Into The Miloverse

by Icefire_Studios

Summary:

Extra Hereditary Murphy’s Law: The high concentration of negative probability ions around an individual which causes things to go wrong more than they would for anybody else.

The Murphys always thought that they were the only family who had EHML. Everyone on Earth, and even extraterrestrial races, could be affected by Murphy’s Law, but nothing like what the Murphys had. They had it much worse. Now they're realizing that isn't the truth. Not by a long shot.

When Martin was escorting Milo to school one day, the two Murphys didn’t expect to suddenly stumble upon an evil scientist trying to use his new inizor to take over the world. When they try to escape, Milo is the only one who makes it out. Now he and his friends have to figure out how to shut down this machine to secure the safety of their entire dimension. To make things even weirder, several peculiar strangers have come to town. On top of everything already on his plate, he has to help them get home before it’s too late.

Fixing dimensional warping, saving the world, finding (and probably rescuing) his dad, and trying to help complete his group project with Zack and Melissa. How can a 13-year-old handle that much? He just keeps moving.

Chapter 1: Meet Martin Murphy

Alright, everybody, let’s get this thing started.

My name is Martin Murphy.  I was born with Extra Hereditary Murphy’s Law, and I’ve been managing it my entire life.

While walking across a catwalk suspended from the side of a building, Martin was flicking through the list of locations he had to visit for the day and their times.  It wasn’t likely that the list was going to survive for much longer, so he needed to memorize it while he still could.  The sun, slowly inching its way above the horizon while painting the sky pink and the wispy clouds gold, caught his eye.  It wouldn’t hurt to take a small moment to relax.  He doesn’t get the chance for peace and quiet very often, so he’ll take what he can get.  Sitting cross-legged on the metal framework, Martin pulled out the breakfast that his wife had made him.

“Today’s going to be a great day,” he says with a smile.

I’m sure you know how all of this started.

Two boys covered in a fair bit of mud stumbled to a bus stop just as their ride to school was pulling away.  The boy wearing a colorful sweater vest and a backpack is Martin’s son, Milo.  He was very used to this scenario and was trying to reassure his new acquaintance, Zack.  Being late on your first day at a new school isn’t something you’d like to happen after all.

“It’s like my dad always says, what doesn’t kill you, only makes you late for school,” he chirps after Zack finishes talking about his worry.

Not long after, he raced off, followed quickly by the boy who would soon become one of his best friends.

I won a soccer game,

Unless you looked at the body count, it wasn’t an impressive kids' soccer game.  The soccer ball had emerged with a vengeance, bouncing between the kids on the field until none were standing.  None, except Martin, that is.  The only thing he had to do to win, since everyone else was out of commission, was kick the ball five feet into the goal.  It hadn’t been fun just standing on the pitch for the rest of the half.  At least he’d gotten to leave after that when no one else wanted to play anymore.

fell in love,

The first year of college had been a hectic series of changes for Martin.  Getting to classes on time was a struggle, and studying quietly during exam times was even more so.  But it hadn’t been his fault that several other students using the projector left cables running all along the ground.  They really should have marked the tripping hazard; this was on them.  It was only a matter of time before his feet got tangled up, he spun around a few times and then fell backward.  It was lucky for him that he didn’t bust his hips on the table he landed on.

It was one of the rare times in his life that he was just tired.  He just lay there for a few seconds until he could feel the shadow of someone standing over him.  Opening his eyes, he expected to see an annoyed student or librarian trying to scold him.  Instead, his face melted into a smile when he saw Bridget standing there.  She leaned over the table and didn’t even wait for him to get up before kissing him.

and got severely injured.

You can wear as much safety gear as possible, but that won’t stop you from getting hurt.  Especially when you were a Murphy.  Still, Martin always wore his yellow safety hat at job sites.  Precautions had been drilled into him for most of his life, and he wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.  It wasn’t much use when he fell through the roof, though.

And then injured again,

Diogee normally behaved better than running off when he was taken on walks.  The dog normally would stay glued to your side unless something weird happened.  Squirrels weren’t usually something that caught his attention, that was raccoons.  But the dog ran to the left, and Martin fell to the right.  With that being the side he was holding the leash on, there was nothing to stop his shoulder from slamming into the sidewalk.  It was annoying having to go to the hospital for something that Joey usually helped him with, but he didn’t trust Bridget to do that yet.

and again,

The car had been making a weird noise, so Martin had decided to just bike to work that day.  It was going really well until he noticed that he wasn’t slowing down and his brakes weren’t working.  He just barely managed to shout out a warning, having heard his son’s friends from the backyard, before crashing through their hedges and flipping into the car.  While still being dazed there wasn’t any quick way of knowing if his leg was broken, sprained, or just sore, so he asked Milo to grab his crutches anyway.

and again,

Martin had been helping Milo out with a project for school in the kitchen.  Home Ec was a perilous class for them.  Things had been going well until one of their cabinets had decided to collapse and take no prisoners.  Luckily, there hadn’t been many dishes in it since the dishwasher was still full.  That didn’t stop the broken glass from digging into his back.  The next hour was spent getting the glass out of his back and stitching him back up.  It was easier doing it on someone else.

and again.

It was a little bit of a necessity for the members of the Murphy clan to have an above-average amount of strength.  You had to have it to survive a lot of the situations they got into.  Martin was no exception.  But they were still human, and they very much had limits just like everyone else.  Being suspended in the air for half an hour between two walls slowly cracking apart while he waited for his brother to figure out how to get him down without breaking anything was one of those limits.  There had been a lot of screaming that left his voice hoarse for over a week, and his arms hadn’t felt normal for even longer.

And I, um, well, I did this.

Having just had a minor leg-setting operation, Martin was still high as a kite on the anesthetic he’d been given.  That was how he’d gotten it into his head that the puppy they’d just adopted was their three-year-old son.  So he was lying on his back in the family room holding the dog in the air while baby-talking at him.

Sara and Bridget, who was holding a sleeping Milo, were watching him from the entrance to the kitchen.

“What did they give him?” the eight-year-old Sara asked worriedly.

“I don’t know,” Bridget sighed.  “Something strong.  Those never work on him properly.”

Hey, I can get messed up just like everyone else can, okay?

Look, I’m a safety inspector,

He was usually a calm person, but Martin was just about to let this idiotic manager have it with his clipboard and pen gripped tightly in his hands.  Over the past three months, he had visited this establishment three times, and the violations and hazards he had pointed out the first time had never been fixed.  It just seemed like things had been getting worse.  He was trying to keep his cool but knew that if things didn’t improve he, was going to shove at least a dozen fines in this person’s mailbox.

a dad,

They tried to take a family photo every year.  It didn’t always turn out, with the cameras catching fire and files getting corrupted, but they always tried.  Usually, they were always in the same pose, he and Bridget with their arms around each other, and then Sara and Milo standing in front of them.  Their latest one with their silly hats, because that was the only one that had turned out, was hanging in their dining room.

an avid rollerskater,

Learning how to do it had been a necessity when it had happened, but Martin had grown to enjoy it.  A new place had opened up near their college, and Bridget wanted to go and compete with him.  She just had to learn how to skate first because she’d never done it before.  Martin carefully held her hands while leading her onto the slippery floor for the first time, making sure that she wouldn’t fall.

I have an amazing dog,

Using an RV as a boat down the Colorado River was far from the first time that their dog had gotten them out of trouble.  One time, the four of them had been at a zoo in the aquatic section and, due to a careless instructor, an escaped octopus, and some faulty wiring, Martin was being lowered in a deep-sea diving cage with no way to keep breathing.  The only reason he’d gotten out was because Diogee quickly launched himself to the top of the tank and flipped the lever to make the tank drain.  He didn’t like to think about whether or not he’d have been able to get out on his own before passing out and drowning.

and a so-so drawing from my daughter.

Despite Sara asking him to please get rid of the drawing she’d made of him in kindergarten, he’d kept it.  Just in his room instead of the side of the fridge.  He was just a blob that looked like it’d been crossed with a porcupine with a smiley face stuck on it.  Martin loved it all the same.  He kept it framed on top of the dresser.

I mean, I’ve looked a lot worse.  I’m not exactly the safest person to be around.

After getting trampled by a bull during one of the city’s attempts to recreate The Running of the Bulls, Martin very quickly ended up in the hospital.  Two broken legs, his right arm broken as well, and his face several different shades of black, blue, and yellow, and he was still trying to smile.  There wasn’t any point in looking like he was super upset about things when he couldn’t change the outcome.  Besides, he didn’t want to scare the kids any more than they already were.

But after everything, I still love being a Murphy.  I mean, who wouldn’t?

So no matter how bad things get and how badly I get injured, I always find a way to keep going.

Martin had gotten lost in the lumberjack festival when it had first opened up.  One pass by the log rolling section and the next thing he knew he was getting flattened.  But he didn’t let himself stay on the ground for any longer than he needed to to get his breath back.  Then he was shoving his arms underneath himself and forcing his legs to work under him, grimacing the entire time but refusing to stay down for long.

Because the only thing that stands between Danville and an avalanche of OSHA violations, is me.

There is only one family in the world with EHML.

About to walk out of his bedroom, Martin paused as he grabbed his hard hat.  The photo they’d taken at the last family reunion that they’d gotten to have at Christmas was surprisingly still in good condition.  They hadn’t been able to get back to their house due to the blizzard, but thankfully they’d all been able to reunite at the mall.  Even if Chinese food wasn’t the typical Christmas dinner.  He smiled fondly as he remembered how much effort Milo had put into getting everyone together again.

