The taxi rolled through the streets of Brooklyn, its suspension groaning with each pothole as if the vehicle itself were sighing under the weight of its passengers and the enormity of what it carried: a small girl in a pink dress, a plush rabbit of indeterminate magical importance, and three men whose capacity for normal human composure had already been tested to its limits. The city hummed around them, indifferent, pigeons fluttering like tiny gray specters above, the sunlight glancing off asphalt and windows, painting everything in strokes of ordinary reality that seemed almost cruelly mundane compared to the extraordinary tableau inside the back seat.
Delia had decided that the appropriate response to a car ride was conversation. Not silence, not observation, not polite contemplation. No. Conversation. And not casual conversation. Important, significant, piercing conversation.
"So," she said brightly, her voice ringing like a bell forged from sunlight and candy, "do you have any kids, mister?"
Bill, seated in the front, turned halfway around, his spine bending in protest to the laws of ergonomics and propriety. "What? No. I'm a soldier. Soldiers don't have kids."
"Why not?" The tilt of her head, the slight widening of her eyes, the way her lips parted just so—all these details combined to create a moment of scrutiny so profound it might have caused minor earthquakes in distant, less prepared galaxies.
"Because we're busy. Fighting. Saving the galaxy."
"That sounds exciting. Do you kill aliens?"
"Sometimes."
"Have you killed a lot?"
Bill glanced at the driver, who was pretending with only moderate success not to listen, his mustache quivering faintly as though straining to contain laughter or horror. "That's... not really dinner table conversation."
"We're not at dinner."
Ham Duo leaned forward, his face nearly level with hers, speaking with the careful gravity of someone attempting to explain thermonuclear physics to a creature whose head barely reached his shoulder. "He's killed plenty. Lots of aliens. Big ones, little ones, ones with tentacles. He's very good at it."
Delia's eyes widened to the size of small saucers, glimmering with excitement, and her ringlets bounced subtly as though the air itself wished to participate in her awe. "Wow. Can I see your gun?"
"No."
"Awww." She tilted her head, a minor frown forming, her lower lip protruding just so, creating a perfect, tiny O of disappointment, a manifestation of cosmic injustice rendered through the lens of childhood sweetness. Mr. Bunnikins shifted slightly in her grip, as though sharing in the moral weight of her reaction.
Splock sat rigidly in the corner, a statue in a purple robe, his face turned toward the window, his reflection showing eyes that stared at nothing, consumed entirely by mysteries incomprehensible to the small mind beside him. Since entering the vehicle, he had not spoken. He had not breathed in any noticeable pattern. He had, for all practical purposes, become an inert monument to quiet dread and the elegant terror of pointy ears.
Delia noticed him immediately. "Why is that man so quiet? Is he sad?" She leaned slightly toward him, the pink folds of her dress fanning outward in careful arcs, Mr. Bunnikins lifted as though to inspect this silent figure more closely, her entire small form radiating curiosity and innocent concern simultaneously.
"He's... thinking," Duo said, his tone a careful blend of explanation and apology, as if the gravity of the boy—or man—beside them required negotiation with forces beyond his own comprehension.
"About what?"
"Stuff."
"What kind of stuff?"
"Complicated stuff. Adult stuff."
"Oh." She considered this, tilting her head in a motion that seemed to slow time itself, the ringlets around her face bouncing just enough to catch stray rays of sunlight. "Is he a wizard? He looks like a wizard. With the robe and the pointy ears. Wizards are cool."
Splock's ear twitched. The movement was microscopic, almost imperceptible, but it was enough—a singular, monumental concession to awareness in a world otherwise dominated by stillness and the tiny, unstoppable force of a child's curiosity.
The taxi pulled up to a modest medical clinic—a two-story building with a faded sign reading BROOKLYN WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER. Bill pulled out a wad of cash and peeled off several large bills. The driver stared at them.
"Uh, pal, I can't make change for this."
"Keep it."
The driver's eyes bugged out. "Keep it? This is—this is like three times the fare."
"Consider it a tip. For not asking questions."
They piled out onto the sidewalk. As the taxi pulled away, Duo grabbed Bill's arm.
"Where did you get that kind of money? And don't say 'savings.'"
Bill glanced around. Lowered his voice. "The tent. When I landed on Damien Thorn's tent. There was a lockbox. With cash. Lots of cash. I figured he owed me for the broken ribs."
