Final Confrontation: Part 1
This chapter takes place during Episode
13. Sorry, but it was getting too long.
Author's note: There are anomalies in
the cartoon that this fanfic will attempt to explain.
----------------------------
"Hmm. I wonder what THIS is all
about?" Fixed Idea 4 wondered as the two army trucks pulled up at the
observatory. He piled out with all the others and stood in line.
"Go to the barracks!" the Techno ordered, "Wait there until further orders!"
Fixed Idea 4 glanced up the steep wall of the observatory and caught sight of a person standing at the window, watching their movements. There was a glint that seemed to come from where an eye was, then the head turned so he could see the profile.
"OH SHIT! What the hell is HE doing here?" Fixed Idea 4 wondered. He pretended to look at a pretty flower so that he was last in line. He then fell in, walked a little way, then ducked into the observatory through the side door. He quickly dashed through the corridors to the ventilation room. He cut off the power to the AC units, ran to one of the air junction boxes, pulled off the screen, and stuck his head inside.
He faintly heard Jose's voice and focussed on it, "REMARKABLE! But what is it?"
Laugher, "I call it the Isle of Doom."
"THAT doesn't sound good!" He thought, straining to filter out the voices from everyone else's.
"It's a living bomb! At midnight it will arrive at central Meridiana. Then, It will explode."
"It's him all right! I'd better get moving!" he thought as he replaced the grating, turned the power back on, then sneaked back out to the barracks, arriving just when a Techno was starting to issue orders.
"Oh no! Not Tiny!" he groaned inwardly the moment he saw the double-sized Fixed Idea standing in the center of the group, basking in the oohs and aahs of his brothers.
Thankfully, he was assigned to permiter duty. He selected a bazooka and was led to his station in the forest by the Techno.
Ten minutes later, he was leaping through
the forest toward Meridiana.
--------------------
Dr. Zack sighed as he glanced through
the next chapter of the physics textbook, "Now how am I going to get
them all through the Miliken oil drop experiment with only two setups?"
he wondered.
The phone rang. He picked it up, "Yes?" he asked the receptionist.
"Urgent phone call from the Mayor's office, Dr. Zack."
"Finally! Maybe the pompous old fart has just seen the light!" he thought, his mood lifting, "Put him through!"
"Dr. Zacharias?" The voice sounded hollow, as if it was on a speaker phone.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. To what do I owe this call?"
"You don't know?"
"No."
"Have you looked out into the harbor lately?"
"No. Why?"
"Go look."
Mystified, Dr. Zack got up, went next door to the Physics lab, and looked out the windows to the harbor.
He scrambled to get the telescope out of the closet and set it up on a desk to get a better look at the island that had suddenly appeared in the harbor.
The glowing red ball embedded in the island caught his eye. He quickly returned to his desk and grabbed the phone, "Yes! What is it?"
"I was about to ask you!"
"A Von Richter creation, without a doubt!" Dr. Zack's anger rose, "Dammit! I've warned you repeatedly until I'm blue in the face!"
"The army company you wanted stationed here wouldn't have been able to handle THAT!"
"Uhhh, true!" he bitterly conceded, "Have you called the capitol and talked to the Presidente?"
"The land lines have been cut!" A woman's voice came in.
"Who's that? Is that you, Inez?"
"Yes, Tony." Inez Tarras replied.
"Have you considered evacuating the city?" he asked Meridiana's Emergency Director.
"Tony, we've always known that the way this city is nestled in these hills, it's almost impossible to evacuate everyone in less than three days. That-thing-will be here in less than six hours."
He sighed, "So why call ME?"
"Doctor, you're the most intelligent man I know of in Meridiana." the mayor said, "Can you possibly be able to give us a clue of how to stop it?"
Dr. Zack thought for a few minutes, biting his lip, "Do you have a helicopter available?"
"Yes!" Inez replied, "The police chopper at the helipad. I'll have the pilot look for you. Do you need help getting there?"
"I don't think so, especially since it looks as if you're not going to bother with a formal order to evacuate the city."
"Do you need any equipment?"
"Hmm. Does the city public works department have any subsoil analysis equipment?"
"The type that uses small explosions to probe the layout of the soil?" Inez asked him.
"Yes."
"I think we do."
"I'll need it, and someone to be able to interpret the results. Also, some of those air tanks firemen use to get into buildings to fight fires."
