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It was just like the president had described it. Total blackness.
Why had they called it the Black and White when there was no white?
John had not paid much attention to the surroundings outside of the absolutely necessary to bring the president home safely. He took note of Wiggly, of his minions, of Wilbur. He took note of the location where he was dropped off to safely guide the president back to this spot. He watched as the president left the Black and White. He knew that he could not follow.
John looked at his watch. It still worked. Not much time had passed at home. At least he could keep the time in the Black and White. There wouldn’t be much else that he could do in here that would not involve him diving into his mind and trying to survive.
At least he was being left alone now. No Wiggly, none of his minions surrounded him. It was just him, the blackness and his mind.
And an old friend.
“Hiya, John.” The familiar voice said. “How’s the kids?”
John turned around. Behind him stood Wilbur Cross, nowadays known as Uncle Wiley. There was a wide, dubious grin on his face. He seemed to be enjoying himself.
John took a deep breath, lifted his chin and placed his hand on the gun. This is a foe, he thought to himself. Act accordingly. But he could recognize this man. This was not Uncle Wiley. John could not refer to him as such. This was Wilbur, the colonel whose mind was warped.
“I do not have children, nor am I a father,” John said resolutely, presenting the same confident image that he previously had presented to the president. Then, he had indeed been confident. He was confident now, too, but it was mixed with other emotions as well.
Wilbur shook his head. “Of course you’re not. You’ve never paid any attention to ‘em.” He walked closer to John, whose grip on the gun tightened.
“I know what you are trying to do,” John said. “It won’t work.”
Wilbur chuckled. “Won’t it, John?” He took a couple of steps closer to John.
John pulled the gun and aimed it at his former mentor. “That’s close enough.”
Wilbur stopped and glanced at the gun. He let out a laugh. “Ha! Your weapons are useless here.” John glanced at the gun. He did not put it away. In this situation, one he had cautiously anticipated as an emergency scenario, he felt more comfortable with its weight in his hand. It may not carry any weight during a possible escalation of conflict, but Wilbur did not come any closer either. They were separated by a comfortable three yards.
Wilbur casually put his hands in his pockets. “Do you remember that day, John? I do. Thirteen years ago, you and your peeps built a portal to this dimension. And you sent me in.”
“You volunteered.” Within PEIP, weird was the norm, but their members were not going to be forced to walk through a portal to another dimension they knew next to nothing about.
“Obviously.” Wilbur shrugged. “I was highest in rank, so it had to me, right? Just like how you immediately turned to the president to come through and negotiate a peace. Brilliant idea, yet so predictable.”
“He had the highest chance of success,” John said. A person of authority would have the best chances to successfully negotiate a peace. It could not have been any authority figure; it could not have been the prime minister of Finland. It had to be the president of the United States, the most powerful man on the earth. Though he was not good at foreign policy (according to his own), the authority he carried had to have been enough to carry a conversation.
Wilbur could not help but laugh at this statement. “The guy barely held it together in here. You call that success?” He finished laughing in a couple of seconds, before regaining his composure and taking one step closer to John. “Something went wrong, didn’t it? Lost communication? Reminds me of my situation. Except this time, you reacted way faster. Do you remember how long it took you to bring me back?”
Of course he remembered. How could he forget? “Nine days.”
“Nine days!” Wilbur shouted. “Nine days of hell. Nine days of Wiggly in my head, all the damn time. Nine days of torture and then back to earth.”
Nine days of stress, worry and agitation for John. Those had been the worst nine days of his life. “We tried our best to bring you back as soon as possible.” Everyone on the team functioned on two minutes of sleep and a fuckton of caffeine, which could not have been healthy but which yielded the quickest result. John was not part of the team tasked to fix the problems with the portal and bring him back, but he was with this team the entire time and shared their habits. John was not leaving the room without colonel Wilbur Cross.
“I don’t doubt that,” Wilbur said sincerely. “Point is, it took too long. But that look on your face. I’ll never forget how overjoyed, how ecstatic you were to get me back. How lost you looked before I leaped right back in.”
Wilbur came back disoriented and a mess. Everything in their world was loud and bright and disturbing compared to the Black and White. He received the best care for the thirty-six hours he was back. But he ran from his bed and back to the portal, where John was the sole witness to Wilbur’s speech, to Wilbur’s acceptance and subservience of Wiggly, before Wilbur returned to the Black and White.
“We brought you back home,” John said. “We did a good job.”
“Did you, now?” Wilbur shook his head a couple of times and took another step closer. “You thought you brought me back. You brought back the shell of Wilbur Cross. They tore that man up in the Black and White in the name of Wiggly and stuffed something else in. But you didn’t see that, no.” He pointed at John and looked at him incredulously. “You were too damn happy to see me to notice anything was off. You should’ve listened to that Lee guy, he would’ve made sure I never saw the portal again.”
Xander Lee had warned that Wilbur had changed. He had expected Wilbur to do something crazy, but John had discarded it. John believed it was more than normal that Wilbur wouldn’t come out the same as he went in after everything went wrong and was stuck for nine days.
John still felt guilty from time to time. How could he not have seen something was wrong, while Xander did?
Wilbur tilted his head and looked amused at his old friend. “Did I hurt your feelings, John?”
“What is your point?” John asked him. It was about time this conversation ended.
Wilbur sighed. “Nine days is a long, long, long time in here. Wiggly is everywhere, if you know where to look or not. It screwed me over for the better, and I had a suit on. But you…” Wilbur looked at John from head to toe and grinned excitedly. “You come in without any protection. You come in out of free will. You will be staying here for the rest of eternity, with us.” Wilbur paused for a moment, content. “You’ll turn around, eventually. You’ll see Wiggly is all you need. You’ll be like me.”
“I will never be like you,” John said determinedly. He would not let the Black and White get to his mind; he would not allow Wiggly to take him, too. He could not allow this. If he was taken and changed to the extent of Wilbur, then who could stand a chance against Wiggly? He had to be the White to Wiggly’s Black.
Wilbur shrugged. “If you say so.”
He turned around and was ready to walk away. And though John had wanted to end the conversation, there still was one thing he wanted Wilbur to know - that Wilbur needed to know.
“Wilbur.”
He did not like to hear that name. Wilbur turned around and shouted, in a less composed manner than he had previously presented. “What, John? What is it?”
“I’m not giving up on you. We never have.”
It did not have the intended effect. It did not have any effect. Wilbur looked unimpressed and indifferent.
“Maybe you should,” Wilbur said. “I’m not coming back. And neither will you.” He briefly pointed and John and then disappeared into the Black.
John finally lowered the weapon and let out a breath.
He’d never be like Wilbur. It was a forceful statement, but he would try to live to that statement. Wiggly would not be able to convert him. He already had a capable PEIP agent under his control, John would make sure he would not be the second at Wiggly’s disposal.
He was alone in the Black and White, and there was more than enough time to figure out the best way to stay sane.