Adventures of the Space Pizza Delivery Guy

Chapter 4: Co-Deliverywoman

Ethan’s house was quite colorful with different plants in pots outside, with a huge windmill system and mini-dish in my roof- it was located by the far side of the MDWD.

Ethan’s house seemed so out of place- it was colorful and cozy, whereas the rest of the buildings that surrounded it were all dull and gray.

The girl laughed as she saw the place, and Ethan defensively tried to explain, “That’s- the dish thing is for my work.”

“What work?”

“I’m a pizza delivery guy.”

The girl asked as she raised an eyebrow, “And what exactly do you do?”

Ethan replied, “I deliver pizza all over the multiverse.”

“That sounds cool,” she muttered softly.

“Normally, as a courtesy, I’d ask you what do you do, but you probably don’t remember, so you have the second-highest privilege out of everything else in the multiverse.”

“And what is that?”

“My co-deliverywoman.” Ethan flashed a huge grin as he continued, “You get to see everything. That’s the coolest plus you can maybe find a timeline for you to stay for a while as Watt suggested.”

“How long have you been an… Irregular?”

“Hm… that’s rather a tough question.” Ethan explained, “Here, time doesn’t run, so I’m still 18 years old, and I have been for quite a while, you do the math. I’m the 23^rd irregular, and now, you’re the 199^th. You can say I’ve been here for quite a long time.”

“You’re a case of Blackout too, right?”

“Spot on.”

“So why stay here?”

Ethan opened the door and invited her in, and he wasn’t exactly sure why but he just kind of did. Well, it was indeed a cool job, so why not? As soon as the girl entered his house, she was fascinated by a lot of things and clumsily made gadgets were around. Ethan remarked, “Excuse the mess. It’s been a while since I had a visitor.”

Ah, pardon our protagonist- Ethan was lying. He has never had a visitor.

“It looks really cool here.” The girl remarked, and just then, Ethan drew his face closer to hers. She was obviously blushing as she tried to look away. She asked, “Why? What’s wrong with my face?”

“Your eyes.”

The girl flinched as she saw her reflection in the mirror across from her. Her eyes were too different in color. Out of shock and embarrassment, she covered her face and mumbled, “Do I look weird?”

“No.” Ethan removed her hands and continued, “They look lovely.”

Just then, Ethan realized how close he had been- their faces were only a couple inches away from each other. Ethan almost immediately backed away and stuttered awkwardly, “Ah, sorry about uh… that.”

He changed the topic, “Well, Chronna, let me show you the hoops around this job.”

“Chronna?” the girl chuckled.

“Yeah, calling you irregular no.199 is a bit weird, don’t you think?” Ethan continued, “Besides, your eyes. The name suits you well, don’t you agree?”

“Chronna…” She murmured before she smiled and said, “I like it.”

Ethan showed Chronna how the satellite dish on his roof is linked to his smartwatch. He projected the screen of his smartwatch to the wall and explained, “Holding the asterisk on the other end would redirect their call to us- space pizza delivery people and our trusty oven over there will print out the pizza they wanted.”

Chronna chuckled as she found it all bizarre yet oddly entertaining. She remarked, “And you get to see different timelines? Meet different species and people?”

“No, we’re not really allowed to go to the timelines ourselves, but we do see it.” Ethan explained, “The Timekeepers are the ones who deliver it to them.”

“Timekeepers?”

“Yes, the timekeepers are meant to protect everyone from the fact that there are different timelines and us- dimensional dealers who are able to jump from timeline and dimension to another, so instead, we give the order to them.”

“So they don’t know you exist?” Chronna asked, “That’s… kind of sad.”

“Is it? Think of us as secret superheroes. I mean, literally, we deliver pizza. What superpower could top that?”

“You’re really funny.”

Chronna roamed around the place and saw a bottle of cola lying around the floor, and she recognized its brand from Earth before she was discovered by the time police. Chronna remarked, “Is that coke? The soda?”

“Oh, you recognize it.” Ethan explained excitedly, “Yes, it indeed is and from the year 1905. I drank it with Einstein, which led him to the discovery of the theory of relativity that ultimately changed the world- crap, I said too much, didn’t I?”

Chronna chuckled as she remarked sarcastically, “And here I thought we’re not allowed to meet people from the other timelines and make our presence known?”

“I sneak out every now and then. Just don’t tell Watt.”

“Copy that, Ethan.”

For some reason, Ethan felt something he hasn’t felt before. He could not explain or pinpoint what exactly it was. He knew it was similar to the feeling of high, but it’s different somehow.

Ethan felt… warm as Chronna mentioned his name.

He felt at home even though he had a vague understanding of what it was. Ethan cleared his throat and explained, “Well, all that I know, I either read from the MDWD’s library- it’s the huge building out front, or I learned it on the job.”

Chronna nodded as she took notes like an exemplary student, which made Ethan laughed.

“What? Why are you laughing at me?” Chronna asked, confused.

“It’s nothing.” That was what Ethan said, but in his thought, he was smiling like an idiot because Chronna looked cute like that.

Chronna was about to say something, but then Ethan’s line rang. His ringtone was a familiar sound that Ethan never got to remember where he heard it, but he did not think about it much considering how many travels he’d done.

Ethan checked it and saw that it was a delivery notification. He excitedly glanced at Chronna as he stated, “Well, Chronna, you got your first delivery.”

“Really? Where?”

Ethan shook his head, “Rule number one on this job, you don’t say where. You say when.”

“Okay, when?”

He smiled, before he said, “3042, Cloud Atlas. Are you up for an adventure?”