Adventures in Time and Space
by Matthew Atanian
©2000 by Matthew Atanian
by Matthew Atanian
©2000 by Matthew Atanian
“That should just about do it,” Kenny said as he rolled out from underneath the Edsel. He glanced over at Becker’s tired, soiled features and reflected that he probably was in much a similar condition at the moment. Of course, the two of them had been working almost nonstop, aside from a brief nap and a quick meal, for about forty-two hours.
“Will it really work?” Becker asked.
“It has to,” Kenny replied. “We’ve no time to fiddle around with test runs first.”
The computer’s voice suddenly called out. “There is a visitor at the front door,” it said.
“Visual on main screen,” Kenny replied, hastily getting to his feet and walking towards the monitor.
The computer complied, and an image filled the main screen. Kenny gasped slightly when he saw who it was. He turned to Becker.
“Wait here,” he said.
Becker nodded.
Kenny had ridden his lift up to his room, hastily neatened himself, and changed into fresh clothes as quickly as he could, and then went to answer the doorbell, which was ringing once again.
He opened the door.
“Oh, hello,” Kirstin said. “I hope I’m not disturbing you. I had almost given up hope that you were here.”
“Please,” Kenny said quietly, “come in.”
“Thank you,” she responded, crossing the threshold.
“Can I… can I get you anything? A cup of tea?”
“No, thank you,” Kirstin responded.
“Was there something… um…” Kenny looked up briefly. “Was there something I could do for you?”
Kirstin took a seat, a somber look upon her face. “I was worried when you weren’t at the meeting this week,” she said.
“Oh?”
“Yes… and there’s someone else missing, too… I’m… I don’t know what to do.”
Kenny opened his mouth slightly, and then paused as if gathering courage. “Miss Kirstin? It’s my fault…”
“What is?”
“Miss Nicole. It’s my fault she’s missing.”
Kirstin looked stunned. “How…?”
“There’s… there’s a boy out there, a misguided boy of a similar intellect to my own. He for some reason sees me as his archrival. My… my pride let him infiltrate my Laboratory, and when he was there, he sabotaged some of my equipment… the Stargate… When I next activated it, it went haywire, and absorbed two people who were passing by outside my house… Miss Nicole and her friend Mr. Bertovich.”
Kenny looked up again briefly and met Kirstin’s gaze. “I’m… I’m sorry I failed you,” he told her.
Kirstin did the last thing Kenny suspected. She smiled at him. “Oh, Kenny, it’s not your fault. It’s that other boy’s fault.”
Kenny smiled slightly.
“So… do you know where they are?”
“I’m afraid I don’t… but I do know that wherever they are they got there safe.”
Kirstin seemed as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “I’m sure that they’re doing fine. Nicole has always been a survivor.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to, but I will try and find them,” Kenny assured her.
“I know you will. I have faith in you. Poor Sarah, though… she’s going to keep worrying. She thinks that Nicole and Jason ran off together… or worse! That Jason… well, I dare not repeat it.” She glanced at her digital watch. “Oh my, I’d better get going, actually. Sarah gets home from work soon, and lately she’s been… well…” Kirstin trailed off.
Kenny escorted her to the door.
“Good bye, Kenny,” she said. “I wish you good fortune in your endeavors against this misguided young boy.”
“Good bye, Miss Kirstin,” Kenny responded. “I shall try to live up to your faith in me.”
Kirstin smiled once more. “I know you will,” she said as she closed the door behind her.
Kenny rushed back into the Laboratory, walking past the skeletal remains of the Macross Valkyrie, past the disassembled carcass of the Stargate, and right up to the covered Edsel. “Mr. Becker!” he called out.
Becker popped up from the opposite side of the Edsel. “Yes?”
“Are you ready to go?”
“Whenever you are!” he chirped. (While Kenny had been upstairs, Becker had made use of the Laboratory’s facilities to make himself presentable, as well.)
Kenny walked over to a near by console and pressed a button, raising the sheet from the Edsel.
It seemed larger then it had been before, it’s shape subtly altered here and there. In the skin of the car were what appeared to be seams, the purposes of which were not immediately apparent. On the back of the car were two protrusions that looked familiar to Becker but he couldn’t quite place them. Also, the car’s colour had also been changed. It was now white with black and yellow trimming. On each of the front doors, an emblem had been painted. It was a red circle, and within the circle was a silver-gray kite shape, the edges of the kite curved inwards.
“Wow,” Becker said.
“Ready, Mr. Becker?” Kenny asked once again, opening the driver’s side door and motioning for Becker to enter.
“I’m driving?” Becker asked.
Kenny nodded. “I don’t know how,” he reminded his assistant.
“But you’ve made so many modifications…” Becker insisted.
“Don’t worry,” Kenny insisted. “I shall be right with you in the passenger side seat.”
“Um, okay,” Becker said, getting in. Kenny went around and sat in shotgun.
“So, um…” Becker said as the two of them buckled up, “now what?”
