Thanks to impressive growth in my groinal region and a need to pay alimony in large amounts, I've decided to do promotional advertising. Using my cult following and good name to get people to buy useless shit I've never even heard of before, but will pretend to use, for money. Yes that's right I'm selling out. It was bound to come to this as soon as I had sex with those twins I discovered on Tinder. Perhaps I shouldn't have uploaded that video of our exploits onto social media. I couldn't resist though. That was my first ever good threesome with two ladies. I've done plenty of the bad ones. You know the ones with two other men. I've had more than my fair share of those I can tell you. They really aren't as good in my opinion. You know it's a bad threesome when you scream in agony every time you shit for the next two weeks. The secret to this promotional advertising con, is to pretend like you aren't advertising a product that your being paid half a million to lie about. Many thanks to the Kardashian's and a host of other social media celebrities for pioneering this fraud. So to that end let me tell you all about SPUNDLEKUNTZ. Some of you may have heard of them. I know I hadn't until just after I cashed the check. Let me tell you SPUNDLEKUNTZ is the place to go for all you remediation , commutation and spondulation requisites. Whenever you feel the need to remediate, commutate or even, dare I say, spondulate, SPUNDLEKUNTZ should be your first port of call. It's brilliant. The staff are so helpful and they'll talk you through all you need to do to transfer a lot of your money into their bank account. Before they disappear with all that money. Did I tell you it cures cancer and even moderate to severe death? Well it does. It also makes period pains a thing of the past, as long as you're a man. There's probably a female version they'll slowly trundle out in forty or fifty years after numerous deaths and serious injuries. So get online now and order your requisites for that stuff nobody has heard about before. If you use the promotional code OHFUCKCONNEDAGAIN, you'll get zero discount plus they promise not to pin you down and spit in your mouth. You can't say fairer than that.
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It would take years to explore this vast city. They'd decided to spend a few days going over some of the highlights. By they it meant everyone except Jake. He had to stay with Norbert. Although he was allowed to stray a bit. As long as he checked back every hour or so. Made sure the nitrous oxide was still working. If not he had to press the blue button to deliver some more. Every now and then he spotted people off in the distance having fun. He assumed it was fun. It had to be more fun than looking after a laughing genius. Son of a bitch. Jake kicked at the ground. He'd had a few short strolls. Half an hour in one direction then coming back to his origin. he couldn't really stray down many of the broad thoroughfares. In case he got lost. Wait. What about Hermes?
"Hey buddy, how ya doin?" He asked his internal AI guardian.
"I'm busy." Hermes snapped.
So the conciliatory tone had failed yet again.
"Busy doing what?" Jake persisted.
"Morag is beaming me video of the building she, Poppy and Sade are exploring. It's one of the major research facilities, or it was. They're hoping to pick up as much information as they can. Knowing what technology the People had will give us some idea of what they have now. They didn't use electricity because their energy came from genetically engineered plants. Uses quantum effects so it's 98% efficient. You don't need superconductors to transfer large amounts of energy either. Some this stuff is awesome. You've got to see it to believe it."
Most of the first bit was beyond him, but awesome sounded good.
"Is there any way you could show me what they're looking at?"
"Yeah. All I'd have to do is completely rewire your brain and modify you visual nerve systems and eye balls."
"How long would that take?"
"I was being sarcastic you idiot."
"Yeah I know. I was being annoying you dick."
Well that had used up a bit of time. They'd already spent days here. Time passed a lot slower this side of the barrier they'd entered through though. So how long had they really been here? It might be a question Norbert could answer. Morag and Poppy had been pretty vague. Advisedly so. he was a complete pain a lot of the time. Being aware of that didn't make it better. In fact, if he were on the receiving end of himself he'd have found him really annoying. The idiot savant with access to shit that made him appear fantastic, for brief periods. He shouldn't let what Pip said get to him though. They might not like him, but they'd accepted him. Pengelly and Fetu were okay about his general uselessness and ineptitude. They got his basic deus ex machina thing. Shit happened, mainly due to him being present, then some transformation came over him or Hermes activated abilities or whatever. The system worked. It had major flaws, but in a dysfunctional way it achieved results that were often alright. Okay even. Maybe not the best thing that could have happened. Things could have been worse though.
