A Future We'd Like To See 1.30 - Ah, Drama By Twoflower (Copyright 1993) Now, I really should have known that something was fishy when the power cells died. First of all, I had just changed them yesterday. Second of all, they died at the most opportune place... well, opportune depending on your point of view. I wrestled with the controls, landing the hoverskiff on the nearest flat surface under minimal power. I clicked off the inside lights and CD2 player to conserve power. "Eh?" Daria said, confused. "Why the sudden landing?" "Flat battery," I said, tinkering with the power supply controls. "Uh-huh," Daria replied, rolling her eyes and sinking back into her seat. She could get really paranoid at times, she could. "Uh-huh? Why uh-huh?" "Come on, I bet you had this planned just so you could get to park with me," she said in not quite the nastiest tone one could use for such a statement. Like I said, she can get real paranoid at times. "Check the meter," I said, tapping it. "Low juice. Why would I want to strand us out in the middle of nowhere with no way to get back for a cheap thrill? How am I gonna take this test you've been prepping me for all week if I'm stuck out here tommorow?" "Well..." "You really gotta use logic sometimes. Cliche situations are a rarity." "Alright, alright!" she said, protesting. She paused to push up her glasses, and stared out the window. "Well, could be worse. Could be raining. KRAK-KABOOM! The rain started pouring down. Remember when I said I should have noticed something fishy? Well, here's the second clue. I'm gonna stop pointing them out to you, because it'd get annoying after awhile, and I figure you've got the brains to figure them out on your own. Well, while I'm busy ranting, maybe I should provide some more background here. Currently we were en route from Point A (the library) to Point B (Daria's house) to drop her off. See, I'm not doing that well at all in english, and Daria here was assigned by my teacher to give me a few pointers on metyfors and the like. My friends, being the immature little turdballs they are, starting cracking bad jokes about me an her. I try to keep it on a professional level, so I can get through with this test from hell and get it over with. She's not that bad looking, yeah, but come on, this isn't a hero gets the girl situation. I've got nastier things to panic about. Well, this isn't the first time she's accused me of plotting something sinister. I mean, the guys I hang out with are okay and all, but known for being childish little brats. Why do I hang with them then? Common intrests and the like. Vid games, foosball, et cetera. Enough about me, enough about her. What's more important is the situation, if you ever want to understand just what happened that night. "Heating's out," I said. "And considering that it's almost freezing out there, I suggest we find some kinda shelter. Any houses around?" KRAK-KABOOM! Lightning neatly outlined a large, spooky looking mansion we seemed to have landed outside. That was my third cl... wait, I forgot, I said I'd stop saying that. "That answer your question?" Daria smirked. "Here, we'll use my umbrella." * We walked into the mansion, somewhat dripping (it was the sort of rain that falls sideways) on whoever-owned-the-place's rug. "Neat archetecture," Daria commented, folding the umbrella and tapping its DRY button. "I don't like the echo on that knocker," I restated. "Gives me the creeps." "Come on, the lights are on, SOMEONE's got to be home. HELLOOOOOO!" Daria shouted. I quickly shushed her up with a hand to the mouth, but she wrenched free. "Shhhh!" I hissed. "Ya wanna wake up the whole house? Look, let's just get a battery or something out of the garage, leave a nice note and some money, and leave." "That'd be stealing," Daria said. "Let's just wake up the owner and tell him our situation." "Don't you think the doorknocker would have woken him up? I don't hear anything." "What, do you think he's dead or something?" KRAK-KABOOM! More thunder. "I hate rain," Daria grumbled. She sniffed the air. "You smell something burning?" "No." "I do... comin' from in here..." she said, following the scent much like a cartoon character being tugged along by a hand- shaped cloud. "Hey, wait up!" I said, chasing after her. I was three steps away from the door when it closed. By itself. Wind. Just the wind. * "Hickory!" Daria commented, walking across the library to the fireplace. "I remember when my dad used to burn logs like these. The smell lingered around the house for days. Here, sit over here by the fireplace." Now, considering that she had been minorly repulsed by me all week 'cuz of the friends I keep, I was a bit surprised by the offer. I dismissed it as nostalgia high and had a seat. I had to admit, it was quite cozy. "Funny, I'm dry already," I said, feeling my jacket. "That must be one strong fire." "What's that?" Daria asked, pointing to the neatly sealed note on the endtable next to the fireplace that I could have SWORN