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Jack's Unlikely Adventures
Magical Portals and Cars

Magical Portals and Cars

It was a normal day for normal people to walk on the streets in normal towns. Perhaps you think that the word normal has been used too often, in response to that it can only be said that you are probably right. Regardless, the point being illustrated is one of normality, and how everything wasn’t really normal. One particular person in this normal town was Jack and something that most would probably consider not quite so normal happened on that exact Wednesday, at exactly seventeen past four.

  A burly man caused Jack to stop abruptly on the sidewalk. The man wore a blue uniform and a thick brown moustache rested on his lips, apparently, this was a policeman. Typically a normal sixteen-year-old would not be stopped randomly on the street by the police in small rural towns, at least that is not the case in most places, but what could be done about it? Perhaps file a complaint? Bureaucracy would probably take all of the effectiveness of that complaint away so Jack just waited to see what was gonna happen. Jack did not wait long before the policeman started madly questioning Jack with an overwhelming number of questions, strange but oddly specific questions. What is the size of a four-month-old beaver that had only eaten carrots? How to cook pasta in molten chocolate? Where was the pasta with molten chocolate? At this point, most agree that such questions were very strange, people in this line of work would call them unlikely, Jack for his part seemed perplexed but was trying his best to find the answers to the policeman’s questions. In the next moments, the course of the future was changed forever, a car appeared virtually out of nowhere and drove over the policeman. Out of nowhere in this case not meaning speeding past a corner and driving over a local cyclist as per usual. No, this car came out of nowhere, nowhere, a dark whirlwind next to the policeman to be more specific.

  The mystery car was coloured in bright yellow, flame decals adorned its sides right below the dark stained windows. Jack stood still for a second, the windows of the car rolled down revealing the driver. A small man, with very spiky yellow hair wearing a pair of shades, probably the reason he didn’t see the policeman, or the portal appearing randomly, nobody would ever know. The driver looked over the side of the car at the policeman’s body and then turned his attention to Jack.

  “Oh, my bad, didn’t mean to hit that. You know how these whirlwind lanes are, they should really get to fixing these things soon,” Jack did not know how these whirlwind lanes are, “Anyway, Earth, the year 2014, 22 of June at eighteen past four, is that correct?”

  Jack nodded still trying to get over the shock of the car’s initial appearance, maybe he should have done something about the policeman wiggling under the car. In hindsight, it wouldn’t have mattered as the driver rapidly moved on.

  “Yes, yes, and you must be Jack Evens,” the driver said in his high-pitched voice, and Jack nodded again, “Perfect, you don’t know how much trouble these whirlwind lanes are somethings, one moment somebody asks for a ride to 2664 in Bezleran and the moment you arrive you realise you are in 105 on Thargon 7 and a bunch of little reptiles with sticks attack you, don’t let their size fool you, they are nasty little creatures. Anyway, your taxi is here.”

  Finally recovering from his initial confusion Jack simply said, “I never ordered a taxi, frankly I am not quite sure what all of this is about,” Jack would think the same thing many more times in this story.

  “Oh, my apologies, where are my manners? Captain Jarikcs Starchaser, the Yellow Comet of the Laraxixus clan, third commander of the Imperial Brigade, now retired, and member of the Saraphaxian council of public transport. You may call me Tim, everyone does,” expecting Jack to be impressed with his many accolades.

  “That is all well and good, but I didn’t order a taxi, especially not one that comes out of strange black portals driving over policemen, that I can guarantee.”

   “I did say that the policeman was my bad,” Tim said, absolving him of all blame, “And of course you ordered a taxi, here look at this piece of paper, it says it right there! Jack Evens taxi from Earth to Galarand,” he waved a piece of paper around in front of Jack’s face so fast that it was impossible to make anything out apart from black lines on the page, “Anyway hop in, we are running a little late and you wouldn’t want to make the other passengers wait too long, would you?” a small show of hands came out of the back of the taxi. Jack looked around and finally decided to get in the car, after all, it was terribly rude to make people wait, he put on his seatbelt and looked around at his fellow passengers.

