Contemptable Wrest - (Ch. 12) Part 1: A Foggy Hundred-Yard Field Goal into the Cradle of Life

I obliged him. With gentle flares every couple of feet guiding his steps from above, we found the bag in no time, half-under a flipped box. He had to stuff a few items back in that had spilled during the chaos.

“Alright,” I said. “So we’ve got all the gear we wanted--and no way out.”

“Appears that way doesn’t it?” Gutterson sighed. “But then, why did I start hearing that racket after we fired the Magne- Mag thing?”

“Coincidence?” I supposed. “Or after a skull-splitting barrage of noise followed by dead silence, could it be a ringing in your ears?”

He countered, “Even a ringing in your ears mustn't be without purpose. And besides, I’m still listening to it. Can you hear it?”

I strainedmy ear. At first there was nothing, and then I picked up a minor fizzling sound. “Does it sound like the crackling of a soft campfire?”

There was a pause. “I’d say more like the sizzle of embers cooling as the first sprinkles of rain drop on them, but yes, something like a campfire.” I could hear his grin. “It’s nice to know that I’m not hallucinating.”

I formulated, “I guess the better question is: where is it coming from?”

“It would be hard to tell in this big of an area.” he reasoned.

“Well,” I started. “before we get our hopes high, let’s make sure it isn’t coming from an over-heated son-of-a-lug-nut.”

He didn’t disagree. “It’s a place to start.”

Dabbling with the flames every now and then to light the way, we began to backtrack a little. Every spurt caused our two looming shadows to dance wildly. It was also spooky how Gutterson’s bootsteps echoed my clinks with tholtches.

While I was focused on the echo effect, Malibu was paying attention to the more important sound. “It’s growing louder. Maybe it is the dumb machine after all.” he said with a certain hush.

He was right. But not just louder, stronger, more tenacious.

“Hey, if it is the Magneto thing, do you think it will go up in a blazing ball?” I asked with concern. And the more I thought about it, the more possible it seemed. “Maybe it has a one-time use, and then it self-destructs.”

After all, it was a decent-sized machine. It would make for a spectacular fireball--that is, if we weren’t there to become black smudges in its wake. There wouldn’t be much of a place to hide if that event were to play out. The force of the blast would probably topple the huge racks and squish us like a bug if we chose to take shelter behind them, and up here, the catwalk would probably be shredded as easily as taking scissors to a ribbon.

“What do we have left to lose anyway?” suggested Malibu. “An explosion will be a quick fix to our dilemma if we can’t get this train wreck back on the tracks. There's no sense in not being the aggressor. Let's walk right up to it.”

True. There was the fact that we couldn’t back down, and there was nowhere to turn; we had to be unflinching and sail onward amidst the blinding hurricane to spot a dot of light hoodwinked by the rain-curtain. And following that Vision a few moments ago, I had a strong feeling (because of the voice basically urging me not to surrender) that some other force was trying to weigh us down, pull the wool over our eyes, show us a part of the picture that appealed to our most pressing desires and sensitive senses, all to steer us into a defeatist frame of mind. And by us, I was speaking about more than Gut, myself, the rest of our troops, possibly even all the town residents; this entire day was beginning to feel linked--But I wouldn’t be willing to bet on that. It was only a feeling.

An unshakable feeling.

I felt a chilling rush of confidence and said, “I’m with you. Time for an attitude adjustment.”

The Magneliohasetrop was sitting where we left it. Except it wasn’t. It was significantly scooted back from where Malibu had set it up. Inexplicably, for it didn’t have wheels or anything to assist for easy locomotion. It would’ve had to scrape along the ground. And scarier yet, we should’ve heard the grind if it moved.

Malibu circled it warily. “You see what I see?”

I pumped the fumes to illuminate the area. “Before you did too. But I was thinking, or maybe just wishing, that in this utter darkness we may have easily miscalculated. We’re probably overreacting.”

“No.” he stood firm. “This has definitely moved.”

I shot off some more flames. “You think there's something in here with us? Well, I’ll make toast of them.”

“I’m not going to say that, as of yet.”

“How else would it have moved?”

Instead of his theory as to how it might’ve moved, I heard a boisterous grunt, nearly a full-blown yell from below. It was Gutterson, and it sounded like he was in pain. I leaned, rather hastily and hazardously over the railing, and dispensed fire to assess what was happening. And my worst nightmare was affirmed. He was missing.

I was hesitant to call out. What if he was in danger? If I spoke out it would blow my cover. Any danger of his would be drawn my way. But at this point, there was no turning back, and I couldn’t stand being alone and not knowing. You are the aggressor. Go for it...Choose a fire?…Ha! It’s starting to make sense! Or maybe I’m connecting things that have no relation whatsoever.

“Gut, Gut! Are you okay?”

