The Quantum Misplacement Bureau Part 6 by Benedict H. Archer

 

Chapter 6: The Audit of Doom

Percy Fogg had been through some thoroughly unpleasant experiences in his life—like the time he accidentally double-booked a book club meeting with a toddler’s birthday party, or the time he found out, mid-presentation, that his PowerPoint slides had been replaced with photos of his cat in increasingly ridiculous hats.

But none of those compared to the horrible, existential weight of being personally audited by the Multiversal Bureaucracy.

The administrator who had just materialized in the Master Index Vault looked exactly like someone whose soul had been surgically replaced with policy guidelines and a severe disdain for improvisation.

Her gray suit was so aggressively neutral that it seemed to absorb all joy from the air. Her gold-rimmed glasses reflected pure disapproval. And her clipboard, held with unnerving precision, exuded the kind of bureaucratic menace that could reduce entire civilizations to a mess of red tape and despair.

She took a step forward, and Percy felt an instinctive need to apologize for something.

“Percy Fogg,” she said, her voice sharper than a rejected loan application. “You have been flagged for an unprecedented reality violation.”

Percy swallowed. “Uh… hello?”

She ignored the greeting. “As Chief Existence Auditor for the Department of Reality Management, I am initiating an Immediate and Thorough Inquiry.”

Zippy let out a low whistle. “Oof. They’re pulling out the capital letters. This is serious.”

Chrono groaned. “This is worse than serious. This is pure bureaucratic doom.”

Percy frowned. “Wait, but I’m in the Master Index now, right? Doesn’t that mean I do exist?”

The Auditor’s clipboard flipped open with terrifying efficiency. “Yes. And that is precisely the problem.”

Percy blinked. “I… what?”

She adjusted her glasses. “You were officially erased from existence. And yet, according to this newly updated record, you never stopped existing.” She narrowed her eyes. “That is a fundamental contradiction. And we in the Bureaucracy do not tolerate contradictions.”

Percy turned to Chrono. “You fixed my record, right?”

Chrono hesitated. “Well, I technically… adjusted it.”

Percy’s stomach sank. “What kind of adjustment?”

Chrono coughed. “I may have… slightly reworded your existence status.”

The Auditor raised an eyebrow. “Specifically, he listed you as ‘Anomalous Yet Acceptable.’”

Percy groaned. “And what does that mean?”

The Auditor’s expression darkened. “It means you are now classified as a Provisional Entity, subject to further review, indefinite observation, and potential retroactive correction.”

Percy did not like any of those words.

Zippy clapped him on the back. “Good news, mate! You’re officially too confusing to erase immediately!”

Percy sighed. “That doesn’t sound like good news.”

The Auditor’s pen hovered over her clipboard. “Percy Fogg, due to the… unusual nature of your case, I will allow you to justify your continued existence through a Formal Bureaucratic Hearing.”

Percy blinked. “Wait, I have to convince reality that I deserve to exist?”

Chrono winced. “Yeah, it’s exactly as bad as it sounds.”

Zippy grinned. “Or, worse!”

The Auditor gave Percy a hard stare. “You have one hour to prepare your case. Fail to provide sufficient justification, and you will be permanently reclassified as a Non-Entity.”

Percy gulped. “And that means…?”

Chrono sighed. “You’ll be unwritten from reality so thoroughly that even the concept of you will cease to exist.”

Percy ran a hand down his face. “Great. Perfect. Love that for me.”

The Auditor tapped her clipboard. “One hour. I suggest you use it wisely.”

Then, in a dramatic swirl of procedural inevitability, she vanished.

The vault doors sealed shut behind her.

Percy turned to Zippy and Chrono. “Okay. So. How do I convince the literal fabric of existence to let me stay?”

Chrono rubbed his tiny mechanical temples. “This is going to be the hardest case of my career.”

Zippy beamed. “Luckily, I’m fantastic at making up nonsense that sounds official.”

Percy sighed. “Wonderful. We’re all doomed.”

And thus began the most important legal defense in multiversal history.

The Quantum Misplacement Bureau Part 5 by Benedict H. Archer

 

Chapter 5: Reality Correction and Other Rude Interruptions

Percy Fogg had always believed that libraries were safe places—quiet, orderly, full of knowledge and free of homicidal pursuit drones.

That belief had been violently dismantled ever since he checked out the wrong book.

