Willful Child: Wrath of Betty by Steven Erikson
He scowled. “But they’re made out of toilet paper!”
“Toilet paper in the future, you mean. But in this day and age, it’s money, and yes, it still stinks.”
“Sir,” said Sin-Dour, “how will we find the krill?”
“Intrepid exploration, 2IC! Out into this wild, unpleasantly violent world. Beta, from now on I want to see Beta Unplugged, understood?”
“Very well, Captain,” Beta replied. “I am almost finished downloading all their private files in any case—”
The mob surrounding her let loose a chorus of wails and rushed Beta, hands reaching out for handheld electronic devices. The android vanished beneath a mass of bodies.
Aboard the Willful Child …
“I’m just handling communications, Lieutenant,” explained the temporal officer on the viewscreen. “Our operatives have already displaced to the planet below.”
In the command chair, Jocelyn Sticks frowned and crossed her legs. “Hmm, like, right. So, uhm, you knew nothing about us being here?”
The officer scowled. “I told them!” He drew out a small device. “This is my Hadrian-Specific Timeline Fucking-Up Gauge, from my previous assignment, and it’s going haywire—but would they listen? No way! It was ‘Oh shut up with all that meter shit, Clittersob!’ But now you’re here! Hadrian Sawback! Fucking up the timeline … again!”
“Right, whatever. So, what mission? What operatives?”
On the viewscreen a Fleet janitor, pushing a mop, passed in front of Clittersob, who pointed and said, “You missed a spot back there, Tuggnutter.”
“Fuck off,” the janitor replied.
“Well, at least get out of the way! I’m talking here! Official shit, right?”
Tuggnutter glanced over into the viewscreen, then scowled. “Hey, that’s not the Space Station interior—and that’s not the NASA Onboard Mission Commander!”
“Shh! You idiot! They’re from the future too—it’s frigging Willful Child, Tuggnutter!”
“Not our future!”
“No, our past, but not as past as this right now, and for them they’re not their own future, they’re their own present, it’s just for us that they’re the past, only not as far back as this past, meaning we’re both from the future, but different futures, get it?”
Tuggnutter waved his mop at Clittersob. “Contact the operatives! Abort the mission!”
“I’m not contacting anybody! Now get out of the way—get off the bridge, in fact! I’m talking with Lieutenant Sticks, who’s in temporary command of the Willful Child.”
“Where’s Captain Sawback?” Tuggnutter demanded, peering again into the viewscreen.
“On the planet,” Clittersob replied. “Get lost, Tuggnutter, or I swear I’ll remotely Re-set you!”
“Not if I remotely Re-set you first!”
“Hey!” Sticks shouted. “You two! Stop arguing! Like, I’m sitting here, right? In the command chair, and this is, like, offiSHALL!”
The two men paused to frown at her.
“That’s better,” Sticks said, settling back once more. “So, like, a minute ago, right? I was like this and asking, you know, what mission? What operatives? And then he shows up and it’s like, ‘Oh you missed a spot,’ and then it’s Space Station and Mission Commanders, and what’s with those suits? You guys planning a spacewalk or something? And what’s that logo mean? ESA?”
“We’re like—I mean, we’re undercover,” Clittersob replied. “I’m not allowed to tell you anything, since this is a High Priority Mission and all seven Garys are now down on the planet looking for that damned cat before it somehow messes up yet another budget cut to space exploration, which is what the People Behind the People want since it keeps humans on the planet and in their control and besides, everyone knows the Private Bigwigs who’ve taken over Space Exploration in this time period have been busy undercutting technological advances to keep all the sheep at their nine-to-fives for fucking ever but that’s how it how played out, at least until the Benefactors dumped their fleet into orbit, and stuff.” He paused, expression growing confused.
Then his face vanished as Tuggnutter hit him in the head with the mop. “You blabbed everything, you idiot!” Wheeling to the viewscreen, Tuggnutter raised the mop, and then suddenly mashed it against the screen. Something fizzed, sparks lashed out, and the image went dark.
On the bridge of the Willful Child, there was silence.