wasn't there when we walked in here. (Yeah, I know, long sentence. I told you I warn't no good in english.) "Looks like a sealed note. Best leave it alone," I said as she opened it. And *I* was the one that needed smartening up? "Uhh, Jeremy?" she said, ('cuz it was my name... shoulda mentioned it earlier), "This note is addressed to us." "Come again?" I said. (It's a handy phrase you can use to express confusion in almost any situation.) Sure enough, printed in neat cursive on the front was 'To My Dear Guests, Daria and Jeremy'." "What are you doing?" Daria asked. "Packing. We are LEAVING. I don't trust houses like these. My old granmama used to live in a mansion like this. Went down into the wine cellar one day and never came out." "She... died?" "No, she never came out. Simply vanished." "Here, lemme see what this says... 'Dear Guests. Thank you so much for stopping by! I can assure you I have quite an evening of fun picked out--" "Fun or manslaughter?" "Shush. '--out for the two of you. I have many toys strewn about, some of my own design, if you feel the need to play. Otherwise, please feel free to share my bed and food for the evening. You should find fresh batteries in the basement, which I'm afraid is on a sort of time-lock. It will open at dawn.'" "What idiot puts a time lock on thier basement door?" "'Overall, have fun! It is quite enjoyable to have someone... ALIVE in this house after so long. Signed, Inventor and Author, Joshua Allistar.'" "Why'd you say it like that?" "Like what?" "With the long pause and the sinister tone on the word 'alive'." "Dunno. Come on, it's just a note. It's obvious that we're quite welcome here. Let's go find the bedroom and sleep together." "HUH?" "I said let's go find the bedrooms and get some sleep. You've got that test tommorow." "That's not what you said!" "I know what I said," Daria replied, looking at me kinda funny. You know that look? It's kinda like when you got out of bed and ate breakfast and went to school and people look all funny at you and you don't realize until you look down and notice you forgot to put on your pants. Yeah, that kind of look. * Maybe I oughtta describe the trip upstairs. Well, it had everything that could be expected. You know, little flickers in the corner of your eye, pictures with eyes that follow you, light that go out as you pass them, everything. I tried to keep myself in a state of denial... Daria seemed to be doing a good job of it. If I pointed anything out to her, she'd give me that no-pants look again. No matter what she said, we ended up in separate bedrooms. She got the big one, and I got the guest one. It looked like 'ol Allistar had been using this as a lab of sorts too, which is odd, 'cuz there were plenty of rooms he COULD have used. Almost like I was supposed to find this stuff. Really, really weird things... I guess these were the toys. There were puzzles of all kinds, which I somehow knew how to play; kinda like a whisper at the back of your mind, telling you that this button will flip all the pictures in this row, and so forth. I ignored the puzzles after I realized I was getting too engrossed in them and moved on. There were a few dollies and l'il kids stuff, which was lighted with various lamps for maximum shadow effect. Most importantly, there was a notebook. Now, I was dead tired, and felt like crashing right there and then, but I could resist peeking in old Allistar's notebook a tad. Light reading, I figgered. Well, it had plans for all the puzzles here, and some robot thingys, and stuff. But what seemed to be the biggest item in the book was something dubbed the PFoD. Pfod? Sounded like a good name for a heavy metal guitarist. No full name, just Pfod, and a bunch of technical drawings of this weird carved half cylinder thing. The carvings were kinda disturbing. When I say disturbing, it's like if a potted plant killed your father, and you were to look accidentally at a fern in a clay basket a few years later. That kinda disturbing. You can put your finger on why it's disturbing, because your mind thinks it's best that you don't realy know. Minds kinda suck in that way. I was about to set off to bed when I heard Daria scream. * I raced into Daria's room, breaking down the door in the process. She was standing on the bed in a red teddy, screaming and pointing at the window, where a small demon bird had broken in. I grimaced and pulled out my shotgun, and-- SHOTGUN? Where did I get a shotgun? Well, there was this drooling brown THING with big red eyes and teeth and stuff, so I figured I oughtta blow it away and ask questions later. Only took two shells. Good thing too, because I've never reloaded a gun in my life. It evaporated into a cloud of little yellow bubbles. "What's all the racket about?" Daria asked, waking up. I blinked, as the gun wasn't here anymore, and she was back in her sweater and jean combo. "Come again?" I said, looking around for the nonexistent gun. "Didn't you just scream, put on some lingerie, and then have