Todd sucked air through his teeth. A nervous habit I'd come to recognize through our disembodied conversations.
“Are you alone? Got a radio or something loud nearby? I don’t want to be overheard from your side.”
“Uh… give me a sec.”
I scanned the room. Chrome panels, moody lighting, more chrome. Then I saw it: a small rectangle on a side table with UNIVERSAL REMOTE etched in gaudy silver. I clicked the biggest button. Across from me, what I’d assumed was just another chrome panel facing the bed flickered to life.
The screen filled with a slow-motion shot of a blue-skinned woman with tiny horns and a tail. She was in sheer silk, sprawled across a floating ottoman and held a slice of obscenely cheesy pizza. She took a bite like it was foreplay. More than foreplay.
“Crave. Consume. Repeat,” purred a voiceover.
She moaned. Loudly. Then again. Her mouth was full of cheese. “Ohhh yeahhh.”
“Galactic Goods Channel,” the announcer added. “Commercials all day, every day. We know what you want, so you don’t have to.”
I cranked the volume until the room was awash in seductive chewing.
“That’ll do,” Todd said, frantic. “That’ll do.”
“So. Watchers?”
“God-tier accountants, Jerry. Fucking executioners with clipboards. You know when I told you we needed to keep Earth off the radar? Well, it’s their radar I was talking about. Fourth Dimensional enforcers. And they report straight to the Arbiters.”
My stomach tightened. The fear in Todd's voice was new. Usually he just sounded annoyed or mildly inconvenienced. This was different. “And Arbiters are…?”
“The fucking end of the world,” he snapped. There was a shuffling sound. “Try to keep up. I’m literally hiding under my desk right now. These guys are top-tier bureaucrats of the Fourth Dimension. Cosmic compliance officers. They make Judge Judy look like a kindergarten teacher. And they get their power from on high.”
“God?”
“No, Jerry. For fuck's sake.” The eye roll was audible. “The Fifth Dimension. The Entities. The System, the Network, the Grid, the Matrix. I don't have time for a Q&A. I need you to listen. I need you to stop whatever you're doing and disappear. Go dark. Get every Awakened person you can find and take them underground. Let Earth go. Sink so far below the radar you might as well not exist. No more fighting. No more hero shit. Just—fuck.”
A crash from his end. Papers scattering. Todd swearing under his breath.
I sat up straighter, anger flaring through me. “Hold on, Todd. I didn't sign up for any of this. I still don't even know who the hell you are, besides apparently my utterly incompetent Fourth-Dimensional tech support. You just show up in my ear one day, and then start telling me what to do. First you wanted me to save the fucking world, to stop yourself from getting demoted. And now, what, you want me to forget about it? You ghost me for weeks. And now you want me to stop trying to save people?”
My voice rose, the frustration of the past months boiling over. I clenched my fist, feeling the familiar tingle of mana at my fingertips. “What the hell is going on? I'm done with the cryptic warnings and your 'you wouldn't understand' routine. Fourth Dimension, Fifth, whatever. I don't even know what half the shit you say actually means. I'm walking in the dark here man! If you want my help, then give me a god damned flashlight!”
Silence.
Then a breath, long, shaky. Resigned.
“I'm screwed anyway. Fine,” Todd said. I could almost picture him slumping in defeat. “You want the download? The lore dump? Here it is. The Fifth Dimension is... hard to explain. Closest thing I can give you is a metaphor. You ever read Greek myths?”
“I saw Percy Jackson.”
“Saw? Jesus. Of course that’s the height of your knowledge.” That familiar condescension hit like a warm slap; rude, but somehow comforting. At least some things hadn’t changed.
“Okay, remember how the Titans came before the Olympians?” Todd continued. “Forces of nature; Time, Memory, Light, all that. It's kinda like that.”
I shifted on the cloud-bed beneath me. Soft as sin, but still somehow uncomfortable. “Wait, so the Fifth Dimension Entities, like the System, are like the gods of the universe?”
“No, not at all,” I could practically hear him pinching his nose. “I said it's kind of like that. They're not literally the Titans or gods. I'm giving you a frame of reference because your three-dimensional meat-brain can't process what they actually are. So maybe stop interrupting and let me finish. We're already on borrowed time.”