Kenny pressed a button on the dash causing a large door to open up on one wall, a different door then the one Becker had previously driven through. “Where does that lead?” Becker asked.
“Outside,” Kenny responded.
“Okay,” Becker said. “Here we go!”
The tunnel rose at a sharp incline and extended for about two kilometers before finely ending in a portal that was disguised as an abandoned mine. A small dirt road extended from this, and that continued on for another kilometer before it reached a paved road.
It was a simple, unmarked, two lane, flat stretch of pavement that continued in either direction for quite a ways. Other then an occasional large, old looking house or an even more occasional side road branching off, there was little to be seen.
“Where are we?” Becker asked.
“Somewhere between Springfield and Amherst,” Kenny responded.
“Now what? Activate the travel circuits and hit forty-two mph?”
“Not quite,” Kenny responded. “Let’s try something else, first. Start down the road and pick up speed as much as you can. When you’re at about sixty, pull the lever marked ‘F’.”
Kenny pointed to a section of the dash on which there were four small levers. They were marked, from left to right, “C”, “F”, “G”, and “B”. The one marked “C” was currently down.
“What’s that do?” Becker asked.
Kenny smiled quietly to himself.
Becker shrugged. “Okay, here goes.”
Becker turned onto the road and began to accelerate. Kenny peeked over at the speedometer with utmost interest. Rather swiftly they reached sixty miles per hour, and Kenny’s smile broadened as Becker pulled down the lever marked “F”.
Becker heard strange noises coming from the car, and felt strange vibrations. He looked out his side window and was alarmed to see what looked suspiciously like a wing was swiftly extending out from under the car. It was white in color with a black stripe running down the center of it from the tip to where it met the car, the stripe broken only in the middle of the wing by the number, “001”. He looked out Kenny’s window and saw a similar wing, but instead of the number it had the same symbol that was painted on the doors. Looking in the rear-view mirror, he noted that two vertical stabilizers had risen from the trunk. He also noted that while they were white on the inner sides, on the outer sides they were black and had a white “Jolly Roger” emblem on them. He also also noted that the protrusions he had noticed on the back earlier were providing massive amounts of thrust.
He noted this all rather quickly. He had to, as the next thing he noted, with some alarm, was that they were airborne.
“By Sol'Kanar's Horns!” Becker exclaimed.
Kenny did a rare thing for him, which was that he looked confused. “What?” he asked.
Becker was too busy to answer at first, still alarmed at suddenly finding himself operating an aircraft.
Becker decided to use a more common expletive. “Holy shit!”
“Calm down, Mr. Becker,” Kenny said. “You’ll find that it operates much the same as a car, except that pulling out on the steering wheel will cause you to climb, and pushing in on it will cause you do descend.”
Becker took a deep breath. Then another. Finely he said, “Holy sh… um… am I flying?”
Kenny nodded.
“Cool,” Becker said.
“Now, when I activate the trans-dimensional-temporal circuits, accelerating to 342 miles per hour will activate the travel threshold.”
Becker balked. “342 miles per hour!?”
“Calm down, it’s only a little past Mach 1.”
“We’re breaking the sound barrier??”
“Just a bit,” Kenny insisted. “It’s necessary for proper formation of the threshold while in flight.”
Becker began to mumble incoherently.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Becker,” Kenny said. “When in driving mode, it’s still only forty-two.”
Becker finely managed to regain control of himself. “Um… okay. So, do you know where we’re going?”
“I think so,” Kenny said. “I managed to get a slight trace from when Snarfinkle’s machine travelled, but it may not be reliable.” Kenny plugged a small piece of equipment into a socket on his side of the dash and began making computations.
Becker, meanwhile, seemed to be gaining more confidence at the wheel. He was even smiling slightly.
“Okay, I’m ready, Mr. Becker. Activating the travel circuits… now…”
Becker pressed his foot down hard on the right pedal, and the Edsel began to rapidly accelerate. As they approached 300 mph, and passed it, the car went through heavy turbulence, buffeting back and fourth and generally making it’s occupants feel much like James Bond’s vodka martinis – shaken, not stirred.
Finely, with a sudden surge, their passage became much smoother. Kenny glanced at the speedometer. “Mach one,” he quietly announced.
Shortly there after, a vortex opened in the sky before them and they shot through it.
“Where are we?” Becker asked as he drove slowly by a large brick building with four floors and a bell tower rising from the center.
“Well,” Kenny said, “that looks like Agnes Scott Hall, constructed in 1891, the main hall of Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia.”
“Is there anything you don’t know?” Becker asked.
“Of course there is,” Kenny responded. “What would be the point of continued existence if there were no new things to learn?”
“So where to from here?”
Kenny consulted his instruments. “Hmm… since it’s been a while since the Snarfinkle machine made its trip, my scanners are having a hard time getting a fix on their location. Perhaps while we wait, we should ask around a bit?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Good. Pull up to that residence hall, Mr. Becker.”
Becker did so, and they got out of the car.
“Um… is it okay to just go in there?” Becker asked.
“What do you mean?” Kenny asked.
