Sendula and Credensa were both off in their living quarters at the moment having some quality time with their daughters and adopted son, not realizing that their Backstage vacation was over. Their year off had made both somewhat complaisant about their guard duties over their husband, and they had yet to get back with the program.
As for Sid, he was just installing the trash disposal controls (one setting for "atomize," one for "transport to null universe," and one for "transport to living room of last author who humiliated me"), when he heard two thumps, one right after the other, in the dumpster. He looked in, to see two rather distraught and confused versions of his nephew Jim, both sans clothing and sporting oversized penises.
Sid sighed. "Is it that late?" he said. "I know the grace period was about to end, but I didn't realize you two were due in just yet."
The Jims looked at each other. "Who are you?" each asked his counterpart, and then: "Where am I?" and then, looking up at Sid: "And who are you?"
Sid gave them the Standard Explanation of Life, the BE AddVenture, and Everything.
"Then I've been 'shelved,' as you put it?" the Jims chorused. "Why?"
"Well," said Sid, according to the documentation I was reading this morning, you pissed off an Author, or rather, hir avatar, the Cat of Justice. Not the wisest of moves. Looks like you're doing time here for pedophilia. Shame on you, Jim!"
"But how?" chorused the Jims. "I didn't do anything. I just woke up in bed to find my little sister Edith with me, and then her friends showed up, and can I help it if a dozen or so six-year-olds with adult-size breasts, all hankering for my bod, turns me on?"
"Of course not," Sid soothed. "You're a victim of circumstances, and a misplaced morality, which is just as out of place in the BE AddVenture as it is scarce in the real world, and moreover risks shutting down the whole BE AddVenture for 'cleaning' (if you can call it that). I sympathize, boys -- I really do. Authors wrote you into your perversion, and an Author wrote you out of it -- leaving you for me to deal with, which wasn't very kind of hir..."
"What happens now?" the Jim's asked, then looked at each other in irritation. "Would you stop doing that?"
"Now you get processed for immigration, integration, and emigration, depending on several variables," said Sid. He produced a Remote. "Please climb out of the dumpster, keeping your hands up and your dicks down, please. Fine. Now move over to the booth, and we'll take care of that annoying echo that seems to displease you so much."
Ordinarily, the Jims might have protested. But they were still recovering from the shock of the hordes of lust-crazed prepubescent girls, the Cat of Justice, and their ignominous dumping backstage. Besides, both were eager to get rid of their "echo." So they complied with Sid's orders without demuring.
Once they were in the booth, Sid threw a switch, there was a FLASH!, and both Jims merged into one, with the memories of both. Since each had been removed from the BE AddVenture at points close to where their individual threads had diverged, there wasn't actually a lot of unique memory to integrate.
"Thanks," Jim said. "I needed that."
Sid nodded. "Now," he said. "You've immigrated and been integrated. Your choice now is to be sent over to the Hotel and continue your education with versions of yourself (and others) more up on the metareality of the AddVenture, or to be stuck back in the AddVenture at large at some random point."
"Do I get the horde of lust-crazed prepubescents back?" Jim asked, hopefully.
"No. Not unless some other author is twisted enough to write them back in. Mine isn't. Besides, do you really want to risk the wrath of the Cat of Justice again? I don't know about you, but shi gives me the creeps!"
"You've met her then?"
"Briefly. Most of my limited experience with hir was actually with a robot duplicate, which she then happened to pop Backstage to destroy. But I've had a living reminder of hir in my household for well over a year now."
"Come again?"
Sid took a second device from his pocket, this one resembling a cellular phone, and pressed a button. Somewhere behind the doors of the residential area, a chime sounded. Shortly the impressive locks of the main door cycled open and a slender, cat-headed woman stepped out.
"You rang, O Great One?" she asked.
"Aaauuugghhh!" cried Jim. "The Cat of Justice! Get hir away from me! Get hir away?"
"Relax," said Sid, a bit louder, perhaps, than necessary. "This isn't the Cat. Notice the lack of, er, equipment in the southern regions. Jim, permit me to introduce my wives' servant and wetnurse, Mirage. She's from one of the D-Girls thread."
"Ch-charmed," Jim managed.
Mirage bared her teeth. Not another version of your nephew, Great One! Weren't the last several bad enough?"
"Show some charity, Mirage," Sid chided. "Perversion happens! It's not his fault he's the main character of the AddVenture."
"Charity, you say? Was it charity that shelved me Backstage as your servant? Don't talk to me about charity, Great One!"
"That's enough, Mirage! Just think of all the versions of you still running around the BE AddVenture at large torturing Jasmine and Aladdin. It was only a token of guilty yous sent back here for punishment. You got off extraordinarily lightly."
"You wouldn't say that if you were the token getting punished."
"Perhaps not. And rest assured, I'll be happy to send you back wherever you want to go whenever it turns out your sentence is over. Meanwhile, could you guard my nephew here while we decide his fate? You know, keep him from touching any buttons or anything."
"Why me? Isn't it time my mistresses got back to work, if vacation's over?"
"Yes, but he might not take them as seriously as he ought to, and end up speared and cursed with big breasts. Their normal state of dress -- dis-dress, I should say -- would probably just turn him on. You, on the other hand, scare him shitless."
Mirage smiled. "There is that. Very well, little boy, come to Mirage..."
Jim backed further into the booth, and Mirage grinned all the wider.
"Now then, Jim," Sid began, and laid out the options again, in more detail this time.
"I pick the AddVenture!" Jim cried hastily. "Anywhere, as long as it's away from her!"
"As you wish," Sid said, and opened a random portal sending him back into the BE AddVenture at large.
With Jim gone, he turned to Mirage. "Summon your mistresses and go take over the childcare," he ordered. "They need to know that vacation's over."
Mirage bowed and retreated to the residence.
Mon Mar 12 09:41:50 2001
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