Now, standing in the Master Index Vault of the Department of Reality Management, staring down a glowing-eyed bureaucratic enforcer drone, he had never felt more aggressively unwanted by the universe.

The drone’s voice was as cold and impersonal as an overdue notice from a vengeful library system.

“PERCY FOGG. YOUR EXISTENCE IS IN VIOLATION OF MULTIVERSAL RECORDS.”

Zippy Trelmor, Percy’s untrustworthy yet somehow extremely competent companion, nudged him. “You should really work on not violating fundamental reality, mate.”

Percy shot him a look. “Oh yes, let me just fix that real quick.”

Chrono, the perpetually unimpressed sentient pocket watch, was already scrambling through the Master Index files. “Stall it!” he barked. “I’m almost to the ‘F’s!”

Percy did not like the implication that his survival depended on alphabetization.

The drone pulsed ominously. “PREPARE FOR IMMEDIATE REALITY CORRECTION.”

Percy took a step back. “I’d really rather not.”

“CORRECTION: NON-NEGOTIABLE.”

Zippy clapped Percy on the back. “Right, librarian, time for your first lesson in creative rule-breaking.”

Before Percy could protest, Zippy grabbed a random scroll from the Master Index shelf and unrolled it dramatically.

The drone hesitated.

“WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO MASTER INDEX.”

Zippy grinned. “Oho! What’s this? Looks like I’m holding the **official existence record of one… let’s see… oh, interesting! The entire species of Blenflorgian Law Toads.”

The drone beeped uncertainly. “THAT FILE IS CLASSIFIED.”

Zippy waggled the scroll. “And yet I have it right here. Now, unless you want an entire amphibian civilization to be legally erased from the multiverse, I suggest you stand down.”

The drone whirred. “THREAT DETECTED.”

Percy’s eyes widened. “Zippy, I don’t think this is—”

The drone fired a beam of pure existential correction.

Zippy dodged, throwing the scroll in the air. “AH, well, this just got fun, didn’t it?”

The scroll disintegrated on impact.

Somewhere, across the vastness of space and time, an entire planet of law-abiding toads suddenly had a very bad day.

Zippy winced. “Okay, whoops.”

Chrono groaned. “Zippy, you absolute menace.”

The drone recharged. “PREPARING FOR FULL EXISTENTIAL PURGE.”

Chrono frantically scanned the scrolls. “I found Percy’s record!”

Percy had never been happier to hear his own name. “Great! Put me back in reality!”

Chrono unrolled the document. “Right, I just need to make a few quick adjustments.”

Zippy vaulted over a desk as another correction beam obliterated a chair behind him. “Might want to hurry that up, mate!”

Chrono scribbled something onto the scroll. “And… done!”

Percy didn’t feel any different. “That’s it?”

Chrono smirked. “See for yourself.”

Percy looked up—just in time to see the drone hesitate.

Its glowing eye flickered. “ERROR. SUBJECT PERCY FOGG IS NOW RECOGNIZED AS… A VALID ENTITY?”

Zippy pumped a fist. “Oh-ho, beautiful!”

The drone whirred in confusion. “DISCREPANCY DETECTED. SUBJECT SHOULD NOT EXIST, BUT RECORD STATES OTHERWISE. INITIATING—”

Percy’s stomach dropped. “Wait, what’s it initiating?”

Chrono’s expression darkened. “A Bureaucratic Inquiry.”

The room shook.

Alarms blared.

The very air itself seemed to grow heavier, as if weighed down by endless paperwork.

And then, appearing in a dazzlingly bureaucratic flash, stood a six-foot-tall cosmic administrator in a painfully neutral gray suit.

Her gaze swept the room, radiating pure, corporate authority.

She adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses and spoke in a voice that sounded like it had personally rejected millions of expense reports.

“Who the hell is Percy Fogg, and why is he breaking reality?”

Percy sighed.

This was going to require so much explaining.

The Quantum Misplacement Bureau Part 4 by Benedict H. Archer

 

Chapter 4: The Department of Reality Management and Other Bad Ideas

Percy Fogg had never stolen so much as an office pen in his life. He returned library books early. He filed taxes with meticulous precision. He even rewound VHS tapes back in the day, which should have earned him some kind of moral high ground.

So it was especially frustrating to learn that the only way to fix his existential crisis involved breaking into the most heavily secured bureaucratic institution in the known multiverse.

