Enarr
Half Pint
Chapatrap
Tlaloc
Festive
Mixtape Ghost N
Morden Man
Simple Unicycle
Eviledd1984
Plank Sinatra
Reality 000001
“The Maw”
Philbert J. Parnell squared his glasses and looked over the edge of the mesa once more. The pitch black of the Maw gaped below the rocky surface of the planet Scylla. Down at the bottom of the forty mile deep chasm lay the Madn N. Zondar Memorial Learning & Rehabilitation Center. No learning or actual rehabilitation took place at the bottom of the Maw. In Scylla’s native language, words often have the opposite meaning of their true purpose. It’s why Remul Sewage Water was the name of the best selling soda on the planet, and Healthy Water was the finest toilet declogger this side of the galaxy. It was also why the Zondar was not a place for growth and change, but instead of beatings and confinements.
The worst of the worst were housed in the facility. It wasn’t a planetary or even an intergalactic prison. No, the Zondar was the first and only interdimensional supermax prison in the known multiverse. It was where people like Space Hitler, Time-Traveling Manson, and the woman who invented checked baggage fees for flights were all imprisoned. And Parnell was heading straight into the madhouse.
Parnell felt a rumble beneath his expensive wingtips. He peered over the side of the balcony once more and saw a distant light in the dark below that was rapidly becoming brighter and larger. A shuttle roared out of the Maw and circled the mesa. Parnell had to hold on to his hat to prevent it from blowing away as the shuttle landed in front of him. A large insectoid alien dressed in body armor and wearing a visored riot helmet scuttled out of the shuttle and eyeballed Parnell. He noticed a score of tally marks drawn in white paint on the alien’s body armor.
“Assume scanning position,” said the guard.
Parnell held his hands above his head as the guard pulled a metallic ball from his belt. The orb floated away from the guard and rapidly flew around Parnell. He could feel a warm fuzziness in the hollow of his throat. Years later, when he was diagnosed with throat cancer, Parnell would look back at this moment in anger. And then, sadly, he would remember signing an iron-clad waiver that absolved the Madn N. Zondar Memorial Learning & Rehabilitation Center, its parent company Freedom & Happiness LLC, and all of its employees from any and all legal and financial responsibility during Parnell’s visit.
“You’re clean,” the guard said after the orb had finished its scan. “You may enter the shuttle now.”
Parnell rode down into the Maw aboard the shuttle. After ten minutes of darkness the prison complex below came into view. Slabs of windowless concrete buildings, some sixty stories high, stretched across the bottom of the Maw. It was the most depressing sight Parnell had ever seen. Just the sight of it brought tears to his eyes. Parnell had no way of knowing this, but that had been by design. In keeping with the theme of the entire project the facility’s architect had been subjected to his own form of torture during the drafting process. He had been forced to sit in a slightly rickety chair just a bit too small, draw his plans up with a drafting pencil that had poor quality lead, all the while he wore headphones that blasted nothing but S-Pop, high tempo pop music recorded by bellowing slugs, and audiobooks where the narrator had a distinct stutter. This discomfort had put him in such a bad mood that he set out to pass the pain along. Anyone who even glanced at the building would be overcome with a brief but a deep sense of melancholy. It’s why Parnell’s shuttle driver wore the visor. Going into the Zondar without eye protection was a rookie move.
They docked on the top on one of the skyscrapers. Parnell straightened the lapels of his suit as the airlock of the shuttle opened and he was greeted by a small platoon of guards. At the head of the pack was a human guard that wore the white uniform of a commander instead of body armor.
“Mr. Parnell,” the commander said. “Follow me, please. Any sudden movements and we will be forced to terminate you where you stand.”
“Yes,” said Parnell, slowly wiping a tear from his eye. “Of course.”
