We all rushed into the room where Laurence waited, slamming the door shut behind us. I was disappointed by two things: first, even in this new room, the Martian horn music was still blaring. Second, while it was better than nothing, up close I could see the door actually was made of flimsy materials- it could serve as a temporary barrier from the dragons, but would probably only save us mere seconds before it failed and we were burned by their fiery breaths.

The dragons’ roaring, though, still seemed fairly distant from where we now were.

“Are they not coming this way?” Asked Cleetus, perplexed. I too was surprised. But with the loudness of the sound around us, it was hard to really tell exactly which way the dragons might be going.

The room were now in did not have the blue lighting as from the room with the tables, but enough light was creeping in from under the door that it was clear there was some sort of large machine in there with us. Detective LaLouf, ever the investigator, clicked on her flashlight. It seemed to have a platform in the middle of it, but otherwise it was hard to tell just what the equipment’s purpose could be.

“What an interesting machine,” said Dr. Snively, still treating this stressful and dangerous experience as a mere adventure in learning. He too clicked on his flashlight as he walked around the device. “This shape is very odd…” he glanced at what appeared to be a control panel. “Ah! There’s writing! Lola, over here!”

Detective LaLouf hurried over. She looked at the words written.

“It says it’s a ‘spirit summoner’ or ‘ghost getter’, something like that,” she translated, but had an uncertain look on her face.

“Is that symbolic, darling?” asked Laurence, “the meaning. Or is it meant to be literal?”

“These are Martians, so I cannot speak to their true meaning,” she replied, “but it quite literally means ‘spirit summoner’.

Dr. Snively chuckled. “How marvelous! Perhaps Martians can talk to the dead! Or perhaps for Martians, death isn’t quite as final as it is for humans! But if this device can literally summon spirits…”

Both Cleetus and I looked at one another. The sound from the horns was getting very annoying, yet somehow the doctor didn’t seem at all phased, just excited by each new discovery.

“Lola, does it say how to use this contraption? How do we summon a spirit?”

“Is that…is that something we want to do?” LaLouf looked around the room to see if the rest of us shared Snively’s enthusiasm. We had already awoken a bunch of sleeping mecha dragons- we potentially could be making matters worse with whatever tomfoolery this machine caused.

Dr. Snively, however, was at the equipment, fiddling with the buttons. “Here, look, Lola, next to the controls appears to be directions!”

“Well…” she hesitated as she looked down.

“What’s step one?”

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“Sherman, we don’t know what this thing actually does,” remarked Laurence.

“And we do know if we go out there that there are awake, angry dragons,” replied Snively. “This perhaps may be the better alternative for our survival.”

“So we can do what, exactly?” I asked, “If this was here the whole time why did the Martians out there end up trapped in that room? Why did they starve to death?”

It was silent for a moment.

“it’s a fair point,” said Dr. Snively, “but I am here now and I intend to learn what this ‘spirit summoner’ does, even if it turns out it’s not much.”

“Or could be too much,” quipped Cleetus. The doctor ignored him.

“What’s step one?” Snively asked again. LaLouf sighed.

“It says push those two knobs forward,” she answered as she pointed.

The doctor did as stated. The knobs seemed to lock in place with a blip sound.

“It then says to turn the two buttons over there three times.”

Again, Snively followed the directions and the knobs made a blip sound.

“Now it says flip these three switches.”

When the switches were flipped, the machine seemed to turn on- electricity sparked at its top and the platform began to whirl, creating a purplish glow that as it moved lit up the area.

“Marvelous!” the doctor exclaimed. “Is it working right? Are we summoning spirits?”

LaLouf continued staring at the panel. “It says we have to summon the spirit directly.”

“And how do we do that?”

LaLouf shrugged.

“Maybe we have to yell at it?” said Laurence, “kind of like a séance back in the old days to bring forth ghosts. Those were all hoaxes, but perhaps there as some truth in the actions of the so-called mediums.”

“SPIRITS, HEAR MY CALL,” exclaimed Snively, very dramatic. The machine continued to spin and spark, but other than that, nothing happened.

“HEY GHOSTS, GET OUT HERE,” called Cleetus. That too, had no effect.

The doctor turned to the detective. “There’s really no further instructions? What else we need to say?”

“You can see it as clear as I do. All it says is ‘summon the spirit directly’.”

“Maybe ‘by directly’, it has to be by name,” I suggested, “like, saying ‘George Washington, come here!’ works but saying ‘dead guy, come here!’ doesn’t.”

“Hmm,” the doctor scratched his head. “That seems logical. But who do we want to summon, then, that might be beneficial in our current situation?”

“Attila the Hun,” volunteered Cleetus, “or someone strong who’s capable of beating up dragons with no fear.”

“We don’t know that the spirits can actually do anything once summoned,” pointed out Laurence, “it may be better to summon, say, someone more tactical than physically strong. Like Sun-Tsu. Art of War and all.”

“But wouldn’t he speak ancient Chinese?” I countered, “we’re lucky enough that your wife speaks French that just by chance happens to resemble Martian, but not sure any of us know that many languages?”

“How about General George Patton?” said Dr. Snively, “Army brass who knows a thing or two about fighting, would speak English. Sure, he doesn’t know anything about mecha dragons of Mars but he might still have some suggestions for us in how to deal with them.”

We all nodded. It was as sound of logic as anything.

“GENERAL GEROGE PATTON!” Dr. Snively once again cried out with a theatrical flare, “COME TO US!”

…the machine just sparked. Nothing more.

“God dammit,” the doctor cursed.

“Maybe it has to be a name the machines knows,” I guessed again, “Like, the name of Martian or something.”

“We don’t know any Martian names,” replied Snively, “I wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to say. Or who to summon.”

“Wait, we know a couple Martian names,” countered LaLouf, “we read them on the wall in the first hall way we entered down here. What were they…?”

“They were kind of dumb sounding,” Cleetus remarked, but otherwise offered no help.

“One was with a D,” the detective continued. “Durnuff? Durkuffle?...” she suddenly lit up. “Durdumples! It was Durdumples, I think!”

No sooner had she finished speaking when the sparks on the machine started to change to a gray-green. The machine began to shake and its whirling picked up.

We all stared in wonder- was it actually summoning a Martian spirit? If so, was that a good thing or a bad thing?

All the while, the loud and annoying horn music continued to blast from all around.