Chaosium
Episode 10 ~ Part 2
Ash was looking around. He seemed part hopeful, part expectant. Theo grinned. "What're you hoping to see?" Ash chuckled. "Would you believe - a blue police call box." Theo gave him a mystified look. "What?" "Well, while you lot were gallivanting around the universe a few weeks ago, I went to a geeks' convention." "And?" "And at the 'Fayre' there, I managed to lay my hands on a full set of DVDs of this historic British T.V. series called 'Doctor Who?'" Ash said with a slightly manic gleam in his eye. "As good as MacGyver?" "Different. The Doctor is a Time Lord and the police box is his time machine. It's tiny on the outside, but huge inside. Every so often, the Doctor regenerates so he can be played by a number of different actors. My favorites are the tenth Doctor, played by David Tennant and the last Doctor, played by Michael Shanks." "So what would a Time Lord be doing in a quarry?" "Well, a lot of his adventures seem to start in this quarry in Wales." "When you two lovebirds have finished with the sweet talking, perhaps we could get on with our mission?" J said, driving his PATT on to the gravelly road. He grinned at the indignant looks he got from the pair. "Actually," Ash said loftily, "we were talking about The Doctor." "The Doctor?" J asked, puzzled. "Doctor who?" "Yes, that would be the one," Theo said, then the pair cracked out laughing, their earlier animosity forgotten. J gave up trying to follow their cryptic ramblings and led the way along the gravelly road that led up to the quarry's entrance. The team paused at the entrance and checked around for signs of life, but there was nothing obviously threatening. Except for the clouds. It was still officially daylight, but very dark. Luc wanted to know if Dwimmerlings were active during the day, or at night. Ash checked with Sam's little computer. "She says that when someone asks that question, to tell him it's Dwimmerlings we're dealing with, not vampires!"
"We'd better get a move on then, before someone does spot us then. Assuming they haven't already," J said, setting off down the road towards the castle. The rest followed in single file, keeping Ash in the middle of the line. When they reached the position, shown by Sam's computer map as the approximate site of the doorway, the team hid the PATTs under the abundant shrubbery. It took a while before they spotted the door. It clearly wasn't used overmuch, for the wood was rotten in places. On the plus side, this would make gaining access easier. They soon discovered that it had been used fairly recently though, as when J and Luc forced the door open, there were newish scrapes on the stone threshold. They hadn't made them. Maxine had a really bad feeling about how smoothly the mission had gone so far, but kept it to herself. She thought that maybe the scrapes could have been made by Ileana and her delegation, but didn't find this very reassuring. With the doorway open, they returned to the PATTs to collect their essential gear. "Do you reckon we're going to need all these little crossbows?" Luc asked. "Too heavy for ya?" J asked, hoping the motorized transport hadn't made them all soft regarding carrying their equipment. "No, but they're bulky and so will reduce how much other stuff I can carry." "Well, if Thor gave them to you," J said, "I think they're probably sine qua non for effecting the rescue. If there is a surplus, well - better too much than too little, I think." "Yeah, and Thor did say to guard them well," Luc recalled. "Then it's a bit of a no-brainer, isn't it?" J said sharply. "We take them all, no matter what else gets left behind." Theo had brought TIGER. It wasn't on Jack's list, but then, Jack probably didn't know about it. This seemed like the perfect occasion to try his little intelligence-gathering gadget out in the field. The team, with Theo leading, followed TIGER along a rough hewn stone passage. It had a slight downward incline and seemed to be leading them almost directly into the lower reaches of the castle. There was no sign of life - no guards, no servants. Maxine's paranoia ratchetted up another notch. No way should this mission be this easy. After a while, TIGER came to a T-junction. To the right was a corridor with walls of a deep metallic blue. To the left, the stone passage continued downwards at a steeper angle. That was clearly the way to go. The passage continued straight for a hundred yards or so, then began to curve gently away to the right. Shallow steps suggested that this was the beginning of an immense spiral staircase. Theo decided to carry TIGER. Not long after, the wall to the right - the inside wall - sloped away to nothing. The team realized then that the stairway was spiraling around the inside of an immense cavern. Almost automatically, they kept close to the left-hand wall lest they miss their footing and tumble to the bottom of the cavern. The cavern itself was deeply gloomy, the darkness broken only by sparks of pale blue light that fired randomly then died rapidly away. In the gloom, the cavern seemed to go on for ever, both upward and downward. "Looks like an entrance to hell," Luc said, crossing himself and thinking that maybe he wasn't quite as lapsed as he'd thought. They continued the downward spiral, and noticed that the cavern was becoming gradually lighter. When they reached the opposite side of the cavern from where they'd entered it, they found they were standing on a viewing platform which had a guard railing around it to protect the viewers. The 'view' was astounding. The cavern contained what looked like a mini-universe held inside an almost cavern-sized bubble. Floating in the mini-universe were small stars and several smaller bubbles containing pretty three-dimensional patterns.