There was movement, a scuffling. A struggle? I wasn’t sure how to reach him, I’d never had to do this kind of thing, so I wasn’t yet equipped, inexperienced in this field--that seems to be a trend, always getting thrust into new territory. Trying new things however, was terrifying, and something I usually evaded. It was a passion, come to think of it. A passion I wasn’t proud of. But my neck knew that in this instance it was going to get stuck out.

I could feel a wave of tremors pass through me. “Speak or make some kind of noise, otherwise I’m assuming you have an attacker.”

“Ohhhhhh…” rose weakly into the air.

With the groan, my gut rose from where it had dropped. “If you’re alone...then what? Did you trip?”

“Some…” he was trying to suck in air and respond with haste to quell my jitters. “Invisible...flow.”

He wasn’t able to draw in enough breaths to go on speaking so I urged, “Take your time, breathe easy, it sounds like you’re okay just a little winded.”

It must have been special. He seemed to want his money’s worth, because he was still gushing. “Hit me...in chest...I was walking…”

He was a bit discombobulated. “Slow down.” I said. “Take me back over the steps leading up to the event.”

After some seconds of listening to his breaths become less ragged, he piped, “Extraordinary. It was like a sledgehammer to the ribs. I didn’t see anything, no shadowy figures. Just, Bam!”

“I gathered that,” I drawled. “But where were you? Were you next to something besides the mechanism?”

He testified, “That’s the only thing I was near--unless something came near me.” I was comforted by the restoration of his footsteps. “I was observing it, from what I fallaciously took to be a safe distance. This thing’s giving off a mighty big charge.”

No better thing to do than shed light on the mystery. When I did, it revealed that the Mag had moved back even more since he had been knocked down. More riveting, were the creases in the air, rolling like mid-summer heat waves in front of it. There were two shimmering lines that had a little curvature to them, heading out from the inflatable tubes like bowlegs, disappearing into additional blackness out of the range my oversize torch could illumine. The tubes were stiff like antennas receiving transmission.

I marveled, “How are those waves being made?”

“What waves?” said a lost Malibu.

“They’re plain as day,” I tried to point out to him with another rush of fire. “Right there, streaming from around the machine’s nozzle.”

The machine gave a spontaneous shudder and started to emit an incessant high-pitched whine.

“I still don’t see it!” he boomed. It had become a shouting match once again. “But I would say that the soft sound earlier was probably being generated by this. And I also see something you apparently aren’t able to!”

I bellowed, “And I would dare-say you got blown backwards when you walked into the path of those waves; they look pretty energetic. Now: what is there that I can’t see!”

He notified me, “The hunk of junk is hovering!”

And as his words reached me over the clamor, a fuzzy white light boiled up around the circumference of the floating jet-turbine thing, issuing enough visibility with its granite glow to bring about half the room into view. The bowlegs were gone, and would have been dim beside this newcomer. This light was like a taut lasso that looped around the Mag. But what was attached to the other end? An angelic cowboy?

“Is it magic?” I proposed.

Malibu rubbed at his chin. “I don’t think so.” He inclined his head at the frothy beacon that seemed to defy the laws of physics. Then a grin curled across his face. “It looks like it just took an unexpectedly long amount of time to carry out its saving operation!”

I locked onto the bulwark of machinery. It was now progressing backwards at a detectable pace. “Look at it go!” I celebrated, and discovered something else. “Hey, I never noticed it had a seat built into the centerpiece! Were we supposed to ride it?”

“Unfortunate.” he stated. “I never did stumble upon a manual!”

There was a “Crrr-ackk!" and undulations could be seen traveling down the formerly straight beam of light. It was as if two people were flailing around a jump rope. When the forces rammed into the machine, everything erupted, white as wool. My flimsy bridge rocked under the force and I staggered back.

When I looked up, I was treated to a Winter Wonderland, that is to say, it was like a crisp, winter sun glinting off of snow and ice into my eyes. The luminous beam had split into two, and they were twisting about in a frenzy equatable to that of a fisherman endeavoring to reel in the unseen fish of the century.

“Look!” screamed Gutterson, pasted to the floor by immense energy.

I followed his pointing finger to the far side of the building. Two blue dots were twisting on the wall’s 2D surface in accord with the thrashing rays of light. All kinds of sputtering sparks were jumping into the air around the catch of the day; being pulled into view on the line’s end was the thought-to-be-a-goner Spinal Tap. Or more correctly, held and stretched back open. The magnet had not blundered. It had come through with flying colors (literally).

I gave a raw battle cry of victory, “Yeeeehaw!”

“Don’t dance yet, MOVE!” Gutterson forecast, “The portal may not last! And how do you suppose we pass through with that magnetic field stuffed right in the middle of its belly? Don't forget that we have to enter simultaneously too!”

Man, we were going to have to be artistic. I analyzed our position in the environment. We were still apart; I was up, he down. The portal was more than halfway across the room, a good football field away.

And somehow we had to kick ourselves through the uprights.