The Sparkklechix In: Mystery of the Missing Milk

why don't you WRITE A SONG about it

Don't wanna write you a milk song, 'cause you asked for it

> Go to yesterday. You had milk back then!

Then you'd be out of milk a day earlier, because it would have disappeared.

Occam's razor says you ran out of milk yesterday because you went back and time and drank it.

You don't want to cause a paradox, do you? >:c

> Go to yesterday. You had milk back then!

Then you'd be out of milk a day earlier, because it would have disappeared.

Occam's razor says you ran out of milk yesterday because you went back and time and drank it.

You don't want to cause a paradox, do you? >:c

That is a paradox. It's an ontological paradox. You can't cause your own actions through time travel without a first iteration, in which you ran out of milk anyway.

But you ran out of milk yesterday!

But you ran out of milk yesterday!

Then why are you only getting some more now?!

But you ran out of milk yesterday!

Then why are you only getting some more now?!

Because Ix updates very slowly!

> Adventure: End right after choosing your chik

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Spoiler

> Adventure: End right after choosing your chik

No Ed I'm going to continue to update this once every couple of months forever and ever. Just to spite you.

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SpoilerAlso this is now partially a text adventure. Sorry. Oh and also I'm kind of presuming people know who the chix are.

You awake with a start to the repeated honkings coming from Aunt Cindy's Magic VW Camper Van. You stumble out of bed, head downstairs and let her in, because lets face it, if you left the others to their own devices Aunt Cindy would probably be stuck outside forevermore. You push the door open and immediately the raucous honking ceases. The driver's side door of Aunt Cindy's lime green camper van opens and she steps out, dressed in a pair of jeans and a forest green shirt. Her eyes are obscured by rose tinted glasses, and as usual she has a cigarette lodged in the side of her mouth. She makes her way up to the house and gives you a warm hug.

"Debs!" she says with a wicked grin. "How are you kiddo?"

"I'm fine Aunt Cindy." You reply sleepily. You take the opportunity to snatch the cigarette from her mouth. "No smoking in the house, remember? These things'll kill you."

"Don't worry about it Debs." Aunt Cindy says. "I keep telling you: I get killed by a dragon while fleeing from the Cybernazis at age 92. I can smoke all I want." She pulls from her pocket another pack of cigarettes, and goes to light one up.

"Soothsayers are charlatans who will tell you whatever it takes to get you to hand over the local currency." You snap, grabbing the packet of cigarettes from her. She folds her arms and affixes you with a disapproving glare. "Our house, our rules." You say, and head off upstairs to get dressed before she can argue with you.

As usual you're the last one into the bathroom, and the quickest by far. You brush your teeth, have a wash and run a brush through the mess that is your hair and without checking in a mirror you dash off downstairs, to the kitchen where as usual the other chix are arguing. Aunt Cindy is leaning back on a work surface, smoking a cigarette (somehow) and staying out of it.

"It was you wasn't it?!" Atasha demands, as she waves her index finger accusatorially in Mindy's face. "Admit it!"

"No!" Mindy replies huffily.

"Look, does it really matter?" Zafira asks. "It's not like it's the end of the world."

"It does matter!" Atasha snaps, rounding upon Zafira, who, brooking none of her shit, shoves her away and into one of the work surfaces. Atasha scowls and turns her attention upon you. "Deborah! It was you! You used the last of the milk didn't you?"

"If I had used the last of the milk I would have left a note on the bulletin board saying that we need to buy more milk, or had it been an appropriate time of day I would have done so there and then." You reply icily.

"Look Atasha." Sara says, "It's just milk. I will go to the corner shop and get some more."

"That's not the point!" Atasha snaps. "The point is someone used the last of the milk and won't admit it!"

"Atasha..." you ask, "did you use the last of the milk?"

"No!" she snaps. "Someone used the last of the milk and we're going to find out who." She pushes past you into the hall, and then turns back. "Aunt Cindy?" This was met with a general wail of irritation from the chix.

"Do we really have to waste this opportunity to travel through time and space to go back to yesterday and see who drank the last of the milk?" You ask plaintively.

"Yes!" Atasha snaps, grabbing her coat and heading outside. You and the rest of the chix look to Sara.

"It is her turn." She says reluctantly.

"... I should have just had it black." Aunt Cindy says, as she follows Atasha outside. With a palpable lack of enthusiasm you all head out, naturally you lock up, and pile through the beaded curtain into the back of Aunt Cindy's magic Camper van. In a stark contrast to her usual cheery speech she gives before you plunge headlong through time, Aunt Cindy says "Let's get this over with then." and back through time you go. You all peer through the windows at the outside of your house, but in the past. If it wasn't for the fact that it is later in the day you wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

"Now you know the rules about interacting with your past selves right?" Aunt Cindy asks. You all know the rules about interacting with your past selves: don't. You should probably figure out a way to make sure that this doesn't happen, god knows none of the others are going to actually try to think about the problem.