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  The first person that Jack saw was a woman sitting right in front of him. She seemed pretty normal, all things considered. Long brown hair, brown eyes and the little peculiarity of phasing in and out of existence. Is that not normal? Apparently not. Next to her there sat a small man, with three eyes, and two noses. He had long red hair going down the sides of his face and joining up with a knot under his chin. He had a thick wooden club across his legs. The last person in the taxi was a rather tall man, not tall in the traditional sense, it was just that his legs were long, very long in fact, perhaps as long as Jack’s whole body.

   “So, Galarand was it?” Tim said in a cheery tone, “It’s been some time since I was last there. Nice place.” Before anyone could say anything, Tim’s small hands flipped over a switch next to his steering wheel. Two jets of black energy emerged out of two rods at the front of the car and another black whirlwind appeared in front of him. Tim hit the gas pedal and drove into the black void of space and time.

  “Earth, how is it? Heard they formed an empire recently.” said the long-legged man next to Jack in a voice that sounded like static.

  “Earth is pretty good, I guess. Not really an empire though, kind of a thing of the past.”

  “The past? What is going on at the warper news, they were quite clear about Earth and all its colonies coming together under Emperor Kevin in 2342.”

  “2342? I am from 2014, so I am not really the right person to verify this. But our emperor will be called Kevin? What a time to be alive, not that I will be alive to see but you know.”

  “No, No I don’t,” answered the long-legged man and stared forwards and the taxi became silent.

  “So... where are you guys from?” asked Jack trying to break the silence, you did not really want to sit in silence while travelling through a whirlwind drive. Strange place to be.

  “I am from Eyeardon, myself. Great place as long as you don’t visit during the Gnarlak hunt, dangerous times.” the three-eyed man said that last bit as if he had some dark memories of the experience.

  “I am Eve V.3, I am a computer-generator being made by the cybernetics department of Technia on a mission to explore biological lifeforms. A pleasure to meet you,” said the woman.

  “So you are a robot? That doesn’t explain why you keep on disappearing and reappearing.”

  “I am in dimension 42 at the moment and am simply phasing my way into this dimension, the other versions of Eve are in different dimensions fulfilling the same task. I hope this information is sufficient for you.”

  Jack did not know how to continue this conversation and turned to ask the same question to the long-legged man. “My name is Balinar, I am from Tsargos 2, I am going to Galarand to do some tourism,” the man said with a smile. All things considered, Jack was taking this whole thing rather well, most people threw up on their first whirlwind drive.

  The taxi came to a halt and the doors flew open. Jack stepped out of the vehicle with the rest of the passengers. Before them a large city spread out, buildings reaching up to the clouds and bright coloured lights shone out of every corner. Jack turned to talk to Tim while the other passengers said their goodbyes and walked towards the city.

  “Hey, Tim. This place is great and all but I would like to go back to Earth now.”

  “Already?” Tim said surprised and looked at a strange machine around his wrist that resembled a watch, “You have only been on Galarand for approximately 52 seconds, seems rather short for a visit if you ask me.”

  “Well, yes. But I never wanted to come here, to begin with, I simply came because it was rude to let others wait, as I am sure you know.”   “But it says on the paper you wanted to come here. Wait a minute what was your name again?”

  “Jack Evans,”

  “Mmmhmmm, how do you spell that, again?”

  “J-A-C-K E-V-A-N-S.” Jack slowly spelt out.

  “I see where the problem is, it’s kind of embarrassing but I was supposed to get a Jack Evens, not Evans, happens to the best of us.”

  “Okay then, can you drive me back to Earth preferably to 2014.”

  But of course, I can, it will only be 300 galactic credits.”

  “I don’t have any galactic credits!” Jack screamed at the driver, “in fact, I don’t know what galactic credits are.”

  “Well, galactic credits is what you would call money. If you had 200 dollars we could convert them of course, I don’t suppose you have that on you,” Tim said looking at Jack’s pockets.

  “I only have twenty euros and this paper clip, but you drove me here on an incorrect assumption, that should count for something.”

  “As I said, my bad,” Tim said in his cheery voice, “I suppose you are right, 250 galactic credits then, which converts to 166 of your euro. But no credits means no taxi, so... see you!”

  Before Jack knew what was happening another whirlwind opened in front of the taxi and the car disappeared like a flash of lightning before his eyes. Leaving him stranded on Galarand.

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