The Wanderers--Chapter Four

The Crossover Internet Adventures
XIA #2--"The Wanderers"
Chapter Four--"Rain of Terror"
by John Seavey

 Major Don West was getting really, really tired of the noise. It was a dull, repetitive boom, that just kept going, over and over, as the beast outside continued its unceasing assault on the Jupiter 2. Occasionally, it roared loudly, with a sound like a tuba being strangled...but then it just returned to pounding on the hatch. Again and again.

 The young man that had been travelling with the strangers seemed remarkably unconcerned. In fact, it almost seemed a bit suspicious. At least Doctor Smith was showing the panicky cowardice that he usually did in these situations.

 "That hideous monstrosity will devour us all!" he cried out. "Oh, if it isn't bad enough that I must be trapped with this--this ruffian--" he pointed to Jamie-- "I must now be ready to be eaten at any moment!"

 Don sighed. "Calm down, Dr. Smith. You--um, Jamie--come with me."

 Jamie stood up indignantly. "Now, look here! I'll nae stand for this wee yon Sassenach calling me a 'ruffian'! I didna do anything to the man, and I'll nae have him say I did!"

 "OK, alright. Nobody's accusing you of anything. But I'm going to go check on the girls, and if he's right, I can't leave you alone with him, and if he's lying, I don't want to give him the chance to incriminate you further." Both men started to object, but Don cut them off. "Look, we're in a dangerous situation right now. Any arguments or problems you two have will have to wait." And with that, he grabbed Jamie's sleeve and started dragging the Scot behind him.

 After they left, Dr. Smith grinned to himself. The plan, so far, was working perfectly.

 

John Robinson was beginning to get very worried. This "Doctor" fellow didn't exactly seem trustworthy--in fact, he looked more like a little tramp than a scientist. And his friend had run off with Will almost an hour ago, and neither one of them had come back yet. The Doctor had agreed to help look for them, but even so, he was still insisting that Zoe knew how to take care of herself.

 "I'm telling you, they're perfectly alright!" he said as he walked, stumbling his way along, yet moving faster than John could keep up. "Zoe might look small, but she's very capable. Almost as much so as me."

 Privately, John thought that might not be the best of endorsements, but he kept it to himself as they walked. Instead, he asked, "This craft of yours...how does it travel?"

 "It...um, well it travels through...hmm. It's actually quite technical, really...I'm not sure you'd understand it."

 "I'm actually very bright, Doctor. I think you'll find that I can easily comprehend advanced scientific concepts."

 "Er...well, that's really what I'm afraid of, to tell you the truth. My people are very keen on keeping the technology secret. If I were to explain it to you, they'd be very angry when they found out."

 "Your people?"

 "Yes, my...my, goodness, it's getting dark rather suddenly! Those look like storm clouds, if I'm not mistaken."

 "Well, a little water never hurt anyone," John said. "If Will and Zoe are out in bad weather, I want to find them as soon as possible."

 

Will and Zoe were, in fact, in bad weather. The storm over the coast of Maine was a bad one, and Will had been soaked to the bone within moments. Zoe's outfit was designed to give better protection against the elements, but even so, her hair was plastered to her head by the driving rain.

 It was that rock formation that had started all this, she thought. Mica, polished by the erosion of wind and rain to a near-perfect mirror. When she'd first come upon it, she thought that Will had been somehow entranced by the play of light on the mirror. Then she looked again, and realized he was actually entering the mirror--being sucked into it as she watched. She ran over and tried to pull him out, but all she accomplished was getting herself dragged in along with him. Now the two of them had emerged from a pool of still water--but it wasn't still for long, as the thunderclouds poured forth onto them both.

 "Where are we?" cried Will over the storm.

 "I don't know," Zoe shouted back, clearly discomfitted by having to admit not knowing something. "We went through some sort of travel portal, but I've never seen anything similar. We could be anywhere in space and time at this point."

 "How do we get back?"

 "Well, when the storm calms down, we might be able to return the way we came--it might be some naturally occurring dimensional gap."

 "And if it isn't?"

 "We find out where we are, and wait for the Doctor to find us."

 

Maureen Robinson was surprised at the depth of anger she felt. Nothing, she thought, had ever made her this furious before. She was ready to cheerfully strangle this man with her bare hands, she thought, and would do so if it wasn't for one piece of knowledge she needed from him...