“Well, what if this is a girls’ dorm?” Becker responded.
“Well, as this is a women’s college, it probably is a women’s dorm,” Kenny responded, walking up the steps and entering the building.
“Oh, that makes sense,” Becker said, following.
The woman sat in her dorm room, at her computer, reading a story. Right after she read the words, “The woman heard a noise, looked up from the story she was reading, and turned to see what it was,” she heard a noise. She blinked in mild surprise, turned, and looked up to see what it was.
“Oh my God!” she exclaimed suddenly. “It’s Kenny and Becker!” She got up from her chair and rushed over to them. “How did this happen? This is so cool!”
“Um, excuse me,” Kenny said, “how do you know who we are?”
“Hey, Becker,” the woman said. “Where’s your headphones? You don’t look right without them!”
“What?” Becker asked, confused.
“Hey, wait a minute,” she continued, “if you’re here, then I must be in the story!” She cheered as she rushed back over to the computer. On the screen, she saw the words, “She cheered as she rushed back over to the computer.”
“Story?” Becker asked. “What?”
“Hold on a moment, miss,” Kenny said. “Do you mean that you know us from some kind of story?"
She motioned them over to have a look. Kenny looked at the screen and read aloud from it. “Do you mean that you know us from some kind of story?"
“Cool, huh?” Kenny then read.
“Cool, huh?” the woman told him.
“I don’t get it,” Becker said. “How can everything we say or do be on that computer?”
“Well, it seems that in this Universe, we exist as a fictional story,” Kenny told his companion.
“That’s stupid. I don’t believe it,” Becker responded.
“Okay, think of a number,” Kenny said.
Becker thought of the number seven.
Kenny looked at the screen. “Seven,” he read.
“Lucky guess,” Becker responded, grasping at straws.
“I can’t believe I’m in a story!” the woman said, working her way back into the scene. “I am such a big fan of you guys, you know that?” She looked at Kenny. “You are so cute!” she beamed.
The door opened and another woman walked in. “Hey, why is there a funny looking Edsel with Robotech symbols on it parked outside?” she asked. “Hey, who are these guys?”
“Oh, it’s okay, Mac,” the first woman said. She looked at her computer and scrolled down a bit. “They won’t be staying much longer.”
Becker suddenly lunged at the computer. “Hey, this thing can tell us the future! It’ll tell us what happens to us!”
“No!” Kenny exclaimed. “It’s too dangerous!”
Becker looked at the computer and read from it. “Suddenly, Becker burst into flames, running about like an ankle-biter on a sugar overdose. ‘Help me!’ he exclaimed. ‘I don’t want to die until I’ve told Justy how much I love him!’”
Becker stooped reading and swallowed hard. “That’s impossible!” he exclaimed. “I don’t love Justy!” Apparently, he wasn’t as alarmed about the spontaneous combustion bit.
Kenny looked at Becker with concern. “I told you it is dangerous to look at your own future, Mr. Becker,” he told him. “It seems that whoever writes our adventures agrees.” He pointed at the monitor.
Nervous, Becker looked at what was written there. As he read it, he breathed a sigh of relief. “At least, that might have happened… except that previous bit of narration was only intended as a warning for Becker not to look at things he shouldn’t.”
Kenny looked at Becker. “You see?”
“So… so I don’t love Justy?”
“Nor are you going to spontaneously combust,” Kenny told him. “It was all a warning.”
“So what does this all mean? We’re fictional characters?” Becker asked.
“Hey, I don’t think so,” the woman said. “You’re real to me. I follow your adventures with the utmost interest.”
“Still,” Becker said, “someone writes us… We’re just pawns of whoever this person is! It feels so... odd..."
“Who’s to say that my Universe doesn’t exist as a fiction in yet another?” the woman pointed out to Becker. “For all I know, I could be a fictional character somewhere. In fact, I’m appearing in one of your stories right now, aren’t I? I don’t feel any less significant because of it…” The woman smiled, suddenly getting a feeling of butterflies in her stomach. “In fact, I don’t think he’d have given me this cameo if he didn’t…” She blushed slightly.
“So you see, Mr. Becker,” Kenny said, taking over, “because our author cares enough to write about our exploits, that actually might make us amongst the most important people in our world.”
Becker smiled. “Most important people in the world?” Suddenly, he burst into flames, running around like an ankle-biter on a sugar overdose. “Help me!” he exclaimed. “I don’t want to die until I’ve told Justy how much I love him!”
The next moment he was standing there perfectly intact, not even a little bit singed, the only sign of distress being a look of panic on his face. Kenny, the woman, and her roommate all looked at him in surprise.
“I do not love Justy!” Becker insisted.
“That was most interesting,” Kenny stated. He pulled out some kind of device and started using it to examine Becker.
“I think,” the woman said, “that may have been a warning from your author not to let all of this go to your head,” she said.
Becker smiled weakly.
“So what brings you here?” the woman asked. “Trying to track down Justy and Proctor?”
“What do Justy and Proctor have to do with anything?” Becker asked.
