Across the metaverse

At first I thought what anyone else would think when they saw a battered, abandoned-looking Slipnode parked nonchalantly under a sprawling, stolid-looking Arizona white oak in an empty part of the parking lot behind a busy Super-UltraEmporium, its glossy blue-black panels glittering idly in the tree-dappled afternoon sun. It was a prop, I told myself—and that meant someone was finally shooting a live-action Garadin Metaverse movie.

My pulse quickened at prospect, and I had to resist the urge to grind to a sudden halt in the middle of dozen or so other crosscrossing shoppers outside the main rear entrance and start Googling “garadin mv filming albuquerque” right then and there. I did, however, rather deliberately veer my cart the wrong way in the parking lot, swerving left down the fire lane toward the verge and the big, gnarly-looking oak tree with the big dark cylindricalish anomaly underneath rather than heading for my cherry red Wagoneer, which sat baking in the sun not two hundred feet away down the middle row, nestled between a couple of blue Jettas like they were keeping my big guy company. Wryly I imagined myself on the store’s famously all-pervasive surveillance system, some future investigator zooming in on me separating from the exiting spray of Tuesday afternoon shoppers as I conspicuously pushed my cartful of DIY gear away from the knot of cars and trucks clustered near the entrance, inexplicably making for the more desolate outskirts of the property. I could practically hear her muttering, “What is he doing…?” as she watched me march blurrily across the screen, waiting for the moment I self-converted from customer to statistic.

Not that the SUEm parking lot here was innately dangerous; most of the crimes committed by its patrons occurred later, after they’d shown up on camera stupidly buying duct tape, hand saws, and bleach with their rewards card points. It wasn’t that I was a particularly fearful person, either. I just happened to be both actively curious and possessed of a morbid enough imagination to kind of idly wonder how picturesque the results of following my nose would be if everything went intriguingly and utterly wrong.

I left my cart in the next space over and approached the Slipnode cautiously, the noise of distant traffic creating a kind of enveloping white noise around me. It certainly looked like an exact replica of the machine as it appeared in the Gmv graphic novels. Though from any distance the Slipnode had the appearance of being a perfectly round, glossy black pillar standing upwards of two meters tall (2.3 meters exactly according to one of the more seminal midseries Gmv volumes, though it hadn’t always been drawn at exactly that scale early on), up close, as here, you could see that it was not truly circular at all: the cross-section of the device’s exterior was actually a twenty-sided polygon just over a meter in diameter, each of the twenty sides presenting as a long, thin strip of something that seemed like cobalt but darker, with a strange kind of depth that tricked the eyes. As I rounded the thing, examining the narrow vertical slats as I went, I noted approvingly that—unlike some fan-made amateur mock-ups I had seen at ComicCon where the panels had been simply joined together all the way around—this prop had the tiny matte-black gaps between them occasionally shown in the detailed close-ups. They were barely a few millimeters wide, but they told me everything: this was a pro job, made by people with the time, budget, and commitment to sweat the details to make sure this adaptation was as loyal and real as possible.

There was even a narrow scratch across one of the panels, near eye-level on the side nearest the tree. I grinned when I saw it—I knew the exact volume in which the evil warlord Jenada had gouged that very mark with his notoriously blood-drenched generations-sword. This was, apart from the ever-present road dust around the lower reaches and across the slightly wider obsidian base, the only true defect to be seen about the surface of the otherwise invulnerable machine.

I nodded, scrutinizing the scratch’s placement and angle. It was, as in the source material, the hint of violence marring a pristine exterior, like a dueling scar on the cheek of an honest Regency nobleman. Whoever had commissioned and constructed this mockup, I thought, sure knew their shit.

I looked around me a few times as I circumnavigated the device, expecting at any moment to be shooed away by a troupe of harried PAs; but there was no sign of anyone objecting to my inspection of this obviously very expensive prop. In fact, no evidence presented of a film production at all: there was no crew in sight, no trailers, no lighting gear, nothing. Just a Slipnode prop enjoying a bit of shade in the middle of an Albuquerque parking lot. Like it had just randomly shown up there.

I came back around to the “front” of the thing—the point I’d started walking around it, anyway—and stood regarding the thing, rubbing my stubble thoughtfully. Maybe this was a fan-made tribute after all, though it was exceptionally well made if it was. Either way, the question remained: what the fuck was this random Slipnode premium fake doing loitering unattended on the back end of an Albuquerque big-box UltraEmporium parking lot?

I took a step back, crossing my arms as I took in the full scene. A heavy-duty pickup rolled past down the service road beyond the verge, its bed extruding plywood sheets and two-by-fours. Further back, beyond the farthest reaches of the sprawling, half-empty parking lot, a four-lane highway teemed with routine traffic. The banality of the backdrop only made the Slipnode that much more inexplicable. “What the hell is your deal?” I murmured to it with a frown. “Why are you here?”

