Chapter Thirty Six

The Inventor

ANNA

The trip by public transport was a rather new experience for Anna. Most of her life, she had been chauffeured around by luxurious carriages she could literally lie down in, and not worry about how to get to her destination. The closest she ever got to public transportation was riding her own horse.

And now, not only did she need to squeeze with a million other people in a crowded tube, she had to figure out how to get across town to find this "Hamada" person that Sheriff Mars had told her about.

Thankfully, Sheriff Mars had helped her out by writing down the address for her with a couple of directions, but Anna still found herself lost after squinting at the scribbled instructions. Did it say Langley Street 2? Or 3?

Nonetheless, it was an eye opening experience. Anna, Melody and Maui had used the couple of hundreds Sheriff Mars had gladly exchanged with her to first buy Maui some new clothes.

His green Arendellian uniform was torn and tattered, a product of falling out of a black hole and through the roof of a police precinct. He looked ridiculous in the get up, now that Anna thought about it. Maybe it was because when put in perspective that they were now in the future and in an alternate world of sorts, the idea of a demigod masquerading as a soldier looked and sounded utterly preposterous.

The owner of the clothes store on one of the random sidewalks had looked perturbed when the two girls had entered with a huge dishevelled man with ripped clothes, and the other patrons had unanimously resolved to give the trio a run of the entire store.

Maui managed to pick out a white shirt that somehow fit his enormous frame, and a pair of pants which didn't seem to fit quite as well. Nonetheless, he had topped the outfit off with a pair of slippers which didn't quite fit the look, but there didn't seem to be a shoe size that could fit him - not in that store anyway.

After paying the befuddled shop owner, the three Warriors found the subway station that Sheriff Mars had instructed them to find, and sought to buy tickets for their trip. With at least a couple of hundred remaining, Anna used them to buy first class tickets to their own private carriage.

The carriage wasn't one drawn by a horse, but a powerful locomotive which appeared to run on electricity instead of coal, from what Anna could tell. The inside of the carriage was spacious and luxurious, meant only for the commuters who could offer to pay for comfort while zipping through the city. Every now and then, the train which travelled at breakneck speed would slow to a halt to allow people to enter and others to get out. It really was an efficient mode of transportation, Anna marvelled. Maybe we could think of doing something like this with our available resources in our own time. Assuming of course, everything eventually goes back to normal.

"Must be nice to live in the future." Maui said as he looked out of the window. "I've seen a thousand years of mankind's inventions, but this, this has got to be one of the coolest."

"And most convenient." Melody said. She and Anna sat opposite Maui, who took up two seats all on his own. "How long till we reach Langley?"

"I don't know, two hours? It's the last stop anyway." Anna herself was looking out the window, deep in thought. Now that she had some time to think, she realised that the nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach wasn't just one of worry for her sister and her friends back on her world, but one of anger too.

She was surprised she hadn't figured it out sooner. Of course she was angry with herself! She was the one who had fallen for Eleanor's cunning scheme to bait the Warriors into coming to Denmark to stop her. She was the one who had made the decision that they would infiltrate the kingdom, and in separate teams no less. And she was the one who hadn't seen past Eleanor's plan to stall her with an offer which she had actually considered.

It had all been a set up, and Anna had fallen for it like a world class sucker. How could she not be angry with herself? Now because of her mistake, her sister and two others had been captured, and she was being eaten up on the inside with not knowing what had happened to them, especially Elsa.

What if Elsa's dead? Anna squeezed her eyes shut. Then it would be my fault, and I don't know how I'm going to live with myself. And that wasn't all either. Not only had she caused her sister and the Warriors to fall into the hands of the Empress, now she was defenceless to defend Arendelle from the invasion of the Imperial Horde and the Southern Isles.

Due to her incompetence as a queen, now her kingdom was going to be wiped off the face of the planet, just as she had feared and confided in her sister before they had split up. It wasn't that she doubted Kristoff would do a good job at pushing back, but the thought that all of it could have been avoided gnawed at her like a rat would do to cheese.

If only she had thought things through carefully and not decide to leave Arendelle just because she wanted to be in the heat of the adventure together with the Warriors. Her first priority had always been the kingdom, and yet she had just upped and left, leaving Kristoff to run Arendelle in her absence. What kind of ruler would do that?

"Penny for your thoughts?" Maui had by now noticed that she had been uncharacteristically quiet and brooding.

"No thanks, I still got a couple of hundred." Anna said humourlessly.

"You're pretty broody," Maui stated the obvious. "Which really isn't your strong suit. That's more up Elsa's alley. Wanna talk about it?"

"Not really, no." Usually she wasn't one to decline a conversation or a heart to heart, but this time she really just wanted to sulk and wallow in self pity.

"Maui, I think both Anna and I have a lot to think about." Melody said. She too had been quiet for the most part of their journey so far. "I was thinking we could use this long trip to sort things out."

"Alright, alright." Maui held up both hands. "Just trying to be helpful."

"Thanks Maui," Anna forced a smile. "But not this time."

