News of my leaping between Earth versions spread throughout the North Star‘s various media departments. The newspaper’s podcast requested a live demonstration. The hosts were an acquired taste, but we eventually found our flow.

It was an interesting time to appear on their show. They were gaining notoriety among our neck of the multiverse. Their subscribers and regular listeners had skyrocketed, but the hosts mounted concerns over the necessary sponsor breaks interrupting show flow. The ads, if they occurred too frequently, would surely stunt the pod’s growth, they told me before we broke air.

I took the call from the Drop, in clock position 10—on the big screen in Jacob and Gabe’s TV den. I was working on a projection of Earth_42 in the Drop’s epicenter that I thought would act as a good visual aid to illustrate the Thunderbird craft of leaping between worlds, as well as spin the multitude of potential happenings that could emerge from any single Earth version—in this case, ’42.

This was the setting I had encountered, when they called. They were in mid-conversation, contemplating.

The more tech-savvy host, Paul, thought he could hack the advertisers’ algorithm. He had uncovered a systematic exploit.

In a somewhat vain effort to introduce their paid content into an otherwise fluid delivery of entertainment, these sponsors devised software that would only interject when there was a lag in the conversation:

• An awkward pause; here’s an ad for some boner pill.
• Pregnant moment of contemplation; let’s sling some copy on a new startup that sends you a new razorblade every other day.
• In short, dead air equaled ads.

Paul found a loophole. “What if, throughout the entire hour of the podcast, we avoid lags altogether? What if we filibuster?” he said to his co-host, Pete the Killer.

“What if we do succeed at that, though?” Pete was skeptical. “We still need to play the sponsored ad at some point in the podcast. That’s how we monetize.”

“We’ll cue it up at the end,” Paul said. “That will still provide an uninterrupted stream.”

“What do you guys need me to do?” I said.

“Oh, hey, Bill Thunderbird!” Pete said. “We didn’t realize you had jumped on. Do you have enough good stories or other anecdotes to fill the hour?”

“I can take you through how we plot Earth world destinations off this version ’42, here,” I said.

“Perfect,” Paul said.

Earth_42 shimmered in the rainbow hovering in a midst of my Drop’s waterfall.

“So what are we looking at here?” Pete the Killer got the ball rolling. He gestured toward the large, glowing globe gently rotating at the epicenter of my Drop, the large, hollow sphere that contained my personal universe.

“This, fellas,” I said, “is a certain version of Earth. ‘Earth_42’ I’ve coined it. I’m hot off a 42-year stint on planet. Over four decades ago (from this planet’s perspective), I leapt down, incepting my signature—subtle as a breeze—into a newborn down on the ground. I then grew up with that family, until I had aged 42 years. And then, from the ground, middle-aged me found the ability to leap back up to my 5th-dimensional Drop, attached to the spaceship Cheshire of an adjacent universe.”

“Don’t you just surf through the movierain to find a droplet world to drop into?” Paul had done his research of the Thunderbird craft.

“Usually,” I said. “But a leap through the movierain (multiverse) is always better from a premeditated, substantial locale. This completely intact Earth_42 provides that stability and fidelity. Whenever we have the reality surfing equivalent of writer’s block, sure, I’ll take a naked dip into the Dew and surf until a new and interesting world reveals itself. But it’s almost always better to chart targeted drops into worlds. Serendipitous dips into unknown worlds tend to fizzle out too readily.”

“How about a demonstration?” Pete the Killer knew how to keep his audience listening.

“OK, we’ll have to switch to my helmet cam for that,” I said. I then sat my physical body down into its zen position, and astrally leapt my energetic body in orbit to the hologram Earth_42. My helmet effortlessly transmuted between mediums. The feed detailed a rapidly rotating Earth’s surface, as I surfed Her Van Allen belts at dizzyingly encircling speeds.

“Wow, this looks really cool, Bill,” Paul said. “What now?”

“Now I can locate any event that has occurred on planet, from Her birth until the point I leapt off planet at the personal age of 42. The planet Herself would have been roughly 4 billion years old at that point, in an era that most resembled the 2020s of my home world, Earth_Home.” A beat, as I waited for the hosts to comprehend what I just delivered. “Any requests?”

“Does this Earth have an example of civil war, where a country faced utter annihilation, but somehow retained its identity and finally rebounded?” Pete said.

“Yes, the American Civil War is as good an example as any,” I said.

Then I spun the globe until it glowed golden yellow and slowed Her down to the year 1863. I descended down, surfing my Alcubierre bubble down through the clouds, to the ground of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where President Abraham Lincoln was delivering his famous address, “Four score…” and so on. I let the fellas hear the whole speech.

