Soundtrack Update, and Another Dramatic Pause

Hey guys. I just wanted to talk to mention real quick that the soundtrack has once again updated, with Inspector Fox's theme, "Headhunter". This is easily my favorite by far, and is, once again, a creation of the wonderfully talented Rory Bezecny. Same procedure as always: just click the image to be linked to YouTube.

Spooky human-eyed foxes await!

It's on that note that I say now that we've got another dramatic pause. So, no updates for a few days. If these last forty-odd updates have seemed weird to you, I can say, speaking vaguely, that we'll be going back to something familiar soon. I would hope it goes without saying here that I do have a plan (I mean, the story's already written), but I should reassure you anyway, just to be safe.

I'll see you in a few days!

#79

There are two parties on Earth-Beta-3 who are worried now; though of course there are technically many more, really. We choose ignorance here to instead focus on only two. They are the Emperor Kai, and Jacob Berkley.

The Emperor is concerned. From the Red Tower, flanked with his new Crimson Guards, he ponders the death of his son and wife. It is a painful ponder. He reminds himself, however, that he is merely a clone of the true Kai; whom he knows in turn to merely be a duplicate of Doctor Umiho, his Master. Or Inspector Fox, whatever he calls himself now. He has no true genetic ties to those he has murdered. He is a man without a family.

Still, there are more troubling reports now.

Several sightings have been made of a glowing woman manifesting around the world, threatening Imperial property, by way of launching attacks against the “medic” cyborgs needed so urgently for the perpetuation of Fox's plan. She matches the description of the Lady he serves, as well as that which the Empire itself serves. She seems to be his Venus; and she might well be the Empire's Columbia.

But she has been shown to fight the Empire. Perhaps she's nothing more than an identity taken by an irony-minded female resistance fighter—but her power seems incredible, and definitely not human. She cannot be killed or captured, and exterminates her foes with unerring bursts of flame.

Beautiful.

The Emperor wonders if this mysterious Lady could someday be his bride. He has dedicated himself fiercely to the Goddess of Love, and he would give anything to be with her. He would even sacrifice his throne to have her by his side.

The Emperor Kai is left alone with his thoughts.

Jacob, meanwhile, is standing on the front steps of McGee Manor, as it hovers over the ruins of Imperial Central. He has no words, aside from, “What the hell happened here?”

Doctor Kai says nothing. He senses the approach of his Father, who is also not his father. The final battle will be here, he realizes. Not necessarily in this city—but on this Earth.

Jacob thinks about what he's gotten into now, thinking of himself. This place looks like it had a nuke dropped on it. He gets the impression this is where his brother's killers came from; this must be the Empire. He resists the pun of calling it the “Empire Earth”, though he realizes humor will dispel his fretting.

The video game joke, though, will come around again, as Doctor Kai approaches him. “When I was last here, before my death, they called this place...Dieselworld.”

Jacob turns back to face him.

“What?”

#78

As the two survivors of the New O'Grady Mob run in, a gunshot will go off. Fox will be holding a pistol—one which has just opened up a new hole in Bones Ellson's head. He'll have died instantly. Lefty's only hesitation will be to give a cry of vengeance, before he opens fire at that triple-headed piece of shit.

All of the bullets will bounce off. Fox will remain silent as this happens, his weirdly-human eyes staring almost mindlessly at Sinister.

Lefty will keep screaming and firing until there's nothing left in his clip. Only at that will he lower his gun. Fox's own gun will remain trained at his head. Yet it'll soon be clear that that's not what he's intending to use.

Fox's mouth will slowly open, and inside will be a somehow familiar brown light. At once, the light will slam into Lefty, lifting him up and throwing against the wall; he'll release his Tommy gun, which will spiral through the air before seemingly disintegrating. He doesn't know it at the time, but that gun is going on to become myth, spinning through dimensions until reaching McGee Manor circa 1921. A man named Gregory O'Grady, a compatriot of the Manor's owner, will use it to replace his own, lost in a battle against a cult. He'll bring the trade around full circle by giving away his name.