He turns away after a few moments and leaves the room, grabbing the breakfast his wife left for him in the kitchen before heading off to his job.

And I wouldn’t want to be anything else.

Notes:

I had to cut down my summary because it was too long, so here's the uncut version if anyone is interested.

 

Extra Hereditary Murphy’s Law: The high concentration of negative probability ions around an individual which causes things to go wrong, and events that can be considered disasters to occur, more than they would for anybody else.

The Murphys always thought that they were the only family who had EHML. Everyone on Earth, and even extraterrestrial races, could be affected by Murphy’s Law, but nothing like what the Murphys had. They had it much worse. It isn’t until a strange set of circumstances unfurls around them that they realize that that isn’t the case. Not by a long shot.

When Martin was escorting Milo to school one day, the two Murphys didn’t expect to suddenly stumble upon an evil scientist trying to use his new inizor to take over the world. And not even just their world. When they try to escape, Milo is the only one who makes it out. Now he and his friends have to figure out how to shut down this machine to secure the safety of their entire dimension. To make things even weirder, several peculiar strangers have come to town. Milo is used to dealing with weird things. He’s fought mutant pistachio trees and been to another species’ home planet. But encountering others who look a lot like him, outside of the weird android that was created to, probably temporarily, take his place, is a hard thing to wrap his head around. On top of everything already on his plate, he has to help them get home before it’s too late.

Fixing dimensional warping, saving the world, finding (and probably rescuing) his dad, and trying to help complete his group project with Zack and Melissa. How can a 13-year-old handle that much? He just keeps moving.

Chapter 2: Just Another Beautiful Day In Danville

“I think that net held up great,” Martin said as fish occasionally flopped around behind him, “but you might want to make sure that those supports are reinforced.  The net won’t do any good if it collapses and drops the fish all over the ground.”

“That completely slipped my mind,” Mr. Conners, the owner of the fish hatchery, replied while picking up some of the fish to toss them back in the tanks.  “I’ll have the guys get right on that.”

“So I’ll see that when I’m scheduled back?”

“Of course, you know I’m always up to date on your suggestions.”

Martin knelt to help pick up as many fish as he could.  He didn’t have to; there were enough workers around.  He would just feel bad if he didn’t do anything to help, when it was partly because of him that they were all on the ground.  The fish didn’t deserve that.

He hadn’t gotten to help much before Mr. Conners was shooing him out.  The short and stocky man always insisted that he had enough help, and he would never take no for an answer.  Martin didn’t want to argue with him pointlessly or cause any more problems, so he left.

At least Mr. Conners never held a grudge against him when his safety measures failed.  That happened too often, and it made things more challenging than they needed to be.  Even though he was just doing his job, many business owners still got upset when they hadn’t taken the necessary safety measures, and then his presence pushed things too far.

It was a good thing he didn’t have to deal with any more of that for the day.  His schedule had been a lot lighter than usual, and he was already done even though it was only about nine in the morning.  Though he’d had to start quite early.  The sun had hardly been in the sky when he’d left, and slate gray clouds had been looming over the town.

Thankfully, it had turned into a really nice day, and Martin was going to enjoy himself on his way home.  There was enough free time in his schedule that he could stop to have a nice second breakfast and be back by the time the kids finished school for the day.  Hopefully.  Murphy’s Law never made anything a certainty, but he always tried his best.

Martin didn’t mind walking back home, even if the fish hatchery was across the city from his house.  He’d already walked to all of his scheduled check-ins that morning.  Sara had driven him to the first one since Bridget needed their car for a business meeting.  The first place he’d had to test out was on the way to her high school after all, and she’d had an early meeting for a project she was working on with a group.  It was wrapped in mystery for now, since Sara had wanted it to be mostly done before telling them all.

It was absolutely beautiful that day, so he didn’t mind in the slightest.  The sun was beaming in the sky, and the light and puffy clouds were scattered everywhere.  Trees that had been planted along the sidewalks and in the medians were flourishing.  The temperature hadn’t reached boiling yet as summer quickly approached, and they’d gotten enough rain lately.  Every leaf was lush and green.  White petals occasionally floated down as the gentle breeze spun through the city streets.  If there were a few that had stuck around in his hair after removing his hard hat, he didn’t mind.

He was pretty excited to be on his feet like this again.  Just walking through the city with just a destination and having no idea how long it would take him to get there.  Martin hadn’t had anything near a proper adventure in a while.  Aside from being thrown into a makeshift prison by sentient pistachion monsters.  They didn’t like talking about that week, though.

Adventures usually seemed to be falling into Milo’s lap these days.  It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; Martin wasn’t as young as he used to be.  But he did miss the days of getting glued to his brother with maple syrup and having to run away from a pack of angry squirrels or waking up in the middle of the night in a different state because part of his bedroom had collapsed and allowed him to sleepwalk out of it.

The main priority, though, was getting some breakfast.  The breakfast that his wife had prepared for him had been several hours ago, and having to survive Murphy’s Law on a near-constant basis burned through whatever you ate fast.  He was almost always hungry.  It didn’t help that Murphy’s Law liked to try and destroy everything when he tried to cook.  Or anything anyone tried to cook around him.

So Martin quickly, but carefully, made his way to The Sandwich Wrap Shack.  Not only did they have a great assortment of items that you could put into your custom sandwich wrap, but they also had quick service.  And if your food got destroyed before you paid for it, you didn’t have to pay for the replacement.  Unlike certain other restaurants in Danville.

He ordered his usual: honey chicken, Swiss cheese, and their homemade zesty sauce in a toasted tortilla, jumbo-sized.  Having just a little bit of a kick really pulled everything together.  It was a good thing that they had different sizes; the other ones just weren’t enough for how hungry he could get.

The wraps were done within just a few minutes, and Martin sat down with his two burrito-like sandwiches at a seat near a window.  He always got a second one just in case the first was destroyed.  If it didn’t get destroyed, he had food for later.  And he sat where he could see the entire restaurant whenever possible.  It was never fun to suddenly have a rhino crash through the window behind you and start dragging you through the streets with a net that had gotten caught on its horn.  Alertness was more of an instinct in their family by this point than a learned skill.

It was a relief that the building was mostly empty.  That meant there were fewer people to get mad or annoyed if something happened that ruined their meals.  It also meant that there were fewer people to watch out for in case of a disaster.  Fewer people meant less pressure, and less pressure meant a more enjoyable meal.

Martin was almost finished with his first wrap when he heard shaking in the ceiling panels above his head.  He’d hardly even looked up when one of them came crashing down, quickly followed by a striped pink and brown blur.  After taking a few seconds to lean over the table and make sure that the blur wasn’t injured, Martin went back to eating.

“Hey, Milo,” he said before taking another bite.

“Hey, Dad,” Milo replied as he pulled himself back to his feet, a sheepish grin on his face.

“No, Zack with you today?”

“He managed to get off the truck in time.  My backpack got caught on a bungee cord.”  His son sat down in the chair across from him with a grunt.  “At least he made it before the first bell.”

Milo was probably about to explain more about his morning, but the rumbling of his stomach cut him off.

Martin looked at him with a raised eyebrow.  “Have you eaten yet?”

“Uh-”

Before Milo could get an excuse out, Martin shoved his other wrap across the table at him.  “Eat.”

Martin quickly finished his wrap and waited for Milo to finally get something in him before asking him more questions.  His breakfast had probably made the noble decision of catching on fire and burning to a crisp before allowing itself to be eaten.  God knew that had happened to him more times than he could count.  And there was no way of telling if Milo’s lunch had also survived the morning.  Best to just give him the second wrap anyway.

Once Milo was mostly done, Martin asked, “So, what exactly happened this morning?”

“Well, we got on the bus normally, but when we were getting off at school, a giant semi driving backwards with the top blown off came out of nowhere and scooped several of us up.  I helped Zack, Melissa, and some of my other classmates get out, but then got stuck and carried off.”

Martin winced in sympathy.  As small as a task as getting to school would seem to most people, it could be a giant hurdle for them.  There was nothing quite as crushing as nearly accomplishing a task, being right there about to walk through the doors, only to have it get pulled away from you.  He knew that Milo didn’t mind getting dragged into adventures, but Martin still maintained that it was okay to be upset or annoyed about things like this.  Bottling things up didn’t help; he knew that well enough.

“How did that bring you here?” he asked, knowing that Milo would be practically vibrating with anticipation to talk about everything.  If he were on an adventure with someone, it wasn’t as bad.  He’d pretty much already shared it that way.  If he were alone when things happened, he wouldn’t settle down until he shared it, and Martin wanted to make sure that his son would actually eat.

“I finally managed to get unstuck after a minute or two of being tangled up, just in time to get launched by one of those new spring mattresses onto the rooftops.  That was just down the street.  I was walking across the roofs trying to find a ladder to get down easily when I got here and fell through the roof.  I think it was a little water-damaged from the heavy rainfall that happened last week.”

Once Milo was done talking, Martin let him finish devouring his food in peace.  This wasn’t the craziest thing that had happened to Milo by far.  The school year had already been nuts, and it was hardly even halfway over.  While it might have been a fairly chill morning, having everything constantly hurtling forward as it often did for them could be wearing on a person.  Especially when you were going it alone.  So, it didn’t take him long to make his decision about what to do next.

