PS238 Room 8

After stepping through the portal that the Toms had made, Tyler found himself right behind an extremely busy Zodon. Feeling the familiar sensation of doom as he snuck up on the crabby super-genius, he composed a mental goodbye letter.

My name is Tyler, and I attend PS238, the first public school for superpowered children. I don't have any powers, but that didn't stop my folks from sending me here. They're superheroes, and I guess that means they're used to getting their way.

I get to take some classes in the normal public school three miles above PS238, and I always figured I was safer up there. Well today, I fell out of the library during study hall, and landed someplace called "The Castle Beyond Time and Space."

Tom Davidson was there, he can travel through time. He's sent me on a mission to mess up Zodon's time machine, while he'll build sometime in my future.

Ahead of him Zodon quietly muttered through a checklist of protocols. "Activating interlock... Dynotherms connected... Infracells up..."

Just thinking about all this makes my head hurt. Anyhow, all I'm supposed to do is put a little metal thingie on the back of Zodon's chair before he travels through time. So here goes... Tyler thought as he reached forwards, eyes focused on the back of Zodon's chair.

Light started swirling around the chair as he heard Zodon speak, and he could hear the maniacal grin in the super-genius' voice...

"Destination is set. And... HERE WE GO!"

The world blurred around him once again, as the evil technical genius made his first portal into the past. Tyler found himself in the middle of a construction area, with the yet-unbuilt Excelsior school to his side, and the back of Zodon's chair, gizmo attached in front of him.

Oh boy... This most definitely fell into the category of 'Not Good' and set the tone for the rest of the little experience.

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"--Or Anything." Zodon muttered angrily at his equipment, as Tyler hopped off the back of his chair. Once you froze the supergenius in time and highjacked his travelling rig, getting back was easy. "Hey! Looks like this FLUFFY piece of SEESAW finally stabilized! I'm only about a year away from where I started.. But I've drifted across the schoolyard a bit.

"Let's see, setting four-dee coordinates..." Zodon went back to trying his amchine just as Tyler reattached the gizmo. "Wait. 'Power instability detected in..' Aw, EARWA--"

The genius' rant cut short by the sudden portal, Tyler worked his way on sneaking back into the school library from the outside, cradling the Stopwatch Gun he had picked up. It was handy, but it could be a real pain in the butt if it got into the wrong hands.

After sneaking through the hallways, and in through the secret passage into the library, Tyler peered around a divider wall to see is he was in the clear. He started tiptoeing back to the table where this had all started. So far so go--

"TYLER!"

He froze in his tracks realizing he had forgotten about the danger of Mrs. Metcalfe's wrath.

"What are you doing out of your seat?" She marched up to him, and made sure he was headed back to his table. The aggravated librarian put her hands on her hips, glaring at the mess he had left behind at the start of all of this. "Tyler Marlocke. This is completely unacceptable. I can't have students disappear and leave messes like this.

"And sneaking out of study hall without a pass. That's a revocation of bathroom privileges for a week. I hope you have a sturdy set of..." The elderly harpy of a librarian trailed off as he tried to hide the gun from her. "What are you hiding from me? Turn around..."

Mrs. Metcalfe snatched the gun away from Tyler and examined it, though not closely or thoroughly. "Tsk! Bringing toy guns to school! That's detention, young man! If you're very lucky, I'll return it to you before you go home. Bring it again and it vanishes forever, are we clear?"

"Yes, Mrs. Metcalfe..." Oh great... Just what he needed. He watched her walk away back to her desk and sighed, it was all over no--. Oh no. "Wait, Mrs. Metcalfe, don't point it at yoursel--"

-BZORT!-

Tyler facepalmed and groaned inwardly as he walked up to the crotchy frozen Mrs. Metcalfe. He was going to get in more trouble for this..

-BZOWNT!-

"Tyler! Let go of the toy this instant! I said you could have it back after school!"

"I know but--"

"But you can't go without two days in detention?"

"No ma'am."

"Then sit down!"

"Yes, ma'am." Resigned, Tyler tidied up his seat and table before sitting back down again. He asked himself what else could go wrong today when a hand clapped down suddenly on his shoulder.

"Glad you made it back." Tom. Ofcourse it would be Tom.

"YIPE!!" He yelped out of sheer worn nerves and reflex.

"Tyler? This is a library you know!" Came the voice of Mrs. Metcalfe again.

"Yes ma'am. Sorry."