I heard shifting, as he apparently got deeper under his desk. Then in a hushed voice, “Back before time, the Entities did whatever the hell they wanted. Then, a few either got bored or thought better of endless power or something, and formed a pact. Bound themselves to it. And to make sure no one cheated, they appointed the Arbiters to play galactic hall monitor.”
He was whispering now. Through our connection, I could hear his rapid breathing. “They created the Arbiters as neutral oversight. Fourth Dimensional referees. Like celestial umpires or overzealous soccer coaches. The Watchers are the bloodhounds. If they show up, it means they smell something. Which is why we are so royally fucked.”
I squinted at the ceiling, trying to piece it together. The Mewsari warship hummed around me, the vibrations running through the room. “So… the Fifth Dimension Titans, or whatever, use Fourth Dimension beings as middle managers? Isn't that kinda backwards?”
“Worse. It's bureaucratic.” Something metal clanged on Todd's end. “The Arbiters aren't just middle management—they're independent. Third parties. Outside the Entity pecking order. And if the Entities are like the Titans, then the Arbiters are the Olympians.”
A chill ran down my spine. “Didn't the Olympians overthrow the Titans?”
“Bingo,” Todd muttered. “Chained them up, ate them, you name it. The Arbiters don't throw lightning bolts, though. They initiate Inquiries. And if an Entity fails compliance check… Sanctions. Reality restructuring. Eternal damnation via fine print. And the kicker? The Entities agreed to it. Bound themselves by their own asinine rules.”
The implications made my head spin. “Why the hell would they do that?”
“How the fuck should I know, Jerry.” He sounded bone-tired. “Maybe because even gods are afraid of chaos. Or each other. I don't fucking know. I just work here.”
I glanced up at the screen. Three cartoon soap bars were dancing in front of a chrome shower stall like it was a Broadway stage. One beamed with a manic grin, kicking up suds with jazz hands. The second was slumped in the corner, crying softly, bubbles dribbling from its eyes. The third… the third had half-lidded eyes, a bitten corner, and was grinding against a loofah.
“Every month, get three NEW emotionally sentient soaps delivered straight to your cleansing pod! Lather. Rinse. Feel everything.”
What the actual fuck, I thought.
“Okay,” I said slowly, running a hand through my unwashed hair, “but why are they here… I mean there?”
Todd made a strained sound, like he was chewing gravel. “Because I… might've broken a few more rules than I initially let on.”
I sat up straighter, suddenly alert. “Go on.”
“Okay. So.” His voice dropped another octave. “The System Core—the one you synced with? Not supposed to be on Earth. It was in transit. Approved destination a few sectors over. Scheduled integration two hundred years from now. Totally routine. Everything aboveboard.”
My pulse quickened. The room seemed smaller now. “But it didn't make it there.”
“No. Because in the Earth-year sixteen-hundred, a goddamn pirate ship appeared above the planet out of nowhere, clipped the Core mid-flight, and crash-landed both itself and the Core on Earth.”
I stared into space, mouth slightly open. “Like… a space pirate?” My head was spinning.
“Captain Jack Whipsteele,” Todd groaned. “Total menace. Definitely not supposed to be in this timeline. But that's not the point!”
He sounded like he was about to start tearing out his own hair.
“Look,” he said. “I figured I had time. The Core wasn't supposed to reach its target for centuries, so I kept filing reports that it was still in transit. I even… borrowed a senior access code and forged the records to look like it never went missing.”
“As one does,” I said, allowing a hint of sarcasm to creep in.
“I was buying time, Jerry!” His voice cracked slightly. “I was gonna get it back on course. But Whipsteele vanished alongside some local nerd of the time… I think it was Tulsa or Tesly or something. Anyway, he absconded with half a cargo hold packed with alien gizmos and left the fucking core behind.”
The pieces were starting to click together. “Wait, you mean Nicola Tesla?”
“Yeah, that's him.”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I rubbed my temples, feeling a headache forming. “Tesla was working with an alien? Wait, you said he crashed in the sixteen-hundreds. Wouldn't that make Whipsteele, like, hundreds of years old?”