>

>This is simple enough. Just hide a video camera in the kitchen and then go back to today/tomorrow and check it.

You sit in the van for what feels like a very long time. It seems like nobody is particularly eager to venture outside and solve the mystery. Even Atasha who instigated this 'adventure' seems to have calmed down only now that the van's temporal charge has been expended.

"I think I have an idea." You venture. "If we could get our hands on a video camera we could set it up in the kitchen then its just a matter of watching the footage when we get home. It'd minimize the possibility of interacting with our past selves and potentially if we do this now then we never have to have this argument ever again."

"I vote we tear that video camera down the minute we're done with this misadventure." Zafira argues.

"We'd actually need a video camera first." Sara points out. "Otherwise its a solid plan, I like it."

"Can't we do that thing like in that one movie where we promise real hard to go and get a video camera and then travel back to the previous version of the Camper and hide it in here?" asks Mindy, and without waiting for any response she starts lifting up the loose cushions and peering through the beaded curtains to see if she can spot one.

"Time doesn't work that way." You point out.

You know this from experience; the first journeys you took with Aunt Cindy where you were allowed to pick the destination were all about gathering data on the nature of time and the potential for paradoxes. It is a matter of great debate among the scientific community whether time is changeable or whether it is fixed. If time were fixed you could end up discovering that your actions now were the cause of the milk shortage in the first place. If time were changeable you could through your actions end up preventing the milk from being used and thus create an alternate timeline where you never wasted your day's journey on this misadventure.

In practice it turns out that time is frustrating and inconsistent; sometimes behaving one way and sometimes the other with no real rationality (that you can determine) as to how it is operating at any given time. The only thing you've been completely unable to enact is the idea of using your future actions to affect the past.

"Well we don't have time to go and buy a video camera now," Atasha says, "someone could be in there drinking that milk at this very moment."

"Did any of you girls visit the Halls yesterday?" Aunt Cindy asked. She was looking towards the house opposite from yours. "Looks like they should have an unobstructed view of the fridge. We should be able to stake it out without much of a problem."

"I doubt Evelyn would appreciate us dropping by uninvited so we can stare out of her window for a few hours." You point out. Zafira lets out an exasperated sigh at the idea.

Aunt Cindy glances at you and grins. "I can be very persuasive." she says.

"Fuck it." Zafira says. She climbs to her feet, pulls open the door to the outside and climbs out. "It was me. I'll drink the milk then we'll know who drunk the milk because it'll have been me who drunk the milk." You leap up and climb out after her as she strides up the path to the house.

"Zafira wait-" you say but its drowned out by-

"And then we can go and do something, anything other than sit around arguing about who drank milk or not. Maybe we have to kill a few hours before the time circuits recharge but at least we can stop this terrible argument." She's at the front door now, rooting around for the key in her pockets.

"At least let Aunt Cindy go in." you call but your plea falls on deaf ears. Behind you Aunt Cindy and the rest of the chix have spilled out of the van. Aunt Cindy stomps a cigarette out and marches past you towards Zafira. As she gets the front door open Aunt Cindy lays a heavy hand on her shoulder and you remember how unexpectedly strong her grip is.

"Don't worry about it Zaffy." Aunt Cindy says. "We can go down to the arcade for a few hours hows that sound?"

There's a long moment of silence. "Aunt Cindy, is it possible you overshot the target date a little?" Zafira asks.

Aunt Cindy glances at her wristwatch; a massive chunky contraption made of brass and glass that would look at home in a steampunk cosplay. She once told you how it reads the precise universal moment from the fabric of time itself and that most of its bulk is to contain the complex processes that convert that into an understandable local time. "Wednesday 30th November 2011," she reads off, "nope we're right when we're supposed to be." She hesitates. "Why, what's wrong?"

Curiously you approach the pair and follow Zafira's gaze into the house. Inside there's nothing. Not like nothing in the sense of a literal vacuum, but rather nothing as in a completely empty house, bare walls, no furniture, no signs of anyone having lived there in a long time.

"Oh, that can't be good." Aunt Cindy says distantly.

>

Better check another house to see if it's just yours this happened to.

And if not, maybe you can ask the neighbors.

Alternatively, maybe she met her past self and this caused a total rewrite of the timeline which prevented you from ever moving here.

LETS

DO

THE

TIME

WARP

AGAAAAAAAAAIN

>You don't know that the house is completely empty, you just know that the part you can see from the front door is. One of you needs to go in there and scour the place for clues.