"We'll have them there."
"Good. I'll do what I can."
"Thank you, Dr. Zacharias!" The mayor said with feeling, "You're a real citizen!"
"Thank you. I wish you were a real mayor." Dr. Zack replied, then hung up.
He was packing his briefcase when he heard
Lucas from outside, yelling "Are you going to tell me what this is all
about?"
---------------------
Dr. Zack slammed the door to his townhouse
shut, threw his briefcase aside, and went upstairs to his bedroom.
He fished out a second wave suit from his drawer and a pair of overalls.
"Isn't it a bit warm for that?"
He whirled around to see a Fixed Idea filling the doorway, "Mel! How did you-"
"Through the window. Sorry about the ledge. And the window frame."
Dr. Zack grimaced, dreading the repair bill for the ornate facade of his townhouse, "So what are you doing here?"
Mel looked grim, "We've got trouble."
Dr. Zack pulled his jacket off, "Fill me
in while I change."
--------------------
Mel looked around at the library as Dr.
Zack twirled the combination to his wall safe. His eyes rested on
a large, beautifully wrapped box, tied with a crimson red bow edged in
gold, sitting on the Louis XIV chair, "What's that, Doctor?" he
asked.
"What?" Dr. Zack asked, reaching into the safe and pulling out a picture frame.
"That box."
"Oh that? A gift I regret the recipient won't be able to get." he said sadly, removing the picture from the frame and slipping it into the breast pocket of the overalls he wore, "Let's get going."
They went outside. Dr. Zack hailed a large taxi-van.
"Where to?" the driver asked. He shot a glance at Mel, clearly worried about his van as it creaked when he got inside.
"Do you know where the Police helicopter pad is?" Dr. Zack asked him.
"Sure. North part of town."
"Take us there!"
-------------------
"NO!" Cybersix's mind screamed
the moment she saw the demolished ledge and library window frame.
Heart pounding, she leaped from the wall, through the window, and landed,
ready for battle.
The room looked quite normal. She listened for any suspicious noises, but heard nothing but the rush of her own blood.
She quickly moved through the townhouse, searching, but found nothing out of the ordinary, except that Dr. Zack's briefcase was still in the kitchen and not upstairs in the library, where it should have been. She took it upstairs, since what she needed was up there anyhow.
Dropping the briefcase beside Dr. Zack's easy chair, she opened his tobacco box, riffled through it, and found the two vials of sustenance he kept there. She took one, closed the box, and drank the contents, feeling the fire of the liquid coursing through her veins, feeling at once empowered and ashamed of her dependency, "Oh, if only-" she started to think, only to catch sight of the ornately wrapped box sitting in her chair.
Her curiosity aroused, she went to the box, noticed the card, lifted the corner with her little finger, and read: "To Cybersix, with affection, Tony".
"Ohhh! He SHOULDN'T HAVE!" she exclaimed aloud despite herself, the rush of emotions making her eyes blur as they welled a little. She picked up the present and looked it over. It was so prettily wrapped, she dreaded to open it. But open it she must.
Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, was a black and scarlet cape. Gratfully, Cybersix pulled off her oft-sewn and patched cape and put on the new one, "Pretty good! Looks and feels like the old one. No, it has little weights along the bottom, probably to keep the edges from curling." she thought appreciatively as she whirled around, getting a sense how it fell about her legs. She took the old one and draped it over the arm of Dr. Zack's easy chair and put the opened box in it too, to make sure he saw that she had gotten it.
It was still daylight. She didn't want to go to Lucas' house when she might be seen and draw attention to him. Just as well: She felt like taking a last tour of the city.
Strange how beautiful everything looked
now.
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"Good thing we're not going far!" the
helicopter pilot shouted to Dr. Zack, "All this equipment and your friend
are pretty heavy!"
"We'll need every bit of it, and him!" Dr. Zack yelled back.
"There's Meridiana High School!" the pilot pointed downwards as the chopper raced over the housetops.
A heavy finger tapped on Dr. Zack's shoulder. He leaned back, "What?"
Mel was silent, but pointed off to the right. Dr. Zack looked, and caught the flash of black and velvet leaping between two buildings, then running across the top of the building.
"She's on the move, since it's still daylight!" Mel shouted to Dr. Zack.
"See Data 7?" Dr. Zack asked.
Mel shook his head.
"Can't pick her up with this weight, Doctor!" The pilot shouted.
