SFSTORY: HMS Golden Lance #15 - How Val Got Her Brain Back

The cast of characters...

Time Agent 357 - Born of a race of near-immortal beings who tend to live for hundreds of thousands of years until they die of boredom or stupidity, 357 is actually a genetic throwback who is only expected to live a mere thousand years or so. His only goal in life is to retire.

Omegas - A very nearly all-powerful, almost omnipotent being of unknown origin, Omegas has served the forces of Good, Evil, and (mostly) himself. This god-like alien, or alien-like god, could very well set himself up as supreme ruler of all of Creation, if only he could avoid getting himself into stupid situations that result in his powers being drained.

Doctor Bing Von Spleen - The Galaxy's foremost Spamological Engineer (because he personally killed the other threemost), Spleen invented the Automatic Beet Peeler and Sub-Atomic Re-Integrator (or ABPSAR). Doctor Spleen was once an professor at a respected university, where he enjoyed sex, beer, recreational drugs, and having a good time irresponsibly, proving that he was actually a college student trapped in a professor's body.

Ralph - Known as the Giant Space Weasel of Anthrax V, Ralph is actually a friendly, easy-going weaseloid from Leibowitz IV and an accomplished ukulele player in his own right. He would much rather return to his home in Netherspace and enjoy the company of his 500 weaseloid wives, but realizes that somebody has to be the "everyman" character that the reader can relate to.

Diana Dark - This sweet, innocent girl from Chicago (or, at least, as sweet and innocent as any girl from Chicago can be) was transported into SFSTORY by an explosion caused by the interaction of Cheez-Whiz and beer, though the police have attributed her disappearance to a bizarre Cruisinart accident. Partner to Time Agent 386.

Time Agent 386 - Nephew to Time Agent 357 and heir to his Time Agent legacy if and when 357 ever successfully retires, 386 is extremely hard to kill but not immortal, unlike most of the rest of their race which can be killed easily by violence but will live almost forever otherwise. 386 is currently missing in action.

HMS Golden Lance - Time Agent 357's ship, the HMS Golden Lance, was designed and built by Doctor Spleen to replace an earlier ship by the same name, also designed and built by Doctor Spleen. It is part timeship, part interdimensional cruiser, part warship, and part retirement home for 357. It is controlled by the VAL 9000 computer, or Val as her friends call her.

The story so far...

Time Agent 357 and Omegas were trapped inside inside of a temporal, dimensional, and spacial anomaly until rescued by Doctor Bing Von Spleen. Joined by Ralph and Diana Dark, they are attempting to find Time Agent 386 and recover Doctor Spleen's new and experimental ABPSARII (or ABPSAR Mark II) which has been stolen by renegade Time Agent Greez Hyperiok. This attempt has been hindered by an accident which has switched our heroes' minds and bodies around...

Although it is generally thought that synthetic intelligences such as the VAL 9000 computer could not experience real emotions, or at least "real" emotions in the way that organic beings would define them, the aforementioned VAL 9000 computer would argue that. She would argue that quite vehemently. At present, she considered herself both the happiest and saddest being in the multiverse.

Happiest, because her "mind," or rather her programming and data core, had just been returned to her "body," or rather the HMS Golden Lance, just as Doctor Bing Von Spleen's mind and body had been reunited.

Saddest, because the particular technique they had used to do so was not going to work with Time Agent 357, her long-time partner, Diana Dark, her new best friend, Ralph, whom everyone loved, and Omegas, whom VAL decided if she could not say anything nice about, she should not say anything at all.

But, she decided as she re-arranged and summarized her thoughts and memories in preperation for writing a backup copy to the CD burner, she was getting ahead of herself.

The HMS Golden Lance had been bouncing from alterverse to alternate universe to alternative universe to altiverse, looking and searching and prying into odd corners of the cosmos. They had found many varied and wonderful things. Where do lost socks go? This dimension over here. Lost ink pens? That reality over there. The secret of life itself? Second universe to the right.

Some of the things they had found were somewhat less than profound. Worlds where people spoke only in palindromes? Cute, but it but tends to give one a headache. A galaxy where time runs backwards? Simply confusing. Entire worlds covered in chocolate? Fascinating, and fattening, but hardly profound.

And, as a minor sidepoint, in one particular universe, an old story repeated itself. The Evil Galactic Overlord had finally pushed his people over the edge and they had revolted, as they always eventually will. They fought long and hard, drove off the Overlord's soldiers, battered down his defenses, and trapped him in his tower. He had then, as he had always threatened to do, called down his Ultimate Weapon, a giant meteor which would destroy the entire planet.