Chrono, the sentient, permanently exasperated pocket watch, had wasted no time laying out the ridiculous plan.

“We need to infiltrate the Department of Reality Management—the organization that decides what does and does not exist,” Chrono explained, pacing across his cluttered workshop. “They keep a Master Index, a list of every valid entity in the multiverse. If your name isn’t in it, reality treats you like a filing error.”

Percy folded his arms. “And let me guess—I’m not in the Master Index.”

Chrono snorted. “Oh no, you were violently erased from it the moment you checked out that book.”

Zippy Trelmor, Percy’s highly questionable guide to interdimensional survival, leaned against a workbench, grinning. “Good news, though! We’re going to steal your existence back.”

Percy groaned. “Why does that sound both illegal and morally unsettling?”

Chrono gave him a flat look. “Would you rather spend the rest of eternity in a bureaucratic void, hovering in a permanent state of cosmic clerical limbo?”

“…Fair point.”

Zippy clapped his hands. “Excellent! Now, the Department of Reality Management is located in the heart of the Central Bureaucratic Plane, which is exactly as miserable as it sounds.”

Percy sighed. “Let me guess. Endless paperwork? Tedious regulations? Horrible elevator music?”

Chrono nodded. “And the security is insane. No unauthorized entities get in. Ever.”

Percy frowned. “Then how are we supposed to sneak in?”

Zippy’s grin widened. “Oh, we’re not sneaking in.”

Percy rubbed his temples. “Please don’t say—”

“We’re walking in through the front door.”

Percy let out a slow, suffering breath. “This is a terrible plan.”

Chrono crossed his tiny arms. “Oh, absolutely.”

It turned out that the Central Bureaucratic Plane was worse than Percy had imagined.

It was a gray, infinite landscape of cubicles and waiting rooms, stretching in every direction. Paperwork drifted through the air like autumn leaves, and the entire dimension smelled faintly of coffee, ink, and disappointment.

At the center of it all stood the Department of Reality Management, an immense glass tower filled with the most powerful bureaucrats in existence—the ones who decided what reality could and could not tolerate.

Standing outside, Percy felt deeply unqualified to be here.

Zippy, on the other hand, strolled up to the entrance like he owned the place.

“Right!” he said, adjusting his unnecessarily dramatic coat. “Percy, you’re now my junior intern. Chrono, you’re a malfunctioning office clock. Let’s go.”

Chrono scowled. “Excuse me?”

“Do you want to get erased or not?”

Chrono grumbled but didn’t argue.

They approached the main security desk, where a floating cube in a business suit hovered behind a counter, processing paperwork with soul-crushing efficiency.

The cube’s glowing eye fixed on them. “State your business.”

Zippy beamed. “Ah, yes, we’re from the Multiversal Compliance Division! We’re here to perform a routine inspection of your Master Index—terribly dull, I assure you, but you know how it is with mandatory oversight reports.”

The cube blinked. “I was not informed of any inspection.”

Zippy gave an exaggerated sigh. “Yes, well, that’s precisely the problem! Do you have any idea how many reality violations we’ve found lately? Misplaced time loops? Rogue paradoxes? Unauthorized use of recursive causality?” He shook his head. “Honestly, it’s a mess. That’s why we need to examine the Master Index immediately.”

The cube hesitated, gears clicking. “I… suppose that is standard protocol.”

Percy barely suppressed his absolute horror at how casually Zippy lied to the most powerful bureaucracy in existence.

Then, miraculously, the cube stamped their paperwork and gestured to the doors. “Proceed.”

Percy blinked. “That… worked?”

Chrono sighed. “Don’t question it. Just keep moving.”

They made it to the Master Index Vault without immediate disaster, which Percy considered a miracle of cosmic proportions.

The vault was massive, filled with glowing scrolls of existence, each containing the details of every real entity in the multiverse.

Zippy whistled. “Right. Time to find Percy’s missing entry.”

Percy hesitated. “What if… my entry doesn’t exist anymore?”

Chrono sighed. “Then we make you a new one.”

Percy frowned. “You can just… write me back into existence?”

Chrono smirked. “Reality is **80% bureaucracy, 15% paperwork, and 5% cosmic accidents. If you know how to work the system, you can get away with almost anything.”

Before Percy could process that deeply unsettling thought, an alarm blared through the vault.

“SECURITY BREACH DETECTED.”

Zippy winced. “Ah. Right. We probably had a limited window before the system caught on.”

