The Space
Chapter Seven
“People who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” — Rob Siltanen
Cyd and Macky peered down at the microchip that lay on the table in front of them, then slowly raised their gaze to meet each others, then down once more to the chip. Cyd slowly moved her hand into view, pressing down on it with the tip of her finger, and raising it up for a closer look.
“I’ve never even seen a chip that small,” Macky whispered, “what do we do with it?”
“I’m not sure,” Cyd replied, examining it from all angles, “I mean it’s gotta fit in something.”
Macky leaned back in his chair and started pondering, rubbing his chin and bouncing up and down on the lumbar springs. “I mean, the back of the card was embossed with the letters PDX, but we’ve already found the PDX file.” Macky reclined back in his chair, tossing his glove up towards the ceiling and catching it again. “Everything we were finding before this was like little bits of the team. Could this be another little bit of that?” He caught the glove once more and sat up to face Cyd.
“Could be,” she said, holding the chip up towards the overhead lighting, then placing it down once more on the table. “What if it’s some sort of back door into PDX? Like the code for the city we found before, you know?”
“We haven’t found any code yet, I don’t know why Archimy would want us to find that now.” He flung his glove up in the air again but overshot the return. He stretched back in his chair to catch it and fell over backward.
“Graceful as ever,” Cyd laughed
Macky sprung back to his feet and took a bow, then turned around to look for the glove which had landed on the My Little Drony behind him. “Wait a minute,” he froze, then walked over and picked up the drone, “This is from PDX!” He exclaimed, almost tripping over himself bringing it back over to the table.
“Yeah, I know that Macky,” Cyd said, swiping the chip out from under the drone. “You think they’re connected?”
“I’m not sure, but I do know we haven’t found anything by accident yet, so my guess is it’s pretty likely.” He began searching the drone for some slot or drive small enough for the chip. “Maybe we need to take it apart.” He grabbed a screwdriver.
“Not so fast kid!” She said, holding her arm out like a mom at a crosswalk. “I think this little guy has a secret,” She leaned in for a closer look, “What are you hiding in there little guy?” Cyd began tapping around on the drone body.
“What are you looking for?” Macky cocked his head to the side and leaned in so close he could hear Cyd breathing.
“I don’t know,” She laughed, leaning back again, “trap door?”
Macky chuckled and gave the drone a few taps too for good measure. “Did you notice this guy almost has a little face?” He stuck out his finger to outline the area, showing it to Cyd, he circled the ‘nose’ and gave it a little poke, “Boop!”
The drone lit up and started making a whirring noise, like a drive warming up, then with a click and a hiss, a tiny door opened.
“You found it!” Cyd shrieked, “it must have been a touch sensor!” She reached over and placed the tiny chip in the open hatch before she could click it into place the door snapped shut and the whirring sound grew louder.
The two of them pushed back in their chairs to see just what was about to happen. The drones blades began to spin and it slowly lifted off, floating up directly over their table, higher and higher until the umbrella atop the drone hit the ceiling. The drone, having been thrown off balance by the bump, began teetering back and forth, then it caught its aerial footing again and lowered itself directly over the holo-desk.
Cyd and Macky pulled back into the desk, gazing up at the floating drone. “Now what?” asked Macky, slack-jawed in amazed confusion.
“Well,” she said still staring up at the thing, “I’m not sure what this has to do with PDX, honestly what in the world…” The drone began to flashlights from its underbelly.
“You found a keyword!” Macky said laughing in amusement.
The rim around the umbrella started to glow blue, then it flashed a few times and went back off, the drone dipped in the air.
“What the heck is going on here?” Cyd exclaimed.
“You mean what in the world?!” Macky laughed excitedly.
The drone kicked back into orbit and the light around the rim of the umbrella grew brighter, then all at once shot down to the ground, surrounding them in a glowing blue cylinder.
Cyd reached out her hand to touch the light, it made a static buzzing sound as her fingers pierced the edges, flickering purple and white sparks glided off the shapes of her fingertips and joined again below them, keeping the cylinder intact. “What in the world indeed,” she whispered to herself, “What do you make of all this Mac?”
“You gotta check this out,” he replied from behind her, she turned around to see Macky already in his tech specks and grabbing at the space around him with his gloved up hand.
“Well away we go I suppose,” She shrugged and put on her goggles.
“What the… what?” Cyd looked around, they were in the middle of a cold and run-down city. “I know this place,” she says, turning to Macky, “but I don’t know why.”
“Here comes someone, maybe we can talk in this one,” Macky says, pointing to a young girl skateboarding towards them down the rain covered streets. “Hey excuse me,” he hollers to the girl, who skates up to them and grinds to a stop. “Hi, I’m Macky, I was wondering if you could tell us where we are?”
“Hey,” she replies confident but standoffish, “I’m Sarah, this is Detroit.” She looked over at Cyd, gave a nod, then skated off.
“Well, I guess we can talk to them,” Cyd laughed, still trying to figure out why this city, and even that girl, looked so familiar to her.