"You stole from a psychic?"
"Borrowed. With no intention of returning." Bill shrugged. "He was charging fifty dollars for aura cleanses. He had it coming."
Splock opened his mouth.
"If you're about to say that was unethical," Bill cut him off, "remember whose outfit you're wearing. The one with the stars. The one from the same tent."
Splock's mouth closed. He looked down at his purple robe. His expression suggested he was recalculating several moral positions simultaneously.
He pushed open the clinic door. The waiting room was empty—a minor miracle, or perhaps just the luck of a Tuesday morning. The receptionist was a young woman with too much eyeshadow and a nametag that read Tina. She looked up from a romance novel.
"Can I help you?"
Splock approached the desk. His voice, when it emerged, was the same monotone it had always been, but there was something underneath it now. Something tired.
"We require a specialist. In... pediatric internal examination. Specifically, examination of the abdominal and pelvic regions. For potential anomalies."
Tina blinked. "You mean a gynecologist?"
"If that is the appropriate terminology, yes."
She consulted a chart. "Dr. Jerk Upchucker's available. Room 204, down the hall, third door on the left."
"Splendid."
They turned to go.
Bill stopped. "Wait. Did you say 'Upchucker'? Like, that's his actual surname?"
The receptionist shrugged. "Yes, 'Jerk el Upchucker'. It's Syrian. Very old family. Very respected. He's a great doctor, though. Very thorough."
"Jerk? His first name is Jerk?"
"It's pronounced 'Yairk.' But spelled J-E-R-K. Family tradition."
Bill stared at her. She stared back. The universe, once again, was having a laugh at his expense.
"Of course it is," he muttered. "Of course."
Room 204 was at the end of a long corridor lined with pastel paintings of flowers and inspirational quotes about women's health. The door was open. Inside, a man sat behind a desk, reading a medical journal.
He was thin. Very thin. His face was long, his forehead high, his glasses perched precariously on a nose that seemed designed to reject them. He looked up as they entered, and his expression didn't change.
"Ah. Patients. Or... companions of patients?" His eyes fell on Delia. "Lovely, lovely. Wait—I know your face! You're Gene York's daughter. The politician's kid. I recognize you from the newspapers. Your father's running for Congress. Very exciting." He peered at the others. "You're not her parents."
"Government business," Bill said quickly. "Special operation. Need-to-know basis."
Upchucker's eyebrows rose. "The Pentagon?"
"The what?"
"Pentagon. Military headquarters. Are you from the Pentagon?"
Bill nodded vigorously. "Yes. Exactly. The Pentagon. Very secret. Very important."
Upchucker stood. "Wonderful. I love working with the military. So organized. So decisive. Now, who's getting examined? All of you? One at a time or simultaneously? I have enough equipment for—"
Splock's face, already pale, went several shades whiter. "Just the child. Only the child. No one else."
"Ah. Pity. I don't often get such interesting patients."
"We need an ultrasound," Bill said, trying to sound official. "On her. Now."
Dr. el Upchucker raised an eyebrow. "Ultrasound? For a child her age? Is there a medical reason or—"
"Military secret," Bill interrupted. "Top clearance. Need to know. You don't need to know."
Dr. el Upchucker nodded slowly. "I see. I see. Well, when the Pentagon calls, who am I to refuse? Come, come. This way."
The examination room was small, but in Delia's presence, it seemed impossibly vast, every corner and surface suddenly charged with significance. Dominating the space was a machine that looked as though it had emerged from a technological time capsule, born in the 1970s and stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the passing decades: knobs, dials, and a screen barely larger than a modest television, connected by a thick, coiled cable to a wand that seemed simultaneously menacing and magical. Its presence made the room smell faintly of disinfectant and mystery, as though secrets of the human body and the universe itself were waiting to be revealed through its archaic interface.
Upchucker patted the examination table with exaggerated cheer, as though the act alone could transform cold metal into a throne fit for a princess. "Up you go, young lady. This won't hurt a bit. Might tickle, though."
Delia's eyes lit up like twin stars caught in a bubble of pure excitement. She climbed onto the table with the deliberate grace of someone performing a ritual of immense importance, each small footstep measured, each ruffle of her pink dress flaring just enough to mark the passage of her body through space. Mr. Bunnikins was clutched tightly against her chest, his floppy ears draping over her arm like soft banners of courage, and she whispered to him under her breath, tiny words of encouragement as if he were the true participant in this grand medical adventure.
