“Why do you keep groaning?” I heard Sarah ask after I was done.
I looked at her; she didn’t have the spaced out look anymore, but she still looked a bit out of it.
“I actually have no idea. Because the last time I told that story, someone almost killed me. So I should be expecting a bullet to the head or something. Not that it would do any good, I’ll just reanimate in another reality in a day or two. If anything, that would slightly hinder my efforts.” I said, trying to distract her from her next question.
It didn’t work obviously, because she looked like she was going to ask it before I even finished.
“You said you had a story,” She said “Let’s hear it.”
I was about to groan, then paused to think about what she just said.
I sighed instead, and thought about how I should deliver the story of how this wonderful disaster happened to me.
“Well,” I said, “most of this started when I was a Quantum Physicist, and my crew and I started on a great project: Temporal Distortion.” I paused.
“Hey, I could just project this into your mind, would you like that better?”
She looked at me, smug look still on her face. “No,” She said, the volume returning to her voice “Tell it verbally. I mean, you just said you’re a wizard. You could show me anything.”
I groaned inwardly. “Alright,” I started again “Well, it started when I graduated from college in two years with a degree that should’ve taken me at least ten years to earn. From there, I assembled a team with three other people, classmates of mine, and with my knowledge, we drew up the plans for the first Temporal Distortion machine. We realized, however, that no way could we have the money to build this thing. So we started on little pet projects of ours. I developed a mechanical hand for the purpose of prosthetics, and it is the one you see on my arm today. Hugo, my mechanical specialist had told me many times during our building of it to never put it on, ever. Well, I broke that promise pretty quickly, just to demonstrate how it worked. Well long story short, we got the grant, but it ate my arm away during a very painful two months. So that was our team’s first moneymaker, though it got shut down pretty quickly once the government found out about the whole eating away at the arm idea. Apparently, even thought we told them it was to be used to replace limbs, they tried to use it like I did, and they found out what it did to arms. So, we had to come up with other ideas.
“About that time, conveniently enough, my other partner, Saul, was finally able to reconnect with his uncle, who turned out to be a State senator. Once Saul told him the benefits of our project, money practically rained from the sky. So after our first year, not only did we have the machine half built, but I also managed to get Hugo to make some minor adjustments on my arm, namely a sword and a small cannon. By the end of the next year, we had the portal built, and along with that, we had been able to send some object through it. Small things, cameras, rotten fruit, anything really. The only problem with the cameras was that to keep the connection, we had to keep the portal open. But to keep the portal open, we had to use massive amounts of energy we didn’t have, and we risked destabilizing the portal, which could’ve resulted extremely badly. And it wasn’t like we were able to see much anyway; just an expanse of white with a few black shapes here and there. Finally, we got a really stupid idea: we were going to send someone through the portal, and of course, I had to draw the short straw. So about a month later, we had gotten me prepped for the journey: three days of food and water were packed, and a small box was given that would enable me to open up a portal home at anytime, in theory. We didn’t really know how to test the box, but both Saul and Hugo gave their seal of approval of it.
“So the day finally came, and of course Saul had to bring his Uncle to show him where all the money went, and also because ‘we owed it to him’. And I have to say, everything was running smoothly; the twelve generators we had were running, the portal opened up neatly, and the glass barrier we erected actually held up to the distortion. Everything was nice, up until I stepped past the barrier. Once I got the door closed, the siren sounded; the one siren we had in place in case the stabilization field failed. The one siren we hoped never to hear, because we had no idea what would happen if the field failed. We found out pretty quickly. A temporal vacuum open up, and I felt time and space distort around me, and before I knew it, the vacuum sucked me into the portal. I remember however, that it didn’t hurt at all. Everything suddenly went blank, and the next thing I knew, I was laying face down on a beach, mouth full of sand, and with a splitting headache. It was evening, or at least a late dusk, and there were some pretty weird sounds off in the distance. I stood up to find my bearings, and realized that the surroundings weren’t right pretty quickly. I bent down to the ocean to rinse my face off, and realized that the reflection wasn’t right either. Mainly because I was some kind of robot. So after about a minute of hyperventilating, I washed my face off, and noticed a wicked-looking sword next to where I was laying, so I picked that up. It wasn’t a moment too soon. Once I got both hands around the hilt, and managed to lift it up, three other robot things came flying over my head, and landed next to me. Behind them, some weird crab-beings were awkwardly running at them full tilt; one in the back seemed to have some serious damage to its leg. One from the first group of robots ran up to me, and if I could put an expression on its face, it would be one of relief. “Je-Angu, you’re fine!’ I remember him saying ‘I was sure the Voz finally finished you off!’ It was then that I realized that the Voz he was talking about where those crab-beings. He turned to face the crab things, Voz, just as one came out of the ground, sending them both flying into the air. He didn’t even scream. Before I cold say anything, or before it even registered, a large explosion appeared exactly where the Voz had flown up to. Pieces of the thing rained down, as the Robot that talked to me gently floated down, completely ignoring what had to be his weight. The strange thing was that this all happened within the course of a few seconds, and then I was forced to turn around, back to face the other group running at us. One of the Voz charged at me, and before I could even lift my sword to block, I hadn’t really realized how awkward it was going to be, it knocked me down, pinning me with a leg. It raised up to strike my head, I raised my right hand in reflex; and it just disappeared. I stood up shakily, and saw that the rest of the Voz had been killed, or rather, destroyed was a better verb to use. My “friend” floated in front of me, but this time he looked a bit angry, or surprised; it’s hard to tell with robots. ‘You usually don’t do that.’ Was all he said.”