“Older. And tons of inventors are either aliens or work with aliens. Who do you think invented digital watches? It wasn't humans, that's for damned sure.”
Now I was pinching the bridge of my nose. The world as I knew it was unraveling faster by the second. “Aren't you literally supposed to keep aliens and their stuff off Earth? Like, isn't that your whole job description? Protect Earth until it was ready to get invited into the System.”
“Yes, and I suck at it, okay?” The raw honesty in Todd's voice took me by surprise. “Earth's a goddamn flea market of alien crap. Roswell? Me. Area 51? Also me. Keanu Reeves? Don't ask. Just blame me for the whole cosmic garage sale, alright? I've been winging it from day one. Fuck man, so what, I lied on my resume. We all do it.”
I stared at the wall. Processing. He kept going.
“You think I got tools? Authority? No! I got rules. Red tape. I've been managing interstellar border control with vibes and bad luck. You showing up? This weird brain-glitch hotline between us? First real upgrade I've had in centuries.”
The admission hit me oddly. In some twisted way, I was the most competent thing that had ever happened to this guy's career. That made me a little sad and very worried for humanity's sake. I squinted. “So what, you just couldn't do anything about it?”
“Not directly!” Frustration colored every syllable. “I'm shackled by something called 'Five Degrees of Influence Separation.' That's the rule. If I want a pepperoni pizza, I can't just call the damn pizza place. That's too direct. I gotta influence someone to influence someone to convince a third guy to paint a sign that makes a fourth guy crave pepperoni, who might then call the pizza joint. That's five degrees. That's my whole operating system. Try running a planet on that!”
I blinked, a strange laugh bubbling up in my chest but dying before it reached my throat.
“And I tried, man! I really did. For a couple thousand years. Nudges, omens, weird dreams. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Used to be easier when people took auguries more seriously. Chicken entrails used to mean something! But subtlety's a dying art. Meanwhile, Bradley's out there running his planets smooth as butter. You know why? Daddy's an Arbiter. Fucking nepo baby.”
“Who's Bradley?” I asked, latching onto the one normal-sounding thing in this entire conversation.
“Forget it.” Todd dismissed with an audible wave of his hand.
“Okay, but the Core just sat on Earth, for hundreds of years?” I tried to steer us back to what seemed like the important part.
“For a while, yeah. Dormant. Harmless.” His voice lowered, grave. “Until some clumsy 3 Dimensional mortal—you—dumped espresso and a lightning bolt on it and boom. Activation. Containment failure. Magical feedback loop. Big-bada-boom.”
The memory flashed through my mind; the small, unremarkable box in the Perky Beans closet. The no-foam cappuccino on the floor. The world changing forever.
On the screen, a glitter covered squid-being slaps down a stack of glowing receipts. “File your taxes across twelve galaxies with just one click!”
“It almost blew up a lot more than Earth too,” Todd continued. “That much condensed System energy detonating with nowhere to go and nothing to do? Would've slagged the planet and the neighboring solar systems. Which would have immediately sent me to the Watchers’ Office. So I did the only thing I could. I forced integration. Used the administrator's code. Slammed the override. Crash-course awakening. No thousand-year ramp-up. Just—zap, welcome to the cosmos. It was that or extinction.”
How close we'd come to annihilation without even knowing it.
“And the Watchers are just finding out about this now?”
“I covered the process. Faked the logs, swapped destination coordinates, made it look like Earth was always the intended site. I'm bad at my job, Jerry—but I'm really good at covering my ass.”
I let that hang there, the silence stretching between dimensions.
“But the Arbiters,” Todd rasped, voice tight, “they weren't supposed to know. They shouldn't have known. They only audit when the math doesn't add up—and when they do? They don't stop until they find the breach.”
He swallowed hard. I could hear the dry click in his throat. “Someone tipped them off, Jerry. Has to be. My creds are on Chuck, slippery little bastard. But I can't prove it. All I know is: they're here. And we all got yanked from our stations—quarantined—while they comb through the logs line by line. I'm seriously risking my ass by making this call. That's why I need you low. Invisible. Zero anomalies. No bursts, no bullshit. Just… be boring.”
My fingers curled into fists. “Earth's under siege, Todd. Multiple alien races. People are dying. What exactly do you want me to do, wave a little white flag?”