He took a bit of guilty pleasure when he saw the holographic sun going down towards the artificial horizon. people would have to head back. He'd have liked to have had a look though. maybe pressed some buttons. It had been a while since he'd pressed a button that didn't just operate the shower. He had half an hour before he needed to check on Norbert. What could he do to fill the time? That was it. He'd strolled in all three directions along these roads, he hadn't taken a look at what was on the other side of the auditorium though. Nobody had gone in that direction. He'd be the first hand to set foot there in millennia. Best keep that to himself though. If Scarlet found out he'd been there before her, without permission, she might get angry.
Jake climbed the steps and walked round the building on the other side was a view of the sea as seen way back then. There were a few lagoons and some islands that probably didn't exist here. It was hard to see them bothering to build those as well. There was another one of those sphinx things with the lion head instead of the tiny human pea on a drum thing on his earth. Which if memory served him right wasn't actually a true sphinx. That had a lions body, a woman's head and wings. Maybe the original one did have those things before that head was carved out of it. Who knew. When you'd seen one sphinx like thing you'd seen them all. He could be the first one to lay hands on it since it was built though. Long before the one on earth as well. Now if he ran there and back, he'd have plenty of time to drug Norbert back into happiness.
He started out steadily. It was a bit further away than it looked. He sped up sprinting the last hundred yards. Right between the legs and slap that tablet on the front of it and then he'd have to head straight back. Jake jumped and shoved at the plaque with his foot. He'd do a lightning turn, that nobody would see. His foot slipped as the piece of rock gave way beneath it. Then he fell. What an idiot. he was glad no one was there to see his stunt now. Boy he was falling a long way. Maybe the gravity was different. Or perhaps that big square of light getting rapidly smaller was a hole he'd fallen into. The force of his impact on the sand pretty much confirmed his second hypothesis. He lay there winded. Staring at the light about fifty feet above him. For sand it was quite soft in a hard way. When he'd got his wind back he stood up.
Right. There were two possibilities here. Either they'd come back and find him missing then send out a search party. Or he'd starve to death down here. He was hoping that would be the one. Scarlet was going to go fucking mental. Especially when she found Norbert kicking off inside his cocoon. This was not good whichever way you looked at it. All was not lost. He could definitely get this back. Surely there was some lie he could make up that would explain him not doing as he'd been told. A mysterious figure in the distance, had lured him into this trap.?Hermes was incommunicado. Which was a blessing. That artificial prick would drop him in it first chance he'd got. Right he was busy collecting data.
It was dark down here. Probably something to do with the only light being that from the opening above. It was moving across the floor and getting dimmer. He still had the headlamp thing. The one with the long life batteries that would still be shining long after he was dead. He pulled it from his pocket. Turning it on as he strapped it to his head. It didn't help a lot. It was pretty powerful, yet the light didn't reach any of the walls. This was either a big cavern or one of those bigger on the inside things. Unless he'd been miniaturized during his descent. If he ever got out of here he might ask someone about that. Having searched in vain for the walls, he moved down to his immediate surroundings. There were footprints. Not his. He'd only moved to stay within the light from the trapdoor he'd fallen through. It was a bloody stupid entrance. That first step could kill you. Although to be fair, shoving off it with his foot and driving himself back four meters might have been a bad idea. he'd had a few in his time. Several quite recently. Three or four in the last fifteen minutes.
So somebody had left footprints down here. They could have been here a very long time. They might be from the last person to fall through that hole and starve to death. Following them was his only option right now. Or should he stay put and hope they searched for him. No she'd literally beat the crap out of him. Norbert would be regaining his faculties shortly. He'd ask some frigging stupid question. The when no one answered he'd lose his shit. That didn't automatically follow. The nerd might be quite happy to wait for the return of the others. Hurrying up might be in order here. He'd already set off after those tracks. His subconscious making up his mind for him. Jake broke into a trot his own footprints obliterating those of the one who'd gone before. Scarlet would not like that in the least. he was destroying vital context or some other archaeological peeve.
At first he thought he was imagining it. A dull glow of light up ahead. It grew brighter though as he jogged along. Soon he was sure he could make out the dull outline of a two story building. The light was emanating from a doorway. Throwing caution to the wind he entered. Burning the retina's of a man who was standing behind a console inside and shielding his eyes. Jake turned off the lamp. That guy was familiar. A fair bit older than the last time he'd seen him. No mistaking the build or the low sloping forehead. he was blinking the vision back into his eyes.
"Kulathorn?" Jake exclaimed. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you. Who do you think put that welcome message up on the arch, you moron?"
