Welcome to the Multiverse (Sorry for the Inconvenience) excerpt

He is the lurker in the shadows of the alleyways behind the eyes of inmates in asyli for the awkward. He haunts the spaces between whole numbers. He feeds on the nightmares of those who sleep soundly because they don't know any better. He is the vaguely threatening half-heard voice that annoys you because it refuses to speak up even though it continually interrupts some moderately important task that, at that moment in time, should be getting your complete attention. Counting the cost of the compromises we make between our dreams and quality sleep time is something of a hobby with him. On any given night, you can find him in the dark dreams of vegetarian butchers. He is the ache at the center of the hole in your heart before you even know the center of your heart has a hole in it that aches. He is the pre-ache.

He has nothing to do with the story that follows.

He does not know this. In fact, he would be offended by this fact if he did know it. He is the lurker in the shadows of the etc. etc. He was born to be the antagonist of a story. He has been lurking in the shadows and all that since he was 12 - he is very good at it, perhaps the best in the universe. All of that work perfecting his lurking skills deserves the reward of a central place in a story. To even imagine that he would be a minor character in somebody else's story, mentioned in the first couple of pages and then discarded like a bad memory that hasn't quite formed a pattern in the synapses of a dementia sufferer's brain, well, given all the work he has put into his craft, that just doesn't seem right. That just...just...

The lurker in the shadows of the alleyways behind the eyes of inmates in asyli for the awkward realizes in mid-rant that he is out of toothpaste.

So he hops into his Prius (what? A lurker in the shadows of you know the drill can't have an environmental consciousness?) and drives to the nearest MaxiMultiMegaMart (a wholly owned subsidiary of MultiNatCorp: "We do retail stuff"). Okay, his environmental consciousness is selective - whose isn't? He is dressed in black with a red bow tie, because he had heard somewhere that bow ties were cool. Do not make the mistake of thinking that this is his usual lurking attire - he knew from experience that lurking in a MaxiMultiMegaMart just didn't offer the same sense of foreboding with a hint of jasmine, that, in fact, the MaxiMultiMegaMart sucked all of the lurk out of one.

It is at the MaxiMultiMegaMart, between the aisles for household appliances, not bigger than a breadbox and weasel supplies (no, the layout of the products in the MaxiMultiMegaMart is not eccentric, it is designed to maximize impulse purchasing - you know how it works - haven't you ever been looking for toothpaste and thought to yourself, "Hey! I should get some of that Weasel Chow, now with 27% more human disgustingness!"?) that the story truly begins.

"Boy!" a woman says. "Can I get some help over here?"

The lurker with all that descriptive baggage turns to find a well-kept, pleasant enough middle aged woman. He imagines her scrubbing a pot, really putting some muscle into it, dreading finding out what mischief the Beaver would be getting into at some time that day, maybe taking a pill to, you know, take the edge off, maybe help her keep the homicidal thoughts at bay, looking towards the time the children are old enough to bugger off and leave her to a future she couldn't imagine but had to be better than the present she was living. In short, she reminds him of his mother, except that she absently plays with a space where her left earlobe should have been, and he is pretty sure his mother came with a complete set. Although, when you think about it, it would have saved his mother money on earrings...

"Can you tell me, please," the woman asks, "What, exactly, the difference is between a Blendmaster 5000 with 17 levels and 12 settings, and a MixMonkey 5001, with 12 levels and 17 settings?"

He looks at the woman blankly. Part of him wonders how a blender could be considered smaller than a breadbox; perhaps the comparison was made with the breadbox on its side. But, mostly, he thinks, Is she serious? Could this woman possibly be serious? She is confusing the lurker in the shadows of the alleyways behind the eyes of inmates in asyli for the awkward with...an aisle rat in a MaxiMultiMegaMart store?

"It's a simple enough question," the woman, impatience creeping into her voice, states. "Are you too simple to know the answer?"

"Jesus, lady," the lurker in the shadows of sarcasm responds, "did you buy that pearl necklace or did you mug an oyster bed?"

