Kitman Versus The Squirrels
A novel. With some squirrels in.
In Which We Trot Into A Problem.
"The Id-squirrel didn't eat the Goddess Nut," I said. "He ran off with it, pursued by the other two-thirds of him, buried it in a hurry, fled and forgot where he put it.
"It sprouted right here, centuries ago. Out of its native soil it came up stunted — a bonsai world tree — but deformed reality around itself ever so slightly, which is why everything that has ever happened to us has happened. The world-to-be that we're trying to prevent is actually the world-would-have-been."
Kitman stroked his chin. "So," he said, "the reason the Id-squirrel hasn't stolen my door is that he doesn't need it. That's why he was sniffing around the trunk of the tree rather than the door of the lab. He knows this is the World Tree, which means—" He clapped a hand to his forehead and abruptly walked away. I watched him go and then ran after him.
I found him in the tree lab lying flat on his back.
"You're lying flat on your back," I said, just in case he hadn't noticed. "Any particular reason?"
"I intuit that what you've concluded is almost certainly true," he said, staring at the ceiling. "I am on the floor because I still have this lingering attachment to science, and when I find myself about to use the phrase 'he's going to use a negative entropy field to retrochronically ungerminate the World Tree' — in conjunction with the actual universe that I spent so many happy hours observing through my microscope and Celestron — I feel a need for a quick lie down."
"Sorry," I said.
"Not your fault," he said. and sat up. "Madness and nonsense," he continued, "I think I'm starting to enjoy this. It has a perverse pleasure. So, let's move on. The Id-squirrel is currently constructing a wormhole — excuse me, squirrelhole — for us to get into the Chaos Gap. Presumably he's going to use us to get into that giant maple tree we saw, which is, also presumably, the base of operations of his other two-thirds; our haloes will get him out of the traps they've laid for him.
"Here's hoping he doesn't check up on the duplicate Kathleen. If he notices she's gone he might get suspicious."
He got up and dusted himself off, an admirable trait.
"I wonder," I said, and then stopped.
"Wonder what?" said Kitman, fetching his vaxillator and preparing to take a reading on the Id-squirrel when he reappeared.
"Whether this is weirder than what happened to Kathleen at music camp."
"Good evening," said the Id-squirrel.
"Good evening!" said Kitman, pressing buttons on his vaxillator. "Hang on a moment, I'm just about to beat my previous high score."
"Is this the time for games?" said the Id-squirrel, grinding his teeth.
"Probably not," said Kitman. "What's our status?"
"I have made a hole large enough for you to fit through, so if you will follow me about our business...?"
"What is our business, exactly, though?" said Kitman, closing up the vaxillator. "I'd like to know the agenda before we begin."
The Id-squirrel thwapped his tail on the floorboards. "It is simple. You accompany me. We cross into the work area of my evil twins. You escort your co-speciesist to freedom. Then you escort me into the base of operations of the shameful ones, which is guarded against me but not you. Then we will, as the idiom runs, wing it."
"Well, yes," said Kitman, fetching his backpack, "but could you be more specific as regards the winging? According to my contract with Jade Pyramid LLC I should attempt to restore the balance of the cosmos, but I must confess that the methods your relatives employed to unbalance it are beyond my ken. I assume we need to replace what has been moved, but I don't understand how it was moved in the first place."
"May I please explain on the way?" said the Id-squirrel. "Time is narrow."
"Short?" I said.
"No," said the Id-squirrel.
Kitman shrugged into his backpack. "Narrow or short, it's definitely wasting. Let us away."
"Good," said the Id-squirrel. "Watch closely, and follow me."
And he turned around and leaped — and disappeared.
"Hum," said Kitman. He bent down and picked a stray acorn off the floor, pitched it at the spot where the Id-squirrel had disappeared and watched it bounce off the floor exactly as a normal person would expect. He made a grumbling noise of dissatisfaction. "Ah well, carpe diem," he said, and put his best foot forward — and, not entirely surprisingly, disappeared.
I followed after him and found myself in what looked like empty black space, but which, given that Kitman was leaning against the side of it waiting for me, was actually a tunnel. I wondered why I could see perfectly well despite the darkness being total, but decided it was probably just one of those things.
"Interesting," said Kitman, knocking on the otherwise indetectable wall. "Was the house moved through a tunnel like this?"
"No," said the Id-squirrel, and began leaping away down the tunnel.
"Then how?" said Kitman, chasing after him.
"The conceptual roots holding the house in place were gnawed away. With nothing to restrain it, it snapped back whence it had originated, like ivy falling to the ground."