“It goes where the fun is,” said a voice to my left.

I started only the slightest bit; but I prided myself on equanimity in exceptional circumstances, and by the time I’d turned my head to look at the speaker I was fully under control. It was just as well. The man who now stood at my side was singular, but in different ways along various axes. His face was pleasant and handsome despite a somewhat prominent nose and slightly wide-set eyes, with a mobile mouth and skin a sort of warm sepia like he’d stepped from a wood-paneled Edwardian photograph. He wasn’t exceptionally tall, standing some inches shy of my six feet flat, but he seemed tall, his presence emphatic in a way that was hard to describe. His dark hair was loose and wavy, and he was dressed all in black, with a billowy, soft-collared V-necked tunic of the kind one might imagine on a vacationing pirate or Lord Byron; midnight trousers that were slack in the legs but snug at the hips; and sturdy black leather boots. Over his shoulder was slung an inconspicuous black canvas satchel. Neither shirt nor pantaloons hid his hairy, athletic physique and his general air of masculinity. Around his right wrist was a narrow, intricately woven tattoo I knew well, half obscured by his fine dark hair despite the subtle way the ink seemed to catch the light, as though atom-sized diamonds were embedded along its infinitely woven circumference.

Though remarkable in many ways, I reckoned, overall he’d easily pass for human were it not for the complement of three shapely and rather distracting legs crowding his lower half where, I need hardly say, most people would expect to find only two. That would certainly set him apart—if you were looking for it.

I remained impassive as I met his gaze, which was so steady as to be arrogant, his cocky half-smile all but daring me to call him out as exceptional. Inside, however, I was screaming. This was impossible, I told myself. Sure, I’d seen plenty of people cosplaying Preter Garadin, but nobody—and I mean nobody—could ever do the legs as convincingly and naturally as they appeared in the books. Almost the entire run of Gmv had been inked by the same man, Sid Eisenmann, and he’d always drawn Garadin’s strong, loping legs, two in front with the third slightly behind and between, as though they belonged elementally in the universe—as though that were the natural form of man, and we bipedal losers stinking up the planet Earth were diminutions of the purer form. No one actually born with two legs could hope to fake that elegance and authenticity with a pair of sewn-together black Dockers, some upholstery stuffing, and a mismatched extra boot. This, whatever this was, existed on another level from the duct tape and glitter of simple fan exuberance.

I felt my blood heating as I held his gaze, those three legs filling my brain and my excessively fertile imagination even as my balls tingled in my jeans and my cock awoke from its nested slumber in my snug, cottony boxer-briefs. could he tell? Be cool, I told myself. Instead of reacting to his presence, I instead elected to respond to what he’d said, making a show of looking around me at the sun-baked store parking lot full of moms stuffing SUVs with profusions of plastic-bagged consumer goods and dad-bodded potterers buying spackle and deck sealant.

I turned back to him, intensely curious to see his reaction. “It goes where the fun is” was kind of a catch-phrase: though Garadin had only said it twice in canon, it had been picked up by the fandom as a sort of unofficial motto for the franchise. The typical reaction was to mock the statement by drily observing the mundane surroundings, as I had just done, mirroring the in-universe responses on both occasions from the locals he’d been speaking to. I had, in essence, just marked myself as a fan, and I very much wanted to see how this man would respond. Maybe the production crew would finally reveal themselves, and I’d win some kind of recognition for passing the test. A walk-on role in the film for? Special thanks in the credits? Clearly this guy was method-acting Garadin to test fanbase support, and I was ready to give the costumers and prop folks all tens on the focus group score cards or whatever as soon as the PAs appeared to guide me to my post-encounter interview.

The man who looked like Preter Garadin, however, only gave me a quizzical smile before clapping me on the shoulder and moving past me toward the Slipnode prop. “Be well,” he said, his tone one of closure and farewell. My heart tripped. This, too, was a catchphrase from the graphic novels, and a lot more evidenced than “It goes where the fun is.” Garadin only said it when he expected never to see the person again—it was his equivalent of “have a nice life.”

“Wait,” I heard myself say, just as the man was raising a hand to press his palm against the device. He arrested the motion, looking back at me expectantly. Caught off guard, I said the first thing that came into my head. “That—that can’t really be an actual Slipnode, right?” I stammered.