"Is this going to hurt?" she asked, her voice the perfect blend of curiosity and cautious optimism, a sound that seemed to make the linoleum floor shine a little brighter and the fluorescent lights soften their glare.
"Not at all, little one," Upchucker said, a man trying valiantly to maintain professional composure while surrounded by the epic force of cuteness that had taken up residence on his examination table. "Just a little cold gel and a magic wand that shows pictures of your insides."
"That sounds fun!" Delia exclaimed, clapping her small hands together so gently that it created a delicate, percussive punctuation in the quiet room. The ringlets of her hair swayed slightly with the motion, catching stray fluorescent rays, and even Mr. Bunnikins seemed to quiver in anticipation, as though he were aware that the very boundaries of imagination and reality were about to blur.
Doctor Upchucker squeezed the cold gel onto her abdomen. "Cold! Sorry about that."
Delia squealed, a crystalline note of genuine surprise and delight. "It's COLD! It's so COLD!" Her tiny toes wiggled against the paper covering the examination table, her knees bent in a perfect right angle, her hands clutching Mr. Bunnikins even tighter, as if the plush rabbit were the only thing standing between her and the unfathomable chill of this new sensation.
"That's the gel," the doctor explained patiently, "It helps the sound waves see inside you."
Delia nodded solemnly, as though this new information were of cosmic significance. Every ruffle of her dress, every bounce of a ringlet, every tiny adjustment of her small body on the table seemed imbued with the weight of ritualized importance.
He pressed the wand to her stomach. "Now, let's see what's going on in there."
Delia gasped softly, her eyes widening with the awe of someone witnessing magic for the first time. She leaned slightly forward, tilting her head, her little hands gripping Mr. Bunnikins as though to anchor herself in this rapidly transforming reality. The gel glimmered on her skin, catching the light like a tiny mirror reflecting the vastness of her own imagination, and the wand began its slow, deliberate sweep, scanning the hidden landscapes of her body with all the solemnity of an archaeologist uncovering a lost city beneath a sun-scorched desert.
The screen flickered to life. Grainy green images swam into focus—shadows and shapes that resolved slowly into recognizable forms.
Upchucker narrated as he worked. "Stomach... empty, mostly. Good. Liver... looks healthy. Intestines... plenty of gas, but that's normal for a child her age. Kidneys..." He moved the wand. "All present and accounted for."
Bill leaned closer. Duo crowded in from the other side. Their faces were inches from the screen.
The wand moved lower.
Something appeared.
A shape. Small. Regular. Almost perfectly geometric. It looked like a tiny plastic bag, its contents clearly visible even in the grainy image: small hearts. Cookie-shaped hearts. A whole cluster of them.
Bill's hand shot out and grabbed Upchucker by the collar.
"JERK! What IS that? What's inside her?"
Upchucker's eyes went wide. "I—please—let go—I need to—"
"TELL ME!"
The doctor adjusted his glasses. Squinted at the screen. His face went through several expressions—confusion, recognition, and finally, the dawning of something that looked almost like amusement.
"That," he said, "is cookies."
Bill stared at him. "Cookies."
"Cookies. Heart-shaped cookies. She ate them—probably a whole bag—and somehow they migrated to..." He paused. "Well. To an interesting place."
Delia's eyes suddenly lit up, twin beacons of joy igniting in the fluorescent-lit room. "Oh! Those cookies! They were so good! I ate the whole bag on the way to school last week!" Her small hands flailed a little in excitement, making Mr. Bunnikins wobble dangerously on her lap, his pink nose almost grazing her perfect ruffled dress. "Mommy was mad," she continued, pausing just long enough to gasp for dramatic effect, "but Daddy said it was okay because I shared with Mr. Bunnikins." She lifted the stuffed rabbit high, as if to demonstrate that yes, he had indeed received his rightful portion of the baked delicacies. "He doesn't really eat, though. He just pretends."
Upchucker began to laugh.
It started as a delicate, embarrassed chuckle, like a single bell ringing in the distance, then built steadily into a full, resonant guffaw, and finally exploded into the kind of tear-streaming, can't-breathe hysteria normally reserved for the discovery of lost treasure or the revelation of long-forgotten, world-altering secrets. He doubled over, clutching his stomach as though it might somehow collapse under the sheer force of hilarity. One hand waved helplessly at the screen, as if to signal some higher authority: This is beyond protocol.