The light will cause Lefty to scream again, as it will induce horrible burns. He'll begin to feel nausea from the intense pain when the beam releases him, causing him to drop to the floor, his trench-coat smoking.

“I trust you will not attempt to rebel any further, Lefty.”

“Bastard...”

“You think thinking and saying that word, my friend—but I assure you, back when I was human, I can quite assure that I was born in wedlock.”

“Don't care...” A grunt.

“You care of few things, my mobster friend.” Lefty will begin hovering again, but without the beam. Weakly, he'll observe that he is floating towards the open mouth of Mack Greasy. “But I will rectify that. I assume that you will start caring much more of the quality of things in life, once you become the sole survivor of this universe.”

Lefty will faintly hear Puck the vulture quietly bicker with Fox. Apparently, this wasn't meant to be the plan, and there's some confusion on the other heads' behalves. Greasy will not protest, however—for he will begin slowly, agonizingly chewing on Lefty's body. Lefty will be too weak to scream—for now.

Fox will begin walking towards his personal portal frame; he'll enter a code of sorts into a terminal next to it, and the image within will be one of endless fuel-brown light. H̶e̶'̶l̶l̶ ̶e̶n̶t̶e̶r̶ He enters The Unscene, and at least to Lefty, time goes mad. No more Future Tense. Something else replaces it.

The foursome are now standing outside Universe-Beta-4.

Lefty struggles to observe it, even as one of the shark fangs gouges out his left eye—it will regenerate shortly, however, due to the nature of his captor. To him, at least, this strange field, his native universe, appears as a shimmering oval, full of stars—a patch of brightness against the endless sea of flashing brown. It is rather beautiful, he's forced to concede, before his other eye is removed. The last image he gets of it all before this occurs is the observation of galaxies, and the tiny lifeforms growing in them; and of a massive border of constantly shifting yellow energy embracing the border of the whole thing. He's actually pretty unfazed with how tiny it is, really.

Fox waits for his eyes to grow back before he makes the next move. On a silent cue, Mack Greasy stops chewing, to prevent Lefty from being blinded again.

Fox raises a single hand towards the universe, and from it, a loud and blinding burst of light appears. In the stream of light, Lefty can observe small human forms; the dying bodies of his fallen gang. This is a beam of story-energy, and as such it is of varying difficulty to behold. It travels at its own pace, as well, but soon it contacts the edge of Universe-Beta-4. The boundary around the edge of the universe begins to shake violently, making a high-pitched gibbering sound as it does so. The image of the universe starts to become mottled and bulged, and there is a sense of tension—it is the sound of a thousand trillion stories being ended at once. Within the universe, quadrillions of lifeforms are destroyed, including any number of heroes and villains. It all sounds like a horrible musical theme, like the sound of an approaching monster—the worst of them all, the most terrible beast conceivable.

Then, all at once, like a pane of glass, the universe simply shatters. The music ends with at once, as if this is an inconsequential event. In in its place, incalculable levels of fuel pour in, burying a handful of shards that still exists as microverses. Lefty feels only a slight pain in his chest, and he tries to ignore even that. It's the burn of one's world being lost forever, with no chance of a resurrection.

Fox raises his other hand, and instantly, a suction effect takes place. This excess fuel is being drained into him, and is automatically being turned into raw power.

The resulting light that surrounds Fox blinds Lefty; and the resulting scream of both pain and ecstasy that he lets off deafens him.

#77

Lefty will walk into the penultimate chamber, where Bones Ellson is. He'll be tied up with a rope suspending him from the ceiling. He'll look at Lefty in desperation, his eyes moving looking towards an incoming laser beam threatening to cut the rope, sliding along a track very slowly. Below him will be a huge model of Bones' own head, weirdly enough. It'll be pretty square down in the Uncanny Valley, overall. The mouth will be open, and flames will be visible inside. Once more, there'll be a computer terminal that will apparently stop all this, somehow.