The man’s brows drew together. He lowered his hand and turned toward me, closing the distance between us. Though I kept my eyes locked with his I was very aware of the movement of his three long, well-formed legs, and my cheeks heated a little. There was plenty of evidence that Garadin enjoyed sensual pleasures with all kinds of folks, and I’d read more than my share of smutty fan-fiction that went where graphic novels meant to be racked on mainstream shore shelves could not. The man in front of me exuded all the charm of someone capable of sleeping his way across the galaxy if he chose, and the stern, penetrating expression he wore as he stared up at me, all but erasing our height difference through sheer force of will alone, did nothing to quell my growing lust.

All his attention was on me, and I felt it, almost palpably, beating against my skin like the rays of a tropical sun. “What did you say?” he asked quietly.

I looked past him for a second, clocking the big blue-black pillar behind him before returning my gaze to his. “That’s a prop, right? It’s not a real Slip—”

Too late I realized my mistake, and I pressed my lips together, cutting myself off. “Slipnode” was a word used only in the Gmv narration, referring to the device’s function as an extension of Garadin’s pocket homespace—a node=point that connected anywhere in the universe to a single hub where Garadin rested and worked out the problems he encountered on his travels. Whenever he needed to go somewhere in the multiverse, he flung out a spacetime event to that precise destination, linked by a extradimensional wormhole that linked Garadin’s homespace to the place he wanted to go. This event manifested as a pillar, but actually functioned a junction-point between any given normal reality and the endoreality conduit that would flick Garadin, and anyone with him, back to his secret home.

Garadin himself never called it a Slipnode in dialog, because he was always at pains to conceal the fact that this simple, inert-looking object was actually a connection to a private domain he allowed none to enter. Generally, when called upon to explain it, he called it a capsule or a ship, all the better to suggest it was mere transport and not a passage to a forbidden space, with his hand the only key. Somewhere along the way one of the people whose planet he was saving called it “the Tower,” and that had been used a few times afterwards, always as though it were the name of a vessel.

It was too late to backtrack now, though. I kept silent under his scrutiny, sure I’d sunk any chances of getting whatever fan-prize I was vying for. “Who are you?” he asked, eyes narrowed.

“Nobody,” I said quickly, then winced as he raised his expressive brows—The Nobody was an energy-eating half-gremlin Garadin had tangled with in volume 3. “Shit, I mean, my name is Joe. Joe Capshaw.”

He nodded slightly. “Nice to meet you, Joe Capshaw,” he said, without expression. At least he didn’t go for the space-opera cliché of calling me Joe-Joe. His steel-blue eyes held mine, not wavering even a millimeter. Casually, he continued, “And what was that word you used before?”

Our faces were very close. His eyes and his presence were kindling something in me. The moment seemed to stretch, locking us in place. I could have cupped his cheek. I wanted to. I was flushed and aroused, and I knew he could take me—or he might let me take him. There had only been one canonical drawing of Garadin’s bare triple butt (though of course there were many fan renditions), and suddenly I very much wanted to see the real thing.

Wait—the real thing? Get a grip, Joe. There was no “real” Garadin butt. This guy was an actor—an actor with a very, very good costume and a stellar command of the persona, sure, but an actor nonetheless. We were role playing, and it was my job to keep up. I twisted my lips in a crooked grin. “Where do you think you are, Garadin?” I asked, trying to mirror his confidence.

His brows shifted infinitesimally at the use of the name, but he ignored it otherwise and answered, in a comical drawl, “Al-boo-kwer-kway?”

I smirked. At this point I was all ready to lay out, in character as part of this role play, a masterful rendition of the familiar speech where someone, usually a blatant fanfic author insert character, introduced Garadin for the first time to a universe in which he was (gasp) a fictional character. Honestly, I’d come across oner version or another of this dialog so often, I practically knew it by heart. Usually, how it went was, the shocking revelation was followed by some kind of giddy, colorful tour of our reality, leading eventually the protagonist and Garadin repairing back to the former’s abode to review their stockpile of well-thumbed Gmv volumes to the accompaniment of soft jazz, red wine, and pistachio ice cream, one or more of these being somehow new to this ageless traveler of the universe. Naturally such encounters almost always climaxed, literally, in bouts of vigorous boots-knocking between our amorous hero and his abashed yet equally adept Mary Sue admirer. I would not be inaccurate to say that the emulation of this scenario was something I was presently more than fine with attempting to achieve, given the almost preternatural smolder of the man in front of me burning through my very flesh and being.

I cleared my throat slightly. “What if I were to tell you—” I began.

At that moment a bloodcurdling scream erupted from somewhere across the parking lot. Garadin instantly whirled to look for it, then, after shooting me one last this-is-your-fault-for-distracting-me glare, he took off, running with impressive three-legged grace and speed toward whatever calamity he was here to stop.

I hesitated only a second before pelting after him, my cart, the Slipnode, the notional film production, and everything else utterly forgotten as I chased Preter Garadin into whatever strange adventure had brought him into my previously mundane world.