When Good Plans Go Bad, page 20
part #2 of DimWorld Series
“I get what you guys are saying, but I still feel shitty about people dying. I wish there was a way to get rid of that part.” He stretched out on the ground and straightened his arm.
“You’re going to agonize about it for a while,” Tocho said. “That’s part of it. You couldn’t do this kind of thing if you were a sociopath, because you wouldn’t care about the Bribri, either. Does that make sense?”
Quentin stared up at the deep blue sky overhead as he absorbed the idea. It seemed like a bit of a catch-22. He had to care in order to do it in the first place, but caring is what made it painful. It seemed like a significant design flaw.
“Maybe I can find a hypnotist that can block out the bad parts,” he said at last. “It seems like there ought to be some way to make it bearable to right the world’s wrongs, you know?”
Bob laughed, causing others around them to look over. “If you find somebody that can do that, you let me know. Then we’ll use the time machine function on the DimGate, and go back and save ourselves a lifetime of pain and suffering.”
“Yes,” Tocho said, clapping his hands. “Now you’re talking!”
Bob reached over and grasped Quentin by the wrist, and looked him in the eye. “You’re going through all of this because you’re a good guy, Quentin. I want to make sure you understand that. You aren’t broken, and you didn’t fail. You take the losses to heart because you care about people. If you didn’t feel bad right now, then there would be something wrong with you.”
Quentin wiped the tears away with his free hand, and tried to smile. His throat closed every time he tried to say something is response, so he just laid back and looked at the sky.
Eissa moved among them, checking the level of the fluids in their IV bags. “So, when are we going back to the island?”
“The sooner we are out of the way, the sooner they can start putting their new life together,” Bob said. “We’ll have to come back in a day or two and see how things are going, maybe give some advice, but we can head back any time you all are ready.”
“I’ll need to check the wounds on these guys a few times a day, for a few days. I also need to bring back some more drugs.” Eissa disconnected the tube from Tocho’s catheter. “All set. I’m out of tape though, so you’ll have to hold the gauze on there once I pull the catheter.”
Tocho nodded, and took the gauze from her.
“They’re going to need more bandaging material, too. We have to do a medical supply run somewhere, and soon.”
“We’ll get your medical stuff first,” Tocho said. “Then I’m going on a household goods supply run. I’m not spending my retirement sleeping on that cot at the cabin. I want a real bed.”
“Yeah, me too,” Bob said. “I think it’s time to do a lot of upgrades to the cabin. We need more hot water, for one thing, so we need another black barrel for the roof. I’m going to take a hot shower every day for the next month.”
“Wait a minute,” Quentin said. “Retirement? After all this talk about dealing with feelings and being the good guys, and now we’re retiring?”
“We,” Bob said, pointing to Tocho and himself. “Not the papal we.” He pointed at Quentin and Eissa.
“I don’t get it,” Quentin said. “This whole thing was a debacle without you. You can’t just leave us hanging here.”
“The biggest liability in this whole operation was the two of us,” Bob said. “We made bad decisions, we got captured by the enemy, and we could have compromised the entire operation if you had decided to try to rescue us, instead of continuing the mission.”
“And we’re getting old,” Tocho added. “Sitting in that shed was a hell of a lot harder on us than it would have been twenty years ago. I don’t ever want to do that again.”
“Besides, you proved you can handle things without us,” Bob said, picking back up. “You ran this whole thing by yourselves. And with us being at the cabin, you can use us as consultants, so we’ll still be involved. We just won’t be slowing you down next time.”
Quentin shook his head. “We need to get you back to the cabin, and maybe to a hospital or something. You’re both acting delusional. I think you’ve probably suffered a head injury or something.”
Tocho grinned. “Well, I did get kicked in the head.”
“You’ll have to wait until everyone’s hydrated,” Eissa said. “Right now, no one’s going anywhere. Medic’s orders.”
Chapter 21
Two weeks of sitting on the cabin porch and whittling had done wonders for Bob’s face. Both of his eyes were open again, though one slightly more than the other. The bruising on his cheek had gone from blue to purple to black, then greenish and yellow around the edges as it began to shrink.
Quentin had started sitting with him in the afternoons lately, and he found their philosophical discussions to be both challenging and intellectually stimulating.
It was raining, and the cool breeze that drifted across the porch misted them from time to time. It was a welcome change after the heat of the past week.
The stick that Bob was whittling on had slowly turned into a large spoon. He was currently carving a bunch of grapes into the handle. Quentin smirked at the mess of shavings in Bob’s beard.
“So, Tocho’s really getting into this whole cabin upgrade thing, huh?”
Bob paused, and combed his beard out with his fingers. “We should have set this place up proper a long time ago. It’s a great place to live, especially if you have a door that will take you anywhere you want to go.”