"Oh," said Kitman. "So how will we put it back, conceptually speaking?"
"I'll do it!" said the squirrel. "I will multifurcate myself and push it back into place. All right?"
"Fine, fine," said Kitman. "Very kind of you."
We continued running in total darkness for several dozen more paces, and then, without advance notice, emerged into light.
It was light of the Chaos Gap, which was not looking at all well. The green fields and blue skies were no longer dominant; barren plains were now the style, with your basic eternal winter running a close second.
Houses and maple trees were even less in evidence than summer weather, but I supposed it was tactically sound to for the Id-squirrel to sneak up on his erstwhile co-segments. Behind us was a rocky field studded with stunted scrub.
A ripple of torrential rain passed by, ceasing to exist almost immediately, thus drenching the top halves of Kitman and myself, while leaving the Id-squirrel untouched.
"You'll find the weather a bit random," said the squirrel drily. "Not to mention the landscape. Follow me, but please don't ask questions. Traveling through here is tricky."
"As you wish," said Kitman.
The squirrel led us across what he had called the landscape, which was plural enough to call landsscape, if that didn't look like a typographical error. As he led us on an irregular course, bobbing and weaving for no immediately obvious reason, we found that although our feet were telling us they were finding the journey perfectly normal, our eyes tended to disagree. We would step forward and find our feet landing when we expected them to, and as securely and firmly as we might hope them to, just not on what we expected them to. We had set out across a barren field only to find ourselves stepping on mountaintops, and stones sticking out of slow-moving streams, and cobblestones in empty nineteenth-century European cities, and various other bits and bobs of stray scenery.
And then we stopped, on the edge of a cliff overlooking a craterous pit. Below us were three houses and one maple tree.
"The nexus of negative entropy is beneath the roots of the maple," said the Id-squirrel. "Bound, but soon to be unleashed. Note the activity," he added, waving a paw at the Nash Mider house. "We were very nearly too late." We saw the other two-thirds of him, multiplied by an arbitrarily large number, dashing out the front door and into the maple. "They believe they're finished. And now..."
For a moment there was stillness.
Then...nothing happened. Not the useful kind, either.
"They have now checked their figures and determined that there is something awry," said the Id-squirrel. "They will be emerging...now."
Two squirrels, faintly but definitely blue and green, emerged from the maple and went skittering from house to house. To an ignorant observer they would have seemed to be merely chasing each other in an insane manner as squirrels are wont to do, but being sufficiently inclued I understood them to be examining each house for defects.
"One wonders," said Kitman, "why they didn't notice before."
"With a hundred bodies, one is easily distracted," said the Id-squirrel. "In any case, they will be noticing the missing doors — yes, there they go." Across the distance, from the rear of Kitman's house, we could hear the faint chuffing and quacking of outraged squirrels. "And now is the time for us to act!"
"I suppose it would be best to put a stop to their nefarious plans first," said Kitman, "and rescue their hostage afterward."
"I agree," said the Id-squirrel, leaping anxiously left and right in a very constrained, half-inch manner. "If you would be so kind as to transport us into the maple...?"
"I'll need to pick you up," said Kitman.
The Id-squirrel leaped up onto Kitman's leg.
"Close enough," said Kitman. "Williams? Let us disassemble."
We exploded the universe, what we could see of it. I directed my attention to the maple. It was bigger on the inside than the outside, but was still short on rooms big enough for the likes of us.
"I see only one room big enough for us," said Kitman.
"That will do nicely," purred the Id-squirrel. "The largest room in the tree is a sort of reception area, if memory serves."
"All right," said Kitman, and without further ado reintegrated inside the tree. I followed.
We were in a bare gray room, cylindrical and with room enough for a few more people, provided they were thin and open-minded.
A familiar glowing white net snapped into place around us.
We reintegrated next to it.
The Id-squirrel chittered with excitement, momentarily beyond words. "Thank you so much," he said, leaping off Kitman.
And a moment later I heard something sizzling.
"Do you smell something burning, Williams?" said Kitman.
"Yes!" I said, shaking my smoking halo from my head. Kitman followed suit.
"Oh, dear," said the Id-squirrel, watching the blackened haloes roll to a stop on the floor. "I forgot. This room is directly above the engine, which generates an intense field of electromystical energy. I'll see about getting you out, after I see about making sure my colleagues can't get back in."
And he ducked through a hole in the wall and was gone.
We were trapped inside a maple tree with not quite enough room to sit down.
"I was expecting this to happen," said Kitman. There was a short pause, of the type normally followed by a plan.
It grew into a delay.
"You wouldn't happen to have any suggestions, would you?" he said.
