Special Presentation: "The Day," A Novel From 12 Years Ago (Part 3)

"This tran ... ission ... ot ver ... lear. I ca ... ly hear ... ou. Flu ... s no ... aething. If yo ... an hea ... e respo...ikly." The message from the other trailer on the two way radio came in with lots of static. Even the rest could barely be heard over the hum of the motor.

"What is wrong with this freakin' thing! I went through hell to get it to work and I still can't understand what they're saying!" John was flaming mad. He was pounding on the transmitter so hard that the table which the radio was on broke one of it's legs. It fell and the microphone was disconnected from the transmitter.

Zach was tilting his chair in the back corner. He was really calm. He talked to John smoothly. “Ugh, I keep telling you. The radiation from the explosion fried some of the circuits. And you probably just destroyed everything else in that puny, little box. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. Sure, you may have to be one to understand it, but. . .Well, anyway, try to remember that."

"Grrrrrrrr. You bett-" Before he could finish his sentence John was flung into the air and hit the front wall of the trailer. Zach fell to the floor face first. Cindy's chair fell on her. The trailer stopped. John was pounding on the window that separated the drivers cockpit to the back of the trailer.” Hey, what the heck's going on here!”

A skinny teenager opened the window and stuck his head out. He had red hair and a face full of freckles, "Wow, I never knew how cool it was back here. Oh, um, we, urn, uhhh, had to stop because, um, mum, mum, oh, yeah, because we don't think that this is the way we came.”

John grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him through the window. He was so mad he was talking without moving his teeth. “What do you mean you don't know?! When I get hold of you I'm going to slap that smart little expression off your face."

Zach spoke up, "Hey John, don' t get too mad. That causes high blood pressure and high blood pressure will kill you. That's why hippies lived to be so old, cause they just wanted peace. No heart attacks for them, baby-"

"SHUT UP!!!" Right after he said that, John gasped and fell to the floor.

"JOHN!" Cindy yelled in horror

"Oh, dear," said the driver while rubbing his head from falling to the floor. “I wonder what happened to him."

When he opened his eyes, John found himself on a bed with a respirator hooked up to him. There was a man in a white robe getting a syringe ready to give someone a shot. He knew that he was in the backup trailer because that was the only trailer with a medical area. The white robed man must be a doctor. He saw Cindy next to the doctor.

"Look who' s awake. You're lucky you only had a slight heart attack. Your blood pressure was a smidge too high. Everything will be fine if you just stay calm,” The doctor talked softly, “Now we'll give you a special treatment right out of our science lab from back at the base. It will keep you from having a heart attack again. But it will take me about five minutes to get the serum ready." He started making some mixtures.

John pulled the respirator from his mouth. He pointed to the doctor, "You're the mutant on the team who lives in the magic fairy land, aren't you?"

“Don' t worry,” the doctor whispered to Cindy, "He' s just has some delirium in his head."

He faintly heard the middle-aged drivers voice. “We're out of cave finally.”

"Cave?" John asked.
“Yes,” Cindy replied, "When the driver said we didn't think we were going the way we came is because we got to the mouth of a cave we didn't see before but we took it anyway after you had that heart attack. And it took us about four hours to get out of it.''

"Hey, what does that sign say?" he heard one of the backup men ask.

He heard the drivers voice again, "Urn, Welcome to. . . San Francisco!"

"-GGGGHHHH!!!!!" John yelled so loud you could hear him miles away then he gasped and had another heart attack.

The doctor looked surprised, "And I never gave him the shot yet."

Again, John awoke. Yet this time he was on the floor of the trailer. But it looked different . It was darker, damper, and the only source of light was a dim bulb on the top of the trailer. It was smaller than he saw it before. He turned his head and saw a busted up radio transmitter next to a broken table. Then he saw two pairs of legs walk by. He knew where he was now. He started to stand up.

"Why am I down here?" He asked, "Why am I in this trailer, anyway?”
“Because,” Cindy answered, “the doctor already gave you the treatment while you were asleep. So because you didn't have a chance of another heart attack, we wouldn’t need you in the medical section of the other trailer, we put you here."

"Two heart attacks in one day," Zach added," You're making history, here, preppie." He turned to the front of the trailer, "Hey driver, what ' s wrong. I thought that San Francisco was a little less pure white. That's the only color I can see out the window. White. Are you sure we're not in the south pole or something. I mean, where are we?"

The dorky teenager stuck his head out, "Hey, just because I'm a driver doesn't mean I have to know anything about cars, anything about the land, or anything else that you learn after the third grade." He looked back to the windshield and continued his driving. Then he closed the window that separated the back of the trailer to the drivers cockpit.