“Well then,” Martin said, standing up and pushing his chair back in, “let’s get going.”

“Where are we going?” Milo asked, looking up at him from under his eyebrows.

“I’m walking you to school.  I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to do that before.”

Milo hopped over to him and threw the wrap wrapper away.  “Don’t you and Mom have me take the bus for a reason?  Mainly so that I have a chance at making it to school?”

“Um, yeah, pretty much.”  Martin shrugged as he held the door open so they could leave.  “But you’ve already had a hectic morning, and maybe I can help circumvent some more annoying things.  Two sets of eyes, right?”

“Alright.”

The two of them had hardly stepped foot outside of the wrap place when they had to duck back inside to avoid several barrels careening down the walkway.  It didn’t seem like anyone was chasing them, so they’d probably keep going for a while.  Martin quickly noticed that they were leaking some sort of fluid, and, knowing their luck, he was just going to assume that it was probably something flammable.

“Let’s get out of here before everything bursts into flames,” he suggested, letting the door close behind them as they finally made it outside.

Milo nodded hurriedly, already starting to jog off in the opposite direction.  “Yep.”

Chapter 3: The Adventures Never Stop

The two Murphys quickly made their way down the street in what was the approximate direction of Milo’s school.  Annoyingly, there was no direct way to get to it from the Wrap Shack.  You had to take several turns going out of your way to get to the correct street.  Whoever had done the city planning hadn’t done a good job, but at least you couldn’t blame the Murphys on that one.  They hadn’t lived anywhere near the city when all of that was going down.

At least Martin knew the city like the back of his hand.  It was necessary for several reasons.  One, he had to know how to get to most businesses for his job.  Two, he made it a priority to know how to get anywhere from anywhere in any place he lived.  Murphy’s Law kind of made that a necessity.  You try finding your way back home from the other side of the city without any kind of map.

It was another reason he had been happy to accompany Milo.  He knew certain routes, and the entirety of the sewer system for some reason, but he’d still get turned around from time to time.  Martin's help would make things quicker overall, he hoped.

The path they had to take put them next to one of the new construction sites that had arisen near City Hall, which Martin didn’t quite like, but he didn’t want Milo to miss any more school than necessary and had chosen the quickest route.  If the construction was active, he would have gone a different way, but it had been paused indefinitely due to funding issues.  Not nearly as much could happen if nobody was working on the place.  And to his knowledge, the steel beams were pretty secure.

Nobody knew what it was supposed to be, though.  It was the speculation of the city.  The owner was some sort of guy with a fancy name.  He’d bought a few of the decrepit buildings around it as well.  Martin didn’t find any use in speculating on things like that; he had a lot of his own stuff going on that he needed to take care of.

Martin and Milo were walking in the scattered shadows of the construction site when a large dump truck turned onto the road they were walking next to.  Martin took notice of it and the barrels it was carrying, it would have been hard for him not to, but didn’t pay it too much mind.  If only it hadn’t hit a large pothole, which destroyed a tire and the axle, causing the truck to crash into the road and flip onto its side.

The barrels it had been carrying were launched out of the truck bed, and Martin reflexively pulled Milo behind him as they started careening down the road and smashing open.  Who had approved the construction of those barrels?  It was extremely shoddy if they could burst open just like that.

Upon the barrels breaking open, they each started to gush a slimy-looking greenish fluid.

“What is that?” Milo asked, poking his head out to try and see as the fluid rushed down the slightly hilly road toward them.

“I’m not sticking around to find out,” Martin replied, prodding Milo toward the construction site.  The barrel fragments had some sort of warning label on them.  “Let’s get higher up before that stuff gets here, okay?”

The steel beams weren’t that much of a problem.  The Murphys had been figuring out the best ways to climb various objects for years.  You never knew when you would need to get up a tree, fence, or almost completely vertical wall.  Compared to that last one, the steel was easy peasy.  Especially since some of the bolts were in place.

They stopped climbing and rested for a few moments when they’d gotten about two stories up and reached a scaffolding platform.  Milo sat down for a few moments, having already had a more exciting day, while Martin examined the area below them.

It wasn’t looking the best down there.  The slime didn’t seem to be doing anything, but it wasn’t touching anything living.  Martin wasn’t going to take any chances with that.  You only needed one bad chemical burn to lose a leg.  There just weren’t many places for them to get out of there safely.  It had spread throughout the construction site and covered almost all of the ground.  You couldn’t land safely jumping away from the outside walls either.

The only real option was climbing across the construction to one of the abandoned buildings.  And just their luck, the only one that didn’t look like it was about to fall apart, with an open window, was across the site.  It would be an annoying climb, but they’d be able to do it.

“Come on.”  Martin gestured for Milo to follow him as he started the climb that was less precarious than trying to get to the ground.

Milo hopped to his feet and started tentatively following him.  “Should we be climbing up here?”

“I don’t care right now.  This way is safer.”

It wasn’t like it was a hard climb.  There were a lot of scaffolding platforms and railings that they could use to get through.  The only hazards were a few cranes that they had to climb around so they wouldn’t get knocked off.  Just because they were stationary didn’t mean that they had been left in the most neutral positions.

Milo had nearly slipped while trying to climb over one that had been blocking their path.  Martin had managed to catch him by the backpack before he’d completely lost his balance, and that was only because he’d made Milo go first so he could watch him.  He was making sure that Milo could get past everything first before he did.  It was easier to help like that.

Climbing through the window was easy enough as long as you were able to get past the glass.  Neither of them got a single scratch when they got off the scaffolding and into the building.

It was dim and damp; you could tell that nobody had used the building in a long time.  Martin couldn’t even remember what the building had been used for.  There were probably stairs, but even if those had rotted away, they’d still be able to get out from here.  The outside of the building was brick, and it was outside the slime radius.  They’d be able to climb down with no problem as long as they could find another open window.

And if there wasn’t an already open window, well, they had a Plan B.

Getting out of the building wasn’t the highest priority just then, though, even if it should have been.  Climbing was exhausting.  Martin had been starting to get tired by the time they’d reached the building, and Milo was panting.  They needed a break before they went anywhere else.  So they both sat down on the floor and tried to recover.

“So,” Martin said between heavy breaths, “that wasn’t so bad, right?”

Milo looked over at him with a tired smile.  It took a few moments for him to get up the air to speak, but he was interrupted before he had the chance.

The building around them started to tremble, and within a few seconds, it started to shake.  Martin grabbed Milo and pulled him to the wall.  The floor was wide open, making the wall the safest location.  And they could jump out the window again if they needed to.  Dust sprinkled down around them, but the building remained standing as the shaking gradually stopped.

“Was that an earthquake?” Milo gasped, eyes darting around the room as if he expected the shaking to start again.  Which, with an earthquake, was very much possible.

“We’ve never had earthquakes like that around here before.  Never anything that you can feel,” Martin replied, keeping a tight hold on Milo’s shoulders.  “Murphy’s Law has never created a new plate boundary before.  I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Then what was it?”

Martin shook his head.  He wasn’t going to provide an answer when he didn’t have one.  He made it a point to never lie to his kids or anyone he knew about weird stuff like this.

He didn’t have to wait very long to find out, because the floor beneath their feet started creaking and quaking.  Neither of them had the time to even shout before the ground beneath them fell away.

Martin lost hold of Milo when they hit the ground on the first story.  He wasn’t able to push himself up on his hands and search for his son before the new ground started to fall as well.

Dust and rubble flew through the air around him, and the only sounds he could hear were the thudding of concrete and brick hitting things around him, pulverizing themselves into tiny pieces.  As they continued to fall, Martin couldn't help but think that they were falling an awful lot for only being on the second floor of the building.  They would have been below the basement by this point.

It took a while for the ground beneath Martin to finally feel stable and the rumbling of the collapse to fade away.  He could hardly open his eyes with the dust floating around him, but could still see a dim blue glow coming from somewhere nearby.

He couldn’t do anything before a still-falling piece of rock hit him on the side of his head, sending him back to the ground as everything went dark.