"You know her?" Dr. Zack asked him, surprised.
"All I know about her is what I've heard from Detective Henrique. All good!" He glanced over at the running figure, "Do you think she can do anything against that thing?"
"Not directly, I'm sure. Knowledge is power, though, so our mission is as important as hers is!"
The pilot nodded, "Yes Doctor!"
"She'll come up with a plan!" Mel
said confidently, not needing to shout.
----------------
The chopper pilot settled down on the
huge, living island. Dr. Zack, Mel, and Grimes, the DW&P employee
who volunteered to accompany them and interpret the "subsoil" readings,
leaped out. Mel and the technician began unloading.
"This thing seems to be heading to land, Doctor." The pilot told him as he put the chopper on stand-by, "We're fairly level now, but when it starts climbing over things, I may not be able to take off."
"Who's in charge of this mission?" Dr. Zack asked him.
"You are, sir. My orders came from the Mayor himself."
Dr. Zack nodded, then went to Grimes, "Let's start here and try to get an idea of what's inside."
"Umm, Dr. Zack?" Mel said hesitantly, noting the explosives, "Are you sure its safe to set these off here? I mean, it IS a bomb, and shooting those off could set the thing off prematurely."
"Probably not." Dr. Zack said, "If those could set it off, then so could a single bomb from a jet fighter. I doubt Von Richter would design a creature that would blow up on anything else but his own orders."
Mel held up a finger and nodded, grinning,
as if to say, "Score one for the Doctor."
-----------------
"It's hollow." Grimes announced.
"What?" Mel blinked, "Hollow?"
"Makes sense." the pilot said, looking at the crude diagram Grimes had drawn, "Look where the bottom of this thing is relative to the waterline. It's floating awfully high in the water."
"And what about that?" Mel jerked a thumb behind him, toward the glowing red sphere.
"Well, it's more like an inner tube." Grimes said, "That red thing seems to be in the plug filling the center hole of the tube. The tube itself is filled with gas."
"I've been looking at it." Dr. Zack said, "The plug is it's brain, and the sphere is sitting above it, suspended in jelly."
"The control center?" Mel hazarded.
"Or the bomb itself." Dr. Zack said, "Or both."
"I don't know about that." Grimes said, pointing at the diagram, "There seems to be a rather largish chamber suspended between the brain and the inner tube. Here."
"How far down?" Dr. Zack asked.
"It's fairly tall. I think the top part is not more than 15 meters down."
"Where? Mark it out!"
------------------
"WHAT?" The pilot stared at Dr. Zack.
"Take Grimes and Mel and return to Meridiana." Dr. Zack repeated.
"Dr. Zacharias, what do you expect to do alone here?" Grimes asked.
"Just do it. Am I in charge? That's an order!"
Mel didn't say anything, but picked up the pilot and Grimes and carried them to the chopper. Dr. Zack started looking over the air breathing gear, trying to figure out how to turn it on. He heard the whine of the chopper starting up, "Good!" he thought, "I don't want anyone seeing what I'm about to do."
He figured that the chamber might contain the control center, and that the red sphere must be the bomb. If he got in, he figured he could perhaps divert the monster back out to sea.
He heard the chopper lift. Out the cornter of his eye, he saw it head back toward Meridiana.
"We're alone now."
Dr. Zack nearly jumped out of his skin at Mel's voice, "MEL! I thought I told you to leave!"
He shrugged, "They were more ready to leave when I told them I was staying."
Dr. Zack just sighed, "Help me get this thing on. Do you know how to turn it on?"
"Yes." Mel helped him, turned it on, then looked at the mark on the skin of the monster under their feet, "How do you plan to get inside?" he asked.
"Well, I suppose I can trust you with this." Dr. Zack said, turning and staring at the mark.
Mel blinked when he saw space ripple, then open up into a hole with a steel floor 8 feet on the other side. Air rushed out through the hole.
"How does it smell to you?" Dr. Zack asked, trying to keep the hole open.
"A tad stale."
Before Dr. Zack could stop him, Mel grabbed a bag of equipment and jumped down through the hole onto the floor. He stood up, sniffing, "It's livable. Jump down, and I'll catch you."
This was the first time Dr. Zack tried jumping through a hole of his own making. Hoping it wouldn't snap shut when he was halfway through, he jumped down, through the hole, into the Isle of Doom.