"Cookies!" he wheezed, gasping between bouts of laughter. "It's COOKIES! The great military secret! The Pentagon's most classified operation! COOKIES IN A CHILD'S UTERUS!" The words tumbled out, each syllable buoyed by hysteria, punctuated by sobs of incredulous joy, echoing against the walls and bouncing like small, delighted meteors off the old ultrasound machine.
Ham Duo made a sound. It might have been a laugh. It might have been a sob. Somewhere in between, somewhere in that precarious, indescribable space where adult restraint collides with the absurdity of witnessing a small girl in pink discuss baked goods at a medical clinic, it emerged: a hiccup-laden, emotionally ambivalent, utterly human noise of overwhelming disbelief.
Delia, perceptive and socially aware even in her unparalleled cuteness, noticed that everyone else in the room was now laughing, crying, or wheezing helplessly. Her eyes sparkled with the understanding that she had inadvertently become the center of a minor cosmic event. "Cookies!" she repeated, her voice rising like a soprano in a grand opera, every note perfectly pitched to the acoustics of wonder and innocence. "Silly cookies! They went the wrong way!"
She leaned slightly forward, bouncing a little on the examination table, ringlets swaying like tiny, enchanted pendulums, her tiny fingers clutching Mr. Bunnikins with a firmness that suggested he alone could anchor the world against the absurdity of misdirected baked goods. The pink ruffles of her dress fluttered delicately with each motion, each fold catching the fluorescent light like a miniature flag proclaiming triumph over confusion.
Bill stared at the screen. At the tiny bag. At the perfect little hearts.
All that running. All that fear. All that time.
Cookies.
Ham Duo looked at the ceiling. Painted on it was a crude approximation of a starry sky—glow-in-the-dark stickers arranged in constellations that didn't exist.
"Let me get this straight," he said. "We traveled through time. Multiple times. We lost two Disruptors. We watched a member of our group get—" He glanced at Splock. "—compromised. Another member ate eighteen years of garbage. And the third—" He pointed at Bill. "—spent the last hour panicking about an Antichrist that turned out to be a SNACK."
Dr. el Upchucker perked up. "Antichrist? Is this part of the Pentagon operation?"
Duo waved a hand. "Never mind. Just... never mind."
Upchucker's laughter subsided to giggles. "Cookies in the uterus. That's a new one. I've seen all kinds of things—forgotten tampons, lost IUDs, even a small action figure once—but cookies? Never cookies."
Duo hiccupped again.
Splock had not moved. He stood by the wall, his eyes fixed on the screen, his expression unreadable. When he finally spoke, his voice was the hollow echo of a being who had seen too much.
"I am revising my opinion of the universe," he said. "It is not logical. It is not rational. It is not even consistently chaotic. It is a cosmic joke told by a being with no sense of humor, and we are the punchline." He paused. "I am considering entering a monastery."
Duo patted his shoulder. "Which one? They're full of women these days. You'll never be safe."
Splock's ears flattened.
Bill let go of Upchucker's collar. The doctor straightened his shirt, still chuckling.
Dr. el Upchucker wiped his eyes and composed himself. "Well! My official diagnosis: sweetheart-shaped cookies in the uterus. No surgery required. They'll pass naturally in a few days." He paused, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. "Unless they don't. Then you'll have a second child. A cookie child. Imagine that."
Bill stared at him.
"A cookie child."
"Stranger things have happened. Medicine is full of surprises. So," Upchucker said, "shall I write this up? 'Patient presents with cookie-based uterine anomaly. No treatment required. Will resolve spontaneously. If not, schedule follow-up for potential baked goods delivery.'"
Bill waved a hand weakly. "Sure. Whatever. Write what you want."
Duo's hiccups finally subsided. He looked at Bill. Bill looked at the screen. The little heart shapes seemed to mock them.
"We need to go," Bill said, his voice taut with urgency, carrying the weight of someone who had spent hours navigating events that bent both time and sanity. "We need to go now."
Delia, however, seemed entirely unaware of urgency or the fragile mental stability of the adults around her. She hopped off the examination table with the effortless grace of a woodland sprite leaping from one mossy stone to another, pink ruffles fluttering in small arcs with each bounce. Mr. Bunnikins, clutched tightly to her chest, bobbed in perfect synchrony with her motion, his floppy ears swaying like flags announcing the triumph of cuteness over chaos.
