The Ant Returns - Chapter III (618 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: The_Ant
Rating: 1.69 on 18 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2005-01-31 12:49:14 EST
(Prologue - http://www.ubersite.com/m/57985)
(Chapter I - http://www.ubersite.com/m/58042)
(Chapter II - http://www.ubersite.com/m/58125)
==Chapter III - Rob Goes Back==
Rob and Schroedecker were outside. Rob was on the porch having a smoke while the doctor retrieved his satchel.
"Don't tell me," Rob said. "The monkey-suit?"
Schroedecker nodded.
"Enjoy that cigarette," the old man said, stepping up beside Rob. "For a while it will be your last."
"Fuck that," Rob said. "I'm bringing some smokes back with me."
"You cannot, Robert." Schroedecker started wringing his hands. "Think. In that time and place for a peasant—"
"What's this peasant shit?"
"—to be able to afford tobacco—"
"Why do I have to be a peasant?"
'—would indeed be a rarity—"
"Maybe you oughtta rethink this peasant thing."
"—like a welfare collector of today spending his stipend on an expensive cut of meat and—"
"I don't want to be a peasant."
"—stop saying peasant!"
Rob ground out the stub of his smoke and lit another immediately. He didn't like the way this was going.
Schroedecker looked sympathetic. "Robert, in the place you will be, where farmlands and woodlands meet, it is a natural pharmacopoeia. If you get the urge to smoke there are dozens of natural alternatives to calm your nerves. Chew valerian root. Sip tea made from camomille or cat mint. Suck—"
"How about some nicotine gum then, huh?"
"Chewing gum does not exist in that time, except of course for some natives in the Americas who chew pine gum and other semi-solid resins for-"
"A nicotine patch! I'll slap it on my ballsack if I have to, nobody will see it!"
Looking exhausted, Schroedecker relented a little. "There is a very slight chance that on one of the nearby farms someone will have a small and private tobacco patch. If you could find some dried and cured leaves, then I suppose you could roll your own."
"That I can handle," Rob said.
"Now, I need your ring. Your wedding ring."
Rob made a fist with his left hand.
"Robert, only the well-to-do could afford rings like yours. Also, someone with a keen eye might see that yours is not a ring of that time. Things were more crude then, Robert, very much so. And an unmarried laborer can wander from place to place much easier than a man with ties, because a man like you needs simple work wherever he can find it."
Taking a deep breath, Rob slipped the ring off his finger. "Better take good care of it Doc."
Schroedecker slipped it into a small breast pocket on his vest. "My word, you have," he said solemnly.
Rob suddenly smacked his forehead with one palm. "Hey, aren't we forgetting something? My shots?"
"Of course, of course," Schroedecker said, dipping into another pocket and retrieving a black velvet ring case.
"Doc, you must know I don't feel that way about you... but I'd like the two of us to remain friends."
"Bing Hope and Bob Crosby were never as funny as you," Schroedecker said dryly.
He opened the case and revealed a what looked like a crude ring of wrought iron. The metal was pitted and dark, made to look decorative and inexpensive.
"In your ear you should wear this, always. It is not metal at all, but a porous ceramic sheath, very strong, over a soluble insulin compound. Essentially, it is like a series of time-released doses, completely safe, very effective."
Rob took out the ring he was already wearing and put the mock-iron one in its place. "Couldn't have mixed a little soluble nicotine in there as well, huh?"
The doctor shook his head.
"So how many doses do I have, yunno, just in case something goes wrong and this fix-it job takes longer than we thought?"
"Schroedecker chuckled and said, "Not to worry, Robert. This will last over a year. I went berserk with caution, I think. Now. Into the suit."
Rob took the satchel and paused when Schroedecker tapped him on the shoulder. "Is it okey-dokey with you if I go into the woods out back and pee, Robert?"
"Huh?"
"While you change?" Schroedecker gestured to the woods beyond Megan's garden. "Not since I was a boy in the Schwartzwald have I peed in the woods. Now, as an old man, with an old man's prostate, it would be pleasant to stand and urinate not under florescent lights, but under the trees, warmed by the sun, listening the bees and the birds."
"Go crazy, Doc."