"So how was your trip?" Tom asked, now wearing a vest like his future counterpart, as he sat down.

"Oh great.." Tyler said, laying in as heavily as a ten-yearold could with sarcasm. "I got lost in your castle floating in space, got to see nightmares about possible versions of me, bounced around with a guy who thinks he's two people, hitched a ride back on Zodon and almost got Mrs. Metcalfe frozen in time."

"Sounds like you did about a hundred and fifty comic books worth of work. What do you think?" Tom brought up a large, long box filled with comic books.

For a moment Tyler stared at it wondering and thinking, then looked up and grinned, bargaining. "I got detention for sneaking back into the library."

"Okay, one seventy-five."

"And I got exposed to the fourth dimension. That can't be healthy." He was going to milk this for all it was worth.

"Fine, two hundred and I'll throw in some 'giant-sized' books from the seventies."

"Deal."

Were all of the worlds in those mirrors he hadn't touched yet just as scary? Tyler sat down on his knees and glanced around the hallways, looking at all the reflections that were looking back at him. A little to his left was a mirror that actually had his regular reflection in it. That didn't look too bad. Tentatively, he reached out to touch his reflection...


( ~~~~~~~~ )

"...You may be the most important Tyler of us all."

Tyler fell backwards from the mirror, flat on his back staring up at the plain ceiling. His head felt funny after that one, and he really couldn't tell if it was from sharing psychic powers or just the creepy factor of that particular possible world. And he really, REALLY did not want to know.

Okay... it was go straight down the hall and take a right at the big fountain, according to the weird guy on the com, Tyler thought as he wandered around down the halls. He turned accordingly, into a huge hall lined with mirrors. He wondered what could be so important there. Aside from the reflections wearing different clothes there was nothing here to...

He double-took and looked closer. The nearest reflection was wearing some kind of slightly anti-heroish getup, a jumpsuit with shoulder pads and those ugly sunglasses that went all the way around your head. It moved the same way he did, so it had to be a reflection, but he was pretty darn certain that he was still wearing a t-shirt and jeans. Tentatively, Tyler reached forward to touch the mirror.( ~~~~~~~~ )

... and staggered away from the mirror, shaken and confused. What was that?

As Tyler toppled backward in his chair, the only thought in his head was Oh, shoot, Mrs. Metcalfe'll hear me fall and then I'll get in trouble. That thought was banished when he hit a rocky surface with a jolting thump.

"Oof!"

He sat up and rubbed his head, looking up and around. There was a peculiar lack of library ceiling, and quite a lot of stars in its stead. Not like at night, though, or in space. He'd been in space. Space wasn't usually so... swirly.

His head didn't hurt, so that ruled out a concussion. So... he'd blurred from the library to... a rocky hillside, with nothing in front of him but more rocky hillside.

To his credit, he did not panic. Which wasn't to say that he wasn't pretty darn scared. He just didn't panic. Instead, since there was clearly nothing helpful ahead of him, he turned and hauled himself up over the ledge that blocked his view behind.

Over the ledge, the view was more promising. In the distance he could see a fancy castle, one with a lot of turrets. It didn't look old-fashioned, though, at least not properly so. It looked like it had been modeled on a medieval palace, or possibly Disneyworld, but by someone from the distant future.

Wherever he was, it not only wasn't the right place, it probably wasn't the right time either. "Oh, boy, does this look bad..."

"GURGLING piece of POT ROAST still won't re-initialize!"

He looked to where the familiar voice had come from. ...No. He had to get stranded on some rock in the middle of space - or wherever - and Zodon would be here? An angry Zodon complaining about his hardware, who had just appeared a few feet away from him.

"What do you mean 'Not enough RAM to complete required function?!' I threw a BLOSSOMING Beowulf cluster's worth of processing power into this pile of TATER TOTS, and it still won't even display the local time!"

Then Zodon caught sight of Tyler. They looked at each other. There was a pregnant (and deeply confused) pause.

"Didn't I just dump you in 1966 sometime after I ran into you in 1967?"

"Huh?"

Zodon sneered. He was good at that. "Think of it as something to look forward to, normal-boy." With that, boy-genius and mechanical chair disappeared into a swirling vortex with a somewhat disappointing beep.

Alone again, and a bit relieved that he didn't have to deal with Zodon, Tyler turned towards the castle. Buildings meant civilization, and civilization hopefully meant people. "I hope there's someone in there who can help me out..."