The third and final example we all decided to tell Cap was also brought by yours truly, another Bill joint. The original plan was to involve more of the crew, Jacob and Gabriel, for instance, to demonstrate how our collective leaping after hours was benefiting all. But then I stumbled across Bryan Florian again. Quite serendipitously.

In between leaps, adrift in the movierain, I’d find myself within the infinite stacks of the Thunderbird Equipment Room. It served as sort of a weigh station where I could learn new Thunderbird techniques and train my helmet to better assist me on foreign worlds.

One night, upon entering the large, leviathan-like, megalithic gates, I bumped into Bryan Florian. He appeared much older than the last time I had seen him, although on my timeline, not much time had passed. He must have been quite active in leaps of his own. The passage of linear time is also somewhat irrelevant when frequenting the movierain.

“Bryan! Bryan!” I said, to get his attention. He seemed to be in a hurry. “It’s Bill!”

“Oh– oh, hey, Bill,” he said, as if he hadn’t seen me in a lifetime. “How have you been?”

“Good, good. Where are you off to in such a rush?”

“I’m actually just hitting up the archives one last time, before my next assignment. Haven’t quite performed a leap like this one yet.”

“What’s it entail?” I could hear the heaviness in his voice. He was gearing up for a big one.

“It actually may not be a coincidence that I’m bumping into you here and now,” he said. “This leap involves a one-way ticket only, no return trip for Bryan Florian.”

“Don’t tell me you’ll have to martyr yourself for the Order,” I said in earnest. I had heard of these supposed suicide missions before, but never encountered one up close with someone I knew.

“Well, a rebirth is involved, sure,” he said rather casually, surprisingly casually. “And the reason I think it could concern you is that I understand it involves—or will involve—the Cheshire. Yeah, I’m to summon the full spectrum of my leaping abilities to transcend the very multiversal fabric itself. And traveling at the speed of death, I can access the impossible unpredictability at the center of a black hole that would swallow one Cheshire multi-dimensional craft. Didn’t you say you were born miraculously in the Cheshire’s engine room as a young boy, with no recollection of who you were or how you got there?”

I had been hanging on his every word to this point. His narration filled in the blanks to my mysterious origin aboard the good ship Cheshire. Could Bryan Florian have been the Thunderbird that rescued the Cheshire and bore me into existence? Ouroboros bros were we, the two of us.

“Yes, that’s correct,” I was having trouble finding my words at this overwhelmingly existential account he had just dealt. “Well, nice to meet you, brother.”

We shook hands. He said the same and then descended into the Thunderbird stacks to research how to come out on the positive end of a black hole with the Cheshire in tow. While I went on countless multiversal excursions with one Bryan Florian that I haven’t mentioned yet in this log, this was the last time I saw Mr. Florian on my own timeline.

I had been responsible for Florian’s leaping abilities back on the tavern Earth version—he found my Thunderbird journal and checked it out of the local Shermer Library. I must have left it there for him to find. And now, he had just told me he, as a much more seasoned Thunderbird, was responsible for my Cheshire origin. Ouroboros Bros, indeed.

***

“Well that was interesting,” the Captain said. She liked all three of our stories. And I really think the third and final Florian tale hooked her. She had really been wondering where I had come from. We all had.

The Kitty tale helped to restore faith in me that I could rescue MIA leapers, with much more efficiency than in Sully’s case. I was getting better; we were getting better at leaping through the movierain to the most nuanced of destinations among our Earth’s akashic.

The Twelve tale, my initial contribution, had her intrigued, as well. She was beginning to believe what I already knew: that the ancient Earth leaping technique could lift us from Danny V.’s clutches.

“So what now?” the Captain said. “Can we leverage this?”

She was always business. Danny V. had been cracking down harder than usual, and Cap looked for a competitive edge to reduce our tagging queue from the insurmountable degree to which it had compounded.

“Why don’t we start small,” I said. “First, I’d like to take you down to my Drop.”

“Oh, you mean that illegal space-time warp you’ve stretched off the side of my ship?” she really was all business, and litigious as fuck, but we were wearing her down.

“Let’s get you down there, one night, as we prepare for a leap,” Earth leaping had become my specialty and contribution to the ship. I think the Cap could sense my more assertive tone in my doling out the plan to her. “So far, Kitty, Jacob and Gabriel have accompanied me on many astral leaps. And Donna and Edward and Ron and Rachael have also had some exposure to my leaps into their dreams. I’d like to get you and Guillermo down there, Cap. As you now know from my latest Bryan Florian tale, I have no origin outside of this Cheshire, but all twelve of the crew do, including you. Your life memories prior to serving on this ship fuel our extra-dimensional excursions. And if we’re going to demonstrate this to Danny V., we’ll need the whole crew on board to contribute. This is an all hands on deck scenario.”

“Aye, aye,” she said. Yeah, the Cap was definitely coming around.

***

NEXT UP:

• Ever the student, the Thunderbird in training Bill lets other pilots fly the Drop and admires their styles.
   
• Beware: Some worlds are so heavy they’ll pull you in too far. You’ll get lost. That’s what happened to both Sully and Kitty for a time.
   
• Example uses of the Thunderbird craft. You got booth dudes, marauders, retrievers, voyagers, and the rare, elite channelers, who could uncover entanglements from the farthest reaches.
   
• The Captain’s first leap takes them to where she and Guillermo met. It produces the lush garden at the 12 position of Bill’s Drop.
   
• Then, we settle down to the daily matters at hand. The Captain returns her crew to the regular 9-to-5 government work the UU has charged with the Cheshire. They would pan Bill’s craft as black magic, not daring to comprehend nor condone the ancient techniques. They’d, instead, lament them to further embolden their limiting beliefs. The UU consumes enormous, unfocused power on barely a 4th-dimensional scale. And though they’ve proven to reach the far limits of the known universe, they’ll never arrive at the enlighteningly divine destinations that Bill finds, surfing the Earth versions about his Moon. Bureaucracy has placed a ceiling over the UU’s ability to rise above, sublime.
   

***