Dirk woke up to a sound.
An odd sound.
A very odd sound.
Almost indescribable, but if he had to try he would summarize it like this; Sharp and loud, organic with hints of something artificial. Roar like but muffled, wet and gurgling. Like a lion being strangled by an octopus if that made any possible sense.
And the sound that followed this sound was a series of sounds.
It started with the familiar flashing lights of his alarm clock but no voice said awake. No, instead a fast stream of "Alert, alert, alert,"s were heard.
Then he heard cranking gears and gunshots.
And before he could even begin to guess what this all came from he had his answer.
A loud crash and a hissing of pipes erupted as a giant worm-monster-machine burst through the floor of his room. And sitting on this all too familiar worm was Zackariah Webb riding it like a horse with a comically large cowboy hat atop his head.
"Why are you here?" Dirk asked.
"No time, Dirk. I'm getting you out of here! Here!" He reached into his pocket and threw a few small objects at him which upon closer inspection were candy. Taffies, mints, sherbert lemons, chocolates.
"Why are you giving me candy?"
"Like I said, no time to explain! We have to get the others!" He motioned for Dirk to climb aboard the worm.
"Alright then!" He jumped out of his bed and began climbing the horns lining the worms back before he realized... "This is a dream, isn't it?"
Zackariah looked down at him with his cowboy hat having changed to a boat captain's hat and said, "Yes. Yes, it is."
"Aw nuts..." He backed off of the worm before it poofed into a cloud of smoke. And then it hit him. "Wait..."
Dirk sat up the second his eyes shot open into the real world. "HOLY SHIT!"
It came like a brain explosion. A familiar brain explosion. One of his favorite feelings in the world.
"I solved it..." He jumped out of bed and laughed. "I SOLVED IT!"
But this time it was different.
It was different because his mind had practically experienced the "Big Bang". That is to say, he knew everything. Well, not everything. But everything he needed to know, and then some.
He paced back and forth as his hands showed his state of mind through waving around rapidly.
It was extremely overstimulating, it always was. Only this time it was more information than he had ever received at once, and faster than he had received it in the past. All of the information he needed flooded in at once in the span of a few seconds.
His fragile, mortal, human mind moving quickly, taking backflips and leaps to connect the dots and reshape and remold the cryptic cosmic message his brain had received in a language only he could understand and decode.
And this time, he knew everything.
He knew everything about how everything worked.
And just then, a familiar moth flew in through his vent. A crazy coincidence, no, there weren't any coincidences. Everything is connected.
He always knew that, but this time those three words that guided his existence made sense in a way that they never had.
"Mona? Is that you?"
The moth turned into his old friend. She smiled with every cell in her body, "Who else would it be?"
"Mona, I have never been so happy to see you in my life." He ran to her and swept her into a large hug, practically suffocating her. She shrunk her body a tiny bit to escape his grasp and he moved back, startled at himself. "Sorry, should have asked first."
"Oh, it's fine, just too tight." She laughed as she grew back to her normal size. "I heard a yell, thought it might have been from you. I was right."
"Oh! I forgot to tell you-"
"You solved the case, I heard. Do you have a plan to get us out of here?"
He smirked. "Of course I do. And this time it isn't stupid."
"Let's hear it then."
Phase one:
Dirk and Mona followed their instincts and it led them to Bart rather quickly, with minimal guards so that was a plus.
When they reached her room Mona knocked both guards positioned in front of the large door out before they had any time to reach for their transmitters.
Dirk grabbed the keycard off of one of the guards and opened the door with a whirring du-ZERRR thump.
"Dirk?" Bart sat on her bed cross-legged and sniffed as she raised her head. "Mona? Why are you here?"
"We're here to get you out." Dirk walked over to her bed and sat next to her.
"I belong here." She curled her knees to her chest and buried her head down again.
"No, you don't." He sighed, "You did the right thing by killing Ken, you know that?"
"I know, it's just... I didn't want to."
"I know. We all do things we don't want to but have to sometimes." He reached out to put a hand on her arm that hugged her legs to her center.
"You don't get it." She turned away to face the wall. "I've never regretted a kill. Ever. I miss him. He was my first and only friend. He treated me like I wasn't scary."