Chrono cursed. “Hurry! Grab Percy’s record before—”

The vault doors slammed shut.

A familiar, bureaucratic voice filled the air.

“PERCY FOGG.”

Percy turned slowly to see the pursuit drone from the library floating in the doorway, its red eye glowing with cosmic disapproval.

“YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO EXIST.”

Percy groaned. “Not this guy again.”

The drone whirred menacingly. “PREPARE FOR IMMEDIATE REALITY CORRECTION.”

Zippy clapped Percy on the back. “Right, librarian, you’re about to get your existence reinstated the fun way.”

Percy gulped. “I don’t suppose there’s a less terrifying way?”

Chrono smirked. “Not a chance.”

The drone charged.

And Percy Fogg, former mild-mannered librarian and current bureaucratic outlaw, braced himself for the single most important heist of his life.

The Quantum Misplacement Bureau Part 3 by Benedict H. Archer

 

Chapter 3: How Not to Trust a Con Artist

Percy Fogg had never trusted anyone who introduced themselves with a flourish, and he wasn’t about to start now.

Xyphlox "Zippy" Trelmor had the unmistakable air of someone who had definitely scammed a monarch at least once and possibly sold a fake time machine to a species that didn’t even experience time linearly. He leaned against an invisible surface—possibly smugness itself—grinning at Percy like a man who saw an opportunity rather than a person in distress.

“So, Percy,” Zippy said, slipping an arm around his shoulders as though they were lifelong friends, “let me get this straight. You checked out a quantum-classified book from an entirely unremarkable library, triggered an existential pursuit notice, and accidentally yeeted yourself through reality?”

Percy pinched the bridge of his nose. “I—yes, but I wouldn’t phrase it quite like that.”

Zippy laughed. “No, no, it’s perfect! That makes you the most interesting person I’ve met in—oh, at least a week.”

Percy sighed. He had neither the patience nor the emotional bandwidth for this. “Look, Mr. Trelmor—”

“Zippy, please.”

“—I appreciate the enthusiastic analysis of my increasingly alarming situation, but what I need is a way to undo whatever cosmic clerical error I’ve caused.”

Zippy nodded sagely. “Ah. So you’d like to not be erased from existence. That’s understandable.”

Percy folded his arms. “Do you actually know how to fix this, or are you just prolonging my panic for entertainment?”

Zippy gave a wounded expression, placing a hand on his heart. “Percy, please. I would never exploit a man in existential crisis.”

A small, furry creature with three eyes scampered past, shrieking, “DON’T TRUST THAT MAN! HE SOLD ME A PORTAL TO NOWHERE!”

Zippy coughed loudly. “Unrelated. Now then—” He spun dramatically, gesturing at the floating marketplace around them. “Welcome to the In-Between! A delightful little anomaly wedged between dimensions—home to misfits, fugitives, and people who made very bad decisions involving time travel.”

Percy rubbed his temples. “And why am I here?”

Zippy grinned. “Because you technically don’t exist anymore, my friend. Reality couldn’t process you, so it did the next best thing—filed you in the nearest available pocket dimension.”

Percy groaned. “Fantastic. And how do I… unfile myself?”

Zippy’s grin widened. “Lucky for you, I have just the thing!”

Percy narrowed his eyes. “Does it involve handing you an unreasonable sum of money?”

Zippy gasped. “Percy! I am offended! This isn’t about money! This is about…” He paused. “Well. Okay. Mostly about money.”

Percy sighed. “I don’t have any.”

Zippy’s grin faltered for half a second before snapping back into place. “That’s fine! I also accept favors, IOUs, and mildly dangerous quests!”

Before Percy could object, Zippy clapped his hands. “Now, first thing’s first! To fix your reality situation, we need to visit someone who actually understands the fabric of the multiverse.”

Percy blinked. “Wait, you don’t?”

“Not in a way that would help you,” Zippy admitted. “But I do know someone who does!”

“And who is that?”

Zippy grinned. “Oh, just a sentient pocket watch with trust issues.”

Percy had long since stopped trying to process things logically.

Which was good, because if he had any expectations of normalcy left, the next location would have broken him entirely.

Zippy led him to what could generously be described as a workshop and more accurately as a junkyard caught in a time tornado.

Strange, half-built devices of questionable legality littered the area—some ticking, some glowing, some making unsettling whispering noises.

