🚀 go-pugleaf

(continued from part two...)

                                    -<=*=>-

03:21:12

     "So, how is it you can afford to drive around guiding people all the
time?" Akane asked.  "Don't you have to pay for fuel, or new minibuses, or
food?"
     "Of course!" Zen said.  "Fortunately, even though I never charge a fee
for my services, many of those I assist spontaneously decide to contribute to
ensure that my mission continues unabated!"
     "Let me guess," Andro purred.  Though this was the first time Andro had
spoken verbally, rather than telepathically, Zen didn't seem startled at all.
"They often say something like, 'Here is a large sum of money.  Please go
away.'"
     "How did you know?" Zen asked, sounding amazed.
     "It was an inspired guess," Andro told him, while not quite looking at
him.
     Akane looked out her window at the freeway.  She gasped, as she recognized
the signs.
     "We're in Los Angeles!" she exclaimed.  Right on cue, machine gun fire
from passing motorists strafed the minibus, and a couple grenades exploded
nearby.
     "Yes!" Zen said.
     "But we were in Cuba yesterday!"
     "Yes!"
     "I--oh, never mind."
     "Yes!"
     Just then, a bus (a regular, full-sized bus) sped past at speeds of over
120 m.p.h.
     -Hey!- Kyoko exclaimed.  -Wasn't that Keanu Reeves on that bus?-
     "I think so, squirt," Shadebeam said.  "Follow that bus!"
     "I don't think you want me to," Zen said.
     "Yes we do!" Akane said.
     "No you don't," Zen said.
     "Why not?" Shadebeam asked, indignantly.
     Just then, approximately five miles up the freeway, there was a humongous
explosion, showering bus parts far and wide.  Zen stopped the bus, and Radian
opened up her passenger-side door and flew out, looking for what caused the
explosion.
     Apparently, it had happened when the bus was forced to slow down by a
black 1969 Lincoln Continental that it could not get around, despite the
fact that the freeway was eight lanes wide.  Akane recognized the Continental,
and quickly spun around and headed for the minibus, to tell Zen to go the
other way, quickly.

                                    -<=*=>-

03:12:58

     Sister Mary Ellen Hatchetnose noticed that a bus full of protestants
had exploded behind her, and laughed a bitter, centuries-old laugh, the kind
that could only be laughed by a bitter, centuries-old nun.  The fact that
the bus had not actually hit her before exploding did not matter in the least.
     She thought of Martin Luther, and how he would have reacted to this.
But he had escaped from the trunk of her car back in Alaska, and was gone
before she could get the Lincoln fully turned around.  If only Mike hadn't...
     It wasn't important.  Her revenge upon the Protestants, for taking Martin
away from her, was.  She drove on, over scattered bus parts and mediocre actor
parts, at a consistant ten miles per hour.

                                    -<=*=>-

01:50:01

     Karina groaned.  She had not yet gotten the signal from Sutherland or
Atkinson, and her legs were starting to get cramped.
     "Okay!" Shadebeam exclaimed.  "Let's sing it again!"
     "Yay!" Akane and Zen exclaimed.  "One hundred bottles of blood on the
wall, one hundred bottles of blood!  Take one down, write 'pig' on the wall,
ninety-nine bottles of blood on the wall!"
     Karina sighed.  Maybe they would kill her quickly if she gave herself up
now.