"Excuse me?" the woman, dumbfounded, asks.

"Nice pink dress," the lurker in the shadows of being on a roll continues. "The fifties would like it back."

"This is outrageous!" the woman, in a cold fury (she kept it in her freezer for just such occasions), states. The lurker in the shadows of obliviousness doesn't notice that her voice actually got softer.

"What happened to your ear?" the lurker in the shadows that you've come to know and love continues. "Get too close to your pet piranha at feeding time?"

The woman stares at him in anger.

Interpretations of what happened next differ. The lurker in the shadows with poor self-preservation instincts swears that he just meant to pick a piece of lint off the arm of the woman's dress. She must have felt that his reaching towards her was some kind of threat. Before the lurker in the shadows who maybe should have listened to his parents and taken that job Uncle Manny had offered him in his pet electro-shock therapy practice knows what is happening, the woman is standing behind him, bending the index finger of his right hand far enough back to cause him the maximum amount of pain without making him pass out. The Lurker in the shadows of a destiny he cannot comprehend doesn't know what scares him more: the fact that his mother is bending his finger just enough to inflict the maximum amount of pain on him without causing him to pass out, or that his mother know how to bend his finger just enough to inflict the maximum amount of pain on him without causing him to pass out.

Through his pain, the lurker in the shadows of suddenly realizing what a small fish he is in the universe's big pond, hears the woman whisper into his ear: "Did you know that there are 237 ways to kill a man with chopsticks?"

Lips trembling, the lurker who is beginning to lose faith in the shadows is about to stutter, "N...n...n...no..." - or some other cliché that people in his situation stutter - when the woman vanishes. He falls to his knees as the pain slowly ebbs out of him. A minimum wage MaxiMultiMegaMart aisle drone notices him, assumes he is praying to the god of weasel supplies and leaves him to his worship.

The lurker in the shadows of getting himself out of that damn store alive did, in fact, have a revelation on the floor of the MaxiMultiMegaMart. He realized that he wasn't cut out to be the antagonist in a major narrative. The no longer lurker in the shadows of the alleyways behind the eyes of inmates in asyli for the awkward wondered if he could get a small part in a children's novel. Maybe if he put on a weasel suit. Yeah. That's it. He could be a weasel...

"Wake up, sleepyhead!"

"Rise and shine, sunshine!"

"Well, that was repetitive."

"Some people find repetition of words or phrases poetic."

"Some people find gastro-intestinal disease poetic."

"Oh, yeah? Which people?"

"Some...you know, some people. Uhh...some."

"Shaddup!" Noomi Rapier mumbled. "Sleepin' here!" She waved an arm in the direction the alarm clock would have been had she still been sleeping in her room at the Alternaut Academy. However, she had graduated a week earlier, and was now in her half-brother Davros' smart apartment in Ottawa. There was no snooze button to hit here because the wakeup alarm was built into the furniture.

Davros was currently in Africa, trying to negotiate an intractable border dispute between Namibia and the Falklands Islands. And, of course, when I say intractable, I use the word in its original sense of ‘not being able to be ploughed because it cannot be driven over by a tractor.' Really. Check page 237 of Gorey's Dictionary of Imaginary Words if you don't believe me. Davros allowed Noomi to stay in his Ottawa apartment for as long as he was traveling the world solving problems, which probably wouldn't last beyond her third or fourth reincarnation.

"Why is Noomi flailing away with her arm like that?"

"Maybe she's...dreaming of swimming?"

"Could she be dreaming she's a windmill?"

"Maybe she's dreaming she's a paddlewheel boat."

"Who dreams they're a paddlewheel boat?"

"How should I know? I just queried the database for motions that could be mimicked by flailing one's arms, and paddlewheel boat came up. Don't tell me it didn't come up for you."

"It didn't!"

"What search terms were you using?"