And sitting in the middle of the mess, atop a precarious pile of defunct time machines, was a very disgruntled-looking pocket watch with arms, legs, and what could only be described as a permanent frown.

“Percy,” Zippy said, spreading his arms like a showman, “meet Chrono the Sentient Pocket Watch!”

Chrono crossed his tiny, mechanical arms. “Who is this?”

Zippy beamed. “A very desperate librarian.”

Chrono sighed. “Zippy, why do you keep bringing me lost causes?”

Percy groaned. “Because I made the colossal mistake of checking out a book.”

Chrono’s gears whirred. “Oh. You’re the idiot who checked out the Guide to Things That Shouldn’t Exist.”

Percy threw up his hands. “It was in my library!”

Chrono nodded solemnly. “And now you’re a cosmic error.”

“Yes! I am aware!”

Chrono tapped his chin. “Well. That’s deeply unfortunate.”

Percy gave an exasperated sigh. “Can you help me or not?”

Chrono inspected him for a long moment. Then, begrudgingly, he muttered, “Maybe. But if we’re going to fix your reality, we’ll need to do something incredibly reckless.”

Zippy clapped his hands. “Excellent! Those are my favorite kinds of plans!”

Chrono turned to Percy. “Tell me, librarian—how comfortable are you with stealing from the most powerful bureaucratic entity in the universe?”

Percy’s stomach dropped. “I—what? No! I don’t steal things!”

Chrono smirked. “Then you’re going to hate this next part.”

The Quantum Misplacement Bureau Part 2 by Benedict H. Archer

Chapter 2: Eviction from Reality

Percy had been chased before—mostly by overzealous library patrons demanding late fee forgiveness—but never by a floating bureaucratic drone hellbent on erasing him from existence.

He dashed between bookshelves, clutching the impossibly illegal book to his chest, while the orb (which he had mentally named The Worst Customer Service Representative Ever) pursued him with a determined, bureaucratic whirr.

“PERCY FOGG,” the orb droned, “PLEASE STOP RUNNING. YOU HAVE BEEN FLAGGED FOR EXISTENTIAL CORRECTION.”

Percy did not stop running.

“You see, that sounds an awful lot like erasure,” he called over his shoulder. “And I’d really prefer not to be corrected out of reality today, if it’s all the same to you!”

The orb beeped impatiently, then emitted a strange, high-pitched ZAP. The floor beneath Percy glitched, flickering into a pixelated mess of missing data. Suddenly, gravity became optional, and Percy found himself floating—his legs kicking uselessly in midair.

“Ah,” he said, flailing. “That’s not ideal.”

“PLEASE HOLD STILL,” the orb continued, “WHILE WE PROCESS YOUR DELETION.”

“Oh, absolutely not,” Percy muttered.

With sheer, panicked determination, he pushed off the nearest bookshelf, propelling himself forward like an uncoordinated astronaut. His fingers caught the edge of the circulation desk, and he swung himself back toward solid ground. As soon as his feet hit the floor, he ran straight for the exit.

It was a brilliant plan, really. He would escape, call someone (the authorities? a librarian union? a customer service hotline?), and figure out what, exactly, had gone wrong.

Then the front doors of the library disappeared.

Just—gone. One moment, they were there. The next, only blank wall.

Percy skidded to a halt. “Oh, come on.”

“EXIT DENIED,” the orb announced. “YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO LEAVE THIS REALITY.”

Percy turned, backing against the now-nonexistent exit. “Look,” he said, holding up his hands, “I don’t know what kind of bizarre clerical error this is, but I am very much supposed to exist. I have a birth certificate. A driver’s license. A collection of novelty bookmarks. I am, if nothing else, a deeply unremarkable person. So why is reality trying to fire me?”

The orb’s red eye flickered. “YOU CHECKED OUT A RESTRICTED BOOK.”

“I work in the library! That’s literally my job!”

“THE BOOK IN QUESTION IS NOT SUPPOSED TO EXIST.”

Percy hesitated, glancing down at the cover. The golden letters were shifting again.

CURRENTLY READING:
HOW TO ESCAPE REALITY IN THREE EASY STEPS

“Well,” Percy muttered. “That’s not ominous at all.”

The orb whirred louder, its red eye glowing as it prepared another correctional pulse.

“BEGINNING REALITY RESTRUCTURING IN THREE… TWO…”

Then, just as the floor began flickering beneath him again, Percy did something extremely reckless.

