Infinite DC: Recall

Part One

"AH! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!"

Gumball woke up screaming those words, and he wasn't entirely sure why. The last few hours were a total blur. The last thing he could remember was waiting for the school bus with his fish brother, Darwin, and then suddenly being chased across ten blocks by Tina Rex. After that, it was all a mystery to the young blue cat-boy.

Now, he was inside some sort of futuristic cab with a driver – a smiling robotic mannequin in an old-fashioned cabbie's uniform – with Darwin sitting to one side of him. Sitting at his other side was a strange lady. She was unlike anything Gumball had ever seen around Elmore. Her hair was long and blond, her skin was fair, and her body was slim and athletic. She wore almost next to nothing at the time she shared the cab with Gumball and Darwin – just a long-sleeved, plaid crop top and black booty shorts with matching boots.

"Bad dream, sport?" He heard the robot driver ask him.

"I...can't remember," Gumball replied, which was one of his odder responses – though this one was more justifiable than others in the past.

His screaming woke up Darwin and the woman. "Where are we?" his brother asked, before he glanced over to the woman and asked her, "And who are you?"

The woman rubbed the side of her head, nursing a headache. "Well, therein lies a conundrum," she told them. "I've gone by several names. But, under the current circumstance, you can call me 'Cara'."

"O.K., Cara," Gumball said, "any idea as to how we ended up sharing a cab? And why you're half naked?"

"Well, to answer your second question, it's a fashion statement," Cara sounded rather defensive on the topic. "As far as your first question..." She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm just as in the dark as you, kiddo." Something about the way she addressed him as "kiddo" sparked a sense of familiarity in Gumball, as if he heard it from her somewhere before.

"Maybe our driver knows," Darwin suggested. He looked over to the robot driver and called, "Hey, Mister Driver!"

The animatronic driver's armless body swiveled around to face the passengers whilst still "driving" the cab. "Name's Johnny Cab, son. What can I do for ya?"

"Can you tell us how we got here?" Darwin inquired.

"The door opened. You got in."

His vague response did nothing to solve their baffling dilemma. "Well, that sure cleared things up," Gumball remarked wittingly.

"Do you dream of a vacation at the bottom of the ocean, but you can't float the bill?" They heard a sophisticated male voice advertise, speaking from the cab's only television monitor, situated behind the Johnny Cab robot. It broadcasted some sort of commercial with footage that corresponded with the narration.

"Would you like to ski Antarctica, but you're snowed under with work? Have you always wanted to climb the mountains of Mars, but now you're over the hill? Then come to Rekall where you can buy the memory of your ideal vacation – cheaper, safer, and better than the real thing. So don't let life pass you by. Call Rekall for the memory of a lifetime!"

"Rekall..." Cara pondered the name in reminiscence. "I feel like I should know that place, but...I can't seem to remember how."

"Maybe that's where we're all headed – to Rekall," Darwin surmised. He turned to the animatronic driver again and asked, "Is that it, Mr. Cab?"

"How should I know, sonny?" Johnny Cab said. "I wasn't given a destination."

"Why would we get in a cab and not know where we're goin'?!" Gumball griped.