"Swallowed Up Whole"
I bravely closed my eyes and proceeded through the base of the Time Tornado. Still clinging to the reins, Little Neptune and the team followed me in—pulling the chariot behind. Upon entering, the sound of the whirling winds disappeared completely. As I tried to continue through to the other side, I found myself unable to penetrate the swirling mass.
“Go back!” I instructed. I felt the chariot start backward a few feet, then come to an abrupt halt.
“We can’t go back out,” shouted Melissa, “the tornado seems to be one way!”
“Maybe the protective field is stopping us?” suggested Cindy.
“I wouldn’t think so,” I began, “we entered with it up, but I’ll give it a shot.” I lowered the field with the appropriate incantation and we tried backing up again. Still no good.
Now that we appeared completely trapped inside the tornado, I waited a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the orange darkness. Once they did, I found the base of the tornado to be about 20‑feet wide; just enough room for us to fit.
The swirling of the tornado around us was dizzying to watch, but we had no choice. The force that had originally pulled us in, now appeared to be holding us captive. We could not move forward, nor we could move back.
I reached out with my hand again to try to put it through the other side of the great whirlwind. It felt solid, swirling under my hand like the side of a mixing bowl on a blender. I climbed back into the chariot to rejoin the others. Suddenly, the whirling of the tornado ceased and all was still.
“Now what?” asked Lisa. Her voice echoed as if the tornado was a hollow metal cone.
“Rob, analysis,” I said wearily.
“Unknown,” was his solitary reply.
“Can you elaborate?” asked an equally weary Melissa.
“Negative.”
“Rob,” I started taking a deep breath, “where the hell are we?” I was not in the mood for his one-word answers.
“We are located inside the Time Tornado that will deposit us into the future.”
“Then why can’t we get deposited?” asked Cindy.
“Unknown.” He paused for a moment. “Warning! I am detecting a presence.”
“What kind of presence?” asked Melissa.
“A life-force. Warning! Life-force increasing...!” Rob’s circuits went dead and he slumped forward.
“What’s the difference between a life-force and a lifeform?” pondered Melissa.
“Well, this is a fine mess. We’re trapped inside a dark, non‑moving, Time Tornado in god‑knows‑what time period of our past or future,” blurted Lisa.
“Lisa, please,” said Melissa.
“And the robot’s dead. Perfect, absolutely perfect!”
“That about sums it up,” I said, casting Lisa a suspicious look. “Now calm down,” I added, “everything will be fine. I’ll have Rob up and working in no time.”
“Why don’t you look in the Spell Book,” suggested Cleo.
“Yeh, Mr. Merlin, check the hocus‑pocus guide,” sniped Lisa. She was really getting annoyed.
“Lisa, calm down,” soothed Melissa, “we’ll find a...”
“Bite it, sister,” Lisa bitterly replied. Her attitude and demeanor were on a definite down slide.
“Lisa!” stated Cindy, shocked at her friend’s tone.
“You too, blondie. All of you, just leave me the hell alone and get me the hell out of here!” Lisa began violently pacing back and forth in the small confines of the chariot. She blurted out gibberish and her mood was becoming more and more unpredictable and erratic. Flipping quickly through the Spell Book, I came upon just the spell that was needed right now.
Wiggling my fingers toward Lisa, I repeated the incantation:
“Ceasius, Animanitos, Grolfog, Suspentos.”
An odd yellow glow appeared around her, then disappeared, leaving her lifeless.
“What was that?” asked Melissa.
“Take a look,” I said, pointing toward Lisa.
“She’s frozen,” stated Cindy.
“Not frozen—suspended. I’ve put her into a state of suspended animation. She is literally frozen in time—not unlike all of us, I guess,” I said, looking around the interior of our tornado prison.
“What’s going on? Why is she acting that way?” asked Cindy, staring at her now frozen friend, “And what’s wrong with Rob?”
“Rob’s all right,” I said, opening a hidden panel and hitting a reset button, “he just experienced some sort of overload—like a circuit breaker switching off.”
Rob came back to life again. After a quick run through of his diagnostics program, he reported that all systems were in full functioning order.
“Now, back to that life-force thing,” I said.
“Life-force is still present.”
“Where?” asked Melissa.
