APH Infinity Train fic: "Overextended Universe"

New Memory: "The Buffer Overflow Car"

In a realm apart from known reality, seen only by those that are chosen, sits a strange white void with even stranger features. Weird, many-tentacled robots wander around, stepping on a flexible surface not unlike a waterbed. Streams of what appears to be VHS tape jet out from this floor in random locations, extending upward toward an unseen sky. Once in a while, a robot walks over to a tape, cutting it off at the base before pulling it into its mouth in a matter not unlike someone slurping up a long spaghetti noodle.

One of these streams of tape seems... different. Rather than the standard black magnetic strip, it appears to have a slight golden glow to it. The other difference is that it seems to be coming out at a far faster rate, bunching up on itself, almost as if it's running out of space to go to. A few of the robots pause in their work, staring curiously. This isn't normal. Another robot, one with glowing blue eyes and a face like a porcelain mask, meanders into view, pondering what this could mean.

Suddenly, there is a loud crashing noise, as if a machine were suddenly screeching to a halt. The sky turns red, alarms begin sounding in the misty void, and all of the tapes cease their ascent. The porcelain-masked robot makes some musical beeping noises to the others, one of which rips off the end of the golden tape and begins to eat it. After a few minutes... the tape-eating robot shudders and explodes, spilling tape all over the place. Shocked at this, the leader robot signals something before crawling off at what can only be described as a panicked speed.

Meanwhile, below the soft floor, a man falls through a tunnel of white fluid. Clothed in military gear, the emblem of a field medic on his shoulders, with tattoos visible on both forearms. As if riding a water slide, he flows down, unconscious, toward what seems to be a gathering place where various tubes meet into a single path. His journey soon ends in a round pool of the same white fluid, floating prone and face-up, in front of a room-sized TV screen. The same alarms and flashing lights from earlier are visible here, too.

The porcelain-masked robot from earlier enters the room, dragging a half-finished tape in its hands, an endless stream of golden tape flowing behind it in a big mess. In a hurry, it runs to the giant TV, attempting to insert the tape. The screen flickers to life, showing a quaint Ukrainian village circa the early 800s, as two trios of toddlers run around, doted on by their mother. And then... the screen cracks, along with the unmistakable (for 90s kids at least) sound of a VHS tape being horribly, horribly mangled by a malfunctioning VCR.

Confused, the robot looks at the screen, then at the tape all over the floor, then at the alarms, then at the man. It reaches a claw over... and flicks him on his forehead.

"OW! Co to kurwa jest?!" He yells, sitting up and looking around... before spitting up the white goo. His yelling slows as he realizes he's nowhere near home, and is currently being stared at by a giant robot that wouldn't look out of place in the Matrix movies, aside from the porcelain mask. Before he can speak, the mask pops up, revealing... a white orb, bisected by a black stripe, with two white circles in a vertical positioning. The orb looks around, the circles moving as if they're eyes. And then... a voice speaks. No, not one, but two. Two ones.

"Hello! You seem to have broken my number machine!" says a voice that sounds to be on seven kinds of sugar.
"[I hope you know how to fix it, because you're not getting home without it...]" says a very depressed-sounding voice that is clearly the same person as the first, almost as if they were two personalities in the same, er, orb.



New Memory: "The Exposition Car"

-- BEGIN DIALOGLOG --
???(1): Oh man, I can't remember the last time someone managed to break the number machine!
???(2): There was that time with the chrome girl...
SASHA: okay uh, pardon my hiszpanski, but
SASHA: where the fuck am i and who are you
???(1): One!
???(2): One.
SASHA: ........
SASHA: that explains
SASHA: nothing
GLAD-ONE: You're on the train adventure of a lifetime!
GLAD-ONE: We're here to help you sort through your problems!
SAD-ONE: ...Or, you know, die trying.
-- END DIALOGLOG --

The ball robot, who our hero guesses is named One-One or something, hops out of its squid robot shell and rolls over to the mess of golden VHS tape spooled all over the floor.

-- BEGIN DIALOGLOG --
GLAD-ONE: I've never seen a Memory Tape be this color before! You must be something special!
SAD-ONE: Special enough to trigger an emergency stop on the Tape Car...
SAD-ONE: You will be paying to fix that, for the record.
SASHA: ...memory tape? tape car? squid robots?
SASHA: still waiting for an explanation here, ball guy
GLAD-ONE: Ooh, you're right, the "Welcome to the Train" video!
GLAD-ONE: You're supposed to see that once you get your number, but...
-- END DIALOGLOG --

One-One's thoughts are interrupted by the sound of something falling in the distance, loud and heavy. A loud buzzing, like static, echoes through the room, and the farming nation covers his ears on reflex. Two of the tape robots walk in, still attempting to consume the golden tape on the floor and turn it into a VHS... only to explode in the attempt.