“Oops, sorry,” the woman responded. “I just gave something away, didn’t I? Well, since the cat’s out of the bag, as it were, I may as well tell you the rest. Snarfinkle has employed Justy and Proctor to do his dirty work for him. They’re the ones travelling around in Snarfinkle’s Pinto.”
“And what are they up to?” Becker asked.
“I don’t know if I should tell you that,” the woman responded. “Don’t want to give everything away, do I?”
“Unless,” Kenny pondered, “this is some kind of variation on predestination paradoxes, and we were meant to come here and meet you, so that you could be a source of information to us.”
“Hmm… interesting poing,” the woman responded, deliberately mispronouncing the word out of habit from a private joke she shared with someone. This was lost on Kenny and Becker, however. She continued. “Okay, Snarfinkle feels that the best way to utterly destroy you would be to gain control of the world.” She shrugged. “Evil geniuses… go figure! Anyway, in order to do so, he has sent Justy and Proctor off in his time/space/dimension machine in order to collect an army.”
Kenny gasped. “That’s… that’s… inconceivable!”
Becker gasped. “We must stop him!”
Kenny turned to the woman. “You haven’t seen them, have you?”
The woman shook her head,
Her roommate broke in, saying, “I saw a Pinto a few days ago. There was a couple of funny looking kids in Boy Scout uniforms inside. I haven’t seen them since, however.”
“Well,” Kenny said, “we must be going now. Come, Mr. Becker.”
Becker snapped to attention, spun around, and followed Kenny out of the door. The woman glanced at her roommate and smiled. Then she turned back to her computer. Being on AOL she had access to its Instant Messenger, and she had been using it as she read the story to converse with someone. She quickly typed in a message and sent it off.
EloraVenus: ::smiles:: Matt-chan, you’ll never believe what just happened!
The response was quick in coming, almost as if the person she was conversing with had had it ready to go, and had just been waiting to hit the send button.
Yotsuyasan: ::laughs:: I think I have a good idea, Nickie-chan!
The two of them got back into the car and Kenny picked up the scanner, which he had left running while they had gone inside. “Excellent!” Kenny said. “I have a fix on their position.”
“Where are they?”
“Seems they jumped again only an hour or so after they arrived here… I have the coordinates of their next destination… Imputing now…”
“Well, I’m ready whenever you are,” Becker told Kenny.
“Excellent,” Kenny said once again. “Let us be off, then!”
The Edsel exited the vortex and both Kenny and Becker suddenly felt a slight feeling of nausea. They soon realized why. The Edsel was floating in deep space.
Becker screamed.
“Calm down, she’s air tight,” Kenny assured Becker. “Put her in F mode, she can operate in space as well as within an atmosphere.”
“Where are we?” Becker asked, pulling the lever.
“Somewhere in deep space.”
Becker pointed to something barely visible in the distance. “What’s that?” he asked as he steered towards it and accelerated.
Kenny squinted and pushed up his glasses. “Hmm… looks like the U.S.S. Enterprise, I think.”
“Hey, yeah!” Becker said as they grew closer. He leaned forward. “You know, if it is the Enterprise, there’s something a bit odd about it.” “You
mean the way that one of the warp nacelle pylons is bent at a crooked angle,
like it was broken?” Kenny asked.
“Yes.”
“I thought that was odd, too,” Kenny admitted.
Becker had a sudden thought. “Hey, that could mean… Hey! I think we’re in a story Matt used to write!” Becker said. “He gave up on it when he started writing that story that was a cross between Boy Scouts and that anime series…” Becker paused briefly. “Hey! That means that that is the Doorprise!”
“Will it really work?” Becker asked.
“It has to,” Kenny replied. “We’ve no time to fiddle around with test runs first.”
The computer’s voice suddenly called out. “There is a visitor at the front door,” it said.
“Visual on main screen,” Kenny replied, hastily getting to his feet and walking towards the monitor.
The computer complied, and an image filled the main screen. Kenny gasped slightly when he saw who it was. He turned to Becker.
“Wait here,” he said.
Becker nodded.
Kenny had ridden his lift up to his room, hastily neatened himself, and changed into fresh clothes as quickly as he could, and then went to answer the doorbell, which was ringing once again.
He opened the door.
“Oh, hello,” Kirstin said. “I hope I’m not disturbing you. I had almost given up hope that you were here.”
“Please,” Kenny said quietly, “come in.”
“Thank you,” she responded, crossing the threshold.
“Can I… can I get you anything? A cup of tea?”
“No, thank you,” Kirstin responded.
“Was there something… um…” Kenny looked up briefly. “Was there something I could do for you?”
Kirstin took a seat, a somber look upon her face. “I was worried when you weren’t at the meeting this week,” she said.
“Oh?”
“Yes… and there’s someone else missing, too… I’m… I don’t know what to do.”
Kenny opened his mouth slightly, and then paused as if gathering courage. “Miss Kirstin? It’s my fault…”
“What is?”
“Miss Nicole. It’s my fault she’s missing.”
