Stay hidden.
Look around.
Find a way out.
Then come back.
I stop, and the other robots walk past my corridor like I'm not even here.
Guess those movies were more accurate than I thought.
There aren't a lot of interior doors. Which is good, because if there was some sort of… Metal detector or whatever then there's no way I'd show up looking like one of the real robots. Now that I've had a chance to watch them I'm walking more like they do, but that sort of thing only fools
people and I haven't seen any. Maybe there
isn't a crazy alien but a crazy robot? Or maybe they're all just doing the last things they got told to do and no one's really in charge?
I march down a corridor I haven't been down before. Not because I think there's anything there, but because I know there isn't anywhere else and I may as well take a look. If it turns out that the only way to leave is using the tuning fork… Maybe there's a way to bring other people
here? Superman or someone? No disrespect to Batman but I think he'd be out of his depth too.
"…quite as planned. I didn't know that Guardians could bleed."
"It's rare for us to encounter anything that can make it happen, certainly."
I
don't stop. A robot wouldn't stop until it got to where it was going.
I keep going at exactly the same pace, heading in the same direction. And start looking for a believable stop-point that lets me keep listening.
"I'd offer to help, but I really would quite like you to bleed to death."
"You are fascinating. I doubt that you can really appreciate it."
"I'm unique. You're really old."
There isn't anywhere. The only thing I can do is march into the room, or hope that no one looks when I go somewhere else.
"You're not the first Time Trapper, are you? Even the people who meet the different versions of you probably don't realise it. The unique interaction you have with time makes sure that there wasn't a Time Trapper before you. I wonder how you experience it?"
I hear the stomps of a robot approaching from behind me. Can't risk looking around. Looks like
I'm going in.
I march into the room, looking upwards in the direction of the voices as much as I dare. The room is large and has two levels, the first floor and a floor half way up the room made of platforms criss-crossing the middle. In the centre of the room is a sort of… Bubble. Probably a force field of some kind. Inside, there's some guy in a purple robe. On the gantry looking in at him is a… A blue midget. With a black widow's peak and a black handlebar moustache. His right arm is in a sling, but I can see that the sling was just some cloth he had lying around rather than a proper medical sling. So the guy's got an army of robots but can't get decent medical attention?
Lucky that he's not looking at me. I head towards a work station and then stop just before I reach it. That's something a robot would do, right?
"It might amuse you to know that your experiment is continuing without you. That last universe you were in has built another tuning fork."
I can't look at them from here, so I don't know how robe-guy responded to that. But the midget sounds like he's trying to taunt him, and when a guy outside a cell is taunting you it's because you're in his power and he thinks he's winning.
Which saves time on working out who the good guy is and who the bad guy is. And he's not even a bad guy with any
class.
"What are you
doing, Krona?"
Krona… Krona… No, don't think I've heard of an alien midget called 'Krona'. Don't think I've heard of an alien midget called
anything, but Krona-. Isn't that a brand of beer? And… What they call their money someplace in Europe?
"Learning a great deal about
time. I know that Vanishing Point is generally considered to be
outside of time, but here we are. Your past self isn't walking past this enclosure or trying to free you. We can have a chronologically consistent conversation. But we can both feel that
something is different. What's the difference between time in here and time out there?"
"I don't know any more than you do."
"No. I suspect that you know rather
less."
"It's not just blood, is it? You're weaker than you were."
"And that's something I will correct
very shortly. You really shouldn't have gone to a parallel where the power rings don't have Maltusian lockouts."
Quiet steps as the midget walks away. Okay, don't look and wait until he's g-.
"Manhunter, report."
Gone.
Okay, is this robot a Manhunter? There's no one else here and I didn't see a radio on him. What the hell do these robots say to him? I can do voices like this, but I've never heard any of them
talk.
I turn in the direction of the midget's voice, and luckily he's not bothering to look at me. Shit, was he talking to a different robot? Still can't see any. Have to take a risk.
"Acquisition of Peter Wynne unsuccessful."
"Still? Unfortunate, but he's just one man. We can get plenty more."
The alien midget walks down the staircase at the edge of the room, and I track him by rotating my head.
"Not much point sending you to fight the Justice League, given how quickly they're destroying the others of your generation. You can keep Time Trapper company. Make sure that he can't escape again."
He heads towards one of the exits. Good, I can talk to that Time Trapper guy and find out what's-.
He stops.
"Manhunter? Confirm command."
What do Manhunters say, what do Manhunters say? Wait, there are a whole bunch of different models, and it sounds like they have different abilities. Do they all say the same thing? Just have to guess. What would an alien megalomaniac have his robots say?
"By the command of Krona, I obey."
He keeps walking. So either that was the right response or he's gone to get reinforcements and doesn't want to let me know that he knows. Or… He didn't really listen to the response but wanted to get one, like some total prima donna ordering around wait staff. Yeah, that sounds more likely.
I wait until he's out of sight down the corridor then walk robotically to the staircase at the side of the room, climb up them and walk towards the bubble prison in the middle of the room. Time Trapper is wearing an all-concealing
purple robe, and he's sitting slumped in the base of the bubble. I walk up as close to him as the gantry allows and then stop.
"I don't suppose that you can tell me what's going on out there, can you? I can't do much about it, but I'd still like to know."
"What, you think
I understood any of it?"
The hood jerks up.
"What?"
"Name's Matt Hagen. The dumb robots picked me up rather than a guy called Peter Wynne, and I'm looking-"
"Clayface."
"-for a way out."
"You-? He just-?" He stands up real quick, leaning toward the edge of the bubble closest to me. "Alright. Mister Hagen? Listen very carefully, because you have
somehow found yourself in position to save the multiverse."
"And papa always said I'd never amount to anything."
"
Focus. Mister Hagen. I'm going to tell you
exactly what to do."