Groaning, Sasha sits up, sliding out of the pool and finally standing on the floor... before feeling behind him. "...Where's my bag? I had a whole bunch of important things in there-- Oh bozhe!" Quickly, he raises his left arm in front of his chest, and looks up. "Quanto, Return!" He waits for a moment... before sensing nothing is happening or going to happen.

-- BEGIN DIALOGLOG --
SASHA: oy blin, must be out of range
SAD-ONE: If you're looking for the stuff you came here with, it's in the Warehouse Car. Obviously.
SASHA: ...warehouse car?
SASHA: i get that this is some kind of train but what are you even talking about
SASHA: actually how is this even a train since i don't feel the floor moving
GLAD-ONE: That's the magic of the Train!
GLAD-ONE: When you're inside a car, it's like you're in a whole other space, because you are!
SAD-ONE: If you don't believe me, the door is right there...
-- END DIALOGLOG --

One-One points a tiny claw toward a red door nearby, bisected down the middle, round at the top, with a golden shape like opposite corners of an infinity symbol on it. Sasha walks up to it, pulling on it for a bit, before reaching up to a corner of the infinity shape and trying to push it sideways. It easily rotates 180 degrees around, and the door opens on its own. Carefully, he walks out the door, One-One rolling after him as it closes behind the two of them.

The farming nation is at a loss for words. Outside the door is a wasteland, small crags and dead trees dotted all over but otherwise flat. But that's not even the most obvious sight. The door led to some sort of metal balcony, with a long catwalk to another, identical balcony and door. Both sides seem attached to giant metal shells at least five stories tall, and at the bottom are giant wheels the size of a small tractor, sitting on an enormously wide track. Other than a rushing wind at the edges of the balcony, there is no noise, and notably, no movement. The train, as he is only calling it at this point because One-One keeps using that word and because what the crap else COULD it be but a train, has stopped.

-- BEGIN DIALOGLOG --
SASHA: okay
SASHA: train
SASHA: this is definitely not what i was expecting to wake up on
SAD-ONE: And I was not expecting to have someone break not only the Tape Car but the entire Train, so that makes us even.
SASHA: says the one who, for all i know, kidnapped me in my sleep
SASHA: how'd you do that without the other palace servants noticing anyway
GLAD-ONE: That's the magic of the Train!
SAD-ONE: I said that already.
GLAD-ONE: Only the intended passengers can see it!
SAD-ONE: Are we going to play twenty questions until the ghoms eat us?
SAD-ONE: Or are we going to fix my train?
SASHA: ...fiiiineeee...
SASHA: but only because i don't see any other way home
SASHA: so where's this warehouse car
GLAD-ONE: Ooh, ooh, I can take you there!
-- END DIALOGLOG --

Before the farming nation can ask to clarify, One-One makes a sort of beeping whistling noise, not unlike an astromech droid. The squid robot from earlier slithers down from above them, apparently having a way between cars beside the doors, and extends a set of small tentacles out. Sasha jumps the fuck out of the way as the tentacles fly past him, toward the wall... where it seems to be inputting some sort of code on an invisible panel. A panel slides open, revealing a tri-fold socket, which the tentacle reshapes into a compatible cable and plugs in. More beeping noises happen, and then...

The railing of the catwalk collapses to the side and folds under, before the catwalk itself begins to fold up, two sides being retracted into the respective cars. And then, the wheels of the car suddenly shift upward and extend out, locking into tracks going up the sides of the adjacent car. Sasha falls to the floor as the car rises up. He barely has enough time to stand as the car reaches the top, revealing... more cars, all identical, extending to the horizon. A train seemingly without end, seemingly infinite... a train of infinity, if you will.

Sasha can't even begin to ask what is going on, when he hears Glad-One's voice over the rushing wind. "On we go~!" And then... the car takes off, at a speed best described as 'plaid', across the top of the train. A cheering little orb, a Matrix background robot, and a terrified farming nation, hold onto their respective butts as the impossible car sails across the even more impossible train.

Inside the car... on a panel filled with basketball sized turqoise glowing spheres... one of the spheres falls out, turning dark as it bounces onto the floor.



New Memory: "The Corporate Robot Car"

After about half an hour, the car began to slow down. The train underneath had not moved, yet Sasha could still not see an end to it. Eventually, the car stopped above the gap between two other cars. "[Oh... the reinsertion routine doesn't work when the Train isn't moving...]" he hears Sad-One mutter. After a minute, something manages to happen.