 

~~~~~~~

 

Martin couldn’t help but let out a groan as his consciousness slowly came back to him.  Everything hurt a little bit, and he’d probably have a lot of bruises by the time he woke up the next day.  His head hurt the worst.  The spot where the rock had struck him still stung, probably from the dust covering him.  That would need to be checked out soon.  Any sort of infection wouldn’t be a good thing.

All thoughts of that soon flew from his mind when he patted the ground around him and couldn’t find his son.

“Milo!” he yelled, having to cough as dust tried to fill his lungs every time he moved.  He didn’t know how long he’d been out.  If the way his limbs felt was any indication, it could have been several hours.  That could mean certain death with some wounds.  He crouched down and felt all around the cavern since the dim light coming from wherever wasn’t enough to see clearly.

Luckily, it was enough for his eye to catch the reflective lights on Milo’s backpack.  Milo had long practiced how to maneuver himself without his backpack falling off, and right now, Martin was extremely grateful for it.  He rushed over as fast as possible while trying not to trip over the rocks scattered around the area, which would just lead to busting his knees.

He quickly brushed all the remaining dust and debris off of Milo, making sure not to move him in any way until he’d checked him over.  “Milo, are you okay?”

“I-I think so,” Milo groaned as he started to sit up, holding his hand over his mouth and nose to try and keep from breathing in the dust.  “I don’t think I’m anything more than bruised.”

“Good,” Martin said, sitting back on his heels with a sigh of relief.

Milo’s eyes quickly focused on his neck, his free hand quickly moving to hover around the wound that was still dripping red.  “You’re bleeding.”

Martin shrugged softly.  “I don’t think it’s anything like a concussion.  I should be fine as long as we can get out of here.”

“We should probably head toward that light.”

“I’m not sure, Milo.”

“It could be the subway.  Or Scott the Undergrounder.”  He elaborated a few seconds after Martin started staring at him blankly.  “He used to be a construction worker, but lives underground now.  He’s helped Zack, Melissa, and me out before when we’ve been in the caves.”

“Alright.”  Martin shrugged as he slowly pushed himself to his feet.  “But I’m going first, stay behind me.”

He waited for Milo to shakily stand before he started to creep through the tunnel.  Now that he was calm, he was actually focused on not tripping.  They appeared to have stumbled upon some sort of cavern system.  Several tunnels branched off of the main path they were following, but they ignored them.  Martin was focused on following the dim blueish lighting that slowly grew brighter as they came closer to it.

Martin was in front of Milo, and thus the first one to start walking on metal instead of rocks.  A railing came up in front of him, and he quickly got down on the ground, even as his body hummed in protest.  The cavern he’d just entered was enormous, and unnaturally round and smooth.  Every inch was plated in some sort of metallic material.  The harsh fluorescent lighting was everywhere, and Martin couldn’t help but think about how hard it would be to hide in a place like this.

His eyes had just caught sight of the strange platform in the middle of the room when Milo started coming up beside him.  He quickly grabbed his son’s leg to make sure he hid quickly, even if it was a bit of a rougher landing than he’d aimed for.

“Milo,” Martin whispered as quietly as he could, “I don’t think that guy is your friend.”

Chapter 4: There Is No Expecting

Martin crept forward as much as he could while remaining concealed by the bars of the railing.  He didn’t know who the people down on the platform were, and he didn’t really care who they were.  He only cared about the two of them not being seen.  This was some big operation, and they probably hadn’t counted on two random guys stumbling upon them.

“Dad, what’s happening?” Milo whispered.  He had started to move forward and stick his head up more, but Martin pushed him back down.

“I don’t know, but it can’t be anything good,” he replied.  “This is probably some sort of secret operation.  We need to get out of here.”

He was about to turn around and start leaving as quickly as he could, but Milo’s wide-eyed face stopped him.

“We can’t just leave,” he protested.  “What if something bad is happening.  We can’t just ignore it and let something bad happen.”

Martin hesitated.  Everything inside of him was screaming to get up and get Milo out of there.  He certainly shouldn’t be there, and Milo shouldn’t be either.  But his son did have a point.  They didn’t know what was happening, so it could very well be something bad.  It should have been even more of a reason to get out of there, but Martin had had a duty to report unsafe businesses for years.

He’d been doing it for even longer than he’d had his job.  Sometimes it seemed like his entire life was trying to keep people out of unsafe situations.  If he found out something bad was going to happen, he always tried to keep people out of it.  Usually, that was stuff like duck attacks and runaway trailers, though.  Not whatever this was.

Milo was staring at him, his eyes filled with determination as he lay on the floor with clenched fists.  Martin wished that he were better at thinking through stuff like this.

“Alright,” he sighed.  Milo looked like he was about to say something as excitement brightened his face, but Martin interrupted him.  “But, if it’s anything, any sort of danger, we’re leaving and getting the authorities involved.”

“How are we going to do that?” Milo asked.

Martin pulled out a camera.  “We’re going to get proof.  If anything happens, you take it and run.  Okay?”

“What about you?”

“Milo, you are my only priority here.  I tell you to run, you run.”

“Okay.”  Milo was frowning, but at least he was agreeing.  Martin counted on him to listen when he needed to.  He just hoped that Milo wouldn’t use his talent for improvising to do anything crazy right now.

Martin looked around for a few moments.  Their current location wasn’t the best for listening.  If he could find a better location that they could get to safely, he’d move them there instead.

The railing they were behind was connected to a ramp running down the wall to their left.  It eventually connected to a platform.  Sheltered enough, none of the people in the center of the room were looking that way.  If they were quiet, it could work.  And they were close enough to the cavern entrance that they could probably escape quickly enough if they were spotted.  He sighed unhappily as he started crawling toward the ramp, gesturing for Milo to follow him.  One eye was on Milo at all times; he was not letting him out of his sight.

The figures in the center of the room had been visible from their old position, but now that they had closed the distance even this little bit, he could make out more details.

It was the only bald person in the room who seemed to be in charge of everything.  He had glasses if Martin was correctly guessing about the flashes that came from his face as he moved around, and he appeared to be wearing a lab coat.  Was he some sort of physicist?  Did they stumble upon some sort of experiment?  Hopefully, this wouldn’t lead to any court trials or prison time.

But he didn’t seem to be nearly as composed as anyone in charge of a government operation should be.

“Move it to the left!  If you keep pushing it that way, it’ll fall off the ledge, and then you’ll have to drag it all the way up again.  If I see anything I have to repair, I’m sticking all of you in the pit again!”

He was speaking to several people, all wearing some sort of metallic harness.  The bands wrapped around their joints and foreheads, all connected by black cords.  It stood out against their white lab coats.  Little red lights occasionally blinked on and off.

What Martin thought was weird was that none of them made any comments, loudly or muttered, about being ordered around like that.  Any normal person would have had something to say, or at least acted disgruntled when being talked to like that.  None of them did anything.  They just kept moving the machine.

The object the bald man had been talking about was some huge machine.  It was about as big as three people and completely metallic.  There was no way it wasn’t extremely heavy.  It had what looked like a giant laser attached to the end, pointing down at an angle so whatever beam it was related to would hit several feet away.

When the people had centered the machine on the platform in the center of the room, and the bald man was satisfied with the alignment and that it wasn’t damaged, he stepped back and clapped his hands together happily.

“Wonderful, everything is set up for our second test run,” he said in his interesting voice.  “We couldn’t even finish the first one because of that earthquake we made.  Secure this thing down!  I’m not letting that happen again.”

Milo nudged Martin in the side.  “That was his fault?”

Martin just shushed him, pulling out his camera.  It was supposed to be for documentation during his job, getting evidence of infractions, but he could make an exception for this.  He’d gotten used to weird things happening very early in his life, but this was getting weirder by the second.  Couldn’t say that this had ever happened to him before.

After the strangely dressed people secured the bottom of the machine, they lined up on the side of the walkway as the bald man started to pace back and forth.

“Now my plan can finally start to come to fruition.  After an entire summer of rotting in that dastardly O.W.C.A. prison, I’m finally ready, about to finally fulfill my destiny to rule the entire world!”

Everyone else, including Martin and Milo, just stared blankly at him.  However, the others on the platform seemed a lot more lifeless about it.

The bald man scowled and planted his hands firmly on his hips.  “Do I have to constantly repeat myself to all of you?  None of you has any comments.  Fine, I’ll explain once more, but then I’m not doing it again.

“With these blueprints that I found in my ex-colleague Doof’s old storage, I have vastly improved his design for his Other Dimension-Inator and created my Other Dimension-Inizor!  With this machine, I will summon other versions of myself from other dimensions to take over the entire world.  And their worlds, too, I guess.  We’ll rule as an unopposable interdimensional regime!  It’s a plan worthy of being created by the great Aloyse Everheart Elizabeth Otto Wolfgang Hypatia Gunther Galen Gary Cooper von Roddenstein!”

“Isn’t that the guy who threatened to put the planet into a new ice age last summer?” Milo asked, remembering how they’d had to grab all their winter clothes to keep from freezing.  At least it was quick since they never put them away.  Ever.

“That guy knows Heinz?” Martin asked incredulously.  “And Heinz already made a dimension-traveling machine?”

“Uh, I think he mentioned something like that when he was still living in Mom’s shed.  That was before he quit being evil at the end of summer, though.”

“Okay.”

“Still no reactions?” Rodney asked.  “Oh, right, I forgot you’re all under my control now.  I do prefer this, though.  I’ve always been the best in L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N., so this isn’t much of a loss.

“My first order of business as ruler of the multiverse will be to put all versions of that waste-of-inventive-talent Doofensmirtz in prison.  How dare that traitor to villainy become a hero!  He doesn’t deserve any of that praise.”

Realizing how heated he was getting, Rodney took a couple of deep breaths.  “Let’s just finally get the test run started.  Since this thing won’t be moving anymore, we can see just how bad those earthquakes will get.  Tearing apart the fabric between dimensions isn’t the safest thing to be doing.”

As the evil scientist and his minions went back down the walkway, Martin realized that he had to do something.  This machine had already caused irreparable damage to an already dilapidated building, and it hadn’t even finished the first test run.  Who knows what it would do to the rest of the buildings around them if it were allowed to go on even further?

He got up into a crouch and started edging his way further down the ramp.  Milo’s hand reached out and gently wrapped around his ankle, halting his movement.

“Dad, where are you going?  The exit is the other day,” he hissed, eyes wide.

“I can’t let this go on any further.  Take this,” he thrust the camera into Milo’s hands.  “I don’t want to crush it doing anything.”

“And what exactly are you going to do?”

Martin shrugged.  “Try to break something on purpose for once.  You are going to get back to the main ledge and stay out of this.  I don’t want you getting into trouble with this.”

Without much further thought, Martin continued on his way.