 "What have you done with my daughters?" she asked.

 The man in the room of mirrors turned and looked at her. "They're... safe." he said. "Very safe. As safe, in fact, as a very safe thing indeed. Much safer, say, than you are."

 "Are you threatening me?"

 "No! No, no, no, no, no....well, yes. Sort of. Ish. Thing. You're not safe here with me, but it won't be my fault. It'll be my fault. I'm sorry...I'm not making much sense, am I?"

 "No, you're not!"

 "OK, I'll start over. I'm insane. I'm very bright...in fact, I'm too bright. I'm so smart, I realized what kinds of things I could do if I was insane. So I built this place--it relies on unique transdimensional principles--and hid myself here, so I couldn't do too much damage when I went insane." He sighed. "Unfortunately, I was so so so smart that even after I went insane, I figured out how to bring other people here. I tortured lots of them to death, in interesting ways. I still have the bodies, if you'd like to see them later."

 Maureen felt some response was called for here. "No, not at all."

 "OK. That's what most people say. I want to leave. No, wait. I don't want to leave. Well, when I'm insane, I want to leave and kill and kill and keep killing until every living being is dead dead dead dead--" he slapped himself. "But when I'm lucid, I want to stay here. No, that's not true. I want to leave then, too. I want to feel the rain on my face, not just watch it splash against a mirror in a junkyard. I want to touch a woman's soft skin, instead of just watching her undress before she goes to bed." He looked over at Maureen. "Don't worry--you're married. But I do want to live again...but I know if I get out, I'll relapse again. I do that quite often, at unpredictable moments. I just SNAP!" He picked up a socket wrench, and started to walk over to her, but stopped before he'd taken more than a few steps. "Then I snap back. So I can't let myself leave. But I'm going to. I know it. This is the time that I'll escape, with the aid of my newfound allies...and I'll kill everyone in existence. But your daughters are in a room, outside of time and space and existence. They'll sleep forever, totally safe, where nobody can get to them, not even me. You, on the other hand, are trapped in a room with a madman, whose fragile sanity could go at any second. See? I'm not threatening you...not one little teensy tiny itty bitty bit."

 

Major West and Jamie ran into the central control room, where they found Dr. Smith already scanning the area through the external cameras. "That monstrosity is still out there," he said, "and it's already damaged the hull!"

 "Worse," replied Major West, "Maureen and the girls are nowhere to be found. That means they're still outside, and we have no way to get to them."

 "It could be worse," said Jamie, in an attempt to lighten the situation.

 "How?" shouted Major West.

 "It could be raining."

 Suddenly, there was a loud thunderclap. Rain began to pour down onto the ship, making a pattering noise that stood in sharp counterpoint to the thudding fists of the monster.

 "You were saying?" asked Don wryly.

 

Zoe and Will had been waiting for hours in the storm, in the dark, holding hands to keep from losing each other, and getting wet.

 "1937," Will said.

 "Battle of the Marco Polo Bridge--the beginning of war between Japan and China," Zoe replied.

 "Alright, your turn."

 "1066," Zoe responded.

 Will smiled, though she couldn't see it in the darkness. "Too easy--" he began, but stopped when the entire area was bathed in bright light. "Someone's found us!" he cried out in delight as he jumped to his feet.

 "But who?" Zoe asked as she got up as well.

 "National Security Agency", a voice responded through a loudspeaker. "And you two are both under arrest, for trespassing on government property, and possibly for high treason against the government of the United States of America."

 

"It was a joke!" Jamie shouted, over the increasing din of the thunderstorm. "I didna mean anything by it!"

 "Well," replied Dr. Smith, "your joke turns out to be concentrated acid! The rain out there is eating its way through the hull at a phenomenal rate! At this speed, the ship will be dissolved within a half an hour, and we'll be next! Oh, the pain, the pain..."

 "The water is acidic?" Don asked urgently.

 "Aye," Jamie said in sudden understanding. "Just like that river out there!"

 "The idiotic troglodyte is correct. This whole ecosystem must have very high contents of acid. I'm sure we'd have found out soon enough as it stood."

 "No," replied Major West, "you don't understand. That thunderstorm is acidic...and the whole Robinson family is trapped out in it!"

 Jamie added, "And so is the Doctor..."

 TO BE CONTINUED...

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