me run in here and blow away a demon with a rifle?" It wasn't the no-pants look this time. It was the no-pants and no-shirt look. "Go to bed, Jeremy. I think the lack of sleep is getting to you." * The next bit happened in the hall outside Daria's room. I think they were ghosts... I mean, nobody else could be so, well, transparent. "But who is the boy?" the man in the smoking jacket and cane was asking this arabian-type guy. "Don't you see?" the guy in the turbin said, making sweeping arm guestures. "We aren't the guests! It was the children! We've been going about this all wrong, they were the first six... it's the boy who is the seventh guest!" Then they faded away, along with some sort of background music that had apparently faded in with them. They didn't seem to make much sense to me, but then again, very little here did. My first actions were to run in, grab Daria, and tell her that I hoped she was up for a bit of a hike back home, because I'd be damned if I was going to spend another minute in this crazy place. Of course, that set of actions was marred by a simple fact; Daria wasn't in her room. Wouldn't you know it, there was a note on her pillow, spelled out in German stating that the Nazis had her, and if I ever wanted to see her alive again I'd turn over the diary now. Well, I'd be damned if I turn over the secret of eternal life to- - Huh? I grabbed my mind again and told it that I had no idea what it was talking about, and it should stop taking part in decisions from now on. I tore up the note, pulled out my .45 and shot the lock off. No. I do NOT have a .45. I don't even know what a .45 is. Some sort of ancient weapon? I opened the door instead, and started down the stairs. "HALT!" shouted a Nazi soldier in a brown uniform. No. No soldiers. I concentrated, and the soldier went away. It was weird. The closer I came to the basement, the more I had to convince myself I wasn't supposed to crack a whip and get trumpet surges. By the time I had reached the basement, I was in a half-fog. Kinda like a bad trip, or taking too much medication... you see what you can see, but you're only in control half the time. The other half, you just see what your body does itself and hope things develop correctly. The SS officer was working the damsel in distress over under the NO, there are NO HOT LIGHTS down here... funny, it was hard to tell what the basement really looked like. It seemed to flicker from scene to scene, one moment a torture chamber, the next an ice palace, the next a starship... Daria was there, fading from ensemble to ensemble, looking just as confused as I was. You are NOT crazy. This ISN'T real. The HOUSE is doing this, none of it's real, none of it's real, it's real, none of it's real... The mantra seemed to help filter out reality a bit. I ran forward and grabbed Daria by the shoulders. "We are LEAVING!" I shouted to her, trying to move her from the spot. "But we have to get ze diary! Help me Obi Wan Benoibi, I'm your only hope!" she babbled. "Get a grip!" I yelled back. "Come on, you're one of the most logical, realistic thinkers I know! This ain't real! Fight it!" Course, I knew it wouldn't work. See, she loved her conspiracies, and led a lotta life in fantasy... the house was draining her based on that. I tried to look around for something to hit her with, HARD (just to get her to snap out of it) when I noticed something. At first I thought it was a wrought iron stove. Then I thought it was a hypersleep module. But I concentrated, telling myself it wasn't any of the things it looked like, until it finally hit on its true form. Kinda oval, sorta cylindrical, with odd carvings over the mouth, and eyes, and ribbons in the back... A mask. Okay, this made sense now. PFoD? Pocket Full 'o Drama. And they say I can't get those met-y-fors. I hate tales with demonic machines from hell that control your mind. They're so clicheic. Well, the thing must have sensed that I noticed it, because it promptly belted out wave after wave of unrealism, and I shifted from the mindset of an alien invader to a space marine to a secret agent before kicking the crap out of the thing. It sputtered down a bit, but was still flashing. At least my thoughts were clearer. "Where am I?" Daria asked. "I'll explain later. We've gotta leave now." "But we just got here!" "What a shame. Quick, let's--" "YAAH!" someone yelled, jumping out of the shadows of the room, dressed in full space marine garb. She paused, looking strangely at us. I think I got the picture -- the two overacting ghosts mentioned other kids. This must be one. And sure enough, another followed. I hate to think how long that mask thing had them stuck in its own private little fantasies. Days? Years? Must have been terribly exciting. "FINALLY outta that thing!" the girl dressed as a space marine said, chucking the gun. "Ack, I hate guns. You wouldn't believe how long I've been fighting this thing. You okay, Melv?" "Yeah," a boy dressed up as a war hero said, ditching the helmit. "Who're