“Wow, that Lincoln gent is quite eloquent and moving,” Paul said. “I hope the United States of America remained intact.”

“For the most part, yeah,” I said. “Any other requests?”

“My mind is blown,” Pete blurted. “So you have here hovering a complete planetary history of one version of Earth. That’s impressive, but how does it aid in Thunderbird craft?”

Pete the Killer alluded to the fact that the Thunderbird Order have carte blanche when it comes to the Akashic of any planet, including Earth and all Her splendid versions. It would almost be a waste of potential to merely peer into events that have happened.

“That’s a good question, Pete,” I said. “This fully intact Earth provides myself and my crew the necessary ingredients to launch targeted leaps. We take an event, like the Gettysburg Address we just visited and then can spin an alternate Earth off of this version. We alter variables to see what would have happened if, say, Lincoln didn’t make it to Gettysburg on time. Or maybe his well-articulated speech wasn’t received kindly by the soldiers that day for some reason. We can answer how those deviations would have impacted the outcome of the war, for instance.”

“Why do you need to spin off a new planet?” Paul said.

“Because our very act of observing Earth_42 spawns a new version—call it 42a and so on—as we further explore,” I said. “It’s the only way to keep the master planet intact. Our conscious observation, however subtle, would still alter that origin reality somehow. The necessary technique also helps us retain outcomes, as we manipulate conditions of the newly spawned offshoots.”

I entertained a few more requests from the hosts, all the while demonstrating a fine leaping ability, surfing Earth_42’s stratosphere at high velocities, only to slow Her down into specific ground events. They were impressed by my precision.

“Bill, again, such a treat today,” Pete said, with agreement from Paul. “Your demonstrated ability to spawn new Earth versions from ’42’s foundation is a divine display of the Thunderbird craft. We hope to have you on again soon to catch up on what else you have discovered.”

“Thanks, guys,” I said. “It was a pleasure and an honor. I’ll be sure to keep you two abreast of any Earth developments.”

A beat, and then an ad finally broke, as I signed off:

“Too many worlds, too many problems?” the ad announcer interjected. “Call the Booth Dudes! They’ll clean up even the messiest of mutliversal excursions. Avoid ripple effects with Booth Dudes!”

Silence.

Then, in the now quiet environment, as the nearby waterfall gently pattered, I heard a slow clap from the Drop’s peanut gallery, which was my nickname for clock Position 2, also known as Donna and Edward’s city apartment. Donna was the one clapping, sitting next to Edward on Position 2’s couch. Kitty sat across from them on the other love seat. Jacob and Gabe were also sat in that flat’s living room, on ottomans, to complete my audience for my live podcast appearance. My astral self flew out of the Earth hologram’s stratosphere, grew larger, and dipped back into my physical body sitting in the zen position.

My physical self stood and walked down to meet them in the living room. They had splayed out a large board game in the central, square coffee table. The board became our blueprint for potential excursions, as offshoots from Earth_42.

“We’re plotting known points of Earth_42 on this RPG board, Bill,” Kitty said. “We’ve marked all your life events from the last 42 years and now have plotted the Gettysburg Address from 1863.”

The 3-dimensional landscape became our 4th-dimensional roadmap for 5th-dimensional travelers (us).

“Good work,” I said, descending down to meet them.

I sat next to Kitty on the couch.

“I can’t believe how hi-def the existential resolution is!” she said. “And it goes back almost to planetary origin four billion years ago… I’m still not convinced it was worth risking your timeline, but, truly, I must admit, Big Cat, great find.”

“Yeah, again sorry about not telling you,” I said. “Not sure I’m going to take such a deep dive anytime soon.”

Sitting there in the company of my cherished crew reminded me of how much I had risked nearly forgetting my higher identity up in the Drop, while toiling away on the ground of Earth_42. Edward was quick to console me.

“I’ve never seen such a fully-intact Earth. You dove deep on this one, Thunderbird,” he said with a smirk of admiration and a glint in his eye.

Edward, usually the calm and reserved vision guide, exhibited more anima as we discussed the conversation piece that was Earth_42, still quietly rotating above in the Drop’s epicenter.

“I can’t wait to explore all the offshoot worlds with you,” he continued. “And this thing really goes back to the beginning—four billion years. Wow. Man, most of our conjured worlds only hold substance for a few weeks.”

He was right. Flitting through the movierain produced a heep—infinite Earths to visit—but their conditions usually only held for a brief time. Then, they’d evaporate or absorb into a more established, adjacent world. Easy come, easy go, I suppose.

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This story originated from the universe of Big Cat, a novel.

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