“Yes!” he snapped. “Godsdamn right I do. Because surrender beats being scrubbed. If they clock you, Jerry, that's it.”
I stared out the wall-length window. The cosmos unfolded in wild purples and restless blues, constellations twisting in shapes I didn’t recognize. I wasn’t a star guy. I could maybe point out the Big Dipper on a good night, and only remembered Orion’s Belt because of some movie I’d watched as a kid. But even I could tell these stars weren’t right. Too many of them. Too bright. Like the universe out here had spilled paint across the dark.
“And what, they are attracted to magic?”
“No, they are attracted to ripples. Your planet has too much mana. Way too condensed. It's making waves. The people are leveling too fast. It needs to stop. A trickle is okay, but it's a fucking flood out there. As long as no one was looking, I could cover it up. But I can't hide the signature while they are here.”
I exhaled slow, feeling the fate of Earth pressing down on me even from thousands of light years away. “I'm not giving up Earth. There's gotta be another way.”
“There isn't.” His voice was raw and desperate. “You want to fight? Wait until the Watchers leave. If they don't find anything, rebel all you want—torch the sky, piss in their coffee, I don't care. But right now?”
He paused. Through our connection, I felt his genuine fear. It was the first honest emotion I'd ever sensed from him. “Jerry, I don't think you understand what happens if they find you.”
“Then tell me,” I said. “Explain it in small words.” My mouth was dry.
Todd's voice went quiet. “They'll do what they always do. Delete the variables. Planets. People. Anything involved in the breach.”
“Delete—” The word stuck in my throat.
“Gone. Total rollback. And if that's not possible, they'll… balance it. And worse, I'll get demoted. And that's a fate far worse than death, trust me.”
I looked up at the screen just in time to catch a strange humanoid figure pouring white powder over his bare chest in slow motion. No context. Just intense eye contact.
The screen cut to a man holding a glass of the same powdery drink. He sniffed it, hesitated, took a sip.
“It tastes like my third birthday party.” Tears welled in his eyes. “And divorce.”
A voiceover chimed in, calm and cheerful: “Now with Real Memories?.”
“How long do we have?” I asked.
“I've got a couple ideas to throw them off,” Todd muttered. “Planted some… distractions in Bradley's station. If the Arbiters hit that mess first, we might buy a few weeks. Maybe less, depending how fast they chew through the cubicles. There's a lot of cubicles.”
Thank god for the Fourth Dimension. From what I could tell, it was ninety percent cubicles, ten percent sandwich shops.
I let out a slow breath, mind racing through our limited options. “So what's the plan?”
“We stall. You go dark. No fireworks, no boss fights, no cinematic explosions. Keep your magical output so low it looks like static. If Earth shuts up and sits still, they might skip it.”
He paused, tone shifting. “Where are you, anyway? My access is trash. I can't even locate you on Earth.”
“I'm not. I'm on the Paw's Pride.”
The name still sounded ridiculous, even if the ship was supposedly one of the most dangerous in the System. I knew it wasn’t actually called the Paw’s Pride. The System translated everything between planets and whatever it was in their native tongue probably sounded majestic as hell.
“What the fuck are you doing on a Mewsari flagship?” Alarm shot through his voice.
“Standing trial. Apparently, defending Earth from an authorized invasion is illegal.”
“For fuck's sake, Jerry.” A beat. “You just can't stop poking interstellar hornets' nests, can you? Do you know how—” He broke off, went quiet. Then: “Wait. You're meeting the Council, yeah?”
“In a few days, yeah. Why?” I could practically hear the gears turning in his mind.
“That means you're out of Earth's sector. That's… actually perfect.” The excitement in his voice was unsettling. “Okay. New plan. Forget everything I just said about your abilities. You still need to calm Earth down—get the fighting to stop, however you can. But now that you're off-world, I need you to make some magical noise.”
I blinked, certain I'd misheard. “Wait, what? I thought the whole point was to not make ripples?”
“Yeah, not on Earth. But you’re out of range. Oh, this is good. Real good. Using your powers there draws from Earth’s mana field. Like bleeding pressure from a leaky pipe. It won’t fix the problem, but it could dilute Earth’s signature a bit, make it harder to track. You’ll have to push it, though. You’re still low level in the grand scheme of things.”