Kirstin looked stunned. “How…?”
“There’s… there’s a boy out there, a misguided boy of a similar intellect to my own. He for some reason sees me as his archrival. My… my pride let him infiltrate my Laboratory, and when he was there, he sabotaged some of my equipment… the Stargate… When I next activated it, it went haywire, and absorbed two people who were passing by outside my house… Miss Nicole and her friend Mr. Bertovich.”
Kenny looked up again briefly and met Kirstin’s gaze. “I’m… I’m sorry I failed you,” he told her.
Kirstin did the last thing Kenny suspected. She smiled at him. “Oh, Kenny, it’s not your fault. It’s that other boy’s fault.”
Kenny smiled slightly.
“So… do you know where they are?”
“I’m afraid I don’t… but I do know that wherever they are they got there safe.”
Kirstin seemed as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “I’m sure that they’re doing fine. Nicole has always been a survivor.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to, but I will try and find them,” Kenny assured her.
“I know you will. I have faith in you. Poor Sarah, though… she’s going to keep worrying. She thinks that Nicole and Jason ran off together… or worse! That Jason… well, I dare not repeat it.” She glanced at her digital watch. “Oh my, I’d better get going, actually. Sarah gets home from work soon, and lately she’s been… well…” Kirstin trailed off.
Kenny escorted her to the door.
“Good bye, Kenny,” she said. “I wish you good fortune in your endeavors against this misguided young boy.”
“Good bye, Miss Kirstin,” Kenny responded. “I shall try to live up to your faith in me.”
Kirstin smiled once more. “I know you will,” she said as she closed the door behind her.
Kenny rushed back into the Laboratory, walking past the skeletal remains of the Macross Valkyrie, past the disassembled carcass of the Stargate, and right up to the covered Edsel. “Mr. Becker!” he called out.
Becker popped up from the opposite side of the Edsel. “Yes?”
“Are you ready to go?”
“Whenever you are!” he chirped. (While Kenny had been upstairs, Becker had made use of the Laboratory’s facilities to make himself presentable, as well.)
Kenny walked over to a near by console and pressed a button, raising the sheet from the Edsel.
It seemed larger then it had been before, it’s shape subtly altered here and there. In the skin of the car were what appeared to be seams, the purposes of which were not immediately apparent. On the back of the car were two protrusions that looked familiar to Becker but he couldn’t quite place them. Also, the car’s colour had also been changed. It was now white with black and yellow trimming. On each of the front doors, an emblem had been painted. It was a red circle, and within the circle was a silver-gray kite shape, the edges of the kite curved inwards.
“Wow,” Becker said.
“Ready, Mr. Becker?” Kenny asked once again, opening the driver’s side door and motioning for Becker to enter.
“I’m driving?” Becker asked.
Kenny nodded. “I don’t know how,” he reminded his assistant.
“But you’ve made so many modifications…” Becker insisted.
“Don’t worry,” Kenny insisted. “I shall be right with you in the passenger side seat.”
“Um, okay,” Becker said, getting in. Kenny went around and sat in shotgun.
“So, um…” Becker said as the two of them buckled up, “now what?”
Kenny pressed a button on the dash causing a large door to open up on one wall, a different door then the one Becker had previously driven through. “Where does that lead?” Becker asked.
“Outside,” Kenny responded.
“Okay,” Becker said. “Here we go!”
The tunnel rose at a sharp incline and extended for about two kilometers before finely ending in a portal that was disguised as an abandoned mine. A small dirt road extended from this, and that continued on for another kilometer before it reached a paved road.
It was a simple, unmarked, two lane, flat stretch of pavement that continued in either direction for quite a ways. Other then an occasional large, old looking house or an even more occasional side road branching off, there was little to be seen.
“Where are we?” Becker asked.
“Somewhere between Springfield and Amherst,” Kenny responded.
“Now what? Activate the travel circuits and hit forty-two mph?”
“Not quite,” Kenny responded. “Let’s try something else, first. Start down the road and pick up speed as much as you can. When you’re at about sixty, pull the lever marked ‘F’.”
Kenny pointed to a section of the dash on which there were four small levers. They were marked, from left to right, “C”, “F”, “G”, and “B”. The one marked “C” was currently down.
“What’s that do?” Becker asked.
Kenny smiled quietly to himself.
Becker shrugged. “Okay, here goes.”
Becker turned onto the road and began to accelerate. Kenny peeked over at the speedometer with utmost interest. Rather swiftly they reached sixty miles per hour, and Kenny’s smile broadened as Becker pulled down the lever marked “F”.
Becker heard strange noises coming from the car, and felt strange vibrations. He looked out his side window and was alarmed to see what looked suspiciously like a wing was swiftly extending out from under the car. It was white in color with a black stripe running down the center of it from the tip to where it met the car, the stripe broken only in the middle of the wing by the number, “001”. He looked out Kenny’s window and saw a similar wing, but instead of the number it had the same symbol that was painted on the doors. Looking in the rear-view mirror, he noted that two vertical stabilizers had risen from the trunk. He also noted that while they were white on the inner sides, on the outer sides they were black and had a white “Jolly Roger” emblem on them. He also also noted that the protrusions he had noticed on the back earlier were providing massive amounts of thrust.