"Why are you all the way down here?"
"Because in a sense I'm already up there."
"Oh you mean Norbert. Something about crossing time streams."
"If you don't mind me saying, you're not what I expected of the legendary Wanderer. You're shorter than I imagined and much stupider."
"Yeah. I get that a lot. Stupid question number one. If you stayed on earth and didn't enter the well of souls, how can you be up there?"
"I'm a scientific genius. I figured out a way. I'm what you might call an artificial male version of Daisy. It doesn't work as well as the original. That's why it's taken this long for you to get the other me together with Shazia's current incarnation."
"Oh. It was Shazia you had the hots for. How did that work out?"
"Not well. Otherwise I'd be with her discussing new theorems and hypotheses and not here talking to an idiot. That Shazia is long gone. Although still here. The splitting into infinite incarnations scattered across an infinite number of realities tends to bugger things up. She was here though. Only when she was, her name was Kassia. It was her that built this little hide away."
"I'm sure the others would be delighted to meet you. I could bring them down if you tell me the way out. You and Daisy can talk about old times. We can leave Norbert up there. I know Scarlet would love to meet you."
"Sit down." Kulathorn ordered gruffly. "Although I am Kulathorn I've changed quite a bit since then. I'm a bloody demigod like the Matriarch, Angelique and Raven. Now I've got to get as much important knowledge into your tiny cranium as I can in a very short period. I'm going to have to stick myself behind one of those doors in your memory palace."
"Is that going to hurt?"
"I don't care if it does. It won't kill you or do any permanent harm though. That's all that matters."
Jake finally took a seat. Filled with resignation rather than acceptance.
"At least you didn't lie to me. So what's the drill?"
"I'm going to tell you what you need to do to save the People. There is one minor complication though."
"What would that be?" Jake asked suspiciously.
"You won't remember it until much later. You'll recall this bit, but after that your memory will be blank. What I'm doing is breaking a lot of rules here. So if anyone, and I mean anyone, asks. You haven't seen me. This didn't happen and I will deny all knowledge. Got it?"
The next thing Jake knew he was standing in front of that sphinx. Norbert's medication was half an hour overdue. He spun round and started running as fast as he could, back towards the auditorium. Which it had to be said was a lot further away than it had seemed when he had half an hour to go there and back. He'd barely reached half way before his lungs were burning. Having near perfect genes and a permanently healthy body didn't make him immune to exhaustion. With Hermes busy doing crap with Morag he had no option but to keep going under his own steam. His muscles were burning. He could taste the blood in his mouth and then he developed a stitch. Jake's pace had slowed greatly by the time he stumbled up those steps. Which now seemed incredibly high. Around the building he staggered. The coffin holding the Nerd was still closed.
"Hello! Hello! Is there anybody there? It's been a long time now. I'm beginning to get very worried that something has happened. If there is anybody who isn't intent on harming me could you please let me know. If you are intent on harming me, please can you make it quick and if it wouldn't be too much trouble, tell Poppy I love her and was thinking about her when I died. I'm opening the door now."
The lid had eased open a crack as Jake got within range. He had neither the inclination nor the breath to let Norbert know all was well. Besides which the geek might inform on him. He threw himself across the lid of the container, slamming it shut. Then hammered his fist on the blue button three or for times. As he lay slumped and gasping over Norbert's safe space. The others got back. It was almost dark then. It wasn't his vision fading as he slipped into unconsciousness.
"What the hell is the matter with you?" Scarlet demanded.
"I got bored, so I decided to see how long I could hold my breath without passing out. Ten minutes if anyone's interested. Muscles quivering with fatigue he pushed himself upright and tried to look as if he wasn't about to drop. A few paces away from the nerd he was halted by Poppy's exclamation.
"What the hell's happened to Norbert? He's unconscious. Jake, what did you do?"
He bent over holding his thighs and drawing in as much air as he could handle.
"He was fine last time I looked. Are you sure he's not just sleeping?"
"Yes I am. His REM activity is far too low for sleep. That's almost a coma. What did you do?"
A few more puffs and he was able to raise his hand to punctuate his words.
"I might, and this isn't certain, but I might have hit that blue button more than once last time. I might, again it's a might, I might have done four. No more than that."
"You idiot. You could have killed him."
"Well I didn't and that's handy to know for future reference. I've got a bone to pick with this particular incarnation."