Rob reached up with one of his arms and, spreading his pincer apart, placed it over Lisa’s face; one tip on her left temple and one on her right. The lights on his front panel began to flicker and blink rapidly.
“Brain wave analysis does not compute with the known brain wave patterns of Lisa,” replied Rob.
“Which means?” asked Melissa.
“Which means that while she is still physically Lisa in appearance, mentally she is no longer Lisa. The life-force is here.”
“Oh, wonderful,” said Cleo, “so we’re stuck inside a tornado with a possessed girl.”
“And it’s dark and I’m hungry!” moaned Woba.
“Now hold on a second,” I stated, “everything can’t possibly be as bad as it seems.”
“I guess things could be worse,” replied Cindy.
“Warning! Seismic anomaly imminent!” interrupted Rob. Our eyes widened.
“What’s a seismic anomaly?” asked Woba.
“Earthquake!” blurted out Melissa.
Then, right on cue, the ground began to shake and crack. I quickly reinstated the Multi‑Purpose Protection Field and, for good measure, added the Illumination Spell which is used to light the inner confines of the protective field.
The chariot began to rock and shake furiously. The silence of the inner tornado was now replaced with the thunderous, echoing rumblings of a full fledged earthquake.
“I don’t like seismic nomalies!” shouted a terrified Woba.
The crack that had begun to open below us, suddenly split open wide—plunging the chariot into the Earth. Strangely, the fall was not a haphazard, free-falling, tumbling affair, but a controlled horizontal fall through the earth. Looking upward into the motionless funnel cloud, I noticed the orange Time Tornado beginning to swirl again and gradually it grew farther and farther away until I could no longer see it.
As the chariot continued its gentle plummet, I noticed that Little Neptune’s wings were flapping, trying to pull the chariot upward. I instructed him to relax and not to fight the force that was pulling us downward.
“Rate of descent: 36‑feet per minute,” reported Rob.
“That’s not very fast,” ventured Woba, regaining his normally brave posture, “I can spit faster than that.”
“That’s an impressive credential,” mused Cindy, somewhat repulsed at the thought.
“What’s pulling us down?” asked Melissa, “It can’t be gravity; gravity would be pulling us much faster.”
“It is a magnetic force. It is geological in nature—a natural phenomenon.”
“How far away is it?” I asked.
“It is far.”
“Rob, ‘far’ is not a computative answer,” stated Melissa, “it is objective and therefore not the sort of answer that you normally give.”
“Affirmative. I am unable to calculate the exact distance to the magnetic source. It is deep within the planet—possibly near the center.”
“Journey to the center of the Earth?” asked Cindy, “why doesn’t that sound like much fun?”
“Where’s a good spell when you need one?” I asked, flipping through the great book.
“Warning! Increase in magnetic force now magnifying the rate of descent,” reported Rob, “new R.O.D.: 3‑miles per hour and increasing. ROD: 10‑miles per hour. ROD: 18‑mph.”
“Something, something, why can’t I find something!” I said, angrily flipping through the pages of the book.
“I’m falling! and I can’t pull up!” chuckled Woba.
“Shhhhh!” scolded Cleo.
“Rob, are your turbo boosters powerful enough to push us out of here?” asked Melissa.
“Affirmative and negative,” he replied.
“What does that mean?” asked Cindy.
“They are strong enough, but I am made of metal and am one of the reasons that we are being attracted to the geological magnet.”
“Rob, it’s not your fault,” said Cindy.
“Thank you. ROD: 67‑mph and increasing.”
“Why do I feel like this whole thing is hopeless,” I sighed, “I wish we never met Alexander the Great.” I paused for a moment, “what about the life-force?”
Rob placed his pincers around Lisa’s temples again. “Life-force has dissipated.”
“Well, that’s one good thing,” I smiled.
“ROD: 93‑mph and increasing.”
“Does anyone want to hear another problem?” asked Cleo.
“I don’t,” moped Woba, “I’m going to hold my ears so I don’t have to hear anything else bad.”
“Woba,” began Cindy, “that’s childish.”
“I don’t care, I don’t want to know what’s going on. Just let me know when it’s all over.” And with that, Woba clasped his little rectangular ears with his rectangular paws.
“Like I said, does anyone want to hear another problem?” asked Cleo, ignoring his rubberized friend.