Noomi shot upright in the bed, as quickly as the beanstalk that Jack planted (which, scientists have calculated, must have grown at 2.57483 inches a second to have grown as high as the fairy tale claimed it did overnight). "Okay, who's there?" she asked. She had done this every morning since she moved in; fortunately, the room had a near infinite capacity for patience (see Graph One).

Graph One
Asymptotic curve measuring increase in stupidity against increase in patience.
(SOURCE: Useless Information Is More Impressive In Visual Form, P. Buggali, ed.)

"I'm the headboard of your bed," said the headboard of her bed.

"I'm the foot of your bed," said the foot of her bed.

"Congratulations! Today is the big day!"

"Yeah. Way to go."

"You could say it with more enthusiasm."

"Yeah, well, I would have had more energy if I hadn't been forced to spend all night accessing the Nature Channel!"

"It's better than wasting our time with wrestling!"

"Uhh, guys -" Noomi tried to interject.

"Wrestling is entertainment! The Nature Channel is...homework!"

"Can I help it if I'm interested in the world?"

"Wrestling is the world! It's got heroes! It's got villains! It's conflict at its most primal!"

"Guys, seriously -"

"It's not real!"

"WHAT?!"

"Wrestling is not real!"

"You...you...you take that back right now!"

Noomi dragged herself into the bathroom, leaving the cultural debate to the bed.

"Well, look what the cat modified with whale genes dragged in!" the mirror snarked at her.

"Yeah, yeah," Noomi grumped back at it. "Everybody needs time to prepare for the day. Nobody wakes up ready to go."

"Angelina Jolie's 27 clones do."

Noomi sighed. That was the bathroom mirror's answer to everything. Boyfriend troubles? Angelina Jolie's 27 clones all have perfect relationships with movie stars, sports stars, famous politicians, two ex-astronauts and an unemployed peanut farmer. War in the Middle East? Send Angelina Jolie's 27 clones to the trouble spot, and they'll have peace breaking out in no time. Not sure you believe in god? Spend some time with any of Angelina Jolie's 27 clones and you'll find the answer you seek. It had only been a week, and Noomi was already tired of it.

Noomi looked at herself in the mirror. She liked her smooth dark brown skin, the big, brown deceptively compassionate eyes, the way her sharp features radiated strength. Her hair was the sticking point of the deal. It defied physics. It looked like each strand had been placed at a 90 degree angle to every other strand. It wasn't true, of course: if it had been, her hair would have had to exist in several thousand dimensional space. It was, however, one more example of scientific description capturing a poetic truth.

"You know, it would probably be a good idea to take your finger out of the light socket," the mirror smirked. "Really. Any time, now."

"Hunh," Noomi half laughed, half grunted. Fully lunted. "You know, you have absolutely zero possibility of getting into any of Angelina Jolie's 27 clones' pants."

"I don't want to get into the pants of any of Angelina Jolie's 27 clones!" the mirror screamed at her. "My love for Angelina Jolie's 27 clones is pure and it will not be sullied by your disgusting thoughts!"

Noomi smirked through her entire shower.

"Boysenberry pancakes with chocolate covered ant sprinkles," Noomi said as she tucked into breakfast. She was famished from her efforts to wrestle her hair into some semblance of normalcy. "How did you know they were my favourites?"

"I looked it up on your Facebook page," the stove, without much enthusiasm, said.

"Something wrong?" Noomi asked.

"You really going to be leaving?" the stove asked back.

"I start my new job today," Noomi explained between mouthfuls of fruity, chocolate covered insecty goodness. "I have to go."

"We'll miss you," the stove simply stated.

Noomi felt like she had just kicked a puppy. A metallic puppy. That could burn the apartment down with its flames. But, a puppy nonetheless.

"I'll be back tonight," she pointed out.

"Really?" the stove perked up.

"Of course," Noomi reassured it.

"Promise?" the stove happily insisted.

"I promise," Noomi grinned.

"Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Oh, boy! I'll make you something superspecial for dinner!" the stove told her.

"Thanks," Noomi grinned. Uhh, even wider. It was nice to feel wanted, even if it was by a kitchen appliance.