"Can we get ice cream now?" she asked, tilting her head slightly, the motion so exquisitely balanced that it might have been choreographed by angels in a rehearsal hall somewhere beyond the clouds. "The doctor says I have cookies inside me, so I should have ice cream too. To keep them company." Her voice carried that rare, crystal-clear clarity that made the simplest request sound like a decree from the universe itself, and her wide eyes gleamed with the innocence of a child who believed utterly in the moral necessity of dessert companionship.
Bill looked at her. He looked at the soft, bouncing ruffles of her dress. He looked at her perfect ringlets, catching stray fluorescent light like tiny threads of spun gold. He looked at the small hands still clutching the plush rabbit with the fierce, unwavering dedication of a knight defending a sacred relic. And he looked at her face: round, radiant, and entirely oblivious to the chaos her tiny digestive system had just wrought upon their lives.
"Yeah," he said finally, his voice softening, cracking under the impossibly warm force of her innocence. "Sure. Ice cream. Why not."
He reached down and took Delia's hand. Small. Warm. Soft. Impossibly trusting. A hand that, in its tiny perfection, seemed to contain the very essence of childhood and the impossible weight of universal joy. It was a strange, almost destabilizing sensation for someone like Bill—someone who had spent the last several hours watching her eighteen-year-old self attempt unspeakable things with a traumatised alien—now holding a miniature emblem of absolute purity, as if the universe had pressed pause and said: Here. Take this. Remember wonder.
Delia's tiny fingers curled around his, the ruffles of her dress brushing his arm with delicate insistence. Mr. Bunnikins nestled against her chest, floppy ears draping like banners of comfort. She bounced lightly on the balls of her feet, tilting her head to look at him with a small, conspiratorial smile, as if ice cream were not merely a treat but a moral imperative, a reward for surviving the horrors of... well, "medical procedures and cookies in the wrong place," which sounded ridiculous when said aloud, but somehow she made it sound entirely serious.
Even the faint hum of the clinic lights seemed to bend toward her, as if the very atmosphere acknowledged the weight of her cuteness and the gravity of dessert-related justice.
Bill nodded to Duo. Duo nodded to Splock. Splock, still pale, still wearing the purple robe with gold stars, still radiating the particular energy of someone who had seen too much and processed too little, followed them out.
Dr. Jerk el Upchucker's laughter followed them down the hall. Through the closed door, they could hear him muttering to himself: "...cookies... in the uterus... the strangest government operation... wait till I tell the medical board..."
Bill didn't look back. There was no point. Let the man believe what he wanted. Let him tell his stories about the Pentagon and their cookie-based anomalies. It was better than the truth—better than explaining alien historians and temporal embryos and eighteen years of apocalyptic Cleveland.
The receptionist looked up as they passed. "Well? How'd it go? Is Dr. Jerk as big a jerk as his name suggests?"
Bill paused. "He's... thorough."
"That's what they all say." She winked. "Tell him Tina says his coffee's ready. He forgets when he gets interesting cases."
They pushed through the glass doors into the Brooklyn morning, the world outside suddenly enormous in comparison to the delicate universe they carried with them in the taxi and the clinic. The sun had climbed higher, spilling across the streets in generous pools of gold and gray, as if the city itself had paused to witness the small procession of absurdity, innocence, and vaguely heroic men. A dog barked somewhere—a sharp, punctuating note. A car honked, somewhere down the street, adding a percussion to the morning symphony. Ordinary sounds. Mundane, unremarkable noises, utterly incapable of preparing anyone for what was about to unfold on this sidewalk.
Bill stopped, planting his feet firmly on the uneven pavement, a soldier suddenly aware that he was standing in the presence of forces beyond strategy, beyond tactics, beyond all reasonable understanding. He looked down at Delia. She clutched Mr. Bunnikins with both hands, the rabbit's floppy ears falling over her tiny arms like ceremonial banners of comfort and courage.
Her small body swayed slightly as she hummed a tune about sunshine, a melody so sweet and pure it seemed to lift dust motes into delicate, dancing arcs of light, transforming each speck of Brooklyn air into glittering particles of joy. Her ringlets, perfect and glossy, bounced with each gentle movement of her head, and the folds of her pink dress fanned around her knees with an elegance that might have taken centuries to perfect, yet came to her effortlessly.