Lefty'll tackle a computer one last time. Of course, there'll be a message displayed.

“That's two of three failed now, Lefty. Now you have a chance to save Bones from his own Bone-head.” Fuckin' ouch. “Just solve the riddle and a platform will catch him. Otherwise, you'll have to find a new Mob. Would that be the New New O'Grady Mob, perchance?”

Lefty will hate this guy with a passion beyond words.

He'll look at the riddle, then, halfway assuming that it's impossible.

“A Roman asks: what is the opposite of empty war?”

Lefty will pause. He'll have an idea, but it can't be that easy.

He'll still give it a try.

“Full peace”?

It won't even be ten seconds into the timer when a platform appears, blocking off the garish head of doom. As this happens, however, the answer will rearrange into something else: “Vulpes”.

Vulpes. Fox.

Oh no.

Tiber-own: tiburón. Spanish for shark.

Voter: vautour. French for vulture.

God fucking damn it. It was, or would be, there, right fucking there, the whole fucking time.

The glass wall will collapse, and Bones will be free. He'll run towards Lefty. “Where are the others?”

Lefty will barely be able to choke out what happened to 'em. The only satisfaction he'll get is the rage that'll fill Bones' eyes. They won't say anything past that, even as the final door opens.

There's only a slight moment of hesitation.

At least the traps will be over; now it'll be payback time. Lefty will hand his piece over to Bones, and then reach over to his violin case. The pièce de résistance will lie within. But even as he calls it that in his head...Lefty will consider how much he'll have to avoid anything but English for awhile.

#76

Fox will be sitting in his chamber; the one past the penultimate one, where “Bones” Ellson will be kept. Lefty will have stopped replying; he'll be able to see, through his recently enhanced sight, that the mobster will have given himself over to blind anger, and will thus be incapable of speaking. He will only have two compatriots to speak to, then: his other heads.

“So, boss,” Mack Greasy will say. “Why are these traps needed? Everything is so...deliberate, and yet...illogical.”

“Makes sense to me!” Puck will squawk. “He needs 'em for 'is trope-magic! He's aligning the Mob members to a bunch of people on the worlds we're gonna take over!”

“I'm aware of the plans for conquest, but admit that the idea of magic does not appeal to my idea of sensibility.”

“Be calmed, Mack,” Fox will say, soothingly. “The trope-energy involved will allow me to harvest the fuel of our world directly—which will change us. Make us more powerful. We may no longer need the bicycle for transportation.”

The two other parties besides Fox will pause, and in this pause Fox will think back to when these two were part of a simpler life that he had created; one he had made when he had first divided himself across time. Before he made the bicycle, and saw the nature of the cosmos when he pedaled the bicycle outside of his home universe. He was just simple past-tense Kit Umiho, né Su, back then; a scientist. But when he split, becoming named Kl-this (a Son) and K-that (a Father), he decided to be more. Much more. And soon he will become more again.

The others will hear his thoughts, which he'll remember they can do; he'll try to seal them off to them in the future. “Aren't we gonna end up absorbing those alternate incarnations o' yours, Fox?” Puck will say, even as he notices Mina briefly appear through the room's portal frame off to the side.

“Indeed we will, Puck,” Fox will reply.

“What point will that serve? Will it make us inta faeries?!”

“Perhaps. It will confer a certain degree of supernatural power to us, in any case.”

The pondering on Fox's behalf will then continue in private, as both Puck and Mack Greasy fall silent once again. They often do so, once he has made his point.

He was the creator of new life, in that mind-shattering instance, when he had lost himself in the timeline. Each new life was a probe into a new form of existence; a cleric, or a German man, or an Emperor. Or, just perhaps, a dimension hopping beatnik adventurer, destined to be corrupted by himself, turn evil, die and be reborn, to fight himself once again, when “he” had become Kul'ul the Demon, or Fox the Policeman.