you?" "Me? Jeremy. This is Daria, my study buddy." "Greetings. Melvin Quayle, my sis Jill. I managed to break out once, but it caught me quick enough afterwards... dad's gonna freak when he finds out where we've been for the last two months..." "What happened to the thing?" Jill squeaked, nudging the broken mask wedged against a wall. "I think I broke it." "You sure it's dead?" "Terminated," I said, unsure of why I picked that word. The machine grumbled and groaned, electronics pulsing as it tried to power back to life. I began to mistake myself for a cyborg before slapping myself hard. "EVERYBODY OUT OF THE POOL!" I shouted. The other kids got the picture. There was a mad dash for the stairs, with various apparitions of bad guys and goons behind us, as the machine tried to claw its way back into our dreams. I think once was enough to harden our brains against the thing. Maybe it's like an anti- body or something medical. We managed to get out of the house, all seven of us, but I could still tell the thing was up and kicking. I resisted the calls to come back and play, despite the machine's subconsious, wordless whining. That's the problem with machines, they just don't know when to quit. "Damn," I cursed. I knew what I had to do to keep the thing from snagging anybody else with mysterious rover trouble and a rainstorm. The drama had to stop. Curtain call. (See? I CAN turn a mety-for.) "Anybody here got a gun or something?" I said. Melvin pressed a patented palm-sized BFG9000 into my hand. I blinked. "Jeez, you must go to a tough neighborhood," I commented. "Naw. I do side work. Vigilante in training," Melvin casually said, in a tone that was trying to be dark and sinister. "Eww, guns," his sister whined. "Whaddya want that THING for?" "Drama," I said. "I'll be right back. And if I'm not back in fifteen minutes--" "Leave?" "No, stay here," I replied, amazed at the reply. "What, you think I wanna be abandoned?" "How're you going to fight that thing?" one of the boys shouted. "Come on, we all got trapped once. How do you plan on resisting it?" "I'm not," I said. It wasn't that hard to give into the Pocket Full 'o Drama. Ignoring it was like tensing a muscle; release it and it has you... It was the third night in Cambodia. We had just finished the raid on the nearby village, but we left behind the device. How stupid we were to let it get into enemy hands. I alone had to storm in there and either get it out... or blow it up. Cracking my whip over the chasm, I swung over the pit. The door was about to close, but I rolled under it in time. The stormtrooper blasters were coming close, but luckily I had Chewie firing behind me. Diving through the blast doors, I had to duck the goon's tommy gun; the mob wanted my hide, alive or dead. Rolling along the ground, both lugers blazing, I took Jimmy out at the knees and dived into the kitchen. A demon was there, but luckily I had my BFG. A few blasts and it was a bloody pile on the ground. I judged two pink suckers and a possessed sarge down the hall, so I spotted a nearby barrel. A few pistol shots and it blew, splattering the undead across the walls. Grinning, I raced down the stairs. Using the blue keycard, I found my final objective. There it was. The gates to the other plane, with my fell ghostbusters at my side. I was ready to cross the streams. I said my final goodbyes to my platoon members, prepped the flamethrower, and sent a zillion pounds of hot lead into the moter Nazi alien's egg sac. A lot of things happened at once. First of all, it lost its grip, and there I was with gun in hand and exploding mask-shaped machine in front of me, in the dark basement. Second, or rather simultaneously with the first, it exploded, taking out the entire house. Third, happening at the same time as first and second, the machine made one last desparate burst of drama to save itself. Didn't work. The burst of movie magic flew in my direction, as the drama maker blew up rather nastily. Crawling out of the flaming crater of the mansion, I clawed over the side of the pit, getting more no-pants stares. "What? My hair messed up or something?" I said, ambling over the side and walking over to my skiff's side mirror to check my do. "But... we saw the blast..." "Come on. Heroes always make it out at the last minute. You know that, right?" I said. Sure enough, once the machine was gone, the rain cleared up, and my power cell for the skiff charged up to full juice. Just like I figgered it would. * There ain't that much to say. Daria and the other kids went home. I haven't seen her much lately, although I can unnerstand why. Wasn't a very fun experience, even if it did last only a few hours. Passed the english test. B-. Pretty good. Did a bit of research on that Allistar guy and his house. 'Sed the guy built this massive mansion off his toys and puzzles he sold, but simply never appeared again shortly after the place was built. Maybe he was enslaved by his own machine. How ironic. Very dramatic, as well.