" Maphesto rubs his bushy eyebrows, "that seems entirely plausible."
Stan continues, "Future you told us we could hide out Chef clone here."
"Certainly – I wouldn't want to screw up this temporal paradox. Come in," Maphesto moves to the side and lets the three of them enter, with Butters holding one of chef clone's hands.
"Thanks, Doctor Maphesto," says Stan.
"And don't worry about the future, boys, when I see you then, I'll just pretend none of this ever happened. Or maybe I'll completely forget – whichever comes first. So, did I finally perfect that quantum accelerator?"
Stan replies to Maphesto, "No, we used bacon shakes powered by neodymium magnets," showing Maphesto his cup.
"Boys, come on – time travel I can buy, cloning a human being I can buy, 3-D printers I can buy, but bacon shakes? That sounds so awful – who in their right mind would make such a thing?"
"Jack in the Box," Butters answers.
"Oh, I see. Here's the room," Maphesto opens a door to a drab sparsely decorated room where the only highlight is a bed. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have crazy experiments to run."
"Wait, Mr. Maphesto," says Butters.
"Yes?"
"What's a rusty venture?"
"Oh, my – you sure you don't mean a rustic adventure?"
"Pretty sure," Butters scratches the top of his head.
"Ah, well, it's when you take a girl out for a huge dinner but you don't let her go to the can. Then you have anal sex with her and she craps all over your dick, so right when you're about to get off, you take it out and you blow shit-cum on her back. Take care, boys," Maphesto closes the door and leaves.
Stan doesn't say anything for a few seconds. Butters removes the sunglasses from chef clone.
Chef clone suddenly blurts out, "I'm gonna make sweet love to your woman!"
"No, don't, just please don't. Adults are disgusting. Where'd you even hear that, Butters?"
"I think I got it from an animated TV series."
"I'll have to remember never to watch TV at your house. Chef clone," Stan then says to the Chef clone.
"Hello."
"No, no, no, no – it's 'Hello there, children'. Hello, chef clone."
"Hello there, children," chef clone replies back.
"Yeah! Okay, now listen up, chef clone, you have to memorize the following lines…" Stan sniffs the air, "Ah, Butters."
"Yeah?"
"Time to change Chef clone's diaper."
.
Eric and Kyle near the end of down town, approaching some residential streets.
"Save the whales," says Eric to people passing by.
"Save the whales," Kyle also says.
People weave around Eric and Kyle without even looking at them.
"Save the whales. For only a dollar a month you can help sponsor a poor starving baby whale in Africa," says Eric.
"They don't' have whales in Africa, fatass," says Kyle.
"Oh. Help sponsor a poor starving baby whale in Chin a, only a dollar a month. And none of it goes to making Salli Strothers any fatter."
"Hey, this is really working – no one's even looking at us," says Kyle.
"Where are we now?" asks Eric.
"Almost at chef's house, but I think I remember he sold it; wasn't he already in town the day he died?"
"Been so long I can't even remember," says Eric as they both turn a corner onto a residential street. "I know he was serving lunch tomorrow and wanted to make sweet love to our assholes."
"Then we'll have to sneak into school and see if he's getting his job back. We're here," says Kyle.
They stop at what was Chef's house.
"No for sale sign – maybe he's here!" says Kyle.
They walk up to the door quickly; Kyle knocks and then they wait. The door opens to reveal a crotchety old white man.
"Yes? What the hell do you want?"
"Ahhh … save the whales?" Eric says, trying to think of something.
"What? Fuck the whales. Shouldn't you be in school?"
"Oh, well, we're older than we look," Kyle improvises.
Eric joins in, "Yeah, we suffer from a disease that stunts out growth – full blown upper torso post prandial distention."
"Huh? You just look like a couple of young bastards to me."
Eric looks on angrily and points to the man, "Are you making fun of my midgetiness?! Midget racist! I'm gonna tell all your neighbors you're a whale hating midget racist!"
"Goddamnit!" the old man slams the door.
"Dude, that was completely unnecessary," says Kyle as they walk away from the house.
"Yeah, but I won," says Eric.
They walk back up the street.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but I think I'll get Butters to help sneak into school. Come on, let's get back to that dumpster where we left our bacon shakes."
.
Kenny is slowly lowered into a large fenced of area. On his a chain harness and below him a goat, like the T-Rex feeding scene from the first "Jurassic Park" film.