The catwalk ran all the way to the ground in the chamber, which thankfully was pretty concealed because of the giant pillar that was supporting the machine.  If you were in the control room, you had to lean out and look down and hope the machine wasn’t in your way to see whatever was down there.  Currently, it was just Martin.

His goal at the moment was to climb up to the machine and start dismantling stuff.  There was probably some panel that he could dislodge or wires he could fry.  If nothing else, he could just unanchor the machine so it would fall back off and then hope that it broke.  Maybe a bit of a shove would aid that process.  He’d only have a certain window to get things done.

That window quickly moved to after the test run was over, as the room started to tremble around them.

Martin backed himself up to the pillar, figuring that it was the safest place underneath the machine at the moment.  Sparks and the crackling sound of electricity came from above.  The machine whined as it started reaching power levels high enough to start working.  Light panels had been set into the walls so the entire room was illuminated, but they all started to dim as the machine sucked power away from them.

It had occurred to Martin to try and look up to see what was happening, but as soon as he did, he was nearly blinded as the machine shot out a beam that was almost completely blinding white.  At the same time, it seemed to suck in light.  It created a huge sphere, crackling and swirling with odd shapes and colors as it slowly grew.

The room quickly started to become unstable.  Martin was glad that he was standing next to the pillar, as some of the parts of the railing were shaken loose and fell to the ground with a crash.  He couldn’t even hear the clatter due to how loud the machine was above him.  All he could do was hope that the test would be over soon.

Eventually, the portal seemed to stabilize, and the noise died down, even as the machine continued to cause the room to shake.  Martin sighed in relief as he could finally hear himself think again.  He could also hear the slightly muffled voices in the control room.  With any luck, the test would be over soon, and then he’d be able to get back to work.

That was when he heard a strangled yell from above him.  Martin sprang away from the pillar just in time to look up and see Milo careening over a railing on the other side of the room.  His heart leaped into his throat as he watched his son fall through the air, as much as he could see due to the room still being bright and not bright at the same time.  He ran over and caught Milo as the kid slammed into him, bringing them both to the ground.

From the ground, Martin quickly checked over Milo as the shaking around them started to fade.  The voices of Rodney and someone else quickly started to become louder as they tried to figure out what they had just seen.

Martin pulled them both to their feet.  “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”  Milo winced as he grabbed the camera from where he’d been keeping it, and some of the shards dug into his hands.  “I’m sorry about your camera.”

“It’s fine.  That’s not what’s important.”  Martin looked behind him anxiously as clanging footsteps started coming from the other catwalk ramp.

“Milo, you need to get out of here.”

“No,” he protested, gripping the straps of his backpack.  “I’m not leaving you.”

“Yes, you are.”  Martin took a deep breath before kneeling to look Milo right in his eyes.  “This place is getting more unstable by the minute, and I don’t want to keep worrying about you getting hurt in all of this.”

He tried to smile as lightly as he could.  “I’ll be right behind you as soon as I take this thing out.”

Milo still looked like he wanted to leave, but nodded anyway.  “Okay, Dad.”

Martin waited until he saw Milo clear the wall and get back to the cave entrance before turning around.  He’d already started this; he might as well try to finish it.

Racing back to the pillar, Martin was confident that he could outrun the footsteps that were trying to close in on him.  That was before he heard a whooshing sound come from behind him as he started to climb, almost like a bottle rocket being fired.  He was a few feet above the ground by that point, and certain that he’d be able to do something to at least delay this process before things started to get worse.

It was then that a hard metal object slammed into his side.  There was no way that Martin could have continued to hang onto the side of the almost smooth pillar with the amount of force that shook through him.  He fell to the ground, and despite doing his best to land safely hit his leg hard.  It completely collapsed beneath him, the carbon fiber completely snapping near the bottom from the large amount of stress it had endured that day.

His mind wasn’t focusing on that, though; he was more concerned about the metal that had clamped around his torso.  As soon as his arms had gotten close to his sides, it expanded to grip them tightly as well.  If it had been much higher, he would have had a really hard time breathing.

One of the scientists, eyes blank and unfeeling, marched over to him and rolled Martin onto his stomach, pinning him down with a steel boot between his shoulder blades.  The metal bands covering them had seemed to expand, forming rudimentary armor.  Apparently, including launchable restraining devices.  This was turning out to be so great.

Martin looked up as much as he could from his position as Rodney walked over to him, looking down at him from the brim of his glasses.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing in here?  This isn’t exactly a place for the riffraff.”

He might as well be honest; it wasn’t like a lie would make anything better for him.  The evil scientist probably wouldn’t care for excuses in the slightest if his demeanor was anything to go by.  “Trying to destroy your machine.  It’s not like I can leave you to enact your plan and still have a clear conscience.”

“Well, you’re not going to be able to do anything now.”  A younger boy ran up from the control room, and he seemed to also be going bald, with only a small amount of blond hair.  “Orville, put him in the crevice and then start preparing for the full run at the end of the week.  He’s not going to interrupt us again.”

“You can’t run this machine!” Martin protested as Rodney started to walk away from him.  “You’ve already nearly destroyed the buildings around this place with how unstable it is; if you activate it again, you could level the city.”

Rodney turned around and looked down at him coldly, and a little confused.

“What is a city compared to the world?”

He gestured to a few of the mechanized scientists who were standing around them.  “You three, find that boy.  We can’t let anyone get away who knows about our operation here.”

Martin looked up at him, horror filling his eyes as the mechanized scientist who had been holding him down picked him up by the metal restraints to drag him off.  He started to struggle, about to protest, but Rodney waved his hand dismissively, and Martin found the hard metal fist of another one of the scientists meeting his head.

The world quickly started going dark.  Martin just hoped that Milo had had enough of a head start to figure out how to get out of there.  That he would get away.  He didn’t want to use his last few moments of consciousness to think about what that man could possibly do to his boy.

Chapter 5: Waiting

Milo didn’t know what was happening anymore.  He had just been trying to get to school.  He hadn’t expected or wanted to stumble upon an evil scientist trying to take over the world.  It was just Murphy’s Law, he guessed.

Not tripping in the cave was a challenge.  It got darker and darker as he ran further away from the artificial cavern.  There was still rubble on the ground that had come from the building as it had crashed down on him and his dad.  He was going to have so many bruises later.  But none of that was important at the moment.  Everything that had just happened didn’t matter; it only mattered what he was doing right then.  Getting out of there like his father had told him to.

While his dad had been sneaking ahead and discovering the laboratory, Milo had decided to quickly poke around in the side tunnels they had been passing.  They’d have to get out of there eventually, and one of those would probably have been safer than trying to climb back into the unstable building.  Only one of the passages had air flowing through it, smelling like the grass and flowers that populated the sidewalk medians in the city.  That was the tunnel that he was just about to tell his dad about before he had been pulled to the ground.

Before everything had suddenly gone wrong.

Milo sprinted through the cave until he got to the tunnel from earlier.  He couldn’t hear much from behind him.  No voices, just the clanking of metal.  That was probably good, his dad said that he was going to destroy the machine.  Nothing else in there could have made noises like that unless the panels lining the walls had started to come down.

The tunnel was narrow.  From what he could tell, it was almost too short for his dad to get through.  It got hard for Milo at points, causing him to have to slow down and nearly take off his backpack to get through narrow passages.  He never stopped, he couldn’t stop.  He wasn’t going to stop until he was out of there, safe and hidden like his dad would want him to be.

He knew his dad well enough and had been in enough crazy situations with him to know what his father expected him to do.  It wasn’t necessarily what Milo would have chosen to do himself.  Milo would have stuck around to help.  Regardless of what happened, it would have been better than his current situation.  Feelings-wise, at least.

Being separated was not something that Milo liked happening when he was in situations with his family and friends.  If he wasn’t with his dad, he couldn’t help him.  If his dad got hurt, he couldn’t bring him his first aid kit.  And while Martin usually carried around some of his own supplies, if his hands were injured, he wouldn’t be able to take care of any other injuries.  Too much could happen.

But he couldn’t find out what was going to happen next until he got out of the freakishly long tunnel.  It was probably only heading to the other side of the street, but with how frantic Milo’s breathing was and how often he was slamming himself into the walls, it felt a lot longer.

As soon as Milo stepped one foot out of the tunnel, he nearly collapsed to the ground.  The darkness in the tunnel had lasted for long enough that the light was blinding.  He crouched for a few seconds as his eyes watered before forcing himself to get up and keep moving, even as various parts of his body nagged at him to stop and take a break.

Not yet, the alleyway he’d entered was too wide and too exposed.

Milo quickly noticed a tree at the end of the alleyway.  It was horrible for climbing, but that would work for him.  Who would expect him up there?  Nobody who knew how hard it was to climb a tree without branches.  And the foliage was thick and leafy, good at obscuring sight.  If he could get close to the top, he might even be able to peek out of the branches and see what’s going on without being spotted by anyone.

The bark was rough and scratchy against his already scraped palms.  It was a good thing that he’d already gotten some calluses, which made it hurt a little less.  Anybody who saw him would probably think that he was crazy, half hanging off the tree as he stubbornly climbed higher, but Milo wasn’t in the mind space to care about any of that.

Once he’d settled into a good vantage point, Milo nudged and tied some of the branches away so that he could see right across the street.  The abandoned building, the construction site, the cracked open barrels that still hadn’t been cleaned up yet, and the tunnel entrance that split the road and sidewalk like a pitch-black scar.

He was in a good place to wait, and wait he would.  He wasn’t going to leave that tree until either he saw his dad come out or his dad contacted him.

It hadn’t been more than a minute before Milo’s frantically darting eyes spotted movement coming out of the hole.  His excitement was quickly dashed when he spotted the red blinking lights along the mechanized portions of the evil scientists.

Three of them appeared, slowly.  It must not have been easy for them to squeeze their way through a tunnel that small, especially with the metal enhancements covering them.  Milo’s breath seized in his throat as he remained perfectly still.  The slightest movement could give him away if the swaying of the tree’s branches looked unnatural.

They looked around slowly, circling the area.  There must not have been any other signs of where he’d gone.  After a few heart-wrenching minutes, they regrouped.  Milo didn’t know if they were speaking out loud or telepathically, but one of them seemed particularly displeased.  The spiky-looking man slammed his metal-engulfed forearms into the pavement, shattering it.