“Awe weird, look at that crow!” Macky exclaimed pointing to a bird pecking away at a gravestone.
“Oh,” Cyd laughed, “It’s The Crow,”
“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Macky rolled his eyes gesturing again to the bird, “a crow.”
“No,” Cyd's laughter continued, “its the movie! I keep telling you you gotta watch the classics.”
“How did you know…” Macky looked around puzzled, “Where is this?”
“Wha…” Cyd looked around, now they were in a loud building bustling with people electronic bell sounds and lights filled every inch of their senses. “This looks like Las Vegas, when did we transfer over here?”
“I don’t know,” Macky said throwing his hands up in the air, “one minute I’m looking at a bird and you’re lecturing me about old-time movies, and the next thing I look up and we’re here.”
“Maybe we have to figure out what films were in before we can move on.” Cyd reasons aloud.
“Great, I’ve watched like ONE of those movies you told me to watch,” Macky said, clearly frustrated with his lack of golden-age knowledge. “Guess this one is all you!” He said crossing his arms.
“You know this stuff,” Cyd said giving him a playful shove, “You’ve been hanging around me long enough I’m sure you’ve absorbed some of it by osmosis.” She laughed.
“Fine, well I don’t know anything about Vegas, except its home of the King.” Macky huffed, “This doesn’t look like any Elvis movie I’ve ever heard of.”
“No,” She laughed, “I don’t think it’s an Elvis movie. But in all honesty, I haven’t seen many Vegas movies, I don’t know what this could be.” They walked down the hall, past a large indoor carousel and crowds of unruly patrons. “I don’t even know where to start…”
Just then two men, sweating profusely and wearing outfits that could only be described as ‘island insanity’ pushed past them, one was wearing a sun visor and an oversized rubber tail.
“Oh,” she said putting down her head and laughing into her palm.
“What, do you know?” Macky begged, pulling on her shirt. “You didn’t show me any Vegas movie!”
“I’ll show you in a few years,” she continued laughing, “It’s Fear and Loathing”
The lights dimmed down around them when they came back up again everything had changed. They were no longer standing in a Vegas casino but found themselves standing in the middle of a cartoonish neighborhood, with wobbly doors and silly sand roofs.
“Wait!” Macky exclaimed throwing both of his hands to the side as if halting the moment. “This one is mine!” he began rubbing his hands together as if he was coming up with a diabolical plot.
Cyd bowed over and rolled her hand outward as if to suggest that Macky should lead the way. They walked down the street until they came to a particular house, in front of which Macky stopped and faced the door.
“This is the one,” he said matter of factly, “wait for it.”
Just then there was a loud clatter came from the house, it swelled as if it was about to burst from the seams, purple goo splattered across the windows and began leaking out of a small pipe on the side yard.
“What is this?” Cyd laughed nervously.
“Here he comes,” smiled Macky. Just then a large animal in an oversized top hat walked out the door. “I give you Cat in the Hat.” Macky chuckled leaning into an extended one arm gesture, presenting the evidence to Cyd.
“Good call!” She gave him a high five and the two were transported once again.
They went to a futuristic world, it looked similar to downtown D.C., but there were elements of things still fictional even by today’s standard of tech excellence. Then they were transported to a candy land of sorts, an airport, a fox hole, and even a beehive. The two of them had to work together joining their movie expertise in figuring out where each new place landed them. Sometimes they had to ask for help, or look for clues, but they figured out every last one.
As they made their final guess, the fictional Metropolis faded out around them, and they were left staring out of their cylindrical sim at a workshop unknown to them. There was a group of people standing around listening to a British man, who kept using the words “world-building”.
“Didn’t you take a class on world building before we started this quest?” Macky asked turning to Cyd, “do you know who that is?”
“Yeah,” Cyd said, looking a little star-struck, “its Felix McConnell, I think those were all his movies.”
The phone on the other side of the cylinder began to ring, Felix walked over and picked it up. “A city?” He waited for the voice on the other end of the line, “Yes, I’d love to work on something like that. I’ve done cities before, but never so forward-thinking, It sounds like a great idea. What do you call it?” He paused once more waiting for a response, Cyd grabbed Macky’s hand, waiting in suspense, “PDX? Sounds great, lets set something up.” He hung up the phone and the sim flickered out behind the cylinder, opening the view back up to the space in real-time.
“And a world builder joins the team!” Macky exclaimed, throwing a fist in the air for punctuation.
“Felix McConnell, who knew?!” Cyd said pulling off her goggles.
They took a deep breath, this may have been one of the craziest quests yet. Just then the cylinder flickered out around them and the whirring from the drone overhead stopped. Cyd and Macky both jumped at the table, catching the drone before it crashed down, then proceded to fall on the floor, and burst into laughter.
“Another quest down,” Macky said wiping away tears of amusement.
“One step closer to the answer,” Cyd said rolling onto her back and staring off into the ceiling, already dreaming of quests to come.
Continue to Chapter Eight
