Mike wasn’t sure what was up with his friend Robin these days. He had been missing a few days at school, a little more at a time… and in truth he had been concerned. He sent him a message with a rather cryptic answer.
‘Come to my house I’ll show you’.
What could it be?
He arrived at the rather unassuming suburban house and rang the bell. Robin quickly let him inside. “Hey… glad you made it.”
“So what is it you wanted to show me?” Mike was a rather tall teenager with short black hair and wore glasses. Considered a bookish intellect, he had good grades and was expected to do quite well. People considered him a nerd but also as a ‘nice guy’ type. He was often a bit nervous talking to people though.
His friend Robin was shorter, though they were the same age at sixteen and in the same class. He had blonde hair that was curly. He wasn’t quite as smart either despite the ‘nerd’ status in school, but often liked to work with electronics. “I found this weird… ‘thing’ in that old junk house.” He said. “I um- I’ve been messing with it- just come to my room…”
Mike followed him up the stairs wordlessly. He had been here a few times before in the past so was relatively comfortable. “You’ve been acting really weird in school…” He didn’t think his friend was doing something weird like ‘drugs’ or something but… he had been concerned by his friend’s odd behaviour and vanishing half the time without a word.
Slowly Robin took a small shoebox out from under his bed. “Just promise you don’t freak out.”
“What is it a gun- Holy!” Michael gasped. It looked vaguely like some kind of ‘gun’… with two metallic antennae at the top. It seemed to give off a soft glow of arcing blue energy… energy a low frequency humming sound in the air. “What is it?”
“Dude- you will not believe me… but uh- you ever hear of Rick and Morty?”
“Oh- yeah that show… heard of it, never watched it.” Mike had better things to do then follow those weird shows. He watched as his friend the strange gun and fired it towards a wall in his bedroom. A slightly odd Buzzing sound was heard as a strange white beam of energy came out, rippling through reality creating a weird glassy ‘window’ effect like a pool of water. Mike stared at the strange phenomenon as it rippled with electrical energy. Outside the energy field was just trees… fields… and what looked like odd flowers that he had never seen before. “God-“ He couldn’t believe it. Another world right… there.
Robin smiled seeing that look on his friend’s face. “Yeah. I’ve been ‘visiting’ other worlds. The first time was an accident- but I’ve been to all sorts of places… and I can use the gun to come back whenever I want.”
Mike now looked at Robin a little worried. “Dude- this is insane!” He didn’t know what to say. A multi-dimensional traveling device?!
Robin nodded and gently extended his hand through the hole in space. It was clear one could indeed go through it… “At first I thought this thing was like some...trick. I didn’t even know I had walked into another world until I saw some crazy things…” He said a bit coyly. “I used the gun to come back but I can also use it to see into other worlds. I used it in the guy’s changing rooms and suddenly I could see girl’s changing there um-“
“You peeked at girls? In another world?!”
“They don’t see me! I just… I didn’t mean it-“ Robin blushed very hard. “I turned it off as soon as I could. The mirror effect is one way. They can’t see us… until we walk through the portal.”
Mike looked at the strange device curiously. A multidimensional gun, punching holes in reality… Who the heck lived in that house! Where would he have come from? What kind of a god would… invent it and just leave it? “We should try to return it,” Mike decided. “It’s the only right thing. Maybe we can learn more about him.”
Robin looked alarmed. “But if it’s someone like ‘Rick Sanchez’ you know we’ll be in trouble. He’ll screw us up big time!” Robin imagined it- some crazy wild… insane guy with no morals just attacking them for simply ‘knowing’ of him... they could ‘wish’ death rather than what he would do.
The possibilities… the infinite possibilities of… ‘infinity’ itself, was in their hands.
Robin looked deeply towards the strange trans-dimension portal gun. “I’ve figured out how it works. We can easily get back to our world with one button. It’s just like logging off a video game. I even worked out the power source. We can jump dimensions… we can go anywhere… any place… where anything happened. We can go get a cure to cancer right now. Find fusion technology… meet aliens…”
“Jump... Dimension…” Michael repeated staring at the gun. “What if we find a place so good… we won’t want to leave…” He half wondered. Could he do that though? He liked his life.. his family.. but this machine could easily promise heaven itself…
“Who knows… but… I’m not saying we run away to some ‘better’ world.. we bring stuff there that we like. We can help our world. That’s a good thing with this power, right?”
Mike once again gave a nervous look. What if they got trapped? What if it went wrong?! This was so much more different than going to another country... a whole other universe?! Mike gulped at the situation that he had been thrusted in. “You want me to… go with you?”
Robin rubbed his hands a bit and nodded. “Well when I was stuck in one of the worlds... you helped me. You figured out the machine. You’re smart, smarter than me. You seemed to have a strong instinct on this thing… how it works.”
Michael paused at that thought. Robin had interacted with some ‘other’ version of himself.. and now suddenly he thinks he’ll be good to have around? Well- he guessed he was curious. Still, it seemed like such a gamble…
“I thought we could go and explore the multiverse together… why don’t we go to other worlds and bring magic, technology, and other stuff we find here? We just became the most important people on Earth with this!” He gestured to the gun. “It’s got enough of a charge for like- a hundred trips. We’ll be fine. We might find a way to charge it up too.”
Mike quality debated the situation in his head. The key to the multiverse was right here… in front of him. He was tantalised by the possibilities… They could explore any world they wanted to… and return. New technology could be gained from worlds that evolved a bit faster… or what else could they find? Maybe other versions of themselves…
Of course, he could turn away... ignore it. Tell Robin ‘Good luck’ and hope he sees him tomorrow… but what kind of friend would do that? If they told their parents, then they would tell others and… they would lose the device... lose their chance to achieve greatness… “Okay… I’m in,” Mike agreed. “However, I want to know absolutely everything about this portal gun… how it works, what you’ve seen. Every single tiny thing.”
“You got it man, I’ll tell you everything.” Robin sighed in relief. “To be honest it will be good to double check all my notes.”
“I also want to be the one holding this gun,” Mike said.
Robin looked a bit troubled by that. “Well-“
“You trust me, right? If you trust me then… I hold the gun and decide when it’s time to leave. We will always leave together.”
“Hmph… fine.” Robin reluctantly gave the magical portal gun to him. “I trust you. I need you in this Mike.”
Michael stared at the device in wonder. ‘I feel like I just became the center of the entire multiverse…’
