Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Tunnels and marbles and mind control OH MY

First part, someone had built a tunnel from Fredericksburg to the other side of the world. They'd used SCIENCE to make it possible to deal with the gravity problem, not to mention the heat problem. I wanted to find out where it went, so I paid a million dollars and walked through it to find myself in an alleyway in Thailand.
But I didn't actually, I was just imagining this while walking from the gym to German class with Matt, Erin and Meredith. I told Meredith that I had this new idea for a short story. We got to class, which was on fest tables outside along campus walk. Niebuhr was walking around collecting our homework when I realized I didn't have mind because I'd left my backpack at the gym. Erin handed me an extra work sheet and whispered "copy mine!" just as Niebuhr passed my table. Niebuhr gave me a look when she passed me and I thought "Damn, this is what happened to me all the time last semester, I told myself I'd shape up!"
The next part was like an episode of Buffy.
A teenager who lived in a clubhouse at the end of town had been kidnapping people. Our team of 4 from above went to stop him. But he kidnapped Erin, and we got even more desperate. He was filling her veins with some kind of cold substance that was going to kill her and destroy her mind. This was all part of the bigger plan of some woman who was using marbles made of the same stuff but in a solid form to control the mines of all of the children in town. Oh, and there was a big marbles tournament that day.
Matt and I went to stop that part of the evil plan. We ran into the crowd of kids, earning dirty looks from parents. The kids were playing with normal marbles. The kid who won claimed a whole bunch of the other children's marbles, but the evil lady (she had short black hair, wore too much makeup and a black cape) yelled over the children "I HAVE EXTRA MARBLES OVER HERE!" and they all ran over to her wheelbarrow filled with the stuff. But Matt and I had a wheelbarrow of bouncy balls, and they're a trillion times more exciting than marbles. The plan worked, and we managed to keep the kids away from her evil mind control.
A brief interlude had the child from The Giver trying to explain color and happiness to his mom, and his mom telling him that it didn't matter, and that all of the visitors to their little society were killed and fed to the dogs, so he'd best keep his memories of the outside to himself.
Meanwhile, Meredith had rigged an explosive device to the building when we ran up to the house. She'd gotten caught and was imprisoned, but unlike Erin she was not under mind control. The teenager came to the window and mocked us, saying that Erin was under his control now, even if his partner failed to get the town's children. Erin walked up behind him like an obedient zombie and we on the ground were shocked to see that she was now a bare skeleton. Meredith was right behind her, in chains. She was pleading with the Erin skeleton to let her go. The teenager laughed an evil laugh and brought out Meredith's explosive device. He ordered Erin to press the button and jumped out of the window. Erin glanced at Meredith and somehow winked despite not having eyes. She pressed the button, but she'd moved the explosives to the teenager's back pocket and he exploded. Then she turned back into the building and somehow put her skin back on.

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