He opened the book.

The moment his fingers flipped the first page, the world lurched.

A strange, swirling vortex of colors and sound erupted beneath his feet. A feeling—somewhere between falling and being violently reorganized—rushed through him. The library, the orb, even the walls themselves stretched and warped—

—then reality snapped like a rubber band.

And Percy Fogg was somewhere else entirely.

---

He landed face-first in what appeared to be a marketplace suspended in midair, floating above an infinite sky.

Percy groaned, pushing himself upright. He was now sitting in the middle of a street made of clouds, surrounded by floating vendor stalls, where creatures of all shapes, sizes, and tax brackets were haggling over items that should not, by any reasonable definition, exist.

To his left, a sentient mustache in a tiny suit was arguing with a moss-covered lizard about the price of a bottle labeled “Distilled Regret.”

To his right, a three-headed platypus in a top hat was attempting to sell a device that, according to its label, could “edit your past mistakes for a small but increasingly dangerous fee.”

Percy blinked.

“I have made a grave error.”

Before he could begin to process his surroundings, a hand clapped him on the shoulder.

“Ah-ha!” a voice said. “New arrival! And you still have all your limbs! That’s rare!”

Percy turned to find himself face to face with a man (probably?) wearing a long, iridescent coat, purple-tinted glasses, and an expression that suggested he was either a con artist or someone who had invented con artistry and was immensely proud of it.

“Welcome to the In-Between, friend,” the man said, grinning. “Name’s Xyphlox Trelmor—but you can call me Zippy. And I do believe you’ve got yourself in a bit of a predicament.”

Percy exhaled sharply, adjusting his glasses. “Understatement of the century, Zippy.”

Zippy’s grin widened. “Oh, I like you. Now, tell me—what exactly did you do to get yourself misplaced from reality?”

Percy hesitated. Then, deciding honesty couldn’t possibly make things worse, he held up the book.

Zippy’s eyes widened. Then he laughed.

“Oh, you absolute madman!” he wheezed, clapping Percy on the back. “You checked out the wrong book, didn’t you?”

Percy groaned. “I work in a library!”

“Well, in that case,” Zippy said, dramatically flipping his coat, “you might just be the most accidentally dangerous person in the multiverse.”

Percy buried his face in his hands. “Fantastic.”

Zippy grinned. “Don’t worry, friend. Lucky for you, I specialize in helping people who’ve fallen through the cracks of reality. For a very reasonable fee, of course.”

The Quantum Misplacement Bureau by Benedict H. Archer

 

Chapter 1: The Book That Shouldn’t Exist

Percy Fogg had long accepted that his life would be quiet, orderly, and largely devoid of interdimensional incidents. As the head librarian of the Lower Brampton Public Library and Multi-Purpose Bingo Hall, he prided himself on his ability to maintain a strict Dewey Decimal system, enforce a zero-tolerance policy on loud gum chewing, and go entire weeks without speaking to another human outside of work.

Then, on an otherwise uneventful Tuesday, he checked out a book that didn’t exist.

It wasn’t his fault. Not entirely.

The book had been wedged between A Concise History of Incredibly Boring Bridges and The Definitive Guide to Collecting Rare Mold Samples—both well within the range of titles that regularly went unread. Percy only noticed it because it was… humming. Very softly. Like a cat contemplating mischief.

The cover was a deep, inky black with a title embossed in gold lettering that seemed to rearrange itself every time he looked at it. At first, it read:

THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO THINGS THAT SHOULDN’T EXIST.

Then:

PROPERTY OF THE QUANTUM MISPLACEMENT BUREAU. RETURN IMMEDIATELY.

Then:

SERIOUSLY, PUT ME BACK.

Percy frowned. He was, by nature, an obedient sort of person. He had never once in his life failed to return a library book on time, much less stolen one. And yet, something about the shifting title made him uneasy. It was, in a word, untidy.

“Hmm,” he muttered, adjusting his glasses. “You’re not in the system.”

That should have been the end of it. He should have simply put the book back, walked away, and continued living his safe, predictable life. Instead, and this was the part where things truly went wrong, Percy scanned the barcode anyway.

The library terminal emitted a small, panicked beep.

Then the lights flickered. The air smelled briefly of burnt toast.

And then, the computer screen simply displayed the following message:

PATRON IDENTIFIED: PERCY FOGG.
ERROR: YOU DO NOT EXIST.
PLEASE SEE CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Percy stared at the screen. Then at the book. Then back at the screen.