She looked up at him, her eyes enormous and luminous, twin pools of unwavering trust and innocent expectation. And she smiled. That smile—so complete, so utterly uncomplicated, so free from memory of crocodile faces, glowing eyes, or the unspeakable horrors she would encounter in another timeline—stopped Bill's heart, even if only for a moment, and made the ordinary Brooklyn morning feel like a stage set for something simultaneously fragile, ridiculous, and sacred.
"Can we get ice cream now?" she asked, her voice perfectly pitched, lilting, carrying the tiny weight of authority that only a child who knows she is the center of the universe can wield. "You promised."
Bill blinked. He swallowed. He considered the logistics, the danger, the ethics of sugar consumption—but none of it mattered. He looked at her face again, at the impossible gravity of her tiny hands gripping Mr. Bunnikins, at the rhythm of her hum, at the bouncing ringlets and the promise of pure delight in her gaze.
"Soon," he said, his voice soft, filled with resignation and awe. "Very soon."
Ham Duo stood a few feet away, scratching his head with the slow, methodical motion of someone trying to rearrange his thoughts through physical pressure. His expression was distant, processing.
"So," he said slowly. "That's it. That's... that's the whole thing. Eighteen years of running. Two lost Disruptors. One traumatized science officer. A bunch of dead hippo things. And it ends with... cookies."
"Cookies," Bill confirmed.
"Cookies in a child's uterus."
"Specifically."
Duo nodded. Then nodded again. Then started laughing—a low, incredulous chuckle that built into something almost hysterical. "We saved the world from cookies. We're heroes because of cookies. The Alien Historian's grand plan was defeated by a snack."
Splock cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice had regained some of its usual monotone, though there was a new quality underneath—something worn, something tired, something that might have been the first stirrings of existential acceptance.
"Logically speaking," he said, "the Historian's timeline has been neutralized. Our interference in 1982 and 1985 created sufficient temporal disruption to prevent the embryo's implantation. In this reality, Alexander of Macedon was never transferred to Karen York. The embryo never developed. The apocalypse we witnessed in 2000 has been... erased."
Bill looked at him. "So it's over? Really over?"
"The probability approaches certainty. Delia York is an ordinary child. There is no threat. No conspiracy. No future catastrophe." Splock paused. "The mission is complete."
He turned to Ham Duo. "We require the Disruptor. The one you have kept in your possession throughout these events."
Duo's hand went protectively to his pocket. "My Disruptor? The last one? The only one we've got left?"
"It has sufficient energy to transport the three of us to our appropriate temporal coordinates. The same maneuver was successful in 2000. We have empirical evidence that it works."
"But I built that one. With my own hands. With molybdenum. Good molybdenum. Grade four."
"Your attachment to the device is noted. Its utility as a transportation mechanism remains unchanged. Please produce it."
Duo grumbled but pulled out the Disruptor. It gleamed in the morning light, its surface still bearing faint traces of its journey through time and space. No banana peel. No cookie crumbs. No lipstick. It looked almost respectable.
Bill looked at the device. Looked at Delia. Looked at the ordinary Brooklyn street with its ordinary Brooklyn sounds.
Something caught in his throat.
"I'm not going."
Duo's hand froze halfway to the Disruptor's keyboard. "What?"
Bill shook his head. "I'm staying. Here. In 1990. In Brooklyn."
Duo stared at him. Splock's ears twitched—a gesture that might have been surprise, might have been calculation, might have been the first stages of a system reboot.
"You want to stay here?" Duo's voice climbed. "In this timeline? With nothing but cookies and strange doctors and little girls who—" He gestured at Delia, who was now trying to make Mr. Bunnikins wave at a passing pigeon. "—don't even know what they almost were?"
Bill shrugged. "It's peaceful here."
"Peaceful? It's 1990! The music is terrible! The clothes are worse! There's no spaceships, no intergalactic travel, no—"
"No Chinger wars," Bill interrupted quietly. "No Quintiform computers trying to digitize my brain. No Alien Historians with grand plans. No Counter-Dirks with antelope prods and cauldrons of fried chewing gum." He looked at the sky—blue, ordinary, completely free of temporal anomalies. "Just... peace. Quiet. And maybe—" He glanced at Duo. "—a chance to finally hear that story. The one about the flamenco dancer's outfit. You've been promising it for..."