"Off To Unknown Lands"
“Larry, come quick!”
“What’s up, Cin?”
“Lisa and I were just laying out, working on our tans... Oh, by the way, thanks for that tip about the Vitamin D supplements. I feel tanner already.”
“Cindy,” I sighed, “did you call me for any particular reason?”
“Oh, yeh. Lisa and I were laying out when we saw that Green Devil. He was perched up a tree, leering down at us. Well, I grabbed my towel because I didn’t want him to see me... well you know.”
“See you... what?” I asked.
She lowered her voice to a whisper, “topless.”
“Gimme that phone,” interrupted a voice at Cindy’s end.
I heard a small struggle and then Lisa’s voice came on the line.
“Larry, you and Melissa better get over here, fast. That slime green monster was cackling at us from a tree; babbling something about a ‘koleapus’.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeh. In between cackles and drooling over our breasts, he mumbled something about him ‘going to get us’. Isn’t that a pleasant thought!” she added sarcastically.
“All right, all right. Call Melissa. Ask her to research this ‘koleapus’ thing. Rob and I will be right over.”
“Well, make it quick. I like my size just the way it is,” she said, hanging up the phone. She was of course referring to our last encounter with Lived Neerg, the Green Devil. If you remember, we were all shrunk to three inches in height and had to escape from his laboratory.
I washed the grease and oil off my hands and headed back out into the yard. I had been finishing some minor adjustments to a new major alteration I was making to Rob. I was now preparing to run him through the final test.
Over the past few months, I had made quite a few changes to my new robot. The first was to reactivate his internal security systems (which had been deactivated by Bringle Brand of Jingleland during our last adventure). This would keep him from being reprogrammed by anyone other than myself and would alert him to any form of intruder that might try to tamper with him from within (much as I had been able to do a few months ago).
His pincers were modified, adding the capability of emitting a magnetic field if desired. His antennae hat (as I had dubbed it) was modified with various little contraptions of my own design. One of these included ‘visual input sensors’ or VIs which could photograph and store images. A modem and FAX were installed and the VIs could print out through here.
His monotone, metallic voice was re-synthesized to one that was more human, but it was still somewhat emotionless. After downloading a CD-ROM encyclopedia and dictionary, his knowledge and vocabulary were both greatly expanded.
Beyond the electronic and computerized modifications, my coup de grâce had to be the small rocket blasters that I had just finished installing into his tread; small engines, like one would find on a jet pack. These should provide him with enough thruster power to lift off the ground and propel him as required. I was now ready to test my handiwork.
“Well, Rob,” I started, “I hope these final adjustments work. The girls just spotted Lived Neerg, and he seems to be looking for us.”
“By all calculations, your adjustments will achieve the desired result,” he responded in his new voice.
“You mean to say it’s going to work.” I stated.
“Affirmative.”
“Then just say ‘it’s going to work.’ I’d like you to practice simplifying your sentence structure,” I instructed.
“Affirmative.”
“Good. All right, activate turbo boosters and initiate take-off sequence.” The rockets ignited and after a short delay, he slowly started rolling forward.
“Bend your knees!” I shouted, as he continued to roll.
“Unable to comply. I have not been fitted with knees.”
“Rob,” I chuckled, “lean forward at what would be your knees. Just like the skiers I showed you on television.” Rob complied and just like a skier coming off a ramp, he lifted off the ground.
“I am airborne,” he announced.
“Good,” I said, joining him in flight, “change the rockets’ position from ‘take-off’ to ‘flight’.”
“Affirmative.”
After the position was changed, the sequence was permanently stored in his memory so that it would initiate automatically the next time.
“Flight sequence ‘take-off’ inputting. Completed,” he responded.
“Good, now try some of the maneuvers we discussed.”
He initiated the turns and the speed climbs, descents and a few simple swerving maneuvers. Then came the big test; landing. By reversing the ‘take-off’ sequence, the rockets returned to their initial position and he slowly descended back to earth.
“I have landed.”
“Perfect!” I said, patting him on the back. Save the rest of the sequence and let’s get out of here. We have to fly over to Cindy’s.”
“Affirmative. Flight sequence ‘landing’ inputting. Completed.”
“Let’s go then,” I said.
I double checked to make sure that the Green Devil’s former spell book (or “The Spell Book of Androganine,” as it was called) was attached to Rob’s back. I rigged up a strap that would hold the large book in place in case we needed to travel with it. We then took off.
As we arrived at Cindy’s house, we could see her still sun bathing while Melissa and Lisa were now seated at a small table, thumbing through some books. I flew over toward them and slowly landed, not realizing that we were casting very odd shadows as Rob and I both descended.
