Story debate.

Alexander stood like a statue in the dark night with only his tuxedo tails swaying in the harsh cold night breeze. He stared in disbelief at the object before him. Earlier that day Alexander had arrived two verses ahead of his own having succeeded in a slingshot without bringing on Armageddon, though not without a rather intense aftershock he was certain would register on more than one seismograph. It was one of the most unusual landings of his career as his consciousness entered into this verse's version of Alexander in the middle of his own wedding ceremony. By the sounds of the wedding guests, Alexander assumed he appeared a little faint, something they seemed find largely endearing of a groom. The bride to be was a pretty young thing, and he felt a pang of shame that he had to ruin her perfect day. Without a word, he walked out on the wedding. He didn't worry himself about her feelings. After all, he was going to be rid of this verse as soon as he apprehended the fugitive. The mess would be someone else's. Except that it was not going to happen. Before him, written on marble, were the words, "Arnold Parkerson, 1978-1980." In this verse, Arnold failed to thrive, which meant that the fugitive from Alexander's home verse was now forever trapped in a corpse. It was the perfect punishment for his atrocious act. Alexander new that the consciousness was active. Arnold was trapped in a dead husk and fully aware of it. Poetic justice. Unfortunately, this presented a rather insurmountable problem for Alexander. First, he didn't have his tether. Second, this verse had no apple. It seems the inventor of apple didn't fulfill his destiny in this verse. Alexander was stuck here with nothing but the tuxedo on his back and a ruined wedding. ******* Arnie stared at the device the same way a man to proud to admit his incompetence stares at an engine on the side of the road. He feigned a look of steady concentration. Johnny was still kicking back in his chair. "You can look at it all day, but it ain't gonna fix itself." Arnie gave up. "Look, I don't know what this this is or how it works. I'm not a physicist or whatever back home." "Yeah, what are you?" "I fix computers. I own a little repair shop in town that barely brings in enough revenue to feed me. I'm no big shot." Johnny got up and straightened his jacket. "Well, if you can't then you can't." Arnie worried. "There's gotta be some other way." "Nope" "Then what's the next move?" "This one," said Johnny. He reached into the inside of his jacket and removed a very large gun. Arnie couldn't even let out a cry before he heard the terrifying pop. ******* Cynthia nibbled mindlessly on the remaining crust of a cheap slice of convenient store pizza. Today sucked. She had done plenty of reversals, but she couldn't get used to it. When she first learned about Alexander and verse hopping, she was enthralled. It seemed so romantic flying off into other realities. She jumped at the chance to save not just the world, but a whole world of worlds. She never expected the job to cost so much of her sanity. Reversing a ripple was nasty business. This last reversal involved a serial rapist who escaped into another verse to relive his past exploits with the same women. Not only did she have to reverse the ripple, but she had to clean up his mess to make sure the original consciousness wasn't thrown in prison for the rest of his life for something he didn't technically do. This involved brain wipes of the victims which always devastating. These girls deserved justice, but so did the original consciousness. The process of reversal was none to pleasant either. The only way to get the consciousness to spring backward to its original verse is to create a kind of vacuum. This meant forcing the consciousness out of the body so that the original one would return on and on down the line until everyone was back where they should be. Everyone, that is, except the culprit. His consciousness would be destroyed and his original verse's body would become a vegetable. Nothing was mysterious anymore. Now when Cynthia heard of someone in permanent coma, she knew the truth. That person had been erased in some other verse by a hunter. Cynthia took another bite of her rubbery pizza crust when the world began to quake violently. This was not an earthquake. It was a serious jump, possibly even a slingshot. Quantum quakes were easy to spot because even though everything shook, nothing fell off walls and buildings never collapsed. You could feel it, but it wasn't the earth's crust shaking, it was the whole universe. As everything settled, Cynthia felt something odd. Somehow, she could feel Alexander. Somehow, she knew he was the one who jumped. He had joked about using his abilities in such magnificent ways, but she had never believed him. Yet, she just knew he was in trouble. Cynthia quickly started making calls on her cell. It didn't take her long to find the whereabouts of Alexander's body in this verse. He was currently being detained by Ontario police. This should be fun.