“Ah,” he said, carefully. “That seems incorrect.”

The library speakers crackled to life. A robotic voice, clipped and thoroughly unamused, spoke directly into the quiet:

“ATTENTION: EXISTENTIAL ANOMALY DETECTED. DEPLOYING CORRECTIONAL MEASURES.”

Somewhere above, a ceiling tile dislodged itself and dropped unceremoniously onto the reference desk.

Percy decided it was time to leave.

He scooped up the book and walked as quickly as possible toward the exit, making it exactly three and a half steps before the air around him shimmered. A glowing, circular portal, roughly the size and shape of a disgruntled DMV employee, materialized in the library lobby.

From within, a floating metallic orb with a glowing red eye emerged, scanning the room with an expression that somehow conveyed the distinct impression that it had seen enough nonsense for one lifetime.

The orb fixed its gaze on Percy.

“PERCY FOGG,” it said, voice laced with bureaucratic exhaustion. “BY ORDER OF THE QUANTUM MISPLACEMENT BUREAU, YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED FOR IMMEDIATE REALITY CORRECTION.”

Percy clutched the book to his chest. “That sounds ominous.”

“IT IS.”

The orb emitted a sharp whirring noise, and the world around Percy glitched—for a moment, everything looked pixelated, like a poorly rendered video game. Then the bookshelves rippled, the library walls shifted, and Percy had the distinct and horrifying sensation that reality itself was trying to eject him like a bad filing error.

Panicked, he did the only thing that made sense at the time.

He ran.

The orb sighed. Or at least, it made a noise that sounded very much like a sigh if sighs were composed of static and deeply buried resentment.

“OH, FOR THE LOVE OF CAUSALITY,” it muttered. Then it activated pursuit mode.

And so, Percy Fogg, mild-mannered librarian, found himself sprinting through the stacks, clutching an apparently illegal book, while a robotic enforcer of reality chased him with all the enthusiasm of someone desperate to finish their shift.

This was, by all accounts, a very bad day.

Exploring The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter: A Bold Sequel to a Classic

Stephen Baxter’s The Time Ships (1995) is an ambitious, authorized sequel to H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. Rather than simply continuing the story, Baxter expands and reimagines the implications of time travel, creating a novel that is both a homage to Wells and a deeply complex exploration of physics, history, and alternate realities.

The Premise

The novel picks up where The Time Machine left off, with the Time Traveler determined to return to the distant future and rescue Weena, the Eloi he encountered. However, when he activates his time machine, he discovers that history has changed—he no longer returns to the world of the Eloi and Morlocks but instead finds himself in a timeline where the past has diverged dramatically. This leads to a sprawling, multidimensional adventure across different versions of history and the far future.

Themes and Expansions on Wells’ Ideas

Baxter doesn’t simply revisit the ideas from The Time Machine; he deepens them using modern scientific theories, particularly quantum mechanics and relativity. Unlike Wells’ deterministic approach to time travel, where history follows a single path, The Time Ships introduces the concept of the multiverse—every change in time spawns an alternate reality.

As the Time Traveler journeys through various eras, he witnesses:

• A world dominated by a militaristic British Empire, where the discovery of time travel has led to a technological arms race.
• A primitive past where early humans struggle for survival.
• A distant future where post-human intelligences exist, transcending physical form.
• A glimpse into a universe at the brink of heat death, where entropy has nearly consumed all energy.

Baxter’s Style and Hard Science Approach

Baxter, known for his rigorous hard science fiction, infuses The Time Ships with detailed discussions on physics, evolution, and cosmology. Unlike Wells’ more allegorical approach, Baxter leans into scientific speculation, making the novel a heady mix of adventure and intellectual challenge. The writing retains some of the Victorian flavor of Wells’ original prose but also incorporates a more modern sensibility, particularly in its treatment of time paradoxes and scientific principles.

Reception and Legacy

The Time Ships won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Philip K. Dick Award, cementing its status as one of the most successful sequels to a classic novel. Fans of Wells appreciate its faithfulness to the original’s themes, while modern sci-fi readers admire its complexity and ambition.

Final Thoughts

For those who love The Time Machine and want to see its ideas expanded with contemporary scientific speculation, The Time Ships is an essential read. It’s a novel that respects its source material while boldly taking it into new intellectual and narrative territories.