Milo hoped that they’d just leave and go back into the tunnel, but nothing could seem to go right for him that day.  The mechanized scientists separated, splitting up and going in different directions.  He’d have to keep his eyes peeled to avoid running into them later.

At least that would make it easier for his dad to get out of the tunnel.  It made three fewer scientists to worry about, and they hadn’t stuck around the entrance.  It was great.  He just had to stick around and wait for his dad.

So he sat there in the tree and waited.

Even as the bruises covering his body started to make their locations more apparent.

Even as hunger started to gnaw at his stomach.

Even as the sun started to meet the horizon and dusk began to fall.

He waited.  And it sucked.

The waiting felt worse than falling had.  Both in the building and in the laboratory.  His throat hadn’t tightened up then like it was now.  His limbs were trembling.  Was it from holding himself in the tree for so long, or because he was starting to get scared?  It almost felt like he was being strangled.  And he knew what that felt like.

Why hadn’t his dad shown up yet?  He should have come out by now.  Maybe he’d just gotten out a different way, on the other side of the building, so Milo didn’t see.  His phone had probably gotten damaged.  They ran through those in nothing flat, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary.

But if that was the case, then why did he feel like someone was twisting a knife into his stomach?

Milo was so lost in his thoughts that when his phone started buzzing in his back pocket, he nearly fell out of the tree.  His flailing around caused a lot of rustling until he righted himself.  He grabbed his phone and answered as quickly as he could so that the very noticeable buzzing in the silent night would stop.

“Hello?” he said hesitantly.

“Milo, where are you?” Sara’s tired voice came through the speakers loud and clear, causing Milo to hurriedly turn the volume down.  “The school said you didn’t show up today, and Zack and Melissa said they haven’t heard from you since you helped them get out of some kind of truck.  Mom’s starting to worry.”

“I-I’m in a tree.”

“Can you be more specific?”

Milo rattled off his location without even thinking.  He was gripping his phone tighter than he should have been.

“Okay, I’ll pick you up.  I’m pretty close anyway.  Mom wanted me to drive around the area a bit after my date with Neal was over.”

He’d almost forgotten that Sara had said she’d be doing that.  He was filled with the urge to ask her how it went, maybe make a slight teasing remark about how they were the only two people crazy enough for each other.  It was a joke they’d made about their parents several times, so there weren’t any hard feelings about it.

“By the way, have you heard from Dad yet?” Sara asked, causing reality to crash back into him.  “He said he was supposed to be home early today but hasn’t even called yet.”

“I saw him.”

“When?”

“After I finally got off the truck.  We had some food, and he was going to help me get to school.”

“Then what happened?”

Milo remained silent.  What could he even say about what had happened?  It was so much easier to just keep his mouth shut, then he could ignore things for a little bit longer and pretend that everything was still fine.

“I’ll be there in two minutes, Milo.  Don’t you dare hang up the phone until you’re in my car.”

Sara had been very accurate.  Milo kept his eyes on the road like he had already been doing the entire day.  Soon enough, her unmistakable car rolled up.  The little fake flower pot she’d attached to the top for spring was fun, even if he occasionally worried about a duck or some other creature taking it out.  But it had survived so far.

He’d no sooner sat down in the passenger seat than Sara started pressing the back of her hand against his forehead and brushing back a few messed-up strands of hair out of the way to see his face more clearly.  Sitting in a tree for hours didn’t make you look the best.  “You look worse than usual.  Are you okay?  What happened?”

Milo just shook his head.  “Can we please go home?”

Sara’s eyes softened before she patted him on his shoulder.  “We can.”

They drove back in complete silence.  Milo rested his head uncomfortably against the door and window and tried to let the vibrations and humming noise around him lull him into sleep.  Unfortunately, it didn’t work.  He was too hungry and agitated for that to work.  His body would never let him sleep in cars anyway.  There were too many things that could happen for that to be allowed.

Before Milo knew it, they were home.  The two of them got into the house without the unfortunate incident of the door falling off its hinges, a small victory.  Pretty much the only one he’d gotten that day.

The plan had been to sneak upstairs before he had to say anything else, but his mom was standing in the kitchen.  Her eyes locked onto him before he could take more than four steps inside.

“There you are, Milo,” Bridget said warmly, hugging him as he kicked his shoes off under the bench she’d just gotten.  He had a few spares in his room anyway.  “I saved you and your dad dinner, yours should be warm in the microwave by now.”

A small smile graced his face as he leaned into her.  “Thanks, Mom.”

He grabbed his plate but didn’t even take it to the table.  Instead, he ate it at the counter.  He shoveled down as much as he could before starting to feel sick again.  Before, it had been from his empty stomach; now it was just from nerves.  Milo didn’t think he’d felt like this for years.  Not since he was a kid still trying to figure out how to make Murphy’s Law work with his life.

As soon as he was done, he got rid of his leftovers, told his mom and Sara that he was tired and going to bed, and then went upstairs.  He didn’t want to deal with any questions.  He just wanted to bandage up the scrapes and scratches on his hands and legs before passing out.

That was exactly what he did.  The sooner he got to sleep, the sooner he wouldn’t have to think about anything that had happened that day.  It was a good thing that he didn’t dream often.  But after he put the bandage kit back under the sink and started to cross the hallway to his room, he heard something.

Sara’s voice drifted up the stairs from the kitchen, causing Milo to pause in his doorway.  “I’m starting to get worried, Mom.  It’s not like Dad to take this long to call.”

His mom replied quickly and calmly, sounding like it was just another ordinary night.  For all she knew, it was.  “Your father will be all right, Sara.  This is far from the first time he’s been gone for a while without calling.”

“Yeah, I know.”  Sara sighed frustratedly.  “It’s just that I’m worried about Milo.  They were together at some point today, and something happened that separated them, even if Milo didn’t want to talk much.  And Milo’s fairly banged up for a run-of-the-mill adventure.”

“That had also happened before.  Look,” Bridget paused for a few seconds, with the floorboards creaking, she was probably walking over to Sara, “if he’s gone for more than another day, that’s when we can probably start to get worried.  But I don’t think it will come to that point.  Your father will be home just like he always is.”

Milo closed the door to his room and collapsed on his bed, squeezing his eyes shut as he wished that he could believe that.

Chapter 6: Annoyances Under Stress Become Aggravations

A couple of days passed, and there was still no sign of Martin.

They had never gone this long without hearing from him before.  He had always figured out something.  Whether it was borrowing someone’s phone or asking the hospital to call them.  Their family ended up there often enough that the hospital called anyway.  It was just simpler since they were frequent residents.

But even if they didn’t hear from Martin, they usually heard of him.  A Murphy could stay quiet for very long, Murphy’s Law was bound to do something eventually.  They would usually hear a report on the news of a road closing, or a truck crashing into a building after suddenly losing all of its wheels.  There was always some sort of sign of where the Murphys were in Danville.

Bridget was trying to remain calm and maintain her composure, but Milo could see how the stress and worry were slowly wearing her down.  She never liked to admit to them when she was getting worried about their father.  Milo couldn’t count the number of times his dad had gotten hurt and was in the hospital, whether it was for surgery or because an illness had gotten worse, and his mom had been the most positive person on the floor.

It didn’t matter how her legs would constantly bounce around, how she’d sharply turn any time a doctor walked into the hallway, or how she clutched her phone with a death grip.  She smiled, soothed them, and gave constant reassurances that everything would be okay.  Trying to protect them.

Milo could still tell, and that didn’t make him feel any better.  Though he didn’t let anyone see that either.

Martin had always been the pragmatic one about injuries.  He was always the one who told him and Sara exactly how bad it was and what would probably happen when he got to the hospital.  Nothing was sugarcoated when he was the one pulling everything together.  Making things seem like they weren’t as bad as they were was no help if you were severely injured.  You had to be prepared for the worst in their family.

He’d always preferred that style over his mom’s, even if Sara didn’t like it.

Whenever their dad was really hurt or missing, she’d completely withdraw.  She didn’t act super nervous like their mom did.  Not visibly freaking out, but not talking about it either.  She wasn’t talking about anything else.  There hadn’t been even a peep of a mention of Dr. Zone since Milo had gotten home that night.  Complete radio silence.

That was why, at the end of the weekend on Sunday night, Milo was surprised to hear two voices speaking softly in the kitchen.  His mom and Sara were talking about something.  He couldn’t help but hover at the top of the steps to strain and pick up everything he could.  With how strained the house had been, it was impossible to resist eavesdropping.

Especially since his parents had made it a point to never exclude him or Sara from important discussions, something that his mom did even when his dad wasn’t around.  But they hadn’t called him down or texted him to talk about this.

“Are you sure about this, Mom?” Sara asked nervously.  From upstairs, Milo could imagine her wringing her hands together while they stood on opposite sides of the island.

“No,” Bridget sighed.  “Of course I’m not, but Martin has never just dropped off the grid like this in the entire time I’ve known him.  I don’t want to think about it, but what if something bad has happened to him?  Something really bad.”

“You’re right, but we’ve never done this before.  We didn’t even mention doing this both times Milo went missing last year.”

“That’s because the first time we were abducted by plant monsters and couldn’t.  Plus, Zack and Melissa said he was with people they trusted.  The second time, we at least got a call, as garbled and far away on a different planet as he was, we got a call.  If neither of those things had happened, I’m sure your father and I would have contacted the authorities and declared him missing.

“I don’t want to waste any more time on this.  The longer you wait, the colder the trail gets, and we already don’t have a trail.  We have no idea what could have happened to him?”

“Well,” Sara tentatively started, “Milo might know something.  When we texted before I picked him up, it seemed like he knew something that had happened.  We should be talking to him about this.”

“Sara, if Milo knew something, he would have told us.  You know he can’t keep quiet about his adventures.”

“Yeah.”

Milo crept back from the stairwell and quietly closed the door to his room behind him.  He wasn’t about to go down there and say anything.

Not because it was weird.  If he told his mom and Sara that “yeah, Dad was probably kidnapped by an evil scientist who’s trying to take over the entire world and several different universes.  He has an army of scientists whom he’s mind-controlling and has turned into pseudo-cyborgs,” that would just be part of an average year for them.  They’d already dealt with a robot invasion from a different dimension, the entire city being abducted by plant monsters, and a whirling vortex of disaster on an alien planet.  This would be nothing compared to that.

But they were probably still out there and still searching.  Searching for him.  He was the only person who knew about what was going on, so he’d be the only person that they’d possibly target.  Right?

If his mom and Sara got hurt because of something that he told them, he’d never forgive himself.  It was safer for them like this.  Even if he knew he’d have another sleepless night.

 