                                    -<=*=>-

00:15:16

     "...so, you see, without the Oxy-Moran, if traveling in space, we would
all suffocate quite quickly," Zen was saying.  "They're made by the Morans of
Arcturus Prime, and sold..."  His voice trailed off.
     "Whatcha see?" Shadebeam asked, looking out from the passenger side seat.
Akane sat up from where she had been napping and looked out with her.
     "Hey, it's another psychadaelic VW minibus!" she exclaimed.  Zen
immediately pulled over to the side of the two-lane road, and leapt out.
Akane and Shadebeam followed, leaving Andro to sleep on a back seat.
     "Hello!" said a familiar black-clad figure, wheeling himself out from
under the bus, an all purpose laser-tool in his hand.  "I told myself you'd
show up, Zen!"
     "You did, Zen?" Zen (our Zen, that is) asked.  "Hmmm.  I'll try to
remember to tell the next me I run across, so I won't forget!"
     "What's going on out there?" a depressed voice asked.  "I'm too depressed
to go look."
     "There's two Zen Navigator's out there," another depressed voice said.
"How depressing."
     Shadebeam looked into the minibus.  "Robert?"
     The Robert Smiths sighed in a depressed manner to acknowlege her.
     "What're you guys doing with Zen?" Shadebeam asked.  "Last I saw you,
you'd just been reunited on stage."
     "It's a depressing story," one of the Roberts said.
     "We were on the road, with the band," the other told them.  "One of them
said something about needing a guide to the next city, and he showed up.  We
lost the rest of the band somewhere in Outer Mongolia, but Zen says another
Zen showed up to help them find us."
     "You're right," Shadebeam said.  "That does sound depressing."

                                    -<=*=>-

00:06:29

     Karina forced herself out of her cramped hiding space, and stretched.
They had stopped, and Zen, Akane, and Shadebeam were talking to another Zen.
     The ready signal beeped in her ear again.  Now was the time.
     She pushed against her other earring, to send the go code.

                                    -<=*=>-

00:02:59

     "Fortunately, I had a spare coupling in my pantry, so you should be
on your way again," our Zen was saying to not-our-Zen.  "I...oh, I just
remembered something I told myself to remind you about last year.  Just down
the road, Ninja Taxi-Cab Driver is waiting to assault you with an Acme
Thermo-Hydraulic Press."
     "Will I be killed badly?" Zen asked.
     "No, extremely well," Zen told him.  "So instead of going straight,
make a left at the corner here, and you'll completely bypass him."
     "Thanks!" Zen said, shaking Zen's hand.
     Suddenly and without warning, three ACE-1171 attack choppers flew out
from behind a DefenseCo billboard and bore down on our (and not our)
startled heroes.  Six troop carriers filled to the hilt with fully armed
marines appeared turned onto the road, less than two miles away.  Dogs
barked.
     "Ah, shit," Shadebeam growled.  She grabbed Akane's wrist and headed for
our Zen's minibus, with our Zen following quickly.  Karina was just getting
out of the van, aiming a handgun at them.
     Radian reacted swiftly, slapping the gun into the minibus.  It struck
the wall and went off, the bullet ricocheting hither and yon.  Shadebeam
tackled Karina, pushing her back into the minibus, followed by Radian.  Zen
dashed around to the other side and got into the minibus, gunning the engine
as he shut the door.
     The minibus started up, but it was already clear that the choppers had
it surrounded, and from the worried look on the-Zen-that-stayed-behind's
face, it was clear that the choppers carried armaments that could at least
stop the minibus, if not destroy it.
     Five seconds later, a rip in the fabric of space opened up and
swallowed our Zen's minibus whole.  It disappeared a few seconds later.
     The choppers flew around the spot where the minibus had disappeared, as
Zen watched.  None of the choppers were moving in his direction, it seemed.
The troop transports arrived, and the marines jumped out, waving their
guns at anything that moved.  Zen stood still, and was certain he could count
on a continued lack of movement from the Robert Smiths.
     After a while, the choppers flew off, leaving the minibus untouched.  The
marines grumbled, got back in their troop transports, and drove off, though
not before shooting at the billboard for fun.  After still a while more, Zen
completed the refitting of the coupling under the minibus, and the minibus was
on its way.
     After still yet more of a while, the rip in space and time appeared again,
and this time wouldn't go away on its own.  It stayed that way for twenty
seconds, until the Transdimensional Seamstress appeared, seen by no one.
She grumbled, and began stitching the fabric together again.
     Sometime after all this, when the fabric was stitched and in better shape
than before, she disappeared as well, and the road was quiet.