After a time, Jocelyn Sticks cleared her throat. “Ship Computer?”
“What?”
“Uhm, all that. You heard? Of course you heard. Like, what the fuh? I mean, I’m like, did that make any sense?”
“It is generally suspected that following the first visits to the Moon, corporate interests blocked the Space Race by compromising successive elected governments in the nation leading that race, principally to maintain jurisdictional control over global wealth. It would seem, Lieutenant, that agents from the future are working to ensure that the End of the Dream remains intact.”
“Seven Garys? What, do they run out of names in the future?”
“And a cat,” added Jimmy Eden from his station at comms.
Sticks turned to where Polaski stood beside a dribbling Klinghanger. “We never even got into what to do with this guy,” she said, sighing. “Listen, Polaski, just displace Klinghanger to their ship, okay? Jimmy, try to reestablish contact with the Temporal Vessel, all right? But if we still got a lock on it, engage the Insisteon.”
From the Science Station, Lieutenant Bitpartis cleared his throat and then said, “Ma’am, should we inform the captain that temporal agents have landed on the planet?”
“He’s probably figured that out already,” Sticks replied. “Besides, they’re all looking for a cat.”
“Well!” said Eden brightly, “that shouldn’t be hard! There’s an entire website devoted to pictures of cats, with billions of followers. Those Seven Garys should be able to log in and why, they’ll find their cat in no time!”
“Well then, there you go,” said Sticks. “Leave them to it.”
“Will someone help me?” Polaski asked, as he struggled to get Klinghanger back into the three-wheeled stroller.
Seahawk Nation, Earth …
Hadrian led his landing party out onto the street, where a score or so of Comicon attendees stood around smoking cigarettes. Traffic churned past, spewing poisonous waste products. A mother with a pushchair in which slumped a toddler made a wide berth on the walkway to avoid the cigarette smokers, and then stood waiting for the light at the corner, where a stopped vehicle spewed noxious vapors into the toddler’s face from its chugging exhaust pipe—conveniently placed at toddler height. She glanced back with a disgusted look at the clump of attendees.
“This place is all fucked up,” said Buck. He turned to Printlip. “Doc, all the good stuff is wearing off. I’m getting shaky, antsy, nervous, paranoid—”
“In this Time Period, that appears to be the normal human state, Chief Engineer,” Printlip replied. “However, if you wish to return to a drug-induced dislocation of all higher brain functions … I am happy to oblige.”
“Well,” said Buck, “now that you mention it.…”
While this negotiation was continuing, Hadrian’s searching gaze caught sight of a small storefront across the street. “You-reeka! All of you, stay right here and don’t get into any trouble. I’ll be right back—wait, Buck, give me some of that souvenir currency, yes, thank you, that’ll do.” Cash in hand, he waited at the corner until the light opposite turned green and then set off across the street.
“He’s going to get you all killed,” said Lorrin Tighe as they watched their captain navigate through the crowd crossing the street. “I was trying to save you all, you know. But not just you, and not just everyone on the Willful Child, either. No, I was trying to save the Affiliation of Civilized Planets. I was, in fact, trying to save all of humanity.”
“By killing our captain?” Sin-Dour asked. “Adjutant, no civilization
“Rogue genius? Him?” Tighe snorted. “You’re all infected. It’s a disease.”
“I assure you,” interjected Printlip after injecting Buck, “no such affliction afflicts the captain, or us.”
Glassy-eyed, Buck walked up to Tighe and slapped her on the back. “We’re all members of the Affliction of Civilized Planets, Agitant. Get juiced to it.”
Printlip resumed, “But these terrible vapors shall require a systemic flushing of each and every one of you, including circulatory irrigation and power-vacuum enemas…”
“Touch me, Doc, and I’ll kill you,” said Galk.
“Ah, I am aware of your file, Combat Specialist.”
“Good, so you know why I would have to kill you, don’t you?”
The Belkri fidgeted for a moment, eyes bobbing on their stalks. “I was only joking. Haha. In fact, your bodies will flush out the toxins without my intercession.”