~~~~~~~

 

School was even worse than usual the next day.  Normally, Milo didn’t think of school as a hassle, even with Murphy’s Law, but today was an exception.  He’d gotten away with hiding in his house and not talking to anyone because it had been the weekend.  His lack of sleep and having to be around everything else wasn’t making him feel any better about everything, like Sara had suggested when she saw how dour he looked.

His classmates were talking to him even less than before.  There had probably been at least a few mentions of his dad on the morning’s news.  While lying face down in his bed, he’d heard the garage door open and shut as soon as his mom had finished talking to Sara and went to enact her decision.

He hadn’t missed the strange looks he was getting: a general mix of pity, remorse, and the occasional apathy.  By this point, everyone knew what had happened.  It only took a few people finding out to spread the word.  His school wasn’t immune to that sort of stuff.  The only people he’d actually told were Zack, Melissa, and Mort.  And that was just so they’d know why he was skipping band practice the previous day.  And he’d only told them that his dad hadn’t gotten back home yet after Friday, so he was waiting for him.

The glum attitude he was carrying hadn’t been missed by his friends, who had pretty much glued themselves to his side.  They had been trying to talk to him, but with his continued lack of responses, their worry was only increasing.

“Any ideas, Melissa?” Zack whispered after Milo stepped away to get to his locker, which was slightly down the hall from theirs.  “You’ve known him for longer.  What do we do?”

The redhead shook her head glumly.  “I don’t know.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this upset before.”

“Should we try to talk to him about it?”

“I tried texting him last night to see if he was going to be here, and he wouldn’t respond to any of my questions.”

Zack stared at the wall for a few moments.  “Has Mr. Murphy ever gone missing before?”

“Not like this.”

The day didn’t get any better.  Normally, Milo was able to brush off all the different things that Murphy’s Law threw at him.  That was because he usually had a pretty good mood, or at least a decent one.  When he was as dejected as he was at the moment, as rarely as it happened, things just kept piling up.

Getting set on fire in the middle of science class normally wasn’t that big of a deal.  He always got it put out fast enough, and he had enough spare clothes to make up for the burned ones.  It was rare that something like that would get him hurt.  But while he usually made some sort of joke to lighten the mood, this time it was just tedious.

By the time lunch finally rolled around, Milo was ready to go home, and he still had half the day to go.  Normally, Milo wouldn’t quit like that, but he was starting to feel like it was acceptable with the circumstances at hand.

Especially when he tripped over Bradley’s plant arm and almost faceplanted into his school lunch spaghetti.  He still landed on it, but the sauce and noodles got all over his sweater vest instead.  Comparatively harder to clean.

“Hey Milo, that’s a bit of a saucy situation, huh?” Bradley called out in a teasing manner, reaching out his plant arm to help him back up.

Milo didn’t say anything to Bradley or anyone else.  He just pushed himself to his feet, turned on his heel as fast as he could without slipping on any noodles, and started walking out of the school doors.  He stared at the ground while trying to control his accelerating breathing; it was all he could do to keep himself from starting to cry in the middle of the cafeteria.

Melissa glared at the table, causing both Mort and Chad to shrink back from her gaze.  “Really, Bradley?”

Bradley held his hand up in defense.  “Hey, I wasn’t even trying to be mean there, I was just joking around.  Most of the time he likes when I do that.”

“Could have picked a slightly better time.”  Zack winced while picking Milo’s tray up to put it away, trying to get as little sauce as he could on his hands.

“Didn’t you see the news?” Melissa asked before running after her friend.

“No.  My parents don’t let me use the TV on school days.”

“Ask someone, then,” Zack called out behind him as he followed Melissa outside.

Milo could be a surprisingly fast walker when he wanted to be.  By the time Zack met up with Melissa outside, it took them a few moments to spot him.  Mainly because of the lighting difference.  Milo was already on the sidewalk.  He had crossed the entire school yard and was still going on his way.  There was no sign that he was going to stop.

The two ran after him, not wanting him to get too far away from them while he was in this state.  It was clear that he wasn’t at his best or anywhere near it.

“Milo, wait up!” Melissa called out from behind him.

Milo had half a mind to keep walking, but knew that wouldn’t be nice to his friends.  They’d just keep following him anyway; he might as well let them catch up.

Melissa reached him first, gently grabbing his shoulder to turn him back around and face them.

“What’s going on?  You’ve never just run off like that before.”

“I just, I just can’t-” he couldn’t say the words he wanted to, and he couldn’t even get out the words he was trying to.  Squeezing his eyes shut, Milo could start to feel his lashes dampen.  It was all he could do to keep his shoulders from shaking as tears started to drip down his face.

“Are you okay, dude?” Zack asked quietly as Milo tried to turn away.

“No.”

Zack and Melissa exchanged a worried glance with each other before grabbing Milo by the arms to get him walking again.

“Okay, we’re going home with you,” Zack sighed.

“And,” Melissa added while prodding him in the side, “on the way, if you’re up for it, you might finally tell us what’s wrong.”

For a few seconds, Milo remained silent while his friends continued to guide his movement.

He didn’t want to talk about it.  He didn’t want to think about it.  But it was clear that Melissa and Zack weren’t going to leave him alone until they figured out what was going on with him.  What else was he going to do except give in to them?

“I’ll explain when we get inside my house,” Milo mumbled.  “After I change into clothes that aren’t covered in sauce.”

Chapter 7: What Could Possibly Happen Now

Zack and Melissa, mainly Melissa, had been gently nagging him about their approaching talk over the duration of their walk to his house.  Most people would think that they were being mean-spirited, but Milo knew that wasn’t the case.  It was either that or an awkward tense silence.  None of them would have been able to handle that at the moment.  What else was there to say while you walked your best friend home, who was clearly really upset about something, while you waited for him to finally open up?

So Milo let them make empty comments and tell whatever small jokes they could think of.  They were just trying to cheer him up, even if it wasn’t working.

As they’d promised, his friends didn’t make him sit down and talk to them until he’d taken a shower, changed, and thrown his clothes in the washer.  His sweater was probably ruined, but he could hope for something at this point, right?  He tried not to make it seem like he was dragging his feet.  But he really didn’t want to have this conversation.  There was no avoiding it, but he could at least slow it down.

When he finally sat down in the chair slightly angled toward the couch where Melissa and Zack were sitting, Milo didn’t know if he could talk.  His throat felt tight and dry, like he hadn’t drunk anything in an entire day.  He knew what that felt like.  Especially with them both staring at him.  Milo looked at their feet instead.  If he met their eyes, he wouldn’t be able to force out a single word.

The first few words had been a struggle, feeling like they were tearing through his throat.  Even the first few sentences had been rambling and going around in circles.  His voice refused to vocalize everything that had happened.  Until he’d spotted Melissa leaning forward and placing her hands on her knees at the edge of his vision, like she always did when he was walking around, the truth of how injured he was and how much work it would be to get him out and patch him up.  That was when the words started tumbling out, flowing faster and faster until his mouth was struggling to keep up with what his brain was throwing at him.