Schroedecker nimbly stepped off the porch and trotted around the house as Rob went inside and upended the bag onto the floor. Two of the cats, Harriet and Ramona, were back on the couch, trying to nap, each cracking one eye open to see what he was up to.
The Ant suit was lying at his feet, and it had changed. It was reddish now, the color of dried blood and rust. On the skin-tight bulletproof and flame-retardant uniform, the bulky gauntlets, the helmet with its bristling antennae, and the shock-absorbing überboots, only flecks of the original midnight blue remained.
"Oxidization!"
Rob cocked an ear toward the open back door.
"The waters of the Bay of San Francisco! Nasty waters, Robert, vile with poisons!" This from Schroedecker, wherever he was passing his own tainted water. "The iron-based alloys of which the suit is partly composed were oxidized! A shame! The old color, I liked!"
"Me too," Rob muttered, stripping down to his shorts and fighting his way into the suit. "Jeez, what a stink."
"If it is odorous, I apologize!" Schroedecker yelled. "But I could not take it to the dry cleaners for Martinizing without a few questions, no?"
"It reeks, Doc!"
The suit had shrunk a little, and it was so tight Rob figured it must look obscene. With a grimace he slid his feet into the still-damp überboots. The interior of each boot had originally been molded to perfectly fit his feet, but the long soak and recent drying had caused them to warp and shrink. The gauntlets were similarly uncomfortable, and although the size of the helmet had not changed, it smelled God-awful inside.
Schroedecker came bustling through the door, rubbing his hands. "What a glorious pee, Robert. I envy you, being able to do that each day."
"We do have modern facilities here, Doc," Rob said. He nodded toward the bathroom he had recently added on to the old house, quietly proud of the end result of a lot of hard work.
The doctor studied Rob, wondering why the young man looked so familiar and wondering why that familiarity was so disquieting. "You must find local clothing as soon as you arrive—I should not want anyone to see you in the suit. You must get out of it the moment you go back—but I feel that you should have some protection when you first arrive. I have scouted your arrival site already, but who knows what is subject to change?"
"I thought you and Pfaltzer were medical doctors?"
"We have diverse interests and fields of expertise," the old man said. "Once, long ago, we shared an interest in this."
Schroedecker carefully powered-down the timebelt and took it off. He approached Rob with the belt held open.
"So, what powers this thing?" Rob asked. "It isn't gonna zap my huevos, is it?"
"I am afraid I don't—"
"Is it gonna microwave my gonads?"
The old man chuckled. "No, my boy, you are quite safe. One cannot be neutered by the power of four D cells, can one?"
"You pulling my chai— are you kidding?"
"No. This is the truth. The D cells provide enough initial power to open a tiny rift in space/time within a containment chamber in the belt. Within this rift is a... vortex. Well," Schroedecker said with a shrug, "I do not really know what inside the rift there is, but somewhere within the rift is an immeasurable gravity source -very powerful— that enables a small generator to... you are familiar with the works of Tesla?"
Rob shook his head.
"So. Simply put, the D cells provide a spark and then the belt feeds off the gravity source, providing as well a field of force around you to protect you in your nanosecond journey."
"But how do I travel through time?" Rob asked, as the belt was slipped around his waist, adjusted for his trimmer middle, and clasped shut.
"Well, you go into the rift, of course." Schrodecker hit a button and the display on the belt came alive.
Rob felt a reverberation deep inside, somewhere between his gut and his balls. "Yunno, there are people who could really get off on this."
Schroedecker gave him a quizzical look, and Rob said, "How do I go into the rift if the rift is inside the belt?"
"The toffee nature of time and space," Schroedecker said, as if that explained everything.
"We're not talking bonbons here, are we, Doc?"
Schroedecker let out a short barking laugh. "Good, Robert. Bonbons. No, time and space are toffee, to a certain degree. They bend and fold and twist. You can squoosh them. But time also circles like roundabouts, and that is why we must hurry. The gravity waves, I do not understand it all yet, are somehow cyclical, and to get you back to France in the year 1794 we must, much like a California surfer dud—"
"Dude."
"Surfer dude, we must wait for the perfect wave and ride it when it comes." He retrieved a small pocket watch from his vest and tapped the crystal with one finger. "And it comes now." Schroedecker's fingers danced across a few keys on the timebelt.