The convention attendees had all finished their cigarettes and departed, replaced a moment later by a flock of pigeons. Sin-Dour frowned at seeing one of the scraggily birds limping.
At that instant someone shouted, “Stop that cat!”
Spinning round, Buck launched himself through the air, directly into the path of a cat rushing toward the pigeons.
The flock took to the air in a wild flapping of greasy wings, barring the limping one, which instead sprang into the traffic.
“Stop that pigeon!” another voice shrieked.
Buck wrestled on the pavement with the spitting, snarling cat. “I got it!” the Chief Engineer howled. “Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow—”
A local jumped in to deftly close a rhinestone-studded princess collar around the cat’s neck. The creature suddenly subsided. The man then picked the cat up and cradled it in his arms.
Bloody and shredded on the dirty pavement, Buck stared up at the man.
A second man looking just like the first one now rushed up. “Disaster!” he said. “The Limping Pigeon just got flattened by a bus!” He drew out a strange-looking timepiece. “One more hour! That was all it needed!”
A third man looking like the other two now showed up. “You’re both wrong.”
The first two wheeled on him, and the man holding the cat scowled and said, “Who are you?”
“I’m Gary Eight.”
“There’s only seven Garys down here right now!” snapped the man with the cat.
“From your own time, yes, but I’m from a month after you left, since you all fucked it up.”
“Not us! It was the damned cat!”
“Wrong! The cat was sent a week after you—”
“No way,” said the other Gary. “We were sent here to chase down the cat, so it couldn’t have come from after we left!”
“It could,” replied Gary Eight, “because it was sent twice.”
The other two Garys frowned.
“You are all temporal agents,” said Sin-Dour.
The three men started and then stared at her in horror.
“We’ve been identified!”
“Ratted out!”
“Exposed!”
“Not really,” Sin-Dour replied. “We’re also from the future—”
“So am I,” added Tammy, glowering at the cat, which now glared back, hackles rising.
Five other men converged. “So are we,” one of them said. “I’m Gary One, and this is Gary Two and Gary Three and—”
“For crying out loud,” Galk cut in, “we get it. Honest.”
“But the Limping Pigeon,” said the Gary with the cat, “it’s supposed to crap on a little boy’s head in exactly fifty-one minutes—and now it’s dead! Meaning our future has been destroyed!”
A new voice now interceded. “That would be true, if not for my extraordinary ability to resurrect this flattened Limping Pigeon.”
Everyone turned to see another Gary, who smiled. “Gary Nineteen, at your service.” He lifted into view the squashed carcass of the Limping Pigeon. “Eminently salvageable,” he said. “Provided one has one of these!” And he produced a small tool that looked like a stapler. “Insta-Clone Dynamic, Scan-and-Hatch Portable. Made by Let’s Make Another One Dynamics.”
Buck, who had climbed to his feet, now stepped close to Gary Nineteen. “Really? Can I see? Oh please? Please?”
“Alas, I must retain my possession of this Item-From-The-Future, but you can look at the label.” He lifted it up.
Buck squinted. “Insta-Colne Dynamic … Colne? Shouldn’t that say ‘Clone’?”
Gary Nineteen shrugged. “Typos and Taxes, the Eternal Twins plaguing humanity. Besides, try finding a decent copy editor in this day and age.” He frowned. “I mean that day and age. No, the future day and age. In any case, observe.” He pressed one end of the tool against the mangled bird-patty. Something clicked and then whizzed. An instant later an egg emerged from the tool’s other end, dropping lightly into Gary Nineteen’s palm.
Everyone stared at it.
Then Tammy the chicken snorted, leaning against a poster-plastered pole. “You idiot. A bird was supposed to shit on a little boy’s head in less than an hour, and you, you’ve got an egg.”
“Yes, well— Oh look, there’s the little boy we’re talking about!” And Gary Nineteen flung away the pigeon carcass and ran toward the boy, who was walking hand-in-hand with his mother. Reaching them, Gary Nineteen cracked the egg and dumped its gooey contents onto the head of the now crying child.