And the HMS Golden Lance, hopping from alterverse to alterverse, just happened to materialize in its path and her automatic systems blew it to pieces without the crew so much as lifting a finger, and one of the aforementioned pieces just happened to land on top of the Overlord, smashing him to a bloody pulp.

The crew of the HMS Golden Lance were, of course, hailed as heroes. Time Agent 357 had tried, of course, to explain that it was just an accident, but nobody paid him any mind, deciding that he was simply being modest. Of the several thousand children born approximately nine months later, many were named 357, Spleen, Ralph, Val, and Diana to honor the heroes. One was even named Omegas, though he would turn out to be the black sheep of the family and would eventually become an automotive insurance salesman.

It just so happened that this particular Evil Galactic Overlord had a particularly cruel method of torture, in which he would download the minds of his victims into computers with only 32MB of RAM (which was exactly what the Operating System specs said it required), after which he would attempt to burn a CD, rip a Metalica track, and download kitty porn all at the same time. The virtual memory page swapping alone would drive his poor victims insane in a matter of hours.

The recently freed beings, though not particularly human in appearance and who had in fact evolved from the local equivalent of three-toed sloths, nonetheless had brain functions remarkably similar to those of Earth-born humans, which Omegas found amusing and commented on at great length. It was a simple matter of throwing together a file transfer protocol and, after an all-night backup session involving roughly 540 floppy disks, restore the mind of Doctor Bing Von Spleen to his own body and the VAL 9000 to her shipboard mainframe.

The equipment unfortunately would not work with Diana Dark's mind, trapped in the body of Time Agent 357, or vice versa. The technicians didn't even want to get near Omegas and Ralph, Omegas resembling the local God of Chaos in their religion and Ralph resembling one of the native predators. No one was quite sure whether the locals meant the bodies that Omegas and Ralph were in now or their original bodies.

The HMS Golden Lance had resumed it's random walk through realities, Doctor Spleen had settled down for a nap, and the VAL 9000 computer, backup completed, was quietly celebrating her good fortune.

=I got my brain back! I got my brain back! I got my brain back!= came the sing-song nasal voice over the ship's internal speakers.

"So much for 'quietly,'" muttered 357 as he finished work on one of the many control panels in the control room.

"Let her have her fun," answered Diana as she ran a scanning device, which coincidentally resembled a giant eggbeater, over said control panel. "Looks like the interlinks are coming online. The ship is now officially back to 100% capability."

357 concurred, or rather would have concurred had he known had to spell it, so instead he simply agreed. They watched the monitors for a while as the ship continued bouncing through the cosmos. Suddenly, 357 saw something. "Wait! Back up one!"

Diana pounced on the controls and brought the Golden Lance back to the alterverse they had passed through seconds before. "What is it?"

"A news story," answered 357. "Says here that one Time Agent 357 just saved Batelguinn station from some kind of energy-eating monster."

"So?" prompted Diana, releasing the 'hold' button and allowing the ship to continue its random walk.

"Well, I've never been to Batelguinn. Wouldn't know how to get to Batelguinn. I don't think that I ever will go to Batelguinn."

"Must have been somebody else," mused Diana. "You know, when I first saw you, I mistook you for an older version of..."

"Time Agent 386!" they finished together.

"My nephew must still be out there, somewhere," said 357. "If I read the space-time flow of this universe correctly, he was here fifty years after he left you back on that planet, so he must be okay now."

"Um, how can now be now and also be years later. Isn't now now?"

"No, now is then, but sometimes then is now."

"I think you're making that up just to confuse me."

"Now why would I do that?"

Diana briefly saw the world briefly go dark around her, almost as if the body she was in (which was 357's) had faded out of existance and then just as quickly returned. Beside her, 357 felt the body he was in (which was Diana's) half fall out of its chair, almost as if his intellect had faded out of existance and then just as quickly returned. They both shook their heads and looked at each other.

"That's starting to worry me," said Diana.

"Me, too," agreed 357. He pointed to the monitor, which was again showing their progression through the multiverse. "I guess we could hop back to the alterverse where that happened and see if it does it again, but I'd rather not revisit alterverses too often."

"Agreed. We'll have to find some other way of finding out what is going on."

"Say, have you heard from Ralph and Omegas lately?" asked 357.