Rob swallowed when he felt his ears pop.
"Now," Schroedecker said. "You will arrive in the village of Pont Chandon at exactly five of the clock in the morning on Saturday, the 21st of June, in the year 1794. You must find Henri Collison, which should not be a great difficulty, as he owns the farmland where you will be deposited. You must protect him and make sure he gets safely out of France, and you will have over a week in which to do this. Henri will already be making preparations when you arrive. You must stay wary of Pfaltzer, and try not to be too noticeable. If you draw attention to yourself—"
"I could change things to come. Got it. At least all the sci-fi movies I've watched have taught me something. There is one little problem though, Doc."
"Yes?" Humming to himself, Schroedecker hit a few more keys, and Rob's vision was suddenly rose-tinted.
"I'm seeing pink!"
"The field of force. It will fade. The problem?"
"I don't speak French. In fact, I don't speak eighteenth century French or English. I'm assuming that they are both different from what is spoken today."
Schroedecker tutted. "The helmet, Robert. There are tutorials. Are you ready?"
"Fuck no," Rob said. "But tell me how to get back and then let's just do it."
Schroedecker stepped back, and looked Rob over. He smiled and frowned at the same time. Rob still looked strangely familiar, reminding him of... what? He felt the beginnings of a shiver and suppressed it. "When you are ready to come home, hit on the left the keys that are red, white and blue, in that order exactly. Like the flag. American of course. French too, I suppose, but the order of the colors may confuse you."
"Like the flag," Rob repeated. His throat was suddenly dry, and he had to take a serious piss.
Keeping one eye on his watch, Schroedecker reached out, extending a finger toward the timebelt. "Bon chance, Robert. You should be able to resolve things in a few days, but for me, I will be seeing you in a few seconds. I wish you luck." He touched the last key, and Rob was simply gone.
Inside the rift, Rob's whole existence went hot pink and blood red. Floating, he felt as if the bones of his skull were contracting and expanding with a disturbing regularity. It was like being unborn. He was startled when Schroedecker's voice filled the earpieces of the helmet, a barrage of French words and phrases assaulting him.
Schroedecker was sure Rob would be back any moment. He went over to the couch and sat down beside the cats. A minute passed... then two.
It was just as he began to worry, that Schroedecker remembered exactly who, or what, Rob reminded him of in the rust-reddened suit.
"Liebes-gott," Schroedecker muttered, watching another minute slip by.
User Reviews
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-08-03 11:52:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Supreme Overlord damage control...
Submitted by Supreme_Overlord (user info) at 2005-07-21 22:23:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
shite
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2005-02-16 14:03:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Reading on...
Submitted by Mitchapalooza (user info) at 2005-02-16 04:12:11 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
yawn.
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-02-08 14:58:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by tlozoot (user info) at 2005-02-04 19:51:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Woo
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2005-02-03 22:20:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-02-02 22:51:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Still good. I like the dialogue, especially Shroedecker's speech patterns. He's very charismatic.
Submitted by ellsmall (user info) at 2005-02-01 00:53:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Lovin' it!
Submitted by Remission (user info) at 2005-01-31 23:01:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Beautiful
Submitted by AshK (user info) at 2005-01-31 21:09:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-01-31 18:28:27 (#)
Ranking: 0
72 hits and six reviews do help maintain perspective.
You may go now.
-----------------------------------
Forgive me while I laugh at your misfortune.
*mumble grumble, didn't even rank it a worth reading grumble grouse grumble*
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-01-31 18:28:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by horse87 (user info) at 2005-01-31 18:15:18 (#)
Ranking: 2
...+2.....again....
How do you get your head through doorways, O Great Uberlord?
--
72 hits and six reviews do help maintain perspective.
You may go now.
Submitted by horse87 (user info) at 2005-01-31 18:15:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
...+2.....again....
How do you get your head through doorways, O Great Uberlord?
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-01-31 15:54:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2005-01-31 14:54:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
supoib.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-01-31 13:58:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent!
Submitted by wardy (user info) at 2005-01-31 13:09:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by AshK (user info) at 2005-01-31 12:57:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
You made me cry.
+2 anyway.