Zach turned back to John and Cindy, who was holding John's hand firmly, "Where do they get these people. I think they made a wrong choice with this one even though he was a better driver than the others that volunteered.”

One hour later, the driver opened the window again “Uh, Mr. Terllingerian, I think you need to take a look at this. It is pretty interesting. But I would put on a jacket first."

“For one thing, my last name is not Terllingerian, it's Lecon. For another thing, call me Zack. And finally, this better be important." Zach turned toward John and Cindy. “Get your jackets."

"Oh, it’s very important, Mr. Terllingerian. We've come up to one of those thingies with trees and, uhhhh, rope." The driver replied.

"Your mind, perhaps?” suggested Zach while putting on his jacket.

"Yeah, I think that's what it's called." replied the driver, who was scratching his head.

"Yeah, it's a plank bridge. A pretty sorry looking plank bridge, at that ." was the first thing that John said when he saw the cheap looking bridge. It was just a bunch of wooden planks held together by a few ropes. Underneath it, there was an enormous gorge covered with icy-white snow.

Cindy looked confused, "Why the heck should we cross that bridge? Why didn't we turn back in the first place? Our main headquarters is in Washington State, and there are only three others in the country. I thought California was one of the most populated states in the U.S. So far there hasn’t been a single person for fifteen hours. How do you know that the bridge might not lead us to some magic pool that a dragon lives in. We don't know if that heads to a place with people in it. We don’t know where it heads at all. California doesn't ever have this much snow, ever. We don't know where the heck we are. We don’t know where we’re going. We’re lost,
for crying out loud."

"Duhhh, no we aren't. I saw a sign at the other end of the gorge." Buck-tooth Barry's words drove curiosity through all the guys there. He passed his binoculars to Cindy, who passed it to Zach, who passed it to John, who passed it to everyone else. They all looked at the ice covered sign at the other end. It read: Los Angeles-20 miles.

"Twenty miles to Los Angeles means twenty miles to the second headquarters- Finally, some good luck!" John’s words were fresh and excited.

"One problem," Zach saidIWTo even have a chance to get to Los Angeles and the other headquarters we have to have precise modem accuracy and speed to get to the other side of a dangerous-looking structure that could not sustain the extreme weight of our vehicles that obviously weighs more than the largest pachyderm ever times two.”

John was really confused, “Please explain that in English."

Zach sighed, “To get to Los Angeles we have to cross this gorge. And that bridge does not look too promising.”

After everyone huddled into the trailers, they started to the bridge. The backup trailer went across the bridge before the other one because if it went second it would fall because the other trailer loosened the boards. It (surprisingly) went across safely without even breaking one board. But the boards looked wobbly now. The teenage driver had to go across slowly and steadily (two things he couldn’t do well).

As they went across, one by one, the boards began to crack, break, and fall behind them. The bottom of the gorge seemed to take forever to get to. All around them there was a eery silence and nothing but the nothingness of white snow.

They were about half across the gorge they heard the driver's voice, “Uhhh, Mr. Terllingerian, I saw something in the air, and I think you might want to see this."

"Fine. Zach, bust the window." John said as he looked toward Zach. Zach nodded, cracked his knuckles, and made a fist. On both sides of the trailer, there was one foot by one foot windows that two pieces of glass with chicken wire in between. Zach got ready, flew his arm in the direction of one of the windows, and shattered the glass (both layers), leaving just the wire. He grabbed hold of the wire and tore it out. John stuck his head out to the icy chill.

Outside he saw a little robot flying with two pairs of mechanical wings flapping like crazy. One of its two hands had lots of sharp claws and the other one was like a built in laser gun. It was only about two feet tall. It's laser gun hand started shaking, and a bright red beam of light shot out of it, ready to slice through anything like a hot knife through hot butter.

"You guys should see this." John said to the other two. At the back of the trailer there were two steel doors. They were both stuck but if you could get the right door opened they would both open. So with all his strength, Zach kicked the right door. Not only did both doors open, but the right door was knocked out of it's sockets and fell to the ground way below. Zach and Cindy couldn't believe what they saw. The laser beam was almost touching the rope. The robot was going to slice the rope with them on it!

Immedietly Zach pulled out his PP7 gun and shot the robot. It's laser gun hand turned off and it spun wildly. "Gide that grappling hook and tie it somewhere.” Zach yelled. John threw him the hook and tied the other end to a bolted down bed. Zach twirled the hook over his head like a cowboy and threw it toward the front. It hooked on to a wooden plank about six boards away from where the others were. He just hoped to God that this would work.