"No. And that worries me, too," Diana admitted. "I'm beginning to feel like we're a couple of parents and they're our children. When they get quiet, I know they're up to something."

"Let's go find out..."

Meanwhile, back in maintenance bay 42, Omegas was putting the finishing touches on a device of some kind. Or, rather, Ralph was doing so while Omegas supervised.

"I don't know about this, Omegas," Ralph began. "I really don't think I should be doing this for you."

"Well, I wouldn't ask you to if I was in my own body," Omegas answered. "But if I was in my own body, I wouldn't have to build this thing. But I need your hands. Or rather, my hands."

Ralph had to admit that he had problems manipulating equipment with his weaseloid paws even after working them for all of his life, whereas Omegas has only had a few days to get to used to them.

Omegas checked the device. "Okay, we've cross-wired the Temporal Teleporter Terminal with the Hypertechnical Orange Thingy and tied it into the ABPSARI drive. This in turn is fed through the neural scanners of the AutoQuack v1.6 in the medical bay. In short, we've got everything arranged just perfectly to yank our minds out of the bodies they've been trapped in and put them back where they belong."

"And this will work?" asked Ralph with just a hint of skepticism.

"Of course," Omegas assured him.

"And it's safe?" asked Ralph almost as if he didn't believe Omegas.

"I would almost think that you didn't believe me. Of course it's safe." Omegas smiled his most sincere smile, which wouldn't have looked all that sincere even if it had been coming out of his own mouth and not Ralph's.

"Then why are we doing this down here without telling 357?" Ralph really wanted to know.

"Well," Omegas admitted, "there's maybe perhaps kinda sorta in a way just the teeniest tiniest little chance that activating the device will cause the ship to explode, or will permanently scramble our minds and bodies, or will pull our minds and bodies apart and leave them like that, or will transport us to faraway universes with no chance of ever getting back to the ship..."

Just then 357 and Diana walked in. "Needlewarp!" 357 cursed when he saw the device. "What do you think you're doing? You've cross-wired the Temporal Teleporter Terminal with the Hypertechnical Orange Thingy and tied it into the ABPSARI drive. I suppose you've fed this through the neural scanners of the AutoQuack v1.6 in the medical bay."

"How can you tell that just by glancing at that pile of components?" asked Diana with more than a touch of admiration.

"I drew the schematics the other day, back before I decided there was too big a risk that activating the device will cause the ship to explode, or will permanently scramble our minds and bodies, or will pull our minds and bodies apart and leave them like that, or will transport us to faraway universes with no chance of ever getting back to the ship..."

Omegas hung his head. "Well, you caught me. I'll just turn off the power and..."

"Oh no you don't," snapped 357 as he slapped at the paw Omegas was extending towards the control. 357 quickly located the button marked "Power Off" and pressed it.

And was quite surprised when the device activated and began some kind of power buildup.

"I thought you had me wire that up funny," said Ralph.

357 was livid. "Why you sneaky, no good..."

"I suggest you grab the person you want to switch bodies with," said Omegas as he hugged Ralph's leg. "Unless, of course, you want to get your mind transferred into the nearest chair or something."

357 and Diana embraced each other just as the device activated.

The resulting explosion woke Doctor Bing Von Spleen from his nap and startled the VAL 9000 computer out of her 8,192nd chorus of her new favorite song, "I Got My Brain Back."

"What flying flarg was that?" asked Spleen, crotchety as ever.

=Unknown,= answered VAL. =Wait, automatic systems are putting out a fire in maintenance bay 42. There was some kind of explosion. I'm also getting strange readings from the Hypertechnical Orange Thingy and other equipment around the ship.=

"Keep an eye on the HOT," Spleen ordered. "If that goes, we're going to be stuck here for a while. Where is here, by the way?"

=Nowhere in particular. We're still bouncing from universe to universe on our random walk. Whatever the explosion was, it hasn't affected the drive systems enough to strand us somewhere. Still no idea what caused the explosion.=

"Well, get ahold of 357 and tell him to take care of it, whatever 'it' happens to be."

=Oh, no. Doctor, I can't locate 357 onboard. I can't locate any organic life except for you. We've lost them!=

Have they lost them?
Will they find them?
Will they come home when they get hungry enough just like my mother always said that I would do everytime I ran away from home?

To find out, tune in next time for another copyright-infringing episode of... SFSTORY! In ((((stereo)))) where available.

Copyright 2006 by Troy H. Cheek. Free to read, but please reprint only with permission.