Welcome to the Infiniverse.
It is a vast expanse of pre-forged potential, where all the stories that have happened or have yet to happen have been, or will be, processed into web videos, fan fiction, or 140-character missives launched across the tireless twinkling stars and endless tangle of tubes. Any story, myth, fable, embellishment, lie or take-out menu you’ve ever read, heard or seen has been duplicated here into a sad copy of itself, each a mocking, derivative work lurking amid the ever-expanding spider web networks and galactic fiber bundles.
Looking at the hugetastic bigness of it all, you find yourself asking, “Who runs this place?”
Someone has to be in charge. Arbiters. Accountants. Someone balancing the books?
Silence. Crickets chirping and tumbleweeds tumbling across great gulfs of unreal, invented space.
No. Nobody’s in charge. No arbiters. No accountants. Nobody to balance the books.
As we said, welcome to the Infiniverse.
•••
“All these… tubes,” Grebok said, staring out the viewport of the floating brick that once belonged to the blood-caked barbarians of the Faceworld army. Or was it the Spaceface legion? Grebok didn’t really understand what was going on around here. They’d been floating out here for a month, watching this universe-within-a-universe expand—pipes and optic hose growing slowly at the borders of space like a knot of lengthening serpent, a twinkling Ouroboros reaching out to reclaim the toothy grip on his tail—and still, he wasn’t sure of what the rules were out here in crazyspace.
“I brought a game,” Lord Chuckles said, sitting down at the console. He opened the cardboard, squinted at the rules. “It’s called Egg Party or some shit. I don’t think it has rules. It just has these little eggs—“ He held up a small egg, this one pink and painted with purple whorls. “—and I guess we get them to hatch?”
Grebok continued staring out. The light from his cyber-monocle reflected back in the viewport glass, a red dot like from a sniper’s scope.
“I think you water them, though why in the name of Florn the Forest God you’d water an egg? I mean, you’d think we should sit on them or something. Like a good Momma Bird. But I guess we might hatch a… let’s see, a Creamsicle Pegasus? Or maybe something called a Venus Pietrap? Gods, this is retarded. Apparently if we’re really lucky, we might hatch a Rainbow Monkey Dragon. That sounds okay, I guess. Not really a game, though. I mean, how do you win? By the powers of virtue, how do you win?”
Grebok sighed. Sad. Discontented.
“I had a thing I wanted to say at some point about crayons, but it’s lost to me, now.”
Grebok scratched his new, patchy beard.
Chuckles closed up the game and flung it across the room.
“We’ll find her,” the Avatar finally said.
A week ago, they’d seen it. Just a blip on the navscreen. But it was a blip with a very unique signature. Fact was, a Routine-Class Teuton-Drive Psyche-Infused Astromobile gave off specs like no other ship, because no other ship was like the RTP 10001. No other ship could turn into a woman.
It was her. One of a kind. Out here—or was it in here?—with them.
And as soon as the blip came—bloop—it was gone.
Grebok hadn’t left the viewport since. No longer content to let the navscreen do its job, he was searching the stars and tubes, one by one, his new mechanical eye ceaselessly roving.
“We’ll find her,” the Avatar reiterated, “and when we do, together we’ll tear this stupid universe a new asshole, and when we find out whoever did this to us, whoever sidelined us, we’ll shove them right through that puckered asshole so hard it tears off their arms. And then they’ll explode. And die.”
A tiny flash of a smile crossed Grebok’s face. Whispers of ultraviolence were forever a balm on even his deepest emotional wounds.
But like the blip on the navscreen, as fast as it came, it faded.
•••
The Infiniverse was much too young for war and insurgency.
Oh well. Tough titty, said the kitty, but you still get the milk.
•••
War was entrenched. It was website against website, planet against planet, galactic arm against galactic arm.
The fans of Auctionfist burned Planet iBay to the ground. The Mad Matchmaker Militia (the “Triple-M’s) rose cackling from the pile of broken hearts on Lovepeddler and for some bizarre-o reason waged a vicious campaign against the humble net-farmers of Cowfinder. Giant Robot Friendmonkey fought Giant Robot Sunbuddy. The News Navies of Infi-Net Broadcast swarmed the gossip countries lorded over by Emperor Scandalous X. Crumbcake. The Flippr Brigade destroyed the satellites of Pooter. Travelopolis traveled on over to Planet GoPlace and dropped a nuke on them from space.
