Reality
Anthony finds he has transferred to another reality where his Zapbots were never created.
Back In Time Part 1 - Next--->
Synopsis
Anthony awakens in a completely unfamiliar reality where he is fully human and living as an art student at a local college. An individual named Mikey insists Anthony is late for class, and Anthony quickly realizes his life has diverged drastically—there was no Zapbot spaceship landing in his backyard, and the Matrix of Leadership never reached Earth in this universe.
As Anthony investigates this altered reality, he discovers that without the Zapbots’ arrival, his life followed a more conventional path through high school and into art college, forming new friendships and relationships. However, tensions arise with a volatile individual named Scott, who harbors deep resentment toward him.
When a fire breaks out near the college, Anthony—despite lacking his X-O suit or powers—uses his Zapbot training and instincts to rescue a child, becoming an accidental hero. Fearing interference with the timeline, he downplays the event. Through contact with his online friend Jon M. via a bulletin board system, Anthony confirms that in this reality the Zapbot ship burned up in Earth’s atmosphere, erasing their influence entirely.
After a violent confrontation with Scott escalates into gunfire, Anthony encounters a yellow car resembling Speedy. Using a secret prefix code, he forces Speedy to reveal himself and learns that the Zapbots do exist in this reality—but remain hidden from humanity. Speedy takes Anthony to Duplaflex, where the Zapbots interrogate him and confirm that Boaty was destroyed in this timeline.
Scan determines that Anthony was displaced through a temporal rupture between realities. To correct the imbalance, the Zapbots transport Anthony back through the same spatial distortion, restoring him to his original universe.
Upon returning home, Anthony attempts to reconnect with the new friends he met in the alternate reality. However, during a Gongos attack, Matt E. is killed. Stricken with grief, Anthony experiences a final dreamlike encounter with Matt before awakening.
The story concludes with Anthony visiting Matt’s grave, leaving behind a poem as he mourns the loss and reflects on identity, fate, and the fragile threads that bind realities together.
Featured characters
| Zapbots | Humans | Enemies | Planets |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Quotes
"I’M DORKATRON!"
- Mikey B. talking to Anthony in the alternate reality.
Notes
Versions
- First Version: 1995 (new story added to revised saga)
- Second Version: 2021
Production notes
- In the process of rewriting my Zapbots stories back around 1995/96 I decided to try and find a way to incorporate my new friends from college and various other parts of life into the stories. As I wanted to make sure all my friends that I cared about were well aware of what they meant to me. Inspired by a few Star Trek episodes I came up with this idea to help bridge the gap and bring my newfound friends into the Zapbot universe.
- (I believe) this is the first appearance of Tiremarks, Tiretracks, Poppin, Terrain.
- Third pass to provide extra details and upgrades happened in 2021.
Continuity notes
Real-life references
Oh boy so many here...
- Columbus Ohio, duh!
- Columbus College of Art and Design - my alma matter.
- Cleveland, Ohio - my hometown
- Russell Ohio, near my hometown of Chesterland, Ohio
- Rocky River, where my Bulletin Board friends lived.
Continuity and plotting errors
- This was particularly funny to my roommate Michael Barnard who found the various commentary here hilarious as he helped me work on what I would say in the particulars of the situation. With his help I crafted this story to present my new group of friends to the Zapbot Universe. Mike has now since gone onto greater fame as one of the most wanted illustrators in California. He was the one who coined me with the nickname ‘Gump’ in college after my old roommate Chris kept repeating the line from the Forest Gump movie, and Mike picked up on it. Anyone from my college days still remembers me as Gump.
- In the original saga, I had my friend Matt E. all the way up to the very late stages of the saga when our friendship dissolved I had him ahem… killed off. In the rewrites I moved this up to this story as at the time I didn’t want to relive the stories I had written for him as he was no longer a part of my life. This started the trend of using the fictional character of Mike Quartz for my hidden/romatic love interest.
- Also after writing this my friendship with Alan began to deteriorate as living with a Jehovah Witness did not seem compatible with a gay man’s life. However, this did provide a great writing point for the Zapbot plots of which you will find out in later stories. Out of respect for him though I did change his last name.
- The person labeled as ‘'Scott’' in this story was not actually named Scott after all, as I have adjusted him name to protect who he was (although anyone who knew me at the time would automatically know who he was.) Funny enough, many years on Facebook this individual reached out to me to make amends and it was nice to get to know him again. The rhetoric will remain the same here as it was close to arguments we had at the time while our friendship was toxic.
Other trivia
- Preface to this story has various tidbits of who are people I still talk to today.