                                    -<=*=>-

00:00:00

     "Let go of me!" Karina demanded.
     "Yeah, right, lady," Shadebeam said.  "Before or after I cut you a new
lung?"
     -Remember, everyone at home,- Kyoko said, in a paid advertisement, -to
capture the rich, deep red of arterial spray, use Kodak Royal Gold film...-
     "Shade," Akane said, slowly.  "Let her go."
     "Let...but why?" Shadebeam asked, looking up.
     She stopped.  Moments later, she let go.
     Karina sat up, massaging her throat, which Shadebeam had been choaking
just moments before.  She looked out the side windows of the minibus and
gasped.
     The void of space stretched before them, vast and endless.
     "Where's...the Earth?" Karina asked.
     "For that matter, where's the sun?" Akane asked.
     "None of these constellations look familiar," Shadebeam commented.
     *Earth is nowhere near,* Symon said.  *The rip in space that we passed
through must have catapulted us many, many light years away.  I cannot say
where we are now.*
     -That's because you don't know where we are, wonder nuts,- Andro purred
at him.
     *Neither do you,* Symon replied.
     -Well, you don't see me going around telling everyone that, do you?-
     "What happened?" Karina asked.
     "It appears," Zen said, picking up Karina's gun, "that in warning myself
about my imminent doom, and thus saving myself from it, I caused a paradox in
the space-time continuum!"
     "Why didn't it just change past events, or rewrite the flow of history,
or something like that?" Shadebeam asked.
     "It never seems to do so for me," Zen said.  "Instead, the fabric of
space simply tears."  He looked at the handgun.  "It appears that this went
off when Shadebeam knocked it from your hand.  The bullet sheared through the
control console, disabling the minibus' drive system."
     "So, we're stranded, with no more than a minibus' worth of oxygen
remaining and no rescue in sight," Akane summed up.
     "Not at all!" Zen said.  "We are stranded, but so long as the Oxy-
Moran is in working order, we will have an unlimited air supply, and stand
an excellent chance of being rescued by a passing freighter!"  He opened
up a panel that had a bullet hole in it, and pulled out a long, octagonal
tube, which was hooked up to the minibus itself.  A rather large dent was
visible against the side of the tube, and several red lights were flashing
on the readout panel on one of the sides.
     "The Oxy-Moran seems to be dysfunctional," Zen commented, as if
commenting on a mildly distasteful beer.  "It appears that the bullet
ricocheted, causing crucial, though probably not irreparable damage, to the
Oxy-Moran.  It should be easy to fix!"
     "That's good to hear," Karina said.
     "...assuming I can get this...nrrrr...lid off...nrrrrrrr..."
     *That's not good to hear,* China said.

WILL THEY START HEARING GOOD THINGS SOON?
OR WILL THEY KEEP HEARING BAD THINGS UNTIL THEY RUN OUT OF AIR?
HOW WILL THE M.I.B. REACT TO KARINA'S DISAPPEARANCE?
WHO WAS THAT MAN AT THE COUNTER OF THE COFFEE SHOP IN ESCANABA?
WILL THE ROBERT SMITHS SPEND THE REST OF THEIR NATURAL LIVES INERT IN ZEN'S
     MINIBUS?
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
IT MEANS THAT IF YOU WANT ANSWERS, YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO KEEP WATCHING THIS
     SPACE FOR THEM, ON AN UPCOMING...SUPERGUY!

No maps available upon request.

+-------- Gary W. Olson --------+  The Brain: "Remember, I'm not only the
| swede@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu  |    President of Small Club for Men, I'm also
+----- swede@drycas.bitnet -----+    a mouse planning global domination!"
                                   Studio Audience: "Yaaaay!!"   ("Animaniacs")