He noted this all rather quickly. He had to, as the next thing he noted, with some alarm, was that they were airborne.
“By Sol'Kanar's Horns!” Becker exclaimed.
Kenny did a rare thing for him, which was that he looked confused. “What?” he asked.
Becker was too busy to answer at first, still alarmed at suddenly finding himself operating an aircraft.
Becker decided to use a more common expletive. “Holy shit!”
“Calm down, Mr. Becker,” Kenny said. “You’ll find that it operates much the same as a car, except that pulling out on the steering wheel will cause you to climb, and pushing in on it will cause you do descend.”
Becker took a deep breath. Then another. Finely he said, “Holy sh… um… am I flying?”
Kenny nodded.
“Cool,” Becker said.
“Now, when I activate the trans-dimensional-temporal circuits, accelerating to 342 miles per hour will activate the travel threshold.”
Becker balked. “342 miles per hour!?”
“Calm down, it’s only a little past Mach 1.”
“We’re breaking the sound barrier??”
“Just a bit,” Kenny insisted. “It’s necessary for proper formation of the threshold while in flight.”
Becker began to mumble incoherently.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Becker,” Kenny said. “When in driving mode, it’s still only forty-two.”
Becker finely managed to regain control of himself. “Um… okay. So, do you know where we’re going?”
“I think so,” Kenny said. “I managed to get a slight trace from when Snarfinkle’s machine travelled, but it may not be reliable.” Kenny plugged a small piece of equipment into a socket on his side of the dash and began making computations.
Becker, meanwhile, seemed to be gaining more confidence at the wheel. He was even smiling slightly.
“Okay, I’m ready, Mr. Becker. Activating the travel circuits… now…”
Becker pressed his foot down hard on the right pedal, and the Edsel began to rapidly accelerate. As they approached 300 mph, and passed it, the car went through heavy turbulence, buffeting back and fourth and generally making it’s occupants feel much like James Bond’s vodka martinis – shaken, not stirred.
Finely, with a sudden surge, their passage became much smoother. Kenny glanced at the speedometer. “Mach one,” he quietly announced.
Shortly there after, a vortex opened in the sky before them and they shot through it.
“Where are we?” Becker asked as he drove slowly by a large brick building with four floors and a bell tower rising from the center.
“Well,” Kenny said, “that looks like Agnes Scott Hall, constructed in 1891, the main hall of Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia.”
“Is there anything you don’t know?” Becker asked.
“Of course there is,” Kenny responded. “What would be the point of continued existence if there were no new things to learn?”
“So where to from here?”
Kenny consulted his instruments. “Hmm… since it’s been a while since the Snarfinkle machine made its trip, my scanners are having a hard time getting a fix on their location. Perhaps while we wait, we should ask around a bit?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Good. Pull up to that residence hall, Mr. Becker.”
Becker did so, and they got out of the car.
“Um… is it okay to just go in there?” Becker asked.
“What do you mean?” Kenny asked.
“Well, what if this is a girls’ dorm?” Becker responded.
“Well, as this is a women’s college, it probably is a women’s dorm,” Kenny responded, walking up the steps and entering the building.
“Oh, that makes sense,” Becker said, following.
The woman sat in her dorm room, at her computer, reading a story. Right after she read the words, “The woman heard a noise, looked up from the story she was reading, and turned to see what it was,” she heard a noise. She blinked in mild surprise, turned, and looked up to see what it was.
“Oh my God!” she exclaimed suddenly. “It’s Kenny and Becker!” She got up from her chair and rushed over to them. “How did this happen? This is so cool!”
“Um, excuse me,” Kenny said, “how do you know who we are?”
“Hey, Becker,” the woman said. “Where’s your headphones? You don’t look right without them!”
“What?” Becker asked, confused.
“Hey, wait a minute,” she continued, “if you’re here, then I must be in the story!” She cheered as she rushed back over to the computer. On the screen, she saw the words, “She cheered as she rushed back over to the computer.”
“Story?” Becker asked. “What?”
“Hold on a moment, miss,” Kenny said. “Do you mean that you know us from some kind of story?"
She motioned them over to have a look. Kenny looked at the screen and read aloud from it. “Do you mean that you know us from some kind of story?"
“Cool, huh?” Kenny then read.
“Cool, huh?” the woman told him.
“I don’t get it,” Becker said. “How can everything we say or do be on that computer?”
“Well, it seems that in this Universe, we exist as a fictional story,” Kenny told his companion.
“That’s stupid. I don’t believe it,” Becker responded.
“Okay, think of a number,” Kenny said.
Becker thought of the number seven.
Kenny looked at the screen. “Seven,” he read.
“Lucky guess,” Becker responded, grasping at straws.