Noomi got to Transdimensional Authority headquarters ten minutes before she was supposed to report to the front desk for assignment. She spent most of that time in the atrium, people in crisp black pants and white shirts (not unlike those she was wearing, in the sense that they were exactly like the ones she was wearing) and colourful vests rushing around her. It was like watching a kaleidoscope on heavy seas. Or, it would have been, if Noomi had been paying any attention to it; but her attention was riveted on the huge Dimensional Authority coat of arms set in the tiled floor.

The coat of arms depicted an eagle morphing into a sheep with a rocket in its talon and Blackberries in its paws. Above the animals were banners that flowed from green to blue to yellow to orange to red. Although they may have had some meaning before they were adopted by the Transdimensional Authority, they now represented the five branches within the organization. Various plants that only a botanist could love draped themselves around the animals.

Noomi had wanted to be a member of the Transdimensional Authority since she was a little girl. Some of her fondest memories were of the family gathered around the hi def computer screen in the wall of the den watching Jack Ryan, Transdimensional Authority Police. Her first blog was devoted to fan fiction of the series CSI: Multiverse and, when it was cancelled, she played the spin-off computer game endlessly. When she was a little older, she graduated to the Transdimensional Blues series of games. Her favourite reading consisted of the novelizations of the film version of Jack Ryan, Transdimensional Authority Police. The pleasure she derived from playing with her Jack Ryan action figure made Barbie (who, after all, was only a doll - at best, an inaction figure) jealous. On Halloween, she went out dressed as a Transdimensional Authority Officer.

Okay, frankly, she was a little obsessed. Her parents worried. But, Noomi had gotten a job with the Transdimensional Authority, making her obsession work for her, and all had been forgiven.

After checking in at the front desk, Noomi was directed to a large but bland room. A dozen other people stood to attention in the room. They were all fire hydrants with limbs, dark glasses and buzzcuts, men with names like Bob Blunt or Barry Butts or Bill Blatt or Bobbo Bruit or Brett Blurp or Bart Bleet. They could have been clones, but she had been at the Alternaut Academy with many of them, and she knew they were not. What were the odds? (Actually, Barbara Brundtland-Govanni, Noomi's mentor at the Alternaut Academy, used to say that the odds of a universe developing the capability of sustaining life were extremely remote, so anything that you could imagine happening in such a universe was almost a certainty! She loved her mentor, but Noomi sometimes wondered if she spent more time in the spaces between universes than was, strictly speaking, healthy for a person.) Noomi took her place at the end of the line; she felt like the answer in a real life version of Sesame Street's "One of These Things Is Not Like the Other" game.

Noomi realized that none of her confreres (literally: criminal brothers) from the Alternaut Academy had acknowledged her presence, but, before she could become indignant, a tall, lean man with a clipboard walked into the room. "My name is Sergeant R. Lee Ermey," the man shouted. Over his crisp white shirt, he was wearing a red vest. He did not seem happy about it. "I will be giving you your vest assignments.," he told the new recruits. Then, he started bellowing names off the clipboard.

Noomi thought of herself as a practical, down-to-earth, fairy tale and global-warming disbelieving kind of gal; she had to be to make it through the male-dominated Alternaut Academy. Yet, standing in this nondescript room with all of these nondescript men, she found herself...tingling with anticipation. She hadn't been this excited since Moulder Skully, who had played Jack Ryan in the TV series, came to her high school to talk about safe Home Universe Generator™ surfing! If Rod Blagorsopodd, her high school sweetheart, had excited her half as much, she might have married him. But, ahh, let us not spoil her proud moment with such sad memories - reality will do it soon enough.

"Rapier, Noomi!" Sergeant Ermey finally bellowed. Noomi stepped forward, and was handed a yellow vest.

Noomi looked at the garment with dismay. "No, wait," she protested, "there must - this has to be a...a mistake!"

Sergeant Ermey looked at her like she was something icky that had just adhered to the underside of his ballet slippers. "We don't make mistakes," he told her.

