Broo: "Right. The capacitors are now working, fluctuations are now stable, energy readout is minimal..." Broo went through the long checklist of items. The concrete room looked completely different since they had discovered it. It looked more like a cleanroom with plastic covering most surfaces. There were machines and computers laid out all around the middle point where Broo and Danger found the coldspot where the mystery energy emanated from.
Danger: "The hard light projectors are all set up and operational, as well," Broo's robotic assistant announced, the cables that had been plugged into her artificial body shaking as she waved at the young prodigy. "Just in case there will be any more mutated creepy crawlies attempting to eat us."
Broo: "Perfect! I really dont want to firebomb this room again. The equipment was really heavy. Right, let us move the frame here.... and turn this on.... and this,this, this and this. If all goes well, we should actually be able to view into another universe through the frame's monitor."
Danger: "The particle accelerator has almost reached full capacity." Danger gestured at the makeshift construction resembling a giant metal donut that had took up most of the ceiling, centered right above the invisible anomaly. The radioactive warning sticker glued to bent plating didn't make the kludgy device look any safer.
Danger: "Any moment now we'll be able to bombard the anomaly with all kind of exotic radiation." A cascade of holographic letters, numbers, and diagrams floated around the robot girl. "With any luck, we should be able to gather some interesting readings that way, with only a minimal risk of you developing a new form of cancer."
Danger: "Don't worry, though," the teenage machine cheerfully assured her young mutant friend. "I'm streaming all recordings to a secure location and promise you'll receive the posthumous recognition your discovery deserves."
Broo: If Broo had any eyelids, then he would have been blinking them at her. Instead he just stared for a moment and said, "Excellent! Couldn't ask for anything more. Now let's see if we can warp space so thin we can see right through it." He was grinning beyond whathis face was capable of.
Broo: He pressed a few keystrokes and finally a rather large red button he kept for such occasions. The miniature particle accelerator started to hum as the the machinery inside moved. And then the sound that could have been described as Danger trying to cough coming from the cooling system.
Broo: Broo slid from his high chair and jumped with a wrench, giving it a swing in midair and hitting the coolant with a serious knock. It stopped coughing and worked fine once more.
Danger: The machine started out with a soft hum, gradually increasing to a high-pitched whine, until one of the valves flew off and smashed into the wall, a cloud of steam escaping the contraption with a sharp hiss. "This goes better than expected," Danger commented without any hint of irony in her electronic voice.
Danger: "Ready to begin the probing?" she asked her young partner in science, while monitoring the readouts she received from the battery of sensor equipment surrounding the test site.
Broo: "Initiate probing. For Science!" Broo yelled with much vigor, then and there deciding that it should be his warcry for all things science. Nothing much happened afterwards though. Unless if the sound of processing was considered as something. "This is so exciting. Are we getting any spikes in the readouts?" He asked.
Danger: "Nothing out of the ordinary so far," Danger replied, as if the invisible, intangible source of strange energy hidden away in a sealed room of the school's basement wasn't unusual enough already. "Hold on, I'm detecting fluctuations in the anomaly's energy output."
Danger: "Maybe if we tried different wavelengths and amplitudes," the robot girl suggested with a look at Broo. "Perhaps we should think of it as a lock, and we just need to find the key that fits."
Broo: "Hmm..... that might take a while though." Broo said shuffling back to the computer screen. "Well we can speed up the process of finding the correct wavelength if we broaden the spectrum. And that would mean cranking this up all the way to eleven, as the saying goes." He tapped at his keyboard and the pitch of the machinery's churning went higher as more power was forced through the probing.
Danger: "The direct approach seems to be right way," Danger commented, the chaotic flood of holographic numbers turning into an outright light-show floating around the teenage robot. "Fascinating... unless we just fried our sensors, the Einsteinian laws of physics appear to no longer apply within the experimental area."
Broo: "Huzzah, that is exactly what we were looking for. Now let us see if that is enough to get a visual on the monitor. " Broo grabbed for the frame that started to shimmer where the translucent screen was in the middle.
Danger: "Whatever you're hoping to see, I suggest you don't waste too much time enjoying the scenery," the robot girl tossed in while observing her readouts. "The spikes in the energy output are becoming increasingly intense and unpredictable. I don't know if the anomaly will remain stable for much longer."
Broo: "Then it better be worth it. Recording is on...aand we have a visual." Broo fell silent as he looked through the screen. "This is..." and he fell silent once more. The short insect scientist was at a loss of words. He was looking through to another dimension, and he could not look away.
Danger: Both mutant and machine were left in awe by the spectacular sight, until the tranquil moment was cut short by flashing lights, heralding the surge of energy that consumed half the research equipment before clashing against the protective force-field shielding the middle of the room.
Danger: "Do you think we should redirect power from the particle accelerator to the hard-light projectors?" Danger asked when she found herself underneath a shower of bright sparks. "We might lose the fissure in space-time, but keep our lives instead, which strikes me as a preferable trade-off."