"Almost there … almost there … the goat has landed. Now, if you could, unhook the goat from its harness. Don't worry – my pet raptors are perfectly harmless."
"Okay…" Kenny was worriedly.
Kenny frees himself from his chain harness. He starts fiddling with the one on the goat hen a noise behind him distracts him. His eyes shift to look elsewhere and he holds still.
.
Eric and Kyle help themselves into Maphesto's place.
"Isn't is amazing, Kyle?" says Eric.
"Isn't what amazing?"
"The past."
"I guess…"
"I mean…" he looks around, "Wow – a time when there was no such thing as bacon shakes. Better days."
"Dude, it hasn't actually been that long."
"And Mily Ciross wasn't rubbing her ass on people. God – seems like a decade ago."
"Still had the Michelle Obahma lunches."
"Okay, so it wasn't perfect. Stop ruining the past for me, Kyle!"
They find the spare room and open the door.
"Hello there, children!"
"How's it going?" Kyle asks Stan.
"He's memorized most of the lines. Still needs some practice. Did you find real Chef?" Stan replies back.
"No, heading out to the school next. I need to swap Butters out."
"Sorry, chef clone, but I gotta go," says butters.
"Let's get it on tonight," chef clone sings.
"No! That's bad!" Stan corrects him.
"Why bad?"
"Because," says Stan.
"See you, Chef clone," says Kyle.
"Good-bye, children."
The door closes.
Eric waits a few seconds and then says, "Chef clone, repeat after me: Kyle's mom is a bitch…"
.
Kyle and butters cautiously wander around inside South Park Elementary.
"Okay, Butters, we're about midway into the school, let's split up. I'll go to Principal Victoria's office and you go check out the back of the lunch room. He's either filling out his application or preparing the lunch room for tomorrow's service. Assuming he's here."
"Roger that."
"And remember – don't talk to anybody; a butterfly's wings and all that."
"No problem," Butters replies.
"Okay. We'll meet back up outside the door we came in," Kyle then heads off.
"Roger, roger," Butters salutes and heads in the opposite direction.
Butters passes by a bathroom door that opens, with Clyde stepping out.
"Oh, boy, I'm on another rusty venture! Whatever that is."
"A rusty venture?" Clyde asks Butters.
"Ah … ah…" Butters turns slowly around, very nervous.
"Oh, that's easy. What you do is you take a scuba snorkel and you…"
.
Kyle stops at Principal Victoria's office door. He lightly touches it to see if it's open and if she can crack it slightly ajar. Not open, Kyle attempts to get on his tippy toes to peak in the window but can't stretch up high enough. He drops back down.
"Almost."
He hears some footsteps and moves to a side of the door. Victoria walks out fast and in the opposite direction of Kyle.
"Oh, it's gonna be close!" she runs to the bathroom, farting along the way.
Kyle opens the door which Victoria has forgotten to lock behind herself in her haste.
"Dear God," Kyle says as he enters, pinching his nostrils shut.
.
Kyle waits outside. The exit door opens and Butters walks out.
"Did you find anything?" Kyle asks Butters.
"Yeah, I heard Chef was in town right now!"
"Great! I snuck into Principal Victoria's office and found Chef's resume and the motel he's staying at. He's probably there now! Wait … how'd you hear about that? I thought I told you not to talk to anybody."
"Well, I didn't. Except for Clyde. And the lunch room guy who saw me."
"Damnit, Butters! Anything else?"
"And I peed and flushed it."
"Don't you know what can happen if you alter the past? Butterfly's wings!"
"Yeah, butterfly wings are pretty looking."
"Agh! Come on, let's get back to Maphesto's place."
.
Kyle and butters enter the spare room at Maphesto's house.
"You're back! Did you find real Chef" Stan asks.
"We did. He's in room 25 at Red Rum Inn," Kyle replies.
Eric says, "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go get him!"
"We can't," says Kyle.
"Why not?" Butters asks curiously.
Kyle replies, "We can't do anything to alter Chef's behavior while he's at school and amongst people – we might alter the future. We'll have to see him tomorrow when he goes back to his motel room."
"You're right, I didn't think of that," says Stan.
"If it means erasing 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians' from history, I'm willing to seriously fuck the past," says Eric.
Kyle then says, looking around to all of them, "Brace yourselves, guys – tomorrow we rescue Chef."