"But...but...but..." Noomi sputtered.

"We're like that hat," Sergeant Ermey calmly continued. "You know, the one that assigns kids to their houses in that magic story? We don't make mistakes."

"That's crazy!" Noomi, finding her outrage, shouted. "I was first in my class at the Alternaut Academy! My investigative skills were praised by every instructor I had! I have a letter of recommendation from Barbara Brundtland-Govanni that all but demands that I be given a knighthood! Or, at least, a Nebula Award! I...I...I..." Noomi trailed off when she realized that the other newbies had started giggling.

"You finished?" Sergeant Ermey asked, sanguine.

"Uhh...yeah," Noomi, humiliated, answered.

"Then, step back, please," Sergeant Ermey ordered her.

Noomi stepped back.

"Rivera, Geraldo!" Sergeant Ermey bellowed.

Once the investiture ceremony had been completed, Noomi dejectedly went to the elevator and made her way to the seventh floor. As the doors opened, she was met by a brassy, sassy middle-aged redhead. Her hair was so red, it attracted bulls from miles around. It was so red, motorists half a dozen blocks away stopped in the middle of the street although they had no idea why. It was so red, bees tried to pollinate it (and were devastated when they could not - perhaps that's why they were disappearing). The redness of the woman's hair was a big hello to the world that sometimes left the woman breathless trying to keep up.

"Noomi Rapier?" the woman asked with a heavy eat European accent and a light Mediterranean brunch.

"Yeah?" Noomi unenthusiastically responded.

"I'm Xenia Zaifman. You'll be working under me." Xenia led Noomi down a corridor, adding: "Well, I don't mean you'll be working under me - hierarchy is such an outdated, bourgeois concept, don't you think? We'll be working together. Of course, when decisions have to be made, I'll be the one to make them - lord knows, everything would grind to a halt if we had to find consensus on every little matter. But, just because I'll be making decisions, I don't want you to think of me as your boss. Think of me as...a co-worker with privileges. Ah. Here we are..."

Xenia opened a door for Noomi and waved her into the room. "After you..."

Noomi walked into a large cubicle farm. It only took her a moment to notice: boobs. Everybody working in a cubicle had a pair. Noomi was not anatomically competitive with other women: some of the women had larger boobs than she did, some had smaller. Overall, although she was a little short, Noomi was well-endowed, curve-wise. No, her boob-consciousness came from another source.

"This is a secretarial pool!" Noomi blurted.

"Actually," Xenia pointed out, "it's the Data Collection and Interpretation and Technical Support branch of the Transdimensional Authority."

"This is a secretarial pool," Noomi corrected herself, "with a fancy title!"

"Well," Xenia, a bit uncomfortably, responded, "a lot of us had that impression, at first, but, if you give us a chance, I think you'll find -"

"I was top of my class at the Alternaut Academy!" Noomi lamented.

"So was Gillian," Xenia told her.

"Hello," a voice arose from behind a cubicle.

"Martina, Tuvola and Barbara-Kim were second in their class," Xenia continued. Noomi received more anonymous greetings.

Xenia sighed. "I was only fourth in my class," she said. "A bit of a straggler, I'm afraid. Still, I worked hard and look at me now - I'm in charge! In a pseudo-democratic, I'm happy for everybody's input even if I have to reject it and make the final decisions myself kind of way."

"It's not right!" Noomi protested. "With all of the intelligence in this room, we should be running the Transdimensional Authority!"

"What makes you think we don't, dear?"

Finding Noomi at a loss for words, Xenia took her by the elbow and led her past the cubicles to a small boardroom. "We've produced a little orientation video for your viewing pleasure."

"Orientation video?" Noomi gulped.

"You know. To help...orientate you."

Noomi was about to point out that she had grown up with Jack Ryan, Transdimensional Authority Police, and, therefore, knew all she needed to know about the organization when she was 12 years old, but Xenia had already slipped out of the room and the lights had started to dim.

Cliche, Noomi thought.