The squadron flanked Parnell on either side as he followed the commander down the corridors of the facility. Parnell felt an odd sense of deja vu at the sight of the concrete walls painted in a neutral taupe. Hung on the walls at fifty foot intervals were motivational posters. They featured cute pictures of puppies and children playing and said things like VIGILANCE: If you see Sandra near the commissary, please inform a correction’s officer. DISCIPLINE: Any infraction will result in a month of meals made personally by Sandra. And TORTURE: We’re for it! Parnell suddenly realized he felt like he was back in high school once again. This place was truly hell.
“You must have some well-connected friends, pal,” said the commander.
“Not me,” said Parnell. “Just my employers.”
“Well whoever it is running things they’ve done something no one has ever seen before. I was born here, I was raised here, and I will die here… probably in some brutal fashion at the hands of an inmate. Just like my daddy, his daddy before him, and my non-gender assigned ancestor before him. In all that time, no inmate has ever left the Zondar once they go down into the hole.”
“Money talks,” said Parnell. “The one true language that transcends the multiversal membrane.”
“Here we are.”
The commander stopped at a thick metal door. He held his hand palm out to an electronic eye. Parnell heard a low buzz and hum. The door hissed and started to slowly swing open. The guards that surrounded Parnell readied their weapons. On the other side of the door was a 7x7 cell covered with padded walls. A solitary figure stood in the middle of the cell, wrapped in a straitjacket and with a metal facemask covering their mouth. Parnell saw a mess of blonde, greying hair that hung down over the person’s shoulders.
“You’re getting out,” the commander told the prisoner. “But until you leave the Maw, you are still an inmate at this facility. I am removing your restraints. Any attempts to disobey my orders will result in your sudden and painful termination. Do you understand?”
The prisoner nodded. Pernell stood back and watched as two guards walked forward with the commander. They kept their rifles trained on the prisoner’s head as the commander loosened the straitjacket. When it was off, the prisoner removed the facemask. Parnell saw the face smiling back at him and felt a little queasy. Of all the people he had to come in here to collect, why did it have to be her?
“Why, hello,” Meryl Streep, the most dangerous criminal in the multiverse, said in a chipper tone. “And who are you?”
“Philbert J. Parnell,” he squeaked. “And I represent people who have paid a lot of money to see you freed.”
Parnell saw the sparkle in her eye as she spread her hands, slowly lest she be vaporized by the guards.
“Oh, stop it! Making such a big fuss over me.”
Reality #8675309
Peck Property & Casualty Insurance Offices
“Hey. I’m Mr. Dickhead. And I’m a real asshole. I go around dimensions and I do things like key your car, set your house on fire, and tea-bag your mom's vegetable soup. If you want to protect your shit against assholes like me, then get Greco Interdimensional Insurance today.”
“Waugh,” Howard the Duck snarled. He grabbed the remote on his desk and turned off the monitor mounted on the far wall of his office. He shook his head as he laid the remote back down beside a stack of three-ring binders.
Howard rubbed his temples with his feathered hands and sighed. “Greco, Greco, Greco.”
“A new ad?”
Bruce Banner walked through the door holding two cardboard coffee cups. He gave one to Howard while he kept the other. Howard took a deep pull off his coffee before talking.
“Yes. A new ad. I expect nothing less from the company that prioritizes marketing over superior coverage and products.”
Howard’s company did their own share of advertising. For awhile, Howard had been featured in commercials as Peck Property & Casualty Insurance’s Agent of the Year campaign. It was pretty straightforward. Howard gave a speech to the folks watching:
“Hi, folks. My name is Howard the Duck, and I am Peck Property & Casualty’s Agent of the Year for the year 2018 in realities 0003-0054, and 0057-0068, 1969 for all you groovy cats in realities 9813-44401, and the year of 42069 (nice) in the reality where everyone is perpetually sixteen years old. Along with my accolades, those same realities also named Peck Property & Casualty as the #1 insurance company for those years. How was it that over a thousand different dimensions recognized our work? It’s simple. At Peck Property & Casualty, all our agents go above and beyond the expectations of good service. It’s the Peck guarantee. And for an agent to be named agent of the year, it speaks to how far I will go to offer good service to my customers. Don’t take it from me, hear it from some of my insured:”
“As a power hungry dictator, I often have to face many threats from challengers both at home and abroad. When it looked like the cursed Richards would finally win the day, Howard assured that my plot armor insurance was up to date, and he also helped me figure out how to go get a good discount on Life Model Decoys. NO ONE BESTS DOOM! VENGEANCE WILL BE MINE, RICHARDS! Thanks, Howard.”