"Bart, he didn't treat you well. Sure in the beginning he did, but then he changed. It's ok to miss people, it's ok to have regrets. It's what we do after those moments that count. Make new friends. Hey, look at this!" She turned around and wiped her face on her sleeve, "I'm not running away, I'm not treating you like you're scary. This makes what, well, definitely more than three times you haven't killed me, and last time I checked that was your standard for best-friendhood."
And she smiled.
"You have a beautiful smile, Bart." He opened his arms and she dove in for a hug, giggling. He returned and added, "Never let anyone tell you you're scary. Unless you want to be, then be scary all you want."
Bart pulled away, "Thank you, Dirk."
"No problem. Now, are we going to get out of here or not? I solved the case!"
"Hell yeah, let's go!"
Phase two:
Todd lied in bed in his room, staying as still as possible, trying not to think about his leg.
Yesterday after awoke in this room he was told what happened. That he passed out after he was shot and they took him in for surgery, that he was lucky he was still able to walk, and that he was now a Blackwing subject under the name "Project Chiron".
How could be so stupid? How could he let this happen? He was going to spend the rest of his life in this hell hole, all alone.
No, Dirk would get him out. Dirk always saved the day. Or would he?
Todd had told him to stay behind, but surely he would realize something was wrong and come get him. Or would he? Would it be too much for him? No, he would shut all of that down. Would he be stupid? Well, he would have to do it alone- fuck, he was screwed.
And just then he heard the rattle of a door-handle. He rolled over, not able to see what was behind the frosted glass, just a blob.
They were probably here to take him for his first day of testing. He slowly sat up and winced when he swung his legs over the side of his bed. And as he reached for the crutches leaning against the wall the door opened to reveal-
"TODD!" Dirk smiled bigger than he could ever imagine possible.
"Dirk?" He returned with a gasp of a laugh, overcome with so many emotions.
Dirk ran and fell to Todd's feet, taking his hands into his, taking his arms into his, rising and taking his lips into his in their most passionate kiss to date, knowing that everything would be ok. Everything from now on would be ok, they had each other, they, therefore, had the world.
"I better not be fucking dreaming," Todd rested his forehead on Dirk's.
"You're definitely not dreaming, my love." He ran his fingers through Todd's hair, sweeping it out of his face to look at his perfect blue eyes, tearing with overwhelming joy. "How's your leg?"
"Shit... How do you-"
"Farah and Tina... OH!" He jumped up. "I forgot to tell you, I solved the case!"
Todd almost forgot about the condition of his leg and also jumped up in excitement before sitting back down with a grunt. "Let's hear it then."
"Not yet, that's phase three of the plan."
"What?"
Phase three:
After getting Farah and Tina, and Amanda, and The Rowdy 3, and Beast... really that could have been phase three and phase three could have been phase four but a three-phase plan is a classic and Dirk didn't want to muddy it with an anti-climatic phase four. No, that's preposterous. All good epic action plans are in three phases and he rather liked the idea of it being an epic action plan. Getting everyone else could be phase-two-and-a-half, yes, that was a good compromise. Why did Todd have his own phase? Because he was just so perfect that it deserved to be its own phase.
What is phase three you may ask? Try, and try being the keyword here, using Dirk's new-found information to persuade Wilson and the rest of the higher-ups at Blackwing to dismantle the operation. Plan B was simple and effective, it made Plan A look ridiculous, over-complicated and a waste of precious time, but Plan B was also dangerous and possibly could land them all in jail for the rest of their lives so Plan A is what they were going with for the time being.
And it just so happened, well, nothing "just so happened", everything is connected and all that, that Wilson happened to have a meeting that day that happened to be in Blackwing that happened to have everyone they needed present in a scenario that they happened to need.
Yes, everything was perfectly going according to Dirk's three-phase -which-was-more-like-three-and-a-half-phases-but-split-into-A-and-B-plan.
And the time for phase three had finally come. And Dirk was never more excited to explain everything in his life.
"LISTEN UP EVERYBODY!" Dirk burst through the door in the meeting room. Wilson and everyone stared blankly at him. "Damn it I wish I said something cooler," he muttered under his breath. "Dirk Gently has solved the case!"
"How did you-" Wilson said before just shaking her head. "Never mind, just get them back in their rooms."
The guards stationed in the back of the room came forward and tried to restrain Dirk but he kicked them off. "NO, you're going to listen to me, and then you're going to decide what to do when I'm finished. I have Marzana with me and she has a gun."