"If you say so."

The rest of the trip was a silent one, apart from the occasional announcement over an amplification device in their carriage that signalled the stop of the train at various locations. That much time to think would have given any normal person clarity, but at the end of it Anna found herself even more unfocused, agitated and muddled.

What else did she expect? It wasn't like the guilt was just going to get up and leave just because she moped about her mistakes. She wondered if Melody was having any better luck than she did with her own problems, though she had a pretty good idea of what Melody was brooding about. But it wasn't her place to intrude.

"Langley East." A voice echoed throughout the room over the amplification system. "We have come to the end of the line. Thank you for riding with us and we hope to see you again."

"We're here." Melody was the first to break the silence and stood up.

"Finally." Anna mumbled and stretched her legs. The long duration of introspection and not moving about had sent her legs to sleep and now she was feeling the effect of pins and needles shooting through her cramped limbs.

The three Warriors hopped out of the train and following the directions on the paper as well as by referencing the paper map they had obtained from the coffeeshop, they found their way out of the subway station and to the district where the tech genius Hiro Hamada was supposedly living.

"I think it's this way." Anna pocketed the paper in her magenta overcoat. She couldn't make out the last of Sheriff Mars' scribbled words, so they would just have to improvise from this point.

They walked into the neighbourhood of separate houses, all two-storied and looking modern. Most of these houses had a driveway and a car parked out front. Did everyone have one of these cars in the future?

"Excuse me," Melody stopped a jogger. "Do you happen to know where Mr Hiro Hamada lives?"

The jogger removed a wire from his ear, looking perturbed that he had been interrupted and pointed in the general direction of west. "He lives over there, second house from the left."

"Thank you." Melody said, and they headed in that direction.

"You sure we can trust this Hamada guy?" Maui asked as they arrived outside the door of his house.

"I don't know, but the sheriff seemed to trust him." Anna pondered aloud. After all, if a detective as intelligent and seasoned as Sheriff Mars trusted this person, then shouldn't they?

"I suppose we could find out." Melody knocked on the door and they waited with bated breath.

A woman in her forties opened the door and peeked out. "Can I help you?" she asked apprehensively at the sight of the towering man accompanying two girls.

"Hi, we're here to see Mr Hiro Hamada?" Anna said. "But we don't have an appointment or anything."

The woman looked confused and amused at the same time, and stifled a laugh before opening the door to allow the three to enter the house. Then, she called out with a loud shrill voice that made Anna jump a little. "Hiro, you have visitors!"

The next sight shocked Anna, though at this point she was already numb to surprises and this one hadn't hit that hard. She was all ready to call it quits, throw her hands up in defeat and laugh bitterly about this whole situation. It all seemed like a bad joke, but it was confusing all the same.

The tech genius was a teenage boy erring on the short side, with spiky hair that draped across his ears and a fringe that covered his forehead. He was dressed in a blue hoodie, cargo shorts and sneakers, and he had a sloppy posture with the air of someone who just wanted to get back to whatever they were doing.

"Visitors?" he blinked as the woman disappeared into the kitchen.

"You're…Hiro Hamada?" Melody asked blankly. Apparently she too was just as stunned.

"Yeah." Hiro said mildly.

"I don't believe it," Maui cocked a signature eyebrow. "This kid is a tech genius?"

"Yeah, I get that a lot." Hiro said lazily, as if he didn't really bother about being insulted by a demigod. "So why are you here? I'm guessing it's something tech related otherwise I wouldn't be of much use."

"We need your help." Anna said in a low voice that sounded all too dramatic. This was not exactly the introduction she had been expecting, though she had learnt by now that things rarely went the way they were supposed to. "Is there somewhere more…private we could talk?"

"Sure," Hiro started up a flight of stairs and the Warriors took that as a hint to follow him. "Please step into my office." He opened a door for them and they filed into the room.

Some office. Anna glanced around at the untidy room. It was said that geniuses were often messy people with complete disregard for organization and order, and apparently whoever had said that was right.

Hiro's bedroom looked as if a tornado has blown through it and he hadn't bothered to clean up afterward. Tools of all shapes and sizes were strewn across the room, pieces of paper with writings and diagrams hastily scribbled across them pasted on the walls, and there were even some large chips on the walls like a weapon had been tested in the room.

"Sorry about the mess, you know, genius at work and all." Hiro sat down in a chair with tiny wheels at its base and leaned back hard in his seat. "So what can I do for you?"

Anna glanced at Melody, who gave her a look that told her "the floor's all yours".

How best to say this? Anna cleared her throat. "Well, it's actually a very long story."

"Make it quick, I'm not exactly a very patient guy." Hiro slurped on a can of soda.

"Right, okay, so long story short, we're from another world and we need to get back there." Anna held her breath. Surely there could have been a better way to phrase that.

"Okay now I need to hear the whole story." Hiro sounded eager for the first time. Apparently the idea of another world had piqued his interest.

