I whipped around in all directions trying alLocate wheTHere was any undesirable forces impending. In the process, my foot connected with the empty box, and it tumbled over the railing with an explosion of pearly styrofoam effects. This caused me to look down, to which I realized the sonic Source was actually a solitary, heavy contraption.
Malibu swung a fist through the air. “This baby Sounds like the real deal!”
We had to shout over the ongoing motor of whatever it was that he was testing.
I looked down my nose upon him. Gutt was beaming next to a cantankerous device that had enough arms to be a submersible. “I thought we were being blitzed by a secret Department for a second!” I yelled, head swimming.
“Nope, the voltage is all homemade buddy!” Malibu sang.
The object of interest was pointed back down the Warehouse in the direction of deteriorating Gateways. The hunky machine seemed in desperate need of medical attention. It had three main pieces: a cylindrical & suspended Centerpiece, a jet turbine of a generator, and from beneath it arose what looked like inflatable tubes, unlike any nature found at your local Depot.
Three arms loosely W-shaped in structures, waved frantically like castaways signaling to a search plane. There was something akin to billowing coat motions jerking among them. The tubes supported pyramid knobs of mayhem, which instead of straight edges, displayed bubbly seams. Wires of all different heritage formed a thick web on the backside; a portion of this tangled mess of coils was being batted around every so often by the flailing Process - like members lodged in the bed of snakes Medusa claimed was hair.
“Wicked cool! Is it windy down there?” I poked at my Leader. “All I care about is if it can save our ass, so have you figured out how to work the dials yet??”
Gutt inspected an area between the Turbine and wires, where I thought I could make out the yellow of some sticker pasted. “Not in great detail! But it’s got eight settings,” he howled. “Do we want to distort, transport, align, collide, supervise, levitate, dispel, or collapse?”
Collapse stood out as a definite NOT among that boatload of options. The rest were viable. I was thinking maybe Supervise or Align, but then drew in a sharp breath, worried Gutt may have skipped an essential step somewhere.
“Well, first of all,” I grilled. “Can you Aim the beast?”
When no immediate response ascended, my vision swung down over the Twin Portals, & one was just an outline at this point. I was too far off to discern if it was shrinking yet, which may have been a blessing because I might have come raving undone could I tell how far it had dwindled away. But I could see flashes. Quicker than a literal second now. I stood up. I knew I wouldn’t have near enough time to run back all the way I’d come. Life is like that; sometimes you have to move on, find an alternate route.
I freaked like a cat that climbed too high in a tree and was afraid to come down: “I need a trampoline!”
“It’s under control,” Gutt muttered. “All I have to do with this Gizmo is adjust the space between the two front wavy things here,” -(it seemed he was reading from the manual)- “Close to the approximate size of the target…”
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Without a scope that was going to involve a lot of guesswork - He should’ve broke out a Magni*fier too, so we could view our shot through a whopping lens and become keen-sighted eagles.
“Well that Blows, cause it is a moving target if you think about it!”
“Ehhh!” he waved me off with a hand. “We forgot the staple-gun, too; Quit slamming your sarcasm button! I’ll aim a little smaller than the current position the Spine is right now, taking into account how fast it’s diminishing!”
We were butting heads again, this round more pressing than the last. I shook the flamethrower over my head like a savage. “Fire solve this one, chief! Fire sacred, always do trick!”
He snickered. “Oh, primitive man.” He fiddled with the knobs, and the arms moved correspondingly. “We do our best to follow instructions or improve things. And at times we make progress.” The arms gradually moved closer, until they came within inches of touching at the closest point of their entire range, their empire of motion. “But we get situated, and I think iiii can read a lot into familiar methods.”
He twisted another knob. “All too often, we see it as we’d like to see it. We get cocky and refuse how things are meant to function; lie to ourselves, dash in excuses here and there. The prevailing preference of the mainstream, the sweet tooth of the Day becomes fashionable. But know, son, true law is set since one beast ever gazed upon another; those haven’t changed. We’re too pompous to admit how Potent it is & how delicate we are, how temporary our command is, not only over each other, but even ourselves.” He cocked a lever. “Until we get reminded: still our methods & tools, are not precise and efficient as we need.”
I brushed a hand to my temple, then screamed, “Time to choose a setting, Teach?”
He fired off the list again: “Distort, transport, align, collide, supervise, levitate, or dispel.”
Crud, tough choices. I tossed *Distort & collide* out from the get-go. Dispel? No, that sounds weird & dark. Transport… Okay, stand by. Align? sounds rewarding. Supervise, oooh, quite enticing. Wait, even though it sounds like control, would we know how to pull the right moves during the supervision? Were we crafty enough to pull that one? Levitate... Meh so many better options.
“Throw me a line please; I’m leaning towards Align!”
“Getting there!”
I shrank back into my reasonings. Align sounds nice, but maybe pointless -- There isn’t anything to line up. Then there’s levitate again.
Errrggh! Supervise is likely best, But each is still appealing. “Supervise sounds okay,” I offered.
“Whatever you say.” His hand rested precariously on the trigger switch. “Sounds like that might require extra manual input.”
Crap. I’d intended to say Levitate, but my wires got crossed. “No No!” I protested. “How bout Levitate!?” Mid-protest I heard the cold, hard click as the switch was flipped.
Then all the lights went out.
Suddenly just a single glow remained. It was coming from the far side of the room, faint orange illumined by the oppressive Darkness. It was just a narrow slit; A mere fraction of the crescent it used to be. It couldn’t have been more than the average width of a baseball bat, its appearance disgustingly slender and shimmering maybe a distorted 10 feet high. It was jiggling in limbo.
A few moments of whirring sounds Boiling Louder, there was a concise flash of hard Gold that illuminated the entire Vault. Streaks of the same color zipped away too fast truly to glimpse from the Phaser arms -- but I can say I did see multiple triangle streaks burned into my retina as it detonated. Each bent only at one point, and then fled, curling like a flag in a breeze. They hovered for an imperceptible moment right before sinking down into the pyramid structures. The strings were absorbed into these Crowns at multiple tips, and sent out on the warpath for the Tap. This redirection scattered Two streams into a pale shade of purple.
They mirrored each other as they swirled, accelerated together against their will. The force driving them together was so intense that it almost brought them together. One rose atop and one diverged below as they wobbled alternatively, as if doting upon each other from afar, afraid to unite. And then, as if rediscovering their purpose, they departed from their entanglement, wrested out from the fondling somersault rhythm, and divided toward either side of the waning passage which had turned to thrashing. These triple glitters of hope converged like crazy figments of lightning, as their resources pooled amidst what seemed to be a murky Abyss. And then all light withered as if suffocated by layers of smoke, and evaporated with the hushed memory of a dream:
Poof.
the remains of a candle’s flame...