Chapter 107 (1/2)

Checkout counters were the same no matter the dimension. Long lines of disheveled, disinterested people, staring at their phones or vacantly into space. Half the number of cashiers needed for any sort of reasonable progress. And neat rows of gossip magazines, broadcasting ludicrous headlines. Dan dutifully scanned over them as a bored employee swiped his groceries across a barcode scanner.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

There were fancier ways to go about it, sure, but Dan was shopping at the local equivalent of Walmart. It was worth it, though. How else would he have learned that the Austin Smog (which is what the news had been calling Bartholomew's attack) had been caused by an alien impersonating action star Tom Cruise. There was a photo and everything! Right there on the center rack, blown up so large that Dan could make out individual pixels, were the poorly photo-shopped features of a world-renowned celebrity, pasted haphazardly atop the fleeing body of an overweight woman.

In unrelated news, Scientology hadn't made it to Dimension A. The authoring of Dianetics, by L. Ron Hubbard, had been neatly butterflied away by the sudden existence of literal superpowers. Dan had looked it up on a whim. Hubbard's biography was small and unremarkable. He had been a mildly successful author, writing four pieces of science fiction before being killed during a vigilante riot in the early sixties. Scientology never came into existence, and Tom Cruise was never stained by its shadow.

So, instead of being widely regarded as an absurdly dedicated action star, a huge proponent of Scientology, and all-around crazy person, he was widely regarded as an absurdly dedicated action star, and all-around crazy person. It was fascinating to compare his career in Dimension A to that of his counterpart.

Top Gun existed, though the plot had been heavily altered by social norms. Maverick was exaggeratedly unsympathetic, and when his flouting of the rules got his by-the-books copilot killed it almost seemed a righteous outcome. Iceman was the protagonist, trying to rehabilitate his wild and unruly brother in arms, motivated by duty and honor. Tom Cruise's portrayal of a villain, driven to reform by his own selfish actions, propelled him to super stardom.

It was absurd. By all rights, the man should not exist. Yet there he was, in all his oddly charismatic glory. Tom Cruise, it seemed, was inevitable.

But Dan was getting distracted. He paid for his groceries, grimacing at the unpleasant look his daydreaming had earned from the tired cashier. He willed himself home, and arrived in front of his kitchen counter. Abby blew him a kiss from her place on the couch, and Dan slowly restocked the fridge.

He was putting things off. There was something that he needed to do, to confront, and he'd been ignoring it for weeks. Something hugely important, and pants-shittingly terrifying. He was referring, of course, to Cthulu's little brother, who appeared to be living in Dan's power. Or was Dan's power. Which was somehow even worse to contemplate.

It wasn't that Dan was a speciesist. He could Cthulu fhtagn with the best of them. It was just that, and maybe this was a little irrational of him, he was a slightly uncomfortable sharing space with an eldritch monstrosity that might want to devour his consciousness. No big deal, just not his scene. He had never been one for roommates (that he wasn't actively dating). Dan was a loner like that.

So it was with understandable trepidation that he announced, ”I'm gonna try and talk to my monster.”

Abby blinked up at him. ”Eh?”

”That thing I told you about, that's in t-space?” Dan reminded her. ”I'm gonna go poke it and see what happens. I can't just ignore it forever.”

”Oh. Right.” Her face briefly looked as disturbed as his. ”Maybe, um, don't think of it like that, exactly,” Abby offered, sitting up.

”Like what?”

”Like an obstacle,” Abby explained.

Dan frowned. ”Maybe it's friendly, maybe it's not, but either way, I don't think I'm gonna hurt its feelings with a little profiling. It ain't human.”

”No, but it's connected to you,” Abby insisted. ”You said so yourself. So don't do anything... dramatic.”

Dan's brow furrowed at the odd advice. ”You believe me, don't you? About the giant eldritch thing?”

”Of course!” Abby exclaimed quickly, waving her arms in what could generously be interpreted as a reassuring motion. ”I believe that you saw it, but I'm not convinced it's a threat. Or that it's unusual, even.”

”The thing looks like someone tried to stick an octopus in a blender, Abs,” he pointed out.

”That's not— I don't mean literally, you just, hrmm.” Abby took a deep, calming breath. ”Your power lets you see things that literally nobody else can. What if these things are completely normal? What if everyone has one, but nobody can see theirs?”

Dan blinked, slowly, as he processed the implications of this disturbing new theory. ”I'm not sure I'm a fan of that idea.”