Dirk pointed behind them and Bart raised a hand and waved, "Hi."
"Let's just get this stupid thing over with." Wilson pinched the bridge of her nose with a sigh.
Everyone came in and Dirk went to step next to Wilson at the head of the table. "May I?"
"Are you seriously-" She responded before one of the military officers seated at the table nodded, intrigued.
Wilson just sat down at an empty chair in defeat and Dirk took the floor.
"I've solved the case. Not just the case of Oneiroi, no. I solved the case of human existence."
A series of "holy shit"s and "oh my God"s and just gasps and various other shocked responses floated through the room before Dirk moved his hands to silence them which they surprisingly obeyed.
"In the 1800s-1886 to be exact- September 23rd, 1886 to be even more exact- a man named Zackariah Webb had been attempting to make a time machine, all seemed bleak until it was sent to the future -1968- and a different machine returned with a note signed by yours truly."
"We already knew that, Dirk," Farah said.
"I'm getting to it! See, when the machine arrived in 1968 the first thing the hippies squatting in the house did was alert the police, not immediately turn into a cult as we previously thought. For obvious reasons, the local authorities didn't believe them... And then Zackariah showed up... This was the game-changer because this man was clearly from the past. And the case received attention from a newly established government branch under the CIA known as 'Blackbook'. Zackariah Webb became the second, or third depending on how you look at it, we will get there in a moment, anomaly here. Project Chronos. The holistic engineer."
"How do you know this?" One of the people sitting at the table asked, Dirk just smiled. He was right.
"Wait," Farah said. "That's why he was so uncomfortable talking about Oneiroi, and Blackwing. That's why we could trust him, he wasn't working for them, he was put to work BY them."
"Bingo." Dirk snapped.
"Holistic?" Todd said. "That's why for whatever reason he became obsessed with making the machine, the universe told him to."
"Ding, ding, ding! But we aren't done yet. No, we're far from done. This is where the story splits and gets a little complicated."
"A little?" Martin asked. "This is already very complicated."
"I still have no idea of what is happening," Cross said. "And I still love it."
"In 1934 a couple in Ocean Hill, Louisiana gave birth to a little girl named Esther. They owned a boat called the Pollock, and they sold fish for money. And then in 1939, they gave birth to another child. A baby boy. Esther was jealous of her new brother and the stress caused her to develop, wait for it, god-like reality-warping powers that activated whenever she fell asleep. That alone isn't the reason, otherwise, every eldest child would be like that. She always had them, they just awoke in 1939, because what happened in 1939? The beginning of World War II... It started off as escapism. Her mind creating fun little things to make her feel less alone, but they turned to nightmares. The family handled it well for a couple of years, much better than the Cardenases did. What changed? One spring night in 1941, Esther's father was out late, it was storming. She went to bed afraid, and so she slept afraid, and her deepest fear that he wouldn't return to shore came to fruition. Her father and the Pollock were lost to the sea."
"Oh my god," Tina said. "No wonder she said she was dangerous. That would traumatize any kid."
"Her mother didn't know what to do. So? She called the government. She had heard the order for the government to take in 20 children to a house in Ocean Hill so she asked if there was room for one more. Coincidentally, this day was April 29th, 1941, three days before the experiment began. AND coincidentally also, that day during nap time, her brother had a bad dream. His first reality-warping one. That's right, Esther's brother is none other than Francis!"
"Holy shit," Amanda said.
"This is so cool," Bart added.
"The government took her to the house, but not her brother, they didn't have space for him yet. They would return for him the next day. But upon arrival she realized how she and her brother would be treated here, so she came up with a plan. She packed a box with a note, a photo of their family, and drawings of Wendimoore, also I forgot to mention that Esther was the one who invented Wendimoore, not Francis. She told him stories of this place and they were packed into his subconscious. The plan was to create Wendimoore for real, bring the boat back from the bottom of the ocean, turn back time so her brother would be a baby and forget all of the stress and heartache of this, and send the boat with her brother, now named the 'Infant Male Pollock Francis' to Wendimoore. But while she was asleep and the boat ascended into the sky she was put into the machine by Lillian Black and had her soul separated before he could get to Wendimoore. So instead it jumped through time and ended up in Bergsberg, Montana in the 1950s. And Wendimoore wasn't fully created, it was in a state of limbo. That explains the creature known as Bibbit in the house."
