Calibrations

California 2016

It took Youngblood a minute to figure out where they were this time. They were still inside someone's house, but the scenery had changed a little bit. Frank and Bandit were gone, and the rooms were arranged differently, but some of the decorations looked similar. He figured out where they were as soon as he spotted the collector's edition action figures on the shelf. They were the exact same ones he'd seen in 2014.

"Huh," Alien said. "I guess I must have moved."

"At least you didn't move back into the Paramour," Pepper said.

"Oh no," Alien said. "I would never live there again. That was awful."

"Hey Alien, I have a question," Poison said. "Two questions, actually."

"Sure, what is it?" Alien said.

"First of all, I thought the future was going to be post-apocalyptic and cool, just like our new album," Poison said. "What happened?"

Alien laughed. "You seriously think that 2019's going to be like Danger Days?"

"Figment said that it would be!"

Alien glanced toward Figment, who tried to keep himself from laughing. "Well, I don't know what 2019's going to be like either, but I doubt that it's going to be a post-apocalyptic wasteland." Poison frowned, and Alien asked, "What's your other question?"

"How the hell did you get Frank out of New Jersey?"

"I didn't," Alien said. Poison looked confused, so he added, "We split our time between LA and New Jersey. We wanted to live together, but he didn't want to leave New Jersey, and I didn't want to leave California, so we compromised."

"That makes sense," Poison said. "I asked him once about moving to California, but he said something about liking the dirtiness of Jersey. I love Frank, but sometimes, I just don't understand him."

"Hey guys, we should probably find the version of us from this era," Figment said. "It's nice that you two are getting along, but the clock's ticking, and we need to get to Australia and save Frank."

Save Frank. Youngblood knew what that meant now. He knew that Figment was going to sacrifice himself so that Frank could live, and he'd promised Frank that he wouldn't let him do that. Youngblood didn't want Frank to die either - he could hardly stand the thought - but he had to keep his promise.

He glanced at Figment's watch. It wouldn't be too hard to steal the time machine and stop all of them from going to Australia. With no one there to save him, Frank would die in the bus crash. Youngblood had no idea how he would live without him, and he wasn't sure that Frank dying was really any better than Figment dying, but at least he would keep his promise.

There had to be a better way. Youngblood only wished he knew what it was.

While Youngblood thought about everything that was going on and the increasingly hopeless situation that he'd found himself in, Figment opened a door and headed into the basement. Having learned his lesson from last time, Youngblood followed him. All six Gerards went downstairs, and when they reached the bottom of the staircase, they found the Gerard from 2016. He was wearing a hoodie, and his hair was back to its natural brown. He had a pencil and a sketchbook in his hands, and he was furiously writing down snippets of dialogue and drawing out his characters. He let lines become shapes, shapes become scenes, scenes become panels, and panels become pages, and sometimes, when everything was really coming together, his characters felt like they could burst through the pages and come to life at any moment.

Some things never change.

The Gerard from 2016 didn't notice the others, so Figment inched closer. 2016 Gerard still didn't look away from his comic. "Am I really this out of it when I'm writing?" Youngblood asked the others.