Chronicle 44

 

“How can I be of assistance?” Theorem asked cordially. He and Shrimp Temporal were floating in a void outside of space and time. Theorem’s last egg came along for the ride, zooming around in the emptiness.

“I need your brain.” Shrimp Temporal was referring to Theorem’s ‘intellect’. He realized his choice of words was poor as Theorem reached his fingers deep into his puffy science-fro to try and pull out his physical brain. “Whoa whoa whoa. Not literally.”

“Oh, good.” Theorem relaxed his arms.

“Some things need to be corrected. Things I can’t intervene with directly.” Shrimp Temporal’s clock projected flashes of frozen timelines. People and things were stuck in place, or looping continuously.
“Is this one of your temporal disturbances?”

“In a way.”

The clock ceased its projection for a moment and began again. Theorem gazed through his hair at the void he was currently in. In the display, he was shown Shrimp Temporal getting torn apart by a being of darkness.

“We must prevent your death.” Theorem assumed aloud, arms crossed in contemplation.

“In time.” ST shut off the clock. “For now, let’s focus on the fallout. Whatever I was doing then, it must have been disrupted by my death. I’ve tried mending the timelines myself. It seems that the me that was killed still holds the time. I can’t change it.”

“Yes you can.” Theorem theorized, flipping around in the vacuum thoughtlessly. Shrimp hovered by and projected the looping time on Earth again for a moment.

“It’s not gonna be that easy, Theo.”

“Yes it is.” Theorem gave it another frivolous shot. Fruitless.

“We’re going to have to go down there.”

“And find what the dead you was working on.”

“Worth a try.” Shrimp concurred. “Mind theorizing a way for us to get there?”

“You’re my monster truck through time.”

“What?” Shrimp said faster than the words left Theorem’s mouth. His crustacean body shifted in seconds into a panko encrusted monster truck with a large monocle. His shrimpy eyelids hung low, unsure why he didn’t give more specific instructions. “Why.” he said out into the universe.

Theorem hopped up into the car and started driving. The void wrapped around them and a projection from the clock shone straight ahead. Shrimp’s meaty wheels spun and drove them forward into the physical world.

Straight onto a road on the edge of Big City, narrowly avoiding dropping off a cliff’s face, Theorem steered like a wild man.

Broken time had a colorful quality to it. There was luminous streaking all around, as if the light that was in transit when time stopped wasn’t quite obeying the frozen or looping state that surrounded it.

Shrimp felt every bump of the road as they ripped around bends and ventured into the heart of Big City. Theorem showed no concern for the cars or people in his way. Their frozen states prevented them from being moved or affected by the actions of the shrimp-mobile. Certain people and places were totally frozen in place, others were stepping the same step repeatedly, cars were moving the same distance over and over. Neither of them knew exactly what they were looking for, but Shrimp was keeping an eye out for anything that struck him as especially odd or different from the rest. Theorem, on the other hand, was just enjoying his time riding the monster shrimp.

“Slow down. Let’s check this out.” Shrimp’s appendage wiper swung to the left, pointing out the area of interest.

Theorem hopped out of the monster truck and looked at the center of Big City Park. Unlike everywhere else, where things were stuck or looping in space, the space itself was looping. There was a square block of the entire park being raised up and to the left. The space between what remained there and what was moving appeared completely white, where Shrimp and Theorem would have both expected to see a void.

“Looks like him again…” Shrimp said to himself, trailing off.

“The big red one?”

“Someone else.”

They moved closer to the gap between the moving space to investigate it further, but were interrupted by something they were the only sources of. A sound echoed through the stillness from downtown.

“Get in, we have to follow that.” Shrimp said, his tempura-battered side swinging open to welcome the scientist.

Theorem sped through the city to arrive downtown where they both agreed the sound likely originated from.

Shrimp Temporal looked at a woman on the street. Her face was looping from a beaming, happy expression to a dark look of pure dread. “It’s her.”

“Who?”

“Just an old woman I once knew. My first mistake when I got my powers.” Shrimp began to explain. “It’s better to ignore the soft spot in your heart. It’s the most vulnerable.”

“So you were trying to do something to her?”

“I was trying to do something for her.”

Theorem paced around the woman, studying the way time bent around her. “She’s not old.”

“She was when I knew her.”

Theorem poked her face forcefully and Shrimp scolded him. “Don’t do that.”

“She’s different.” Theorem said. Shrimp’s eyebrow rose in question. “Her head moved.”

Shrimp Temporal looked again at the woman’s head, which had moved back a very small distance due to Theorem’s poke. “Do it again.” Theorem followed the order and poked her again. Her head moved back in response. They had been driving straight into people at top speed their entire time in Big City without the slightest reaction. It told them that she was not as stuck in time as the others, not as helpless, perhaps.

“Theorize.” Shrimp said. “Let’s see if it works here.” Just before Theorem spoke, Shrimp recalled his earlier mistake. “Please don’t turn her into a monster truck.”

“She can run free from this time… forever.”

The void behind them, the matter beneath them and the city around them vibrated so powerfully that the world began to crumble into the white behind it. They looked backwards to see the egg they’d left floating in the void was growing closer, or they were. When they turned around, the world was again a projection from Shrimp’s clock. They found that the woman was gone from the street, which was the only place intact from the destruction of the timeline.

Though Shrimp Temporal feared for what they had done, he had more pressing matters to tend to. He said flatly without really asking, “Can you un truck me.”