Part Two
“Don’t shoot her, Snake. We don’t want her to go and
change faces on us.”
Cara heard the voice of an elderly man speak directly
behind the gun-toting MacReady lookalike, who she figured to be the one named
“Snake” from the way he obliged to the command. Snake then stood aside to allow
Cara to see the elderly man who just spared her life. He was a balding
gentleman in a gray suit and tie.
“Thanks,” Cara told him. “Mister…?”
“I am the Superintendent,” he introduced himself.
Cara frowned at his name/title. “Of what?”
“Of the multiverse,” the Superintendent clarified.
“Hmph!” Cara scoffed. “I thought that was my job.”
“Your job is more as an enforcer, Gladiator,” the
Superintendent elaborated, “which is precisely the reason why we need your help
in dealing with the Dalek threat that this
New York dimension has been facing.”
“I’m sorry, but how
is it that you know so much about me and the multiverse?”
“Let’s just say I’ve had a few journeys through it myself
– the hard way. In those journeys, I learned of a machine that the Daleks are
building that will open a gateway into the Void.”
Cara inquisitively frowned again. “The Void?”
The Superintendent nodded in affirmation. “A secret
dimension where people and objects from the universe are erased due to being
mistakes. The Daleks have deemed this dimension of New York ‘imperfect’ and so
they will discard it into the Void.”
This information surprised Cara. “How am I only just now
hearing about this so-called ‘Void’?”
“I figured you already had before meeting me,” the
Superintendent stated.
“I mean, yeah, I’ve been to a lot of places in the
infinite D.C. over the last few thousand years, but never have I visited or
even seen the Void.” Her skepticism over this “Superintendent” character
heightened as she then asked him, “Why would you figure I already knew
about the Void?”
“Aren’t you with Gumball and Darwin Watterson?” he asked
her.
Now her skepticism was at an
all-time high. “Seriously, who are
you?!”
--------------------
Anais began to feel relentless
as she wandered throughout the endless interior of Cara’s TARDIS. As much as it
intrigued her to explore the alien spacecraft, she couldn’t help but feel
obligated to go out and help Cara. Yes, she was scared – terrified, more like
it – but Cara was kind enough to bring her along on the interdimensional
journeys she shared with her big brothers. The least she could’ve done was help
her.
In wandering the corridors, she happened upon what she
assumed to be the entertainment room, which was where Gumball and Darwin were
at the time. She noticed them watching themselves on the flat screen television
set mounted on the wall. “Are these home movies?” she asked them.
Darwin giggled at her observation. “That’s what we thought at first, until we realized
there was no possible way Cara could have home movies of us.”
“Then what is…this?” Anais indicated the footage of Gumball
badly skateboarding.
Gumball could hardly contain his excitement when he told
her, “We have our own show! And I’m
named after it! It’s on some weird channel called HBO Max – I guess it’s one of
those multiverse networks or something.”
“We’ve been watching stuff we’ve never done or haven’t
done yet,” Darwin said. “It’s like a window into our future!”
“O…kay?” Anais dubiously uttered. “Wouldn’t that be a
little…unethical?”
“The only ‘unethical’ thing about this is that we’re not being paid to watch
ourselves,” Gumball countered.
Anais groaned. “Whatever. I think we should better our
time by going out there and helping Cara.”
“But she told us to stay here in the TARDIS,” Darwin reiterated.
“And do what? Watch TV and eat junk food while she risks
her life?” Anais argued. “What if she doesn’t
come back? We could end up being stuck here in this ship and in a parallel
world for the rest of our lives!”
“Anais, there’s a reason she’s called ‘The Gladiator’,”
Gumball indicated. “She’s dealt with dangerous situations like this all the
time.”
“In any of those scenarios, has she dealt with it alone?” Anais inquired.
Gumball hesitated on his reply. “Well…uh…actually…she’s
had a little help.”
“So she’s always
had you guys around to back her up?” Anais followed.
“Well, yeah,” Darwin answered. “We’ve always been there
for Miss Cara.”
“Then what makes this
situation any different?” Anais concluded.
“Because it’s the Daleks, Anais,” Gumball said. “The last
time we went up against them, we had a
lot of help. Remember? I saved a Powerpuff Girl.”
“No, you didn’t,” Darwin denied.
“That’s not
what I heard,” Anais also negated.
“My point is…” Gumball gritted his teeth in frustration
before he calmly reasoned with his little sister, “We can’t risk our safety if
it means putting you out on the
frontlines.”
Anais folded her arms in discontent. “Fine. I guess all
that talk about you guys saving countless worlds from several interdimensional
threats was all a big joke, wasn’t it? I might as well have just stayed home,
if this is what it’s really like.”
Darwin and Gumball watched her walk out of the
entertainment room in a huff, leaving the boys wallowing in a sea of guilt…but
not without a sense of realization.
“She just totally guilt-tripped us, didn’t she?” Darwin
deduced.
“Mom has taught her well,” Gumball
sulked.
----------------------
The Watterson children
wandered the desolate streets of the alternate New York. Not only were the
streets desolate, they were filthy and reeked of hot garbage that was littered
all around. “This was more than just Daleks,” Anais observed. “This was
humanity surrendering itself to a state of decay.”
“Yeah, that tends to happen after an alien invasion,”
Gumball cynically indicated.
It was then that Darwin pointed with one flipper and
alerted, “Look over there.”
Following his flipper, Gumball and Anais spotted the site
of a massive plane crash. Bits of wreckage were scattered over the street
corner. Judging from the flames that still consumed them, the crash occurred
recently.
“This has to be the plane that the President was in,”
Anais surmised.
“So…where’s the President?” Gumball asked.
Before anyone could take a guess, they suddenly heard the
nearest manhole cover popping open. A vagrant man crawled out of it, scaring
the living daylights out of the Watterson children. They ran in one direction,
only to turn back when groups of other vagrant men stormed their way, some
armed with clubs that rapped against walls and other objects.
“We’re surrounded!” Darwin cried.
Anais saw only one way out of their predicament: a nearby
abandoned establishment by the name of “Chock full o’ Nuts.” “Quick! In here!”
she directed her older brothers, running inside along with them.
They watched as the vagrants passed through, not paying
any mind to them or the place in which they hid. Nonetheless, the circumstance
still left Gumball shaken. “What the what was that all about?!” he asked.
“Maybe you guys were right,” Anais huffed. “Maybe we should have stayed in the TARDIS. This
is way too dangerous.”
“DID YOU SAY ‘TARDIS’?”
Gumball, Darwin, and Anais jolted at the high-pitched,
stilted, robotic voice that spoke from within Chock full o’ Nuts. Darwin and
Gumball recognized its register all too well, chills shooting down their
spines. They all slowly turned to face a lone figure that lurked in the
shadows.
A Dalek!
The Watterson children were prepared to scream and run
away again, until they heard the Dalek say, “DON’T BE AFRAID. I WON’T HURT
YOU.”
“Don’t believe it!” Gumball warned his siblings. “It’s
just tricking us, so that it can bait Cara!”
“OS…WIN…” the Dalek sputtered.
“Ya see?!” Gumball exclaimed. “It’s already declaring
victory! It said, ‘Us win!’”
“OS…WIN…” the Dalek sputtered again.
Anais raised a curious eyebrow, listening closely with
her long pink rabbit ears. “Sounds like it’s saying, ‘Oswin’,” she discerned.
No comments:
Post a Comment