“I can’t believe I’m in a story!” the woman said, working her way back into the scene. “I am such a big fan of you guys, you know that?” She looked at Kenny. “You are so cute!” she beamed.
The door opened and another woman walked in. “Hey, why is there a funny looking Edsel with Robotech symbols on it parked outside?” she asked. “Hey, who are these guys?”
“Oh, it’s okay, Mac,” the first woman said. She looked at her computer and scrolled down a bit. “They won’t be staying much longer.”
Becker suddenly lunged at the computer. “Hey, this thing can tell us the future! It’ll tell us what happens to us!”
“No!” Kenny exclaimed. “It’s too dangerous!”
Becker looked at the computer and read from it. “Suddenly, Becker burst into flames, running about like an ankle-biter on a sugar overdose. ‘Help me!’ he exclaimed. ‘I don’t want to die until I’ve told Justy how much I love him!’”
Becker stooped reading and swallowed hard. “That’s impossible!” he exclaimed. “I don’t love Justy!” Apparently, he wasn’t as alarmed about the spontaneous combustion bit.
Kenny looked at Becker with concern. “I told you it is dangerous to look at your own future, Mr. Becker,” he told him. “It seems that whoever writes our adventures agrees.” He pointed at the monitor.
Nervous, Becker looked at what was written there. As he read it, he breathed a sigh of relief. “At least, that might have happened… except that previous bit of narration was only intended as a warning for Becker not to look at things he shouldn’t.”
Kenny looked at Becker. “You see?”
“So… so I don’t love Justy?”
“Nor are you going to spontaneously combust,” Kenny told him. “It was all a warning.”
“So what does this all mean? We’re fictional characters?” Becker asked.
“Hey, I don’t think so,” the woman said. “You’re real to me. I follow your adventures with the utmost interest.”
“Still,” Becker said, “someone writes us… We’re just pawns of whoever this person is! It feels so... odd..."
“Who’s to say that my Universe doesn’t exist as a fiction in yet another?” the woman pointed out to Becker. “For all I know, I could be a fictional character somewhere. In fact, I’m appearing in one of your stories right now, aren’t I? I don’t feel any less significant because of it…” The woman smiled, suddenly getting a feeling of butterflies in her stomach. “In fact, I don’t think he’d have given me this cameo if he didn’t…” She blushed slightly.
“So you see, Mr. Becker,” Kenny said, taking over, “because our author cares enough to write about our exploits, that actually might make us amongst the most important people in our world.”
Becker smiled. “Most important people in the world?” Suddenly, he burst into flames, running around like an ankle-biter on a sugar overdose. “Help me!” he exclaimed. “I don’t want to die until I’ve told Justy how much I love him!”
The next moment he was standing there perfectly intact, not even a little bit singed, the only sign of distress being a look of panic on his face. Kenny, the woman, and her roommate all looked at him in surprise.
“I do not love Justy!” Becker insisted.
“That was most interesting,” Kenny stated. He pulled out some kind of device and started using it to examine Becker.
“I think,” the woman said, “that may have been a warning from your author not to let all of this go to your head,” she said.
Becker smiled weakly.
“So what brings you here?” the woman asked. “Trying to track down Justy and Proctor?”
“What do Justy and Proctor have to do with anything?” Becker asked.
“Oops, sorry,” the woman responded. “I just gave something away, didn’t I? Well, since the cat’s out of the bag, as it were, I may as well tell you the rest. Snarfinkle has employed Justy and Proctor to do his dirty work for him. They’re the ones travelling around in Snarfinkle’s Pinto.”
“And what are they up to?” Becker asked.
“I don’t know if I should tell you that,” the woman responded. “Don’t want to give everything away, do I?”
“Unless,” Kenny pondered, “this is some kind of variation on predestination paradoxes, and we were meant to come here and meet you, so that you could be a source of information to us.”
“Hmm… interesting poing,” the woman responded, deliberately mispronouncing the word out of habit from a private joke she shared with someone. This was lost on Kenny and Becker, however. She continued. “Okay, Snarfinkle feels that the best way to utterly destroy you would be to gain control of the world.” She shrugged. “Evil geniuses… go figure! Anyway, in order to do so, he has sent Justy and Proctor off in his time/space/dimension machine in order to collect an army.”
Kenny gasped. “That’s… that’s… inconceivable!”
Becker gasped. “We must stop him!”
Kenny turned to the woman. “You haven’t seen them, have you?”
The woman shook her head,
Her roommate broke in, saying, “I saw a Pinto a few days ago. There was a couple of funny looking kids in Boy Scout uniforms inside. I haven’t seen them since, however.”
“Well,” Kenny said, “we must be going now. Come, Mr. Becker.”
Becker snapped to attention, spun around, and followed Kenny out of the door. The woman glanced at her roommate and smiled. Then she turned back to her computer. Being on AOL she had access to its Instant Messenger, and she had been using it as she read the story to converse with someone. She quickly typed in a message and sent it off.
EloraVenus: ::smiles:: Matt-chan, you’ll never believe what just happened!