When he finished, he was almost panting.  He hadn’t taken a single break, hadn’t grabbed a single drop of water, and had hardly grabbed anything longer than a second's worth of air at a time.  It was all out now.  The building, the cave in, the lair, the machine, the plan, the cyborgs, getting out, his dad not.  There was nothing else to do but wait for his friends to say something.

But Melissa and Zack were staring at him blankly.

They believed him.  Weirder stuff had happened.  They’d been around for weirder stuff that had happened.  Somehow, this was what was pushing the limit for them.  Perhaps that was because of how he was reacting.

“That was a lot,” Melissa said slowly.  “All of that happened after you got carried off by that truck?”

“Wait, that was the earthquake that the news has been reporting about?  That machine?” Zack added.

Milo nodded mutely.  He had used all of his words up for the moment.  And his energy.  Just nodding took a lot out of him.

“I can understand why you’ve been so upset about this.”

Zack shook his head with a wince as he agreed.  “Yeah.  I don’t know how you’re feeling, but I’d feel horrible if anything like that ever happened to my parents.”

“Well,” Melissa continued, clasping her hands together and leaning forward, “where are we going to start?”

Her statement shocked Milo enough that he started talking again.  “What?”

“We’re not just going to sit around and not do anything; we’re going to get to the bottom of this.  Right, Zack?”

“Yeah,” Zack replied quickly as Melissa side-eyed him.  He had already looked as determined as Melissa had, so her stern gaze hadn’t really been necessary, but their usual antics nearly got Milo to smile.  The corner of his mouth twitched slightly up before he felt even worse than he had before.

“Normally, I would be thrilled that you guys wanted to help,” he began, trailing off slightly toward the end, not quite knowing how to say what he wanted to say.

“Normally?” Melissa repeated, staring at him sternly.

“But this is, it’s a lot.  It’s way more than either of you signed up for when you both became my friends.”

“Milo, we didn’t sign up for anything to be your friends.”

“We didn’t?” Zack muttered, recalling an earlier conversation they’d had from that year.  Melissa smacked his leg.

“We wanted to be friends with you because you’re upbeat and kind, and you’re one of the best people we know.  You don’t let life get you down, even though life can be really hard for you sometimes.

“The Milo I know wouldn’t be so in the dumps about this.  He’d be taking the situation by the horns and trapping it in a makeshift wooden cage.  You’re always here for us when we need you to be; why can’t you let us be here for you with this?”

“I don’t want you two to get hurt because of me!”  He couldn’t help the outburst; he just couldn’t keep anything in anymore.  Zack and Melissa weren’t used to seeing him like this, and they quickly glanced at each other in concern before he abruptly rose to his feet and started to pace back and forth as he continued.

“Normally, it’s fine because I don’t control Murphy’s Law, and you guys are completely fine with that even when there are times I think you shouldn’t be.  Those guys are after me because I stumbled upon their crazy plan, and that’s why they took my dad.  They’re going to keep coming after me until they get me, too, because I know just as much.  And now both of you know, and if they find out, they’ll target you as well.”

Tears started to well in his eyes as his breathing sped up; he couldn’t stop the tears because it was taking all of his control just to keep forcing the air out to continue speaking coherently.  “And that means it’s going to be my fault if you guys get hurt, and it’s my fault that my dad got in that mess in the first place because if I’d just gone by myself to try and get to school or got out of that stupid truck in time he’d never have had any reason to go near that area and he’d be just fine and-”

That was the point where Melissa stood up and forced Milo to be still by grabbing his arms.  He looked sideways at her through his blurry vision as his tears continued to stream down his face.  He hardly registered it when she pulled him in for a hug, bending him slightly at the waist so his head was resting on her shoulder.

Zack quickly joined in, pulling both of them onto the couch.

With both of his friends holding him tight and keeping him from moving, the only thing that Milo could do was cry.  So he did.  For the first time since he’d stumbled upon the crazy evil scientist’s lair, he truly let himself cry, and sob, and let it out.

Milo didn’t know how long they stayed like that, but he cried until he didn’t have anything else to cry.  His friends were still there, still holding him.  They didn’t let him go just because he was done crying.  They held him until he started to shift and pull away on his own.  He still couldn’t quite meet their gazes, but could almost feel the small sympathetic smiles they were aiming at him.

However, he wasn’t content to sit there any longer.

“Where are you going?” Melissa asked as he continued to pull away and started to rise to his feet.

“Treehouse,” he mumbled, sniffing while trying to stand up straight.  “Can I please just be alone for a bit?  I need to think.  Compose myself.  Something else along those lines.”

“Alright, but we’re going to be right in here watching for you to come back.  If something starts to happen, we’ll call you, alright?”

“Okay.”

He walked off as fast as he could while still looking like he was at a normal pace.  His feet nearly slipped off the ladder made up of boards that had been nailed to the side of the tree.  They would have chosen a better method, like a rope ladder or something else, but this was the easiest to fix when Murphy’s Law made an appearance.

The inside had gotten a bit of a makeover now that he had more than one friend.  Sara’s old beanbag was still in the corner, but he also had a small bookshelf there as well as some carpet squares.  Waterproof lights hung from the ceiling, but he hadn’t charged the battery after it had died, so he couldn’t turn them on.  They’d gotten the idea of painting the inside in a nice color, but they hadn’t picked one out yet.  The paint squares were still lying on the floor.

Once Milo closed the trap door behind him, he sank to the floor, folded his arms, and dropped his head to his knees.

So, his friends were on board, and they weren’t letting him offboard them.  So great, he had three people to go up against a small platoon of cyborgs.  What exactly was that going to do?  They needed to figure out how to make this work, but Milo’s brain just couldn’t wrap around anything that was happening.  He felt completely hopeless, which wasn’t something that happened to him very often.

His dad would know what to do.  His dad always knew what to do in any situation.  Even when they were facing something completely new, as they frequently did, he was able to effortlessly take control of the situation.  Milo only wished that he could do stuff like that.  When he was in new situations, like a plant monster invasion or being abducted by aliens, he had no idea what to do.  He just freaked out, however deep internally it was buried.

If only his dad could just tell him how to fix all of this.  Then again, if his dad were here to tell him what to do, he wouldn’t need his dad to tell him what to do in the first place.

Whatever they tried to do, they had to do it perfectly.  If they did something wrong, he might never get his dad back.  He didn’t think he could handle that.  Not in a million years.

Milo was so absorbed in his own thoughts and worries that he didn’t hear the creaking sound of something putting its weight onto the boards leading up to the treehouse.  And it hadn’t occurred to tell his friends that the vibrations in his phone had broken, so as they tried to call him, he wasn’t noticing anything.  He just let out a sigh, wondering if anything could make him feel more confused about this entire situation.

That was when the trapdoor was shoved open by a strange figure.

Milo jumped to his feet and smacked his back into the wall of the tree house, right next to the little bookshelf that he’d managed to build in there.  It wasn’t secured to anything, and as the vibrations of his sudden movement coursed through it, the shelves started to tip forward.

Before he could process anything about the figure besides the fact that they were human, the bookshelf fell and smacked right into the person’s head.

The person slipped off the ladder and landed with a thump on the ground.

After standing frozen for a few moments, a very horrified Milo quickly shoved the bookshelf out of the way so he could get to the ground.  He didn’t know if his currently shaky mental state could handle this person being super-injured.  But at least he was able to see that it wasn’t Zack or Melissa.

That led to the other question of why a complete and total stranger was trying to get into his treehouse.

Milo carefully crept over the unconscious body lying in the grass, Melissa and Zack rushing over to his side.  The three of them stared down at the older man in confusion as they examined his familiar-looking features and attire.  Especially the olive green backpack that was practically identical to the one Milo was already wearing.

“Who is this guy?” Milo asked softly, looking up at his friends with confusion.

Melissa shook her head.  “I was really hoping that you knew.”

“Why should I know?”

“Because he looks like he’s related to you,” she explained, gesturing at the guy’s face.  “He looks like your dad.”

“Actually,” Zack said hesitantly, “he looks more like you than your dad.”

The three fell silent as they studied the stranger.  He did look a lot like Milo when they weren’t freaking out about knocking out a random person.  Same hair style and color, a three-quarters sleeved cable knit sweater, and a pair of moccasins on his feet.  But his jawline was sharper, and he was really tall.  Milo had been considering dragging him into his house to lay him down on the couch, but now he was wondering if Zack and Melissa would be able to help him with that.

The stranger didn’t have any of the scars that he knew his dad had, normally covered up or not.  But despite their uncanny resemblance, Milo had never seen this person before.  Not even in the old family photo album that his grandparents had done their best to keep from being destroyed.  Whoever this person was, they weren’t related.  At least, not that Milo knew of.

He awkwardly cleared his throat to break the thick silence between them.  “We should probably get him inside so no one else sees this.”

“And tie him up,” Melissa said with a nod.

When the two boys looked over at her, she simply shrugged and continued, “We have no idea who this guy is.  He could be working with the guy who took your dad to get you, too.  We should tie him up until we can question him.”

Zack sighed.  “Maybe you should have explained that in the first place.”

“I didn’t think it needed explaining.”

“Can we move him first and argue over that later?” Milo pleaded, walking around the man to grab his shoulders.

His friends nodded quickly and went to grab the legs.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of The Miloverse