Another cliche, Noomi thought.

How long is this video? Noomi thought.

They can't seriously expect me to spend a lot of time watching this drivel...can they? Noomi thought.

We eat cake? Noomi thought.

We use cake to run our cars? Noomi thought.

We...uhh...we...nope. No cake jokes possible with this one, Noomi thought.

Film...too...banal. Thinking...like...swimming...in...concrete... Noomi thought.

Must...resist! Hobbes! Nietzsche! Seinfeld! Help...me! Noomi thought.

In a small boardroom, no one can hear you groan. But, Noomi groaned anyway.

Forty-three minutes later, Xenia reappeared in the boardroom. "So, that's us," she chirped. "What did you think?"

"Ungh bidi bidi bidi brap brap!" Noomi croaked.

"Yes, a lot of our new recruits have that response to the orientation video," Xenia assured her.

"Gagungen henya henya hey?" Noomi asked.

"Not to worry," Xenia responded. "Your ability to form and articulate complex thoughts will return shortly. Shall we go to your workspace?"

"Baga...bahootiga...k."

"See? You're getting better already!"

Xenia took Noomi by the elbow once again (this habit was why her department had a rate of Repetitive Elbow Stress Syndrome that was 27 per cent higher than the Transdimensional Authority average) and walked her through the maze to a cubicle that was bare except for the necessities: a desk, a chair and a computer.

"Think of this," Xenia enthused, "as your home away from home."

"Do I geraff to?" Noomi grumped.

"I'll assume that's the orientation video talking," Xenia cheerily chirped. "Give it a couple of months, and you'll have this Personal Office Environment (POE) feeling like home. Now, let me show you how to log onto the system..."

Xenia set Noomi up with a password. Then, with a brassy sassiness that Noomi was beginning to resent like hell, Xenia opened several long files that outlined the different forms that the Transdimensional Authority used and the circumstances under which they were to be deployed. Long files. Waiting at the dentist for a root canal long. Listening to a Parliamentary debate on telecommunications policy long. Watching a Jim Jarmusch film long. Noomi settled in for a long day's reading.

"Dahlink!" a voice quietly boomed some time in the afternoon, "How are you?"

Noomi looked up from the section on the document on how to file accident reports that dealt with hazardous waste spills across dimensions to see an aging bottle-blond head peeking over her cubicle wall.

"Been better," Noomi told her.

"Furst day blues?" the woman stated. "We all have dem."

"I graduated at the top of my class at the Alternaut Academy," Noomi complained. "Top of my class. I was a better investigator than any Barry Butts or Bill Blatt! But, what did I get for all my effort? A yellow vest!"

"Dahlink, dat's terribul!" the woman oozed sympathy. "What -"

Before she could get any further questions out, a voice from the end of the cubicles boomed, "INDIGO!"

"Have a good day, dahlink," the woman grinned and disappeared.

A moment later, Xenia, slightly out of breath, appeared in the doorway of Noomi's cubicle. "Uhh, Noomi, that woman," Xenia asked, somewhat less chirpily than she had been, but making a game effort at it, "did you tell her anything?"

"N...no...?" Noomi, confused, replied.

"Good. Good. That's alright, then," Xenia said to herself.

She started to leave the cubicle when Noomi asked, "Who was she?"

Xenia turned back to face Noomi. "That was Indigo Haphazastance," Xenia explained, "trolling the newbies, as usual. Indigo is a reporter for the Alternate Reality News Service. Bad news. Never talk to any of them - vipers. And, I mean that with all due respect. ARNS reporters are only happy when they can get somebody in trouble. Stay away from them. Of course, that's not an order. It's more like a piece of friendly advice from one colleague, who has decision-making power, although she doesn't like to undermine democratic decision-making in the organization by exercising it, not in an arbitrary fashion, in any case, to another. A colleague who hasn't been around for very long and would be wise to accept the counsel of somebody who has, but in a purely non-hierarchical way. Understand?"

Noomi nodded. She hadn't said anything wrong...right?