The response was quick in coming, almost as if the person she was conversing with had had it ready to go, and had just been waiting to hit the send button.
Yotsuyasan: ::laughs:: I think I have a good idea, Nickie-chan!
The two of them got back into the car and Kenny picked up the scanner, which he had left running while they had gone inside. “Excellent!” Kenny said. “I have a fix on their position.”
“Where are they?”
“Seems they jumped again only an hour or so after they arrived here… I have the coordinates of their next destination… Imputing now…”
“Well, I’m ready whenever you are,” Becker told Kenny.
“Excellent,” Kenny said once again. “Let us be off, then!”
The Edsel exited the vortex and both Kenny and Becker suddenly felt a slight feeling of nausea. They soon realized why. The Edsel was floating in deep space.
Becker screamed.
“Calm down, she’s air tight,” Kenny assured Becker. “Put her in F mode, she can operate in space as well as within an atmosphere.”
“Where are we?” Becker asked, pulling the lever.
“Somewhere in deep space.”
Becker pointed to something barely visible in the distance. “What’s that?” he asked as he steered towards it and accelerated.
Kenny squinted and pushed up his glasses. “Hmm… looks like the U.S.S. Enterprise, I think.”
“Hey, yeah!” Becker said as they grew closer. He leaned forward. “You know, if it is the Enterprise, there’s something a bit odd about it.” “You
mean the way that one of the warp nacelle pylons is bent at a crooked angle,
like it was broken?” Kenny asked.
“Yes.”
“I thought that was odd, too,” Kenny admitted.
Becker had a sudden thought. “Hey, that could mean… Hey! I think we’re in a story Matt used to write!” Becker said. “He gave up on it when he started writing that story that was a cross between Boy Scouts and that anime series…” Becker paused briefly. “Hey! That means that that is the Doorprise!”
...to be continued
Disclaimer & Notes:
Hi, everybody!
Well, I hope everyone doesn’t think that the cameo I gave Nickie-chan was too gratuitous of me… I had written it a while ago, actually, before I had even begun work on the third Kenny’s Laboratory story, and I had just been waiting for a chance to fit it in. (Well, I had written most of it ahead of time. The bits where they discuss Justy and Proctor were freshly added when I decided that this story would be a good place to include the scene.) The idea of Kenny and Becker seeing one of their own stories was inspired by the “Now” scene in Spaceballs.
Bits here and there are inspired by such sources as Stargate, Back to the Future, Sliders, and Doctor Who.
As I’m sure you can guess, the next story in the series will involve characters and situations from an earlier series I wrote. While this series used to be available online, it was removed when I made the decision to change to a Boy Scouts ½ only website. Don’t worry, I shall make every effort to make the story readable to someone who has no knowledge of my previous works.
As for the series that the fictional Matt is mentioned as writing… “that story that was a cross between Boy Scouts and that anime series…” This is not Boy Scouts ½.
Ranma ½ doesn’t exist within the Boy Scouts ½ universe. (Or rather, it does not exist as a fiction but instead as real life events.) However, it is not unreasonable to assume that fictional Matt would begin writing a series of stories combining Boy Scouts with some anime series. After all, real life Matt did. If he (or rather, I) hadn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this right now. As for what anime series fictional Matt may have used… well, I’ll leave that to the mists of ambiguity for now. I may develop the idea further later, I may not. Just rest assured, it is not a hentai (adult) series!
Well, that’s all for now! Hope you enjoyed! See you next story!
Well, I hope everyone doesn’t think that the cameo I gave Nickie-chan was too gratuitous of me… I had written it a while ago, actually, before I had even begun work on the third Kenny’s Laboratory story, and I had just been waiting for a chance to fit it in. (Well, I had written most of it ahead of time. The bits where they discuss Justy and Proctor were freshly added when I decided that this story would be a good place to include the scene.) The idea of Kenny and Becker seeing one of their own stories was inspired by the “Now” scene in Spaceballs.
Bits here and there are inspired by such sources as Stargate, Back to the Future, Sliders, and Doctor Who.
As I’m sure you can guess, the next story in the series will involve characters and situations from an earlier series I wrote. While this series used to be available online, it was removed when I made the decision to change to a Boy Scouts ½ only website. Don’t worry, I shall make every effort to make the story readable to someone who has no knowledge of my previous works.
As for the series that the fictional Matt is mentioned as writing… “that story that was a cross between Boy Scouts and that anime series…” This is not Boy Scouts ½.
Ranma ½ doesn’t exist within the Boy Scouts ½ universe. (Or rather, it does not exist as a fiction but instead as real life events.) However, it is not unreasonable to assume that fictional Matt would begin writing a series of stories combining Boy Scouts with some anime series. After all, real life Matt did. If he (or rather, I) hadn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this right now. As for what anime series fictional Matt may have used… well, I’ll leave that to the mists of ambiguity for now. I may develop the idea further later, I may not. Just rest assured, it is not a hentai (adult) series!
Well, that’s all for now! Hope you enjoyed! See you next story!