•••
Insurgency arose. The Revolution—once comprising only those abused and disgruntled infamous “Infi-Net celebrities”—gained followers in those poor souls who had been sucked bodily into the Infi-Net. They struck from the shadows, launching fiery attacks against the agents of GoogolSoft—or, really, anybody who didn’t agree with them.
Yes, GoogolSoft’s connection to the Infi-Net may have been cut off, but that didn’t mean the company didn’t still maintain a profound presence: blank-eyed Virus-Killers with their snipping scissor mouths and syringe hands; whole armies of rumbling tanks and silent starboats piloted by a fleet of martially trained “Googol-Men;” and the detachment of elite soldiers known as Shields Squadron, named so for the fallen pop songstress (and having themselves once served as her protective echelon of bodyguards) and led by the brilliant tech strategist, Doctor D. Ernst Godwin.
The Revolution, however, was tireless. They rose up in sudden waves, only to dissipate again. They buried home-made proton mines in the dirt along the roads to Clicktionary City. They sacrificed many of their number just to bring down a single Virus-Killer out of dozens. Their ragtag insurgents fired Rocket-Propelled Spam-Bombs (RPSBs) into gathered crowds just to take out an officer of Shields Squadron.
Innocents were forever in the cross-fire, not remaining innocent for long. It was join or die time—settle in with one of the myriad legions of warring web-planets, sign up with the GoogolSoft “web presence” to “keep the Infi-Net safe from malware!” or get on board with the Revolution of firebrands.
It was, as the book says, a lose-lose scenario. Those sucked into the Infi-Net were forced to choose a side, or choose their graves.
•••
Gunther had shut up long ago. Once he realized he wasn’t getting a rise out of anybody anymore, he just sulked in the corner, occasionally muttering racist epithets at his sneakers.
Sparky had lost some of his edge, too—sure, initially the metal legs thing had been pretty cool, and yeah, he kicked a lot of stuff for shits and giggles, but after a while, he started to feel like he did so many moons ago when the so-called “scientists” had experimented on him at the research station of Alpha Beta Soup. He felt trapped. A rat—erm, a weasel—in a cage. This wasn’t his universe. This wasn’t even a real universe. They’d learned enough to know that this place was their enemy, and they were trapped deep in its belly. Sparky wanted nothing more than to chew his way out and go home.
Which meant doing something that was anathema to the Shadowstories:
They needed to learn stuff.
They needed to figure out just what the hell was going on around here.
And Sparky thought he had the answer.
•••
“It’s called Stuffopedia,” Sparky said. “We all know I’m a kick-ass motherfucker of a navigator. And I’ve been poring over what passes for starcharts and tube maps, and I haven’t found dick. But then, I found something in a desk. Some kind of web guide. Talks about popular Infi-Net destinations or some shit. And as it turns out, there’s this place, this Stuffopedia. It’s some kind of search engine. Well, you know me. I fuckin’ love engines. This one’s some kind of knowledge-based thing: ask it a question, it’ll give you the answer. Well, I figure we have questions, so my vote is we head on down to that planet—I got its coordinates—and we tear that search engine right out of the ground, and we slap that sticky bitch up in this spaceship, right here. We do that, we have all the answers we need.”
Grebok said nothing, and just stood worrying at a fingernail.
The Avatar went up, put his hand on the Keykeeper’s shoulder.
“We need answers,” Chuckles said. “I know, I know, we’re not big fans of… learning. But it’s been a month and we’re pretty much left here holding our sacks in our hands. We need info.”
“It…” Grebok began. “It doesn’t feel right. Learning things? Is this what we’ve been reduced to?”
Lord Chuckles took a breath. “We can ask it about R.T., you know.”
The Miradorian pivoted his head. His eye telescoped. He spit out a gnawed thumbnail.
“Fuck it. Set the course for Stuffopedia. Let’s learn some shit.”