Anna sighed. "I know this is gonna be hard to believe, but try to imagine for a few minutes that we aren't crazy. I'm the Queen of Arendelle," she hitched a thumb behind her back. "And this is Princess Melody of Denmark and Maui, Demigod of the Wind and Sea."

"And Hero of Men." Maui added.

"Okay…" Hiro didn't seem entirely fazed. In fact he looked even more intrigued. "Go on."

"Right, so the three of us and more of our friends were trying to stop an evil tyrant from conquering the entire continent. She'd amassed a huge army and had already invaded quite a few cities and kingdoms, and she was squatting on Melody's home turf." Anna explained.

"So we decided that we needed to stop the Empress right where she was, and we infiltrated my kingdom." Melody added. "But it was already under occupation."

"And she saw us coming too. She predicted it." Maui chimed in. "The Empress baited us all into her trap, and then she used her reality bending magic to send us through a black hole, and we ended up here in San Fransokyo."

"Wow." Hiro laughed. "I wasn't expecting visitors from another earth when I woke up this morning."

"Look kid, it's the truth." Anna said. "How old are you anyway? Fifteen?"

"Sixteen." He corrected her. "But not too young to be a genius." He leaned forward in his seat. "So you want me to…what? Build you guys a portal back to your world?"

"You actually believe us?" Maui himself looked amused. "She just told you we're from another world!"

"Believe it or not, I actually did some digging and experimenting a while back and I had a theory about this thing I call the multiverse." Hiro grinned.

"The multiverse?" Melody echoed.

"Yeah. Basically, it's a system that grows infinitely in a honeycomb type of structure." Hiro explained eagerly. "Think about it this way. Every time we're faced with a decision, we have two choices, A and B. Choice A is the one you picked which is the world you live in, while Choice B is something you could have picked but didn't. The multiverse takes Choice B, and creates a scenario where you picked Choice B instead of Choice A, thus creating a separate branch in reality.

"This reality splits off into a whole different world which has different consequences of your action. Sometimes the decision is a very insignificant thing, like choosing between eating candy or chocolates. But other times, it could literally change the course of history and reality." Hiro rattled off in one long breath, getting increasingly excited.

"But I could never truly confirm the existence of the multiverse, and so I abandoned my project to find a way to access all those other realities. That is, until you showed up today."

"Great!" All that had pretty much flown over Anna's head, and she wondered if the same applied to Melody and Maui. The little she had understood she still found hard to believe, though that shouldn't have been the case since she lived in a world of magic and her own sister was a sorceress.

"So what you're saying is," Melody said, and it was apparent that she had caught most of it. "There's an infinite number of ourselves somewhere out there?"

"Variations of yourself." Hiro corrected her. "They could all be very different, or the difference could be almost undetectable in some cases."

"I don't really get it." Maui scratched his bald head. "This whole thing is pretty confusing."

"Oh and another thing," Anna said. "We think this might be a distant future or something. Where we come from, there's no trains, phones or cars. Or all these fancy gadgets." She motioned to the items lining his bedroom.

"A different time too?" Hiro leaned forward even more. "You mean a time where people rode on horses and stuff? Soldiers fought with…what…flintlock muskets?"

"Yeah, sounds about right." Melody said. "The year now is twenty twenty?"

"That's right." Hiro nodded. "You come from a time where monarchies still rule, and the common weapon was the flintlock musket. Let me guess, does a conqueror known by the name of Bonaparte exist in your time?"

Anna blinked. "I think so? He probably lived a few decades before our time. I can't be sure." Whoever that was, he was probably as crazed and power hungry as Eleanor Tal Yin.

"Hmmn," Hiro looked intrigued, the gears in his mind undoubtedly turning. "So you're from a different time, and a different world."

"Yeah, we figured that the Empress wanted to send us as far away as possible to prevent us from meddling with her plans." Maui said.

"Alright," Hiro began rummaging through his cluttered desk. "Then it's time to revive the old project."

"So you're going to help us?" Anna felt her spirits lift slightly.

"Of course!" Hiro said eagerly. "A chance to finally access another world, who wouldn't want to do that? I never knew whether I was right, but now I know I am." He pulled out a few stacks of paper from an indistinguishable pile. "Aha!" he exclaimed dramatically with the enthusiasm of a stage actor playing someone who had just found the ultimate secret to life. "Let's get to work."

Author's Commentary:

A crossover between the Frozenverse and Big Hero 6, and the introduction of infinite alternate realities which could possibly come into play during sequels. The possibilities are endless, and I'm genuinely excited about what the sequels that are going to come after this book!

Also, another little reference hidden in the chapter. I am a huge admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte and have made a hobby of studying his war strategies and how he conquered a huge part of Europe during the 1800s. Very very interesting stuff, which is where I took inspiration for writing the elements of war in this story, as you will see at the very end of the story.

Side note, I'm currently about 3 quarters way through the sequel to this story. Been writing a lot less these days, since I have university assignments and projects to deal with. But hopefully I'll be able to keep writing regularly, because I have a few more ideas for sequels down the line.