A bit ahead of their own car, one of the other cars seems to shift, shimmy, and rise up above the rest of the train. It then rolls forward, at the same time as their own car rolling forward. Sasha instinctually holds onto the door for support as he expects the car to fall into the gap, yet it successfully floats above the gap, wheels extending out, as it gently lowers itself down into place. As the wheels return to their rolling positions, the catwalk on both sides of the smaller gap unfold, connecting to each other as the handrails fold back into position. Sasha begins to walk forward, before hearing a loud lurching noise, and looks up just in time to see the displaced car on the roof of the train, blast off down the way they came.

"I swapped the cars!" Glad-One exclaimed happily as the tentacle robot - it was apparently known as the Steward - unplugged from the socket, climbed up the side of the car, and went off who knows where. "Onward to adventure!" the orb exclaimed as it began rolling along the catwalk. Resigned to his fate as this... thing's keeper, Sasha follows One-One to the next car, opening the door and going inside.

What greeted them inside the car... was a grey sky, beneath which sat an enormous factory. Robots of various kinds seemed to walk the paths, some with spotlights on their eyes, others looking more like they were wearing business suits. Scattered around the catwalks were yellow barrels, labeled with things that seemed to belong to a joke shop. Cream pies, fog horns, squirt guns... Opening one of the barrels, Sasha found a large pile of anvils, which vanished at his touch. "...Okay, that's weird... I feel like I've played this game before..."

Without warning, a robot comes up behind them. As if being forced into a cutscene, the farming nation finds himself instantly face to face with it.

-- BEGIN FIGHTLOG --
LV.8 MR HOLLYWOOD: Time to put on the ol' razzle-dazzle!
SASHA: excuse me what the
GLAD-ONE: Hello, businessman!
SAD-ONE: Please put me out of my misery.
* LV.8 MR HOLLYWOOD uses FIRM GRIP!
* SASHA took 15 Laff Points of damage!
SASHA: huh... is that the game you want to play then?
* SASHA used ANV--
GLAD-ONE: Hey, look at me, I'm on a ROLL!
* ONE-ONE used DISTRACT!
* SASHA used ANVIL! Combo attack! Critical hit! It's super effective!
* LV.8 MR HOLLYWOOD exploded!
* SASHA accrued: +3 Gag Points [Drop]
* SASHA gained item: Cog Glove!
-- END FIGHTLOG --

After involuntarily dancing for a bit as floating windows described the battle's outcome, Sasha rubbed his forehead, groaning. "That... was weird." All he gets in response is Glad-One's cheering as the orb continues to do the victory dance. Sighing, he scoops up One-One and continues onward.

Several battles later... at the top of the factory...

-- BEGIN FIGHTLOG --
LV.12 SKELECOG: I'm the Foreman.
SASHA: and i don't care
* SASHA used BRAGINSKY STRENGTH!
* LV.12 SKELECOG was lifted into the air!
SASHA: this tin can empty
SASHA: yeet!
* LV.12 SKELECOG was flung off the building!
LV.12 SKELECOG: YAH-HOO-HOO-HOO-HOOEY!
* LV.12 SKELECOG dissolved in the oil field below!
* The other Sellbots don't want to fight anymore.
* The other Sellbots sprout Inspector Gadget hat-helicopters and take off.
* GLAD-ONE stole 3 Cream Pies from SASHA's pocket!
* GLAD-ONE used MAGNUM PIE!
* The fleeing Sellbots exploded!
* SASHA accrued: +5 Strife Points [Unarmedkind]
* SASHA's UNARMEDKIND ABSTRATUS leveled up!
* Sasha gained item: Cogicopter Hat!
* ONE-ONE accrued: +15 Gag Points [Throw]
* ONE-ONE's THROW GAG TRACK leveled up!
-- END FIGHTLOG --

Having become used to the 'victory cutscene' thing by now, Sasha was only partially surprised when his autopiloted body pulled a black circle out of his pocket, threw it on the ground, and jumped in, One-One rolling in after him. The two of them jumped out of a new hole, in a bright green garden area. Variously colored cartoon animals wander around, paying no attention to the farming nation and his talking metal orb. On a hedge nearby, a familiar red door was attached.

"Are all of the cars this weird, One-One?" Sasha rolls his eyes as he walks toward the door to open it.

"[Why must you insult me so...]" Sad-One groans as they make their way to the exit. Unknown to them, another turquoise orb falls off a wall somewhere, and some of the cacti in the wasteland outside derez...