The mother then kneed Gary Nineteen between the legs. The man from the future crumpled to the pavement.
As the mother hauled the bawling boy away, six of the other Garys headed over to help Gary Nineteen back onto his feet, laughing and high-fiving their gasping fellow agent.
“That poor boy,” said Nina Twice.
“Necessary,” said the one Gary who had not joined the others. He stood, stroking the cat. “According to Princess here, that boy will now grow up hating the world, and indeed will become President For Life of a not-yet-formed nation called The Unity Stats.”
“And this is important?” Sin-Dour asked.
“He will then inadvertently bring down The Unity Stats by declaring war on Nunavit, a territory in Northern Canada. Why? Because there’s not many people there, and it should be easy to beat. Alas, having become President For Life on a platform of Climate Change Denial, his entire land army falls through brittle-thin ice in the Arctic Ocean. Everyone drowns. Then, in a rage, the Unity Stats sets fire to itself. All very necessary, as the Earth needs to become a miserable gray-sky world with mostly dead oceans, no forests left, and clouds so thick the Benefactors—when they arrive—believe they’ve reached The Formless Void of Incorporeal Existence, at least momentarily.”
“The cat said all that?” Buck asked. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“Purr speech,” Gary replied. “I was translating. In any case, Princess has succeeded in her mission, since you all did precisely what she needed you to do. Oh, me, too, I guess.” Smiling, he stroked the cat. “And now she can return to her future home to get spayed.”
The cat squalled and leapt out from Gary’s arms.
“After it!” cried all the Garys, and off they went.
“Who were those guys?” Hadrian asked as he walked up to the landing party.
Sin-Dour sighed. “I’ll explain later, sir. Now, since we still require krill, I have taken the liberty of doing a search and have located a region in the Northern Pacific Ocean where—”
“No need,” Hadrian replied. “All sorted. In fact, we can now return to the Willful Child. Gather round and prepare for displacement.”
“Won’t people see us just vanishing and wonder?” Sin-Dour asked.
“Oh, who cares about them. As they say, all in the past. Haha. Now … displace!”
Aboard the Willful Child …
“Well done, everyone,” said Hadrian as he stepped down from the displacement pad, “you all survived a har
“Sir, about the krill—”
“Darwin help us!” cried Buck, tearing at his close-cropped hair. “The Krill! The Kriiillllll!” And he fell to his knees, staring up at the ceiling. Then he frowned. “That spiderweb! It reads Come on up, lover—Darwin save me, I’m doomed!”
“This is called an hallucination,” diagnosed Printlip, “a common contraindication of LSD use, unless of course you happen to be a male spider.”
Beta said, “Penis farms were all the rage, at least until harvest.”
Straightening his torn and grubby shirt, Hadrian said, “Everyone return to stations. Except you, Buck. Best head to your quarters and maybe sleep it off. As for me, I appear to smell like vehicle exhaust byproducts, so a little freshening up is in order. Adjutant, would you care to join me in the sonic shower?”
“In your dreams.”
“Well, yes, but never mind that. I meant a real sonic shower. I mean, we may have to all reconvene in the Antiradiation Soaping-Down Chamber in any case—what’s your diagnosis, Doc?”
“The Pacific Ocean was radioactive, yes,” Printlip replied. “Accordingly, the only one needing soaping down is the Chief Engineer.”
Hadrian squinted at Buck for a long moment, then shook his head. “No offense,” he said, “but seeing my Chief Engineer wearing the wrong dress was alarming enough. Buck naked … no thanks.”
Buck was staring at Printlip. “The ocean was radioactive?”
“Yes,” the Belkri replied.
“My Pentracorder detected that as well,” said Sin-Dour, “so I did some checking. Seems a reactor melted down on some miniaturized island called Japan.”
“Miniaturized?” Buck asked.
Sin-Dour frowned. “I may have misread that bit. Anyway, Chief Engineer, most of the people aware of the situation weren’t talking, while everyone else wasn’t listening in either case.”
“We’re good at that,” said Hadrian. “Well now, Adjutant?”
“No,” she replied. “I have plans to make … sir.”