"Okay, guys, hold on to something!” John yelled. Everyone grabbed something and held on tight.

"The door!" Zach yelled as he ran to close what was left of the two doors. But he was too late. The robot already sliced all the ropes and the whole bridge went falling in two pieces. Zach would have almost dropped to his death if he wasn't so big. He stretched his arms and legs so they were in all four comers, saving his life. His face was looking to the inside of the trailer, so he could see John and Cindy dangling. He also saw the transmitter almost about to hit him except for a small peg.

"John, the transmitter is about to hit me. Grab it!"

"I can't! It's too far away. Can you get it, Cindy?"

"No!”

The transmitter fell ... right toward Zach’s chest!

"Ohhhh. . .shoot!" That was the word Zach said right before the transmitter hit him and he fell toward the bottom of the gorge. . . if he hadn't grabbed on to the corner of the remaining door. He held on for deer life. The door broke from it's first hinge. He started climbing up with a strong grip. He was halfway up when the second hinge broke. He kept on climbing. He was almost at the top, ready to climb inside when the third and final hinge broke. He was falling to the bottom of the gorge with nothing to save him. He let go of the door, which flew to one side of the gorge. He was falling, falling until he reached his top velocity speed and hit the bottom of the gorge. Instead of hitting solid ground an dying, he hit the snow, and went down three feet from the top.

Back up at the trailer they all thought that Zach was dead. But they had problems of they're own. You see the weight of the trailer was pulling down the grappling hook, and the boards were just breaking. And it was just going down faster, until the last board holding them up broke. They fell down straight for Zach, who was still alive and could still feel pain. Zach tried to move but the walls of snow were so thick he couldn't move. The trailer came racing down strait for him. He said a quick prayer when the trailer hit the ground. Just to his luck, the open part of the tailer where the doors had been is exactly where Zach was. John and Cindy lost their grip and fell to the snow, but not as deep as Zach.

"Zach, you're alive!"

"Yes, now get me outta here!”

John and Cindy both pulled him out. Just then the trailer tipped back over. They got up and walked toward the driver's cockpit (which was tough because the snow was so deep) to see how the driver was doing. When they got there they were disgusted. Unfortunately, the teenage driver was not wearing his seatbelt.

When they turned away they saw the little robot that caused them to be down there. All of a sudden it's circuits seemed to go haywire. It s screws seemed to be coming looser. Then it just burst into flames. There was a big cloud of dust and when it settled, all three of them seemed to gasp in unison.

"No. How...how could it be? That's impossible!” John yelled in half surprise, half terror.

In the middle of the smoke they saw Irwin Pilo (a.k.a. Roboshmo) with a gleam on his face. Irwin was Zach’s arch enemy. They used to be comrades in mechanics until Irwin was kicked out because of his killer robots. He decided to get revenge so he killed Zach's girlfriend, the only woman Zach ever loved. Then Zach, out of anger, threw Irwin into a piece of his own machinery. He thought he got rid of him for good this seemed to discourage him.

"Hell, o you three, He turned to Zach and snarled, "Hello, Zach."

"You evil demon!" Zach jumped to Irwin, and went right through him! He landed face down in the snow.

"A hologram,” Cindy said, shocked.

"That's right. Can you do something for me? All you have to do is," he started to shrink into a bright, shining sphere about 1 foot in diameter, “look into the shiny ball.”

The sphere just hovered in the air. Then it cracked like an egg and out from it popped a big man. He had a black, tight-fitting costume and a red cape. His teeth seemed to be that of a sharks. His eye had a red glow. Half of his hair was in spikes and the other half was in a buzz cut. He had black and orange stripes on his face.

"Not you, again." John said.

Zach looked up at the man, "Who in bloody blue blazes are you?"

"I am Mocknock, lord of all Econick. And I'd like to congratulate you. No one has ever survived my hologram trap."

"What?

"Well, you see, you are in Los Angeles right now. It is not winter, either. It is summer. You're not only in the midst of Los Angeles, you're also in the midst of the freeway. Have a nice life.. .whatever is left of it.” Mocknock snapped his fingers and there was a bright light that flashed before there eyes. Then, like Mocknock said, they were in Los Angeles and on the freeway. Mocknock disappeared and in his place there was a big rig heading right for them. They jumped to the side of the road where the other trailer was.

"Are you all right? " One of the other guys said, "Do you know how we got here."

"I don't know," Cindy said, “but I think we should go to the headquarters.