As K- (or Kay-) Prime, the original Father, he had wanted to become a Policeman. One with a whole team of cops to serve with him. One with logic—one with emotion—and one between; the perfect trio. So he created two more duplicates—in doing so, however, his head, and the heads of the fresh two, were destroyed. They needed to be replaced...with the visages of animals. To fulfill an urge that came to him from his future self, who already had this head; the head of The Fox. The choice was a time paradox, as a result; and in that paradox, which was one of many, Kul'ul began to form. Kul'ul the living Time Nexus. A meaningful name: K with no “l” afterward means that it's a Father, though there's still an “l” there, meaning it could be a Son. An Ouroboros birth, a living paradox, an Eldritch Abomination, still as of now not totally birthed in Fox. Yet.

“To whom, if I may ask again,” Mack will begin. “Do these mobsters form analogues? And will we face these selected people?”

Fox will pause. “The mobster known as Esau is the human boy named Jacob Berkley, from Earth-Beta-2; while Tekoa is his brother, Amos. The analogues are formed on religious grounds, as you might guess. Wilhelm, then, is the girl Wilhelmina Berkley, Jacob's cousin. Curious that she is turned male across the universes, but she isn't alone; Zanne is the girl Susie Sanford, with her extended name being Suzanne. Susie is the companion of the APPLE-suffering mutant we've observed named You, who becomes, as part of a hideous pun, the one named Eye. Fritz is nearly You's other companion, who is one of us: the Son named Klaus.

“This leaves Usius and Bones Ellson. Ellson must be, based on the alphabetical nature of his name, Doctor Kay, who is once more one of us. Usius, then, must be both Mark and Aurel, who are analogues of each other. It is another horrible twist of language; for you see, with the names fused, one gets Marcus Aurelius.

“And yes. We will face all of them. That is the key nature of our game here; the events will mirror the journeys, the tortures, and indeed, the deaths of the analogues who will be our foes. It creates a story-pattern which we will drain to fuel our escape from this universe.”

“To rule begin our rule of the Multiverse, right?” Puck will say. “Or will we escape to the faerie kingdom?!”

Fox will not see a reason to answer, instead thinking of how it all was once he became the Third Policeman. It was decided early on that Mack Greasy or MacCruiskeen or whatever and Pluck or Puck or whatever would become part of his body; so he could feed on the self-energies implanted in them by the duplication process. This was so he could gain more power and eventually make it here, to absorbing the story-power from the New O'Grady Mob; to in turn break from Universe-Beta-4, and thus drink in its Cascade energies. That is to say, the energies which manifested, in two of the three Cascade universes, as a gasoline-like substance that those two locales called “fuel”. A literal miracle substance, because it was born in The Unscene, the space between universes.

The casual observer might end up wondering why this was all necessary, and the solution was obvious. When he biked out into the Multiverse, he saw that it was full of corruption. It was full of evil, created by a trio of ultra-powered hooligans called the Three Enemies of the Multiverse. The First Enemy had created The Cascade, and thus the fuel; ironically, that same fuel would prove, in Fox's capable hands, to be his undoing. At least, so he figured; it hadn't happened yet. He would destroy the Three Enemies and bring order to the Multiverse, and thus peace, to all of existence.

He would be the Ultimate Policeman.

He just need to break a few thousand eggs first. Eggs which were in the process of being laid on Earth-Beta-3.

One more trial would await Sinister, who was nothing more than an old grudge. Fox would allow himself revenge on him, for Sinister directly served no purpose in the plan. Once his mob was defeated, it would all be finished.

Though it would actually just be the beginning.

#75

Another door will open, and Lefty will go through. He'll try not to look at the charred bones poking up at the top of the hot fuel.

In the next room, the lights will be on, so he can see the situation at once. There'll be two chambers, once again: one with Zanne, and one with Usius. Between their chambers, there'll be a sealed off room with another computer terminal, facing towards Zanne; it'll look like he has to access it. The dividing wall will hooked up to a computer screen that will once more be on Lefty's side. As he approaches it, he'll see a mechanical arm come out of the wall in Usius' chamber. It'll be holding a syringe; and despite his struggles, it will go into his arm. On Lefty's screen, a timer appears again, even as the riddle does.