“Not really, Cleo,” I began, “but what?”
“The Multi‑Purpose Protection Field will not hold up under temperature conditions exceeding 250‑degrees Fahrenheit.”
“What about that Els‑Pod thing?” suggested Cindy. “You know, the thing we used in Living Land to avoid getting poached in the Kowdoon.”
“Rob, can you give me an atmospheric reading?” asked Cleo.
“Affirmative. External temperature is 120‑degrees Fahrenheit and rising. Oxygen content is insufficient for supporting human lifeforms.”
“Then that answers that,” stated Cleo.
“Why?” asked Melissa.
“The Els‑pod Spell cannot be initiated from within a Multi‑Purpose Protection Field. It has to be done from the outside.”
“And without one, I’m dead,” I deduced, “Right?”
“Right.”
“Then that’s it? We’re done for it?” questioned Melissa.
“After all we’ve been through, I can’t believe this is how it all ends,” said Cindy.
“ROD: 115‑mph and increasing.”
“Rob, I think you can terminate the rate of descent reports,” I sighed, “they really won’t be necessary.”
The three of us were now sitting in the floor of the chariot. Lisa remained standing there—frozen in her state of suspended animation. Rob held on to her with one of his pincers and clung to the railing of the chariot with the other—just in case the chariot took a tumble.
Melissa continued to flip through “The Spell Book of Androganine”; hope dwindling of actually finding anything useful. By this time we had all resigned ourselves to the fact that this was indeed it—the end.
After about 15‑minutes of silence—and deep soul searching on our part—Rob interrupted with a report, “ROD: 97‑mph and decreasing.”
“Decreasing!?” I shouted, jumping up to look over the side of the chariot.
“Affirmative.”
“Woba, we’re decreased!” nudged an excited Cleo.
Woba removed his little paws from over his ears. He may not have been listening, but he had been peeking occasionally.
“Decreasing!” he shouted, “I don’t want to shrink again!”
“No, no,” explained Cleo, “we’re not decreasing, our rate of descent is decreasing.”
“Oh,” smiled a surprised Woba. He looked around with much excited interest.
Standing up, I tried to look out of the Multi‑Purpose Protection Field. The sides had fogged up from the temperature differential so I tried wiping it with my hand—only to find it extremely hot. Peering out the best I could, I couldn’t see a thing due to the internal illumination of the protection field. Repeating the Illumination Spell, removing all of our lighting. The Multi-Purpose Protection Field was now bathed in a warm red glow that was coming from below us. Cindy stood up to look out.
“Rob, give me an atmospheric reading.”
“Affirmative. External temperature is 245‑degrees Fahrenheit and rising. Five degrees until Protective Field failure.”
“Thanks,” I snapped, sarcastically.
“How far are we from the center of the earth?” asked Cindy, looking down at the red glow.
“Approximately 100‑miles,” stated Rob.
“Larry! I found it!” shouted Melissa, still searching through the Spell Book.
“Found what?” I asked, kneeling down next to her.
“A spell that might work,” she beamed. “It’s a Transmutation Spell. According to its specifications, it will alter the cell structure of any item.”
“What do you mean?” asked Cindy.
“I mean that we can change the chariot into something more appropriate for this situation.”
“Like a rocket ship,” I said.
“Or a flying saucer,” suggested Cindy.
“Not a bad idea, Cin,” I said, “a flying saucer will be easy to maneuver and I can make it large enough for all of us to fit inside comfortably.”
“ROD: 45‑mph and decreasing. External temperature: 247‑degrees and rising. Three degrees to meltdown.”
“Make it fast,” prodded Cindy.
“All right, here goes,” I said, looking at the book, “I don’t know how it’s going to work, so bear with me.”
We stood up again; Melissa holding “The Spell Book of Androganine” out so I could read it. I began the spell:
“Transmution, Prestontion, golden chariot to a flying saucer with heat shielding, Valbot, Dognivtos, Snowpomtin.”
There were four or five large puffs of multi‑colored smoke accompanied by numerous flashes of light and bursts of what sounded like thunder. I heard Little Neptune whinny and both Cleo and Woba cried out. The floor of the chariot disappeared from under my feet and I felt myself falling.
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