"And why the portal and pocket dimension were there too!" Tina added.
"YES! And now is the part where I explain everything about everything. The meaning of life! Why I exist, why you Bart, Mona, and The Rowdy 3 exist. Why Pararibulitis exists... First. The meaning of life. The universe has a plan. And the plan was to not have a plan."
"That's what Wakti said." Todd gasped.
"Wakti?" Amanda turned to Todd. "How is she?"
Dirk angrily shushed them.
"The idea was to learn, to experience, to tell every possible story."
His eyes were bright in a way they had never been, he was in his element, he was exacting his life's purpose in that moment. And he spoke with a glitter to his voice. Gaining momentum with every syllable, his words reaching new godly heights.
But he wasn't Icarus. The limit doesn't exist. He wouldn't fall, he would soar. And his wings grew with every breath he took, they didn't melt, they didn't burn. He flew, he flew so high, and it was beautiful. He would never come down again. And unlike Icarus, the universe was ok with that.
"The universe created a sandbox reality where humans were puppets meant to put on a show, and for authenticity, they have free will. There was no plan. Everything is connected and nothing is also connected. Creation isn't ineffable! ... We're meant to break molds and rules, that's how we learn, and that's how the universe learns!"
He paused his dramatic spitting of information as his face stilled and words slowed.
"But in the 1940s we broke the universe. We did something it never expected, never planned for, never calculated. Free will had failed the plan-no-plan. It didn't matter if it wasn't supposed to be planned, this choice couldn't be made. Man's harnessing of the atom... Now, we had the ability to wipe everything out and the universe wasn't ok with that. That was the exact moment the universe broke beyond repair... So, for the first time ever, the universe made an actual plan. It would send down anomalies to fix things."
The room stilled, understanding washing over every person in the room, their minds had been blown.
"It started with Esther. She was supposed to fix things, Zackariah was supposed to time travel to mentor her. But then Oneiroi came into existence so while Francis was supposed to be normal, the universe gave him powers too after she was to be sent away. And after she was killed Francis had the crown of being the fix-er. Then he was captured. The universe sent down Mona to try and get him out. Then it sent in Martin, then Cross, then Gripps, then Vogel. It snowballed and I was added, then Bart, then everyone else. The war was unavoidable. This is where Amanda comes in, she's supposed to unite everyone, bring us all together. And she did."
She smiled.
"She was supposed to gather us so we could win the war with Blackwing so they stop getting in the way of fixing things. And here in this moment, this is the war..."
Dirk turned to Wilson, pleading for any drop of empathy she had buried down deep in her.
"Let us win. The universe can't begin to repair until you stop hunting us down. We can't be contained. Let's end this bloodshed. Let's fix things... what do you say? You're the one in charge after all."
She stared for a moment at him, then to her shoes, then back up at him. "No."
"I'm sorry, what?" All hope had left his being.
"No. You're dangerous, you should be locked up."
"Please. Think about this."
"GUARDS!"
Dirk stepped back far away from Wilson and looked at Bart. "Plan B."
"Got it." She raised her gun and before anything could happen, a bang, a flash of light, and the bullet hit between her brows, flinging her backwards to the floor. "Alright, who's in charge next?"
Everyone at the table looked over to Lieutenant Assistent who had been quiet this entire time, no one noticed him.
"I guess that's me." He said. "Please don't kill me."
"Depends," Bart stepped closer to him. "What do you say?"
He paused for a moment, gears turning in his head. "What do I say?" It was never his choice before. "I mean... I've seen all of the crazy shit that has gone down in this place and I'm sick of it, to be honest."
Bart lowered her gun and grinned before he continued.
"Anomalies can't be contained, they shouldn't. I say... to hell with it. Let's start fixing things instead of breaking them."
"Are you sure, Supervisor Assistent?" A man from the table asked.
"Positive." He gave a single firm nod.
And everyone erupted into joyous celebration, they did it, they would never have to worry about Blackwing again.
While the chaos of cheers erupted around them, Dirk walked back over to Todd.
"Did it," Dirk said with his snap.
"You did." He laughed. "You solved it."
"We won, Todd." Dirk took Todd's face into his hands.
"We won." He closed the gap between them with a sweet, victorious, kiss.