“It seems that you've met with defeat, Lefty. Fear not; you have two more chances. The syringe in Usius' room has just injected him with a growth hormone that will cause him to expand into a shape much larger than his chamber, once the timer runs out. Needless to say, this will be fatal. Zanne can give him the antidote if you unlock his computer. If he doesn't reach it in time, his cell will fill with high-level thermal energy, consuming him in a second. Good luck.

“Your riddle is: A Frenchman seeks democracy. Who is he?”

Lefty will begin to sweat once again. He will not allow himself another failure.

“Citizen.” No. Damn.

“Civilian.” Nope on that. Bloody hell.

He'll think for a long while, about French history. He was, or will be, never much for book smarts, but he will remember the Revolution. Maybe that's what this refers to.

“Revolutionary.” No. “Rebel.” No. “Dissenter.” No.

That's when a voice will come over another intercom. “The Goddess Libertas isn't that important yet, Lefty. That comes later.” Okay. What?

Keep focusing. There'll only be ten more seconds again.

“Good citizen.” No. “Patriot.” No. “Freedom fighter.” No, and...

“NO!!!”

A wave of white-hot energy will flow over Zanne; and without sight, Lefty will only be able to hear distorted screams and the shattering of bones as Usius becomes an involuntary giant. He'll have failed again. At first sadness will pour over him; but then it will turn once more into nothing but rage.

The answer will appear as it did before: “A voter.” A voter? That's a bit more obvious. The clearness of it will frustrate him further; but there will still be a sort of mystery to it. Why the fuck does the voter have to be French? Some sort of worthless translation pun?

“One more trial,” Fox will say over the loud speaker. “Pass or fail, you may confront me up ahead.”

Lefty will say nothing, instead feeling his veins pucker, his flesh turn red hot. He'll hang onto those feelings; because he feels that soon, they'll be all he'll have.

#74

Lefty will walk through into the first chamber; the sliding door in the bar of the Zorro Club will slide shut behind him, leaving him in darkness. However, in the darkness, he'll hear the sound of a treadmill, and what sounds like bubbling, as well as someone struggling. Suddenly, lights will snap on. As they do, an extruding wall-segment will push a man out onto a treadmill: Wilhelm. Before him, at the end of the treadmill, will be a computer terminal; the treadmill will be taking him away from the computer. In turn, the treadmill will be hooked up to a computer, on the other side of a wall of glass, which will be the side that Lefty is on. The computer will appear to control the treadmill.

The computer within the treadmill chamber will be hooked up a retracting platform in another room: in this one, Esau will be bound and gagged, and over what will seem to be a pit of boiling fuel. The premise will make sense to Lefty right away; he'll have to use his computer to stop the treadmill, allowing Wilhelm to use his computer to save the other two. But this won't be all. As Lefty will be taking all of this in, the wall behind the treadmill will slide open—revealing long, thin spikes. If Wilhelm stops running, he will die. Lefty will begin to sweat as he dives at his computer, and Wilhelm starts running.

There'll be text on the screen: “Sinister – if you can solve the riddles displayed on these terminals, your men will be allowed to go free, as will you. This first puzzle requires Mister Wilhelm's ingenuity as well. Good luck.

“Your first riddle will be: A Spanish man wants Italian water. What is it that he'll have to buy?”

Okay. Maybe it will have been a bad idea to have made fun of how obvious the name “the Zorro Club” was. Lefty won't really know Spanish as much as he'll have remembered. The answer could well be some sort of word in Spanish or Italian; which will be bad for him.

He'll try “Italian water”. Maybe it'll just be something stupid like that; but it won't be. It's now that he'll notice a thirty-second countdown in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. The sweating will get even worse.

“Water bottle.” Nope.

“Passport.” Nada.

“Guidebook.” Nay.

Um. Um...

“Tour guide.” No.

“Italian money.” No. Fine. “Euros.” No. It's something he has to buy.