"Fractals," Ash commented, fascinated. Maxine grabbed Theo's arm and pointed at a pretty greenish-blue pattern. "Look! It has eyes! And look at the eyes... Grandfather Daniel's eyes!"
His eyes seemed to have a pleading look. As they looked more closely, they realized that all the pretty fractal patterns had eyes too. "Now I understand what we have to do," Ash said, beaming. "This is where your crossbows come in, Luc." He waited until Luc removed one of the crossbows from his backpack. "Now, show me." "What are you going to do?" Luc asked, handing Ash one of the crossbows. "Go fishing?" "Er no. They were given to you because you're likely to be a much better shot than me. So you'll be doing the firing. But first..." Ash pulled the end of the 'fishing line' out of the rear end of the crossbow. It had a minute jackplug on the end. Luc looked baffled. "This isn't fishing line," Ash told him, plugging the TRS connector into the side of the computer. "It's a very fine electric cable, and there's another jackplug at the business end of each crossbow bolt. What you have to do is fire the bolt into the heart of the bubble containing Daniel." "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Theo asked, concerned at the thought of Luc's 'shooting Grandfather Daniel.' "For fuck's sake, Theo! Have a little faith in The Geek for once! I don't have time to give you a lecture on chaos theory right now. The short, very simple, explanation is that the strange attractors have rearranged the plasma forms into these fractals. The fractals - Mandelbrot sets - are simply mathematical equations. Ergo, once the connection is made, all I have to do is download them into this computer. When we've got them all safely stored in here, we leggit and I release them once we're safely back in Gladsheim. Ready, Luc?" "Yep." "Then fire." The bolt hit the bubble dead center, and as soon as the contact was made, Ash loaded the Daniel Equation into the little computer's immense memory. The bubble was now empty save for the wire. "Happier now, Theo?" Ash asked, removing the jackplug from the computer, dropping the used crossbow over the railing, and plugging in another TRS connector. "Yeah, I guess." "Good," Ash smiled, "but bear in mind, we're not home safe yet." Luc and Ash worked their way though the remaining bubbles. Luc only missed one with his first shot and still had a spare crossbow left over. As Ash unplugged the last TRS connector he'd used, he got a faint electric shock, as though from static. He had a feeling the computer wanted to be connected again, though there were no more fractals left. A sentient computer? Surely not. Sam would've said if it were. He decided to roll with it nevertheless. "Could I have the last crossbow please, Luc?" "What for?" "I... I don't know, but indulge me, would you?" "Okay." Luc handed it over. "Now I suggest we get out of here before anyone realizes what we've done. Come on, Ash." "Right behind you," Ash mumbled, plugging in the rear TRS connector. The rest were following Luc, keeping close to the wall that circled the cavern, while Ash fiddled with a plastic tie to confine the carefully folded wire so it wouldn't unravel. Then he dropped the crossbow into the cavern. Unlike its fellows, still attached to their wires in the bubbles, this one clattered its way to the bottom of the cavern. Oops, Ash thought. Hope I haven't just done a Peregrin Took! But there was no response of distant drums. He tucked the computer into his back pocket and set off after his companions. When Ash emerged from the darkest part of the route back, the rest were nowhere in sight. Had he really spent so long tinkering with that crossbow? Or were they just that much fitter and therefore faster than he was? He didn't think there was that much difference in their levels of fitness. As he made haste to catch up, a horrible thought crossed his mind; had the noise from the crossbow he'd dropped alerted the Bad Guys who were now holding them prisoner? Holding Theo prisoner. He would never forgive himself if... But no. They wouldn't give up without a fight and he would've heard that. As he was mulling over all these possibilities and more, he failed to notice that his surroundings had changed. Only when a grating sound broke through his absorption did he realize that the walls were metal not stone. Unfortunately, Ash had arrived too late to hear Jack's warnings about the sliding walls and no one had thought to clue him in. However, he was pretty sure they hadn't come this way en route to the cavern.
Halfway back along the passage to the outside, Theo called a question to Ash. When there was no response, Luc looked around. "Dammit, he was right behind me!" he exclaimed. It was a heart-stopping moment for them all. "Doesn't mean he's in trouble," J said, trying to sound encouraging and failing. "Maybe he's just a bit slower than the rest of us." But they all knew it wasn't true, Theo especially. Faux de mieux, they retraced their steps, following TIGER again in the hope of its giving them a little warning if they were walking into a trap. In any event, Theo wanted to go first. The next gut-wrenching discovery came when TIGER reached the T-junction. Now, there was just a bend to the left and a blue wall to the right... |
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