Broo: "....mnnng.... fine, do it, do it." Broo said rather sullenly as he watched their flickering window into a new world fade away into nothingess. "Full power on shielding. In fact... let's increase the hardlight's shield thickness as well. "
Danger: "Way ahead of you," Danger replied, the juvenile robot trying to keep her machine-like cool even with the colourful holographic diagrams throwing aggressively bright warnings at her. "I'm drawing the school's auxiliary power to help seal the rift. I hope everyone remembered to save their current work."
Broo: Broo didn't waver though. He stood like a pillar, his black eyes staring deeply at the point in space where the invisible hole was. Right before the lightbending explosion, Broo cocked his head, as he could have sworn he saw a reversed reflection of himself. What he saw afterwards was the blinding colours of the exploding rift behind the hardlight shielding.
Danger: "I hate to spoil the moment," Danger shouted over the howling of machinery struggling to operate beyond its limits, "but I thought you should know that at this rate, the shielding should hold for an additional twenty-three seconds, and the anomaly shows no sign of stabilizing."
Danger: "Perhaps now would be a good time to consider any ideas that might prevent the collapse of the entire space-time continuum," the teenage robot pointed out.
Broo: "I have two actually. We leave the room, close the door and pretend this isn't happening... or...." Broo teached over to tge keyboard and typed something in. Suddenly the multicoloured chaos trapped inside the shielding became pure white. The sound echoing through the shield was deafening. Then everything went pitch black.
Danger: For a while, there was nothing but perfect darkness and total silence - at least until little Danger switched on her built-in flashlights and decided to speak up. "Did we manage to annihilate the totality of existence, or merely blow a fuse?"
Santo: Meanwhile outside the school...
Santo: Santo burped and threw his empty beercan at the bin. "Score!" he yelled when it went in. "Nuttin' but net!" he added, shifting a little and sloshing the water of the inflatable kiddiepool he was lying in. He was wearing a hat with a tiny palm tree figurine, all in all he resembled an oversized island in a pool of water with a busty godzilla on it.
Melati: "Hey, nice toss, man!" The lizard lounging on top of the rocky island cheered, a long green tail whipping down to slap the grey giant's palm in celebration. Her scaly skin glistened in the sunlight, as the makeshift flag she had crafted out of her top and the little plastic tree didn't give off much shade.
Melati: "Come on! Chuck me one up so I can try again!" Melati held out her arm and made grabby motions with her clawed hand.
Santo: Santo's hand sloshed into the water, feeling around and grabbed a can that he hoped was full of beer. He held it up and then with a flick of a wrist threw it the rest of the way into Mel's hands. "If I knew college was like this I woulda gone to NYU or something straight after school. Coulda gotten a football scholarship, you know. Back when it was just a skin condition."
Melati: "Yeah, too bad there's no mutant league." Melati kept her eyes shut in the sun, and so was extra proud of herself when she managed to catch the can with only the shadow passing overhead helping her out. "You know what our school needs? Our own football team."
Melati: "What proper school doesn't have its own football team?" the lizard girl asked as she pinched a hole into the can with her claw. The next moment a much larger shadow blocked out all of the sunlight.
Santo: "Uhh... one with a giant pillar of something shootin' up into the sky?" Santo suggested, then nudged Melati to look. "Should we be worried about that?" he asked.
Melati: Melati finally opened her eyes and raised her head, following the beam of ghostly light upwards into the sky, where it disappeared behind darkening clouds. Before long, they lit up with eerie lightning. "Nah," the lizard said. "Still looks pretty ordinary for this place."
Melati: The deep rumbling thunder that followed didn't come from the sky, but from the disintegrating building on the ground before them, its rubble spiralling into the heavens in a vortex around the pillar of light. "Okay, maybe if people start running..."
Santo: The sound of another beer can spritz opened. "What? You first said it's normal? Ugh, fine, let's run." he groaned, shifting and trying his best to get out of the kiddiepool he was lying in. "It'll be easier if you got off me first, you know."
Melati: "Maybe if you could just hold still while I'm bringing in the flag," Melati snarled back, while struggling to get back into her top. With her legs around Santo's shoulders, she held on to her steed by digging the claws on her feet into his chest.
Melati: "Speaking of running," she then said and pointed ahead, where a giant bug and girly robot came sprinting out of the trembling building.
Santo: "Oh my god, it's an alien invasion, giant bugmonsters and robots." Santo flailed a bit, shuffling out of the kiddiepool and getting up, with or without Melati still clinging to him.
Melati: "Woohoo!" Even hanging upside down from a galloping mountain's back couldn't keep Melati from cheering. "Hell yeah! For a bit there I was worried the day might get boring."
Santo: THe rumbling turned into a loud thundering clap that deafened eardrums. The bug and robot had already disappeared somewhere, but Santo was determined not to be assimilated by the borg or become a host for some alien spores.
Santo: Santo stumbled forward when a tickling surge of energy went