Ten seconds.

Um. “Waterskin”?

No.

He won't be able to do it. He'll run to the glass, to both of them, and apologize. He'll apologize as hard as he can. And he'll get no response.

The treadmill will suddenly accelerate to an absurd extent; and Wilhelm goes flying backwards. Lefty won't be able to look. He'll cover his ears as Esau screams, plunging into the boiling fuel.

Within a few seconds, it will all be over.

He'll look back at the computer, which will now display the answer: “He will have to own the Tiber.”

A second later, Lefty's fist will smash through the screen. What sort of worthless motherfucking answer is THAT?! It doesn't even make sense with any sort of theme! What's it supposed to mean, anyway? “Tiber-own”. That's just nonsense.

Fox will cheat. He'll know this, now. And that'll meant the boys probably won't make it.

But he'll find Fox. He'll find him, and he'll make him wish he had a fate like this. Boiling fuel? Spikes?

Those'll be chump deaths next to how much agony Lefty'll put 'im through.

#73

Lefty Sinister will get a feeling of repetition as he downs his third scotch of the day. This'll now be the third bar he's stood at today, and he hopes it'll be the last. A one-day chase after his enemy would be shocking luck. But then, he'll always beat his own boys at cards, 'cause he is (or will be) lucky; it won't even be fair for him to play against them anymore, so he'll quit. He is, or will be, very nice to them. Closest thing he'll have to a family, those losers. Fox will have gone and spilled family blood; and that'll have been cleaned up posthaste.

Which is what he'll be here to do. He'll have picked up a sidearm from a reasonable dealer friend of his not far from here, and packed that in his trench-coat, which he'll have kept on him after they had him leave his violin case at the door. But he'll be back for that later.

He'll be waiting to finish his scotch. No sense in passin' up a good drink, especially after a sour one.

One...two...three...And scotch is finished. Time to go.

He'll pull out his pistol and shoot the bartender. Not out of any malice towards the man, he pours (or will pour) a good drink, but he'll have to get some attention somewhere. Even the seasoned Zorro regulars—probably good pals of the Inspector—will start screaming. Lefty will sit up and wave his gun around.

“No one will get hurt if you just all play ball!” he'll yell simply. “Does anyone know where Fox is?”

No one will be listening. He'll see a cute dame with a tough mug boyfriend—he will shoot him, but she won't look that shocked. He'll have seen that she has a bruise on her left cheek, with a black eye on the right side—bad news.

Now they'll be listening.

“I said t'you guys,” he'll say. “Where is Fox?!”

There'll be a pause, but no one will say anything—no one, except for a loud overhead mike which will suddenly burst noise into the room. The sound will be that of Fox's rich, smarmy-ass voice; but there's something to it. Maybe the mike will be bad or something, but it'll seem more gravelly—and yet somehow, slimier. Lefty won't be able to put his finger on it.

“So, Lefty; you've come for your boys.”

“I have, Fox. Now where are they? I know you took some of 'em back here.”

“I did indeed, Lefty—but you'll have to through a few...entangling scenarios, before you'll be allowed to free them.”

The somehow even sleazier voice of Mack Greasy, Fox's shark head, will come on. “I had quite the time designing these traps of ours, Sinister! You'll find them bamboozling, I'm afraid—you'll need to wrack your noggin, is what I'm saying. You'd better hope that your coconut is up for it—else you'll be punished. And you won't be alone, I should add.”

Fuckin' kitschy camp shark bastard.

Next it'll be Puck's turn, his insane giggle nearly driving Lefty crazy. “And the thing is, Sinister...hee, hee...we've managed to do some pretty nasty things to physics! So expect some things along the road to be...hee, hee, hee...quite impossible!”

Ugly idiot demon bird fucker.

“I'll open up the doors to the trap chambers, Lefty!” Fox will then say. “We'll even let you get your Tommy gun, if you wish for it. Just remember—family blood and all that.”

And with that, the intercom will cut out completely.