“Aarrghh!” shouted Cindy, jumping up out of her chaise lounge.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “I guess I forgot to tell you about Rob’s new capability.”
“Forgot?!” said Cindy.
“Larry,” interrupted Lisa, getting right to the point, “we can’t find any mention of what a ‘koleapus’ is? There’s nothing even close. What did Rob come up with.”
“Oh,” I hesitated, “in my hurry to test his flying abilities, I didn’t think to ask him.”
“Well, Rob?” asked Melissa.
“The koleapus is a mythological creature.”
“What would the Green Devil want with one of those?” asked Lisa. “And just how does one go about finding a mythological creature?”
“The koleapus is hypothetically indigenous to Living Land. Lived Neerg would want it for its hypothetical magical powers,” added Rob.
“Are there really any koleapus’s... koleapi?” I pondered the proper plurality.
“Hypothetically, of course,” smiled Melissa.
“Of course,” I smiled back (oh, yeh—she liked me).
“Unknown,” answered Rob.
“Well,” started Lisa, “we’ve got to find a koleapus before he does—or at least before he comes back for us.”
“Where is Living Land?” asked Cindy, slipping into a pair of jeans.
“It is located due Near of Jingleland.”
“Due ‘where’?” asked Melissa.
“Due Near,” repeated Rob.
“Larry, I think his grammar needs some more work,” said Lisa.
“Rob, what does ‘due near’ mean?” I asked.
“The directions utilized within the vicinity of Jingleland are not the same as those used in this world. Instead of North, South, East and West, the utilize Here, There, Near and Far,” he stated.
“And just where is Jingleland?” asked Melissa.
“Oh,” I interjected, “I found a map. It was stashed in the back of that old book that Bringle gave me.”
I unstrapped the large tome known as “The Spell Book of Androganine” and removed the ancient, crumpled map from a little pocket that was located inside the back cover. The ‘paper’ that the map was on seemed to be some sort of fabric, but not one that I had ever felt before. It had a smooth, almost slippery feel to it and smelled as old and as musty as the book in which it had been hidden.
“Now, let’s see,” studied Melissa, as I spread it out on the table, “where is Living Land.”
“Hey, the corners of the map are missing!” added Cindy.
“It is very old and not in the best of shape; who knows how long it was shoved back there.” I replied
“324.8-years,” stated Rob. Lisa cast him an odd look.
“Accurate bugger, isn’t he?” she said to me.
“Regardless,” continued Melissa, “the map shows us that there are four places surrounding Jingleland. There’s the Deadly Forest, Giant Land and two places that just start with the letters ‘Li’ before the missing corners interfere.”
“So what we have to do is randomly pick one of the ‘Li’s and hope it’s Living Land?” I asked.
“That what it seems to me,” replied Melissa.
“One flaw with that plan,” pointed out Lisa, “we don’t know what the other ‘Li’ even stands for.”
“Well,” started Melissa, “it could be Literature Land, Liar Land, ah...”
“Oh, yuch!” interrupted Cindy, “it could be Lice Land!” We all looked at her.
“Cin,” moaned Lisa.
“That’s no problem,” I interrupted, “Rob has a directional guidance system. He can detect in which direction Living Land is.”
“It seems to me..,” started Cindy.
We all looked at her again with a doubting glance. She wasn’t known for making the brightest of observations.
“What?” asked Lisa, skeptically.
“It seems to me we have a bigger problem than that.”
“What’s that?” I asked, hesitantly.
“We don’t know how to get to Jingleland?” There was a moment of silence.
“She is right,” said Melissa. We were all shocked at that fact, since it didn’t happen very often.
“Rob, what was it that Bringle said about the location of Jingleland?” asked Lisa.
“He stated that it is ‘never that far away, but is always distant,’“ Rob quoted.
“Which means what?” asked Melissa.
“Specifics unknown.” stated Rob.
“Didn’t he also say something about ‘multi-dimensional’ travel?” remembered Lisa. “How do we manage that one?”
“There is a dimensional vortex approximately 2.3-km from here,” stated Rob.
“He’s metric, huh,” said Lisa.
“What’s a vortex?” asked Cindy.
“It’s usually a swirl of liquid, like a whirlpool,” stated Melissa, “so I guess a dimensional vortex would somehow be a swirling door between dimensions?”
“Affirmative.”
“Well, it looks like we’re about to become multi-dimensional travelers,” I stated.
“If I’m going through a liquid swirling door, it’s a good thing I’m wearing my bikini,” smiled Cindy. We again looked at her and shook our heads.
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