“Agreed.”
Bob resumed whittling. Quentin watched the rain, his thoughts swirling.
“Tell me about some of the really strange dimensions out there. What’s happened in the places that are more advanced than ours?”
Bob held the spoon up to his good eye and inspected the grapes. “Oh, there’re some strange ones. Let’s see… as far as outright different, there’s a dimension I’ve heard of where their brains evolved past where ours are at. Supposedly they can do things with their brain that would be considered magic pretty much anywhere else.”
“You haven’t been there?”
“No, that’s one I heard about in a prison camp I was in for a while. I never did go there. Afraid, I guess, but I mostly was kind of skeptical about the whole thing.”
“What kind of stuff could they do?”
“Oh, general telekinesis stuff, moving things around, that sort of thing.”
“Huh.” Quentin pushed his feet against the footstool, setting the chair to rocking again. “Do you think it’s possible?”
“Well, there’s a whole lot about the brain that is unknown, so I’d be hard pressed to say it’s not possible, but it’s a long stretch for an old logic guy like me.”
“I’d like to check that out someday. What other kinds of weird things are there out there?”
“Oh, there’s dimensions that are way farther along with space travel than yours, and some that are like a combination of really old and futuristic technologies. A lot of the dims from the Roman Empire timeline are like that.”
“The Roman Empire timeline?”
Bob glanced at him. “Huh. I thought I told you about that. Maybe it was Eissa.” He inspected the spoon again, and went back to whittling. “There’s a whole series of dims where the Roman Empire is still going. They run pretty much everything off steam.”
“Oh, no.” Quentin shook his head. “Steampunk is real.”
Bob raised his eyebrows.
“Oh, there’s a subculture in our Dim that likes to imagine what the world would be like if everything ran off steam. They have some pretty crazy ideas.”
“Maybe not so crazy, huh?” Bob chuckled.
“Maybe not.”
“There’s a lot to learn out there,” Bob said. “One of the things you’ll learn is that there aren’t very many absolutes. Just because something doesn’t exist in your Dim doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist somewhere else.”
“That’s a pretty open-ended concept.”
“In a world of endless dimensions, there are endless possibilities,” Bob said. “The more you learn, the more you realize just how little you know.”
“Well, I’m ready to go explore some of it.”
“Me too,” Eissa said, coming around the corner. She was carrying a basket of vegetables from the garden, and Tocho was right behind her with a bucket of water. “Where are we going next?”
The End
If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review wherever you purchased it, and tell your friends about it! Quentin and Eissa need your help to take down DimCorp one element at a time, and you can help by spreading the word about the DimWorld series. Visit JBoydLong.com to sign up for notifications about upcoming book releases, and connect with the author on Facebook and Instagram @JBoydLong.
Acknowledgements
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 13.8 billion years ago, a massive explosion took place. Particles of matter were flung in every direction and have been traveling through space and time ever since. A very particular series of events occurred to bring all the right pieces together to form my incredible wife, Erica Lacher, who became the center of my universe in 2014. Without her, nothing in my world would be what it is, and I have endless gratitude for her love and support.
Kristen Sketchley was willing to play the what-if game with me regarding battlefield bullet-wound care. I hope it never happens, but if I get shot out in the jungle somewhere, I hope she’s there to rescue me. Her wealth of experience and knowledge in this area is impressive, and any mistakes that appear in this book regarding medical care are mine, and not hers.
I would also like to thank Google for making fact-finding and research so much more than it was before they began doing that voodoo that they do. I based all the tech stuff in this book on real scientific research that’s happening in our dimension, which I never would have known existed without the wonders of the internet. Oh, you didn’t know that there was a way to manipulate matter with your brainwaves? Yes, it’s happening. They’re not quite to micro movers yet, but give it time.
Heather Whitaker and Kathy Rothenberger have committed a great deal of time to helping me get the story straight and all the words in the right order. I’m exceptionally grateful for their help. Perhaps if I had paid more attention in high school English class, I might be a little better at this stuff. Anyway, one of the keys to success is to surround yourself with people who are great at the stuff you are bad at, and I have a good circle of great people. I highly recommend having one.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I would like to thank you for taking time out of your life to read this series of books. It means a lot to me!
J. Boyd Long is a self-embracing nerd who loves crunching numbers, researching interesting things, and listening to podcasts, in addition to reading loads of books. His exposure to Stephen King’s books at the age of 10 probably stunted him in some way, but he is still determined to leave the world a better place than he found it. He lives near Gainesville, Florida on a small farm with his incredible wife, 7 horses, 5 cats, 2 donkeys, 2 dogs, and a sheep named Gerald.
J Boyd Long, When Good Plans Go Bad