Lefty will get the uncomfortable notion that with the whole “family blood” crack—Fox has been reading his mind. Which is something the bastard does. Or will do. Bastard.

He'll grab his case, and sure enough, a door will slide open just past the corpse of the slaughtered bartender. Now it is, or will be, Go Time.

#72

Mark wakes up. He doesn't even have to open his eyes to be aware that there's shattered rubble all around. It's all familiar, all tired, and all cliché. Déjà vu, quite literally all over again. Once more, there is a mess around him. He's just glad that it's not a mess of trees. But why would that be an issue for him...?

When he opens his eyes, he turns around. He is sitting at the base of a White Tower, which is smashed to bits; or at least, a huge hole has been blown in the side. Rising from the hole are some ghastly fuel-fumes, which have blackened the sky. There must have been a shock-wave emerging from that hole as well; because everything around this burst Tower is also in ruins. Ashes, and chunks of rubble, keep falling out of the sky.

Mark feels as if this Tower is important for some reason—he can't stop capitalizing it in his head. It's as if his mind is attempting to make Towers seem really significant. He dismisses this as Freudian garbage almost instantly, however. The mere thought of it makes him feel gay, and that makes someone of his disposition (i.e. irritatingly sheltered and small-minded) sick to his stomach. He tries to ignore that idea.

Still, the compulsion is still there; the urge to enter the Tower. There is a tiny “staircase” made of ruins leading up to the breach. Without any control over himself, which is somehow even less than what he ordinarily has, he grabs onto a nearby ledge and starts his ascent.

#71

Time was still distorted; in no small part due to Mark, as well as the influence of what Doctor Kai was now calling in his head, in a rather uncreative fashion, a “Time Nexus”. So even as Jacob and Mina, and several others with Jacob, were reunited in the portal between Earths Beta-2 and Beta-3, Jacob and Kai were still aboard McGee Manor, rocketing through space.

Jacob had found a laptop and started using it; the Doctor didn't care, given that it was unlikely to be detected in this whirlwind. On a whim, Jacob clicked on an icon which seemed to be an Internet browser. Shockingly enough, the browser opened, and loaded Google.

“What the fuck?” he said.

“What is it?”

“We're getting fucking Internet service in an interuniversal vacuum.”

“Really?”

The elder man seemed surprised. He walked over to the screen and sure enough, Jacob had opened the Pac-Man Google art page and started playing a game. “Huh,” they said in unison.

There was an awkward pause as the game blared on.

“Well, don't be surprised if it comes through corrupted. We might just be receiving some sort of overlap service between the Earths. Which...is something I didn't think was possible, really.”

“Huh.”

Suddenly, as if in response, the screen flickered, and the search engine changed. Instead of Google the site now read “IISE”, in bold red, white, and blue letters. It had a nearly identical layout to Google, but there were no art options. Everything looked much more stately and important.

“Whoa. What's this, now?”

Kai inspected it. “That...hm. It probably stands for 'Internal Imperial Search Engine', or something similar. The Internet, or whatever it's called on the next sequence of this Cascade, is mostly private.”

“The next Earth is ruled by an Empire? Is that where we're headed?”

“Could be. If we ever get anywhere.”

“Hm.”

There was a tagline for this search engine, which seemed to Jacob to be as cliché as all hell; but he was already judging this Empire, due to the negative connotations of the word on his Earth. (He was thinking in terms of how stock the trope of the “evil empire” was, and how it was probably led by some cackling old dude in a robe. Possibly with a skull head or some shit.) This motto read, “The Empire Yet Endures”.

He was about to set the computer down, when something caught his eye. A tiny, flickering patch of black pixels, intercepting the flag-colored logo. He moused over it but as he did, the pixels spread; the white expanse of the page was slowly consumed by an image. He pulled the Doctor over, and the two watched as it materialized...

“Shit,” Doctor Kay whispered.

The entire House then shook as it collided with something. Something massive.

The rushing brown light around them flashed white with a roar...and then there was silence.