“*indecipherable howls.* *Yak bleating* *bones crunching* Howard. #1!”
“When some greedy executives tried to use me as a bargaining chip in their corporate negotiations, I was worried I would be kicked out of the cinematic universe I had just recently entered. So I called Howard and it turned out that he had me signed up fr reboot fatigue coverage for up to ten years. Take that, Andrew Garfield! What’s more, he told Kevin Fiege to &$@# off. Thanks, Howard!”
“So you see, I go the extra mile for my customers. It’s what all Peck Property & Casualty agents do. If you want to experience the different first hand, give us a call and get your quote in as little as ten minutes, or go to peckpac.com or .org or .biz or .boobs, depending on your reality. Peck Property & Casualty, no slogans, just good service.”
"Good coffee, Bruce," said Howard. "You always do a great job.
"There's a science to it," said Banner. "And of the few things I know, science is one of them."
Howard watched his trainee sip coffee from across his desk. To Howard, Banner looked like a college professor. Round, rimless glasses with long graying hair pulled back into a ponytail. Hard to believe that the Hulk was inside him, just waiting to come out. But Banner had insisted that those days were behind him. In Bruce's reality, the Avengers had a falling out after Hawkeye spiked the lemonade at the Avengers annual picnic with laxative. They'd called the event Civil War 3, which Howard fully couldn't quite grasp. What had happened in Civil War's 1 and 2? Regardless, the fight had been brutal and Banner gave up both the Hulk and the dimension for a second life here with him. Howard had his doubts on if Bruce really had banished the Hulk. On one hand, having the Hulk as backup would be great. But as an insurance man, a raging monster who destroyed property left and right was a nightmare. Think of how high his premiums must be!
“Enough about advertising, let’s look at the Book.”
Howard placed a small metal cube on the desk and pressed the single button on the cube’s smooth surface. A hologram projection showed a network of dots across a great expanse. There were plenty of green dots, several red dots, and a vast collection of black dots.
“Pop quiz,” announced Howard. “What do the color coding on the dots mean?”
“Green is a dimension where you have at least one insured client,” said Banner. “Red means that you don’t. And black means those are realities where there is no interdimensional traffic, so they are outside of PP&C’s coverage.”
“Correct. And what does…. It mean when a green dot is flashing yellow?”
Banner looked at Howard with a puzzled expression.
“I don’t know, Mr. The Duck.”
“Call me Howard. Mr. The Duck was my father.” Howard pointed towards hologram map of the Book. One of the green dots was in fact pulsing a deep amber color.
“That means that one of our insured is currently in the process of filing a claim.”
Howard pressed the button on the Book again and zoomed in to the dot. Information crawled across the display beside the flashing dot.
REALITY # 3311
LOCATION: EARTH
INSURED: US PRESIDENT MCGILLICUTTY (JOINT GLOBAL POLICY)
CLAIM: ALIEN INVASION
COVERAGE: YES
“Alright,” said Howard. He pushed stood up and rifled through the drawers of his desk. He pulled out a large rifle and tossed Banner a black rectangular device. “That’s an interdimensional beacon. It’s how we move between realities. Keep it clipped to your belt and never have it leave your sight.”
Howard flicked a button on the rifle. It sparked blue energy and began to hum. He looked at Banner and winked.
“Let’s go give some great service.”