My thoughts flicked to my HUD. I was running on empty, barely recovered, and without my Apron I felt less than half-dressed and more than half-dead.
“I’m on trial, Todd. I’m not exactly in a position to test the limits of my magically enhanced coffee-themed powers. And wouldn’t that risk pinging the Watchers? I’d rather not land on their radar.”
He chuckled, and for a moment, he almost sounded human. “No, it doesn’t work like that… probably. I mean, hopefully not.” A pause. “Look, I wouldn’t worry too much. They’ll be distracted from Earth, and that’s what matters. I believe in you, Jerry. You’ll figure it out. You’re resourceful. Annoying as shit but resourceful.”
I stared blankly at the ceiling, feeling the cosmic chess game closing in from all sides. “So just to recap; some aliens crashed a System Core to earth. You hid the evidence. You faked the logs. You broke multiversal law. And now the entire bureaucratic machine of existence is coming down on our asses. Your solution? Earth lays down and dies quietly while I play the dancing pig.”
“Oink oink, Jerry,” Todd said. “Listen, I’ve gotta go, already been here too long.”
“Wait. Do something for me. Can you get in touch with the pirate guy? The one that knocked the Core out of the sky and is partially to blame for this whole mess. Can you get him here?”
“Whipsteele? Why? What are you planning?”
“I'm not sure yet. It's more like the concept of a plan.”
“I’ll do what I can. But listen, you know I suck at the whole dominoes, separation-of-influence thing. You are the only one I have a direct line with.”
“Just try, okay? I think it could tip the cards in our favor, maybe. I’ve got a feeling. And right now, even a little luck would be welcome.”
“All right, Jerry.” He hesitated. “I’ll try. Shit. Someone’s coming.” His voice dropped, speeding up like he was already halfway gone. “Look, I know I’ve been vague, kept you in the dark, asked more than I should’ve without giving much in return. But I’m glad we got our lines crossed, Jerry. Really. Couldn’t have asked for a better 3D than you. If I get demoted… just know that…”
The line clicked off. Silence filled my earpiece.
"Todd? Todd?"
Nothing. I clicked off the screen, and the room settled into silence.
I dropped onto the bed, head pounding. From the corridor came the muffled sounds of Mewsari guards changing shifts.
[NEW QUEST UPDATE: THREE DAYS TO SAVE HUMANITY]
Two-Player Mode Unlocked: This quest has been assigned to both you and Todd. Good luck. You’ll need it.
Situation: Someone tipped off Management. Your entire universe is now scheduled for mandatory sexual harassment seminars and a full-rectal performance review. Blurpleflorp the Watcher is elbows-deep in your universe's audit logs. At least three of his tentacles are stamping with enthusiastic malice. He hasn’t found the red flags yet, but he will. Keep him busy. Redirect his attention. Earth cannot show up on his final report.
Objective: Convince Blurpleflorp the Watcher that Earth is fully compliant and definitely not in need of “mandatory happiness injections.”
- Maintain cover.
- Say nothing suspicious.
- Smile in a non-threatening, regulation-approved way.
- Distract him with subtle misdirection and PowerPoints.
Reward:
- Earth remains blissfully unflagged.
- You remain un-liquefied.
- Blurpleflorp leaves. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully.
Alternate Objective: If at first you don't succeed...
- Panic.
- Cry.
- Surrender Earth.
- Secure a good bunk in the slave quarters.
- Befriend Buck—six-foot-two, nearly as wide, and disturbingly into shoulder rubs. He’ll “watch your back,” and be real good to you.
Alternate Reward:
- Whatever you can loot on the way out.
Resolution settled in.
I was tired of just reacting to every new mess.
Tired of playing catch-up all the time.
Honestly, I was just tired. I needed to start being proactive. I needed to get some measure of control. I grabbed the Manual from the library and dropped it onto the bed like a brick. Pages fluttered open on impact. An Introduction to Galactic Protocols.
Fine. If I had to play the dancing pig, I’d play the dancing pig. But I'd do it my way. Time to slap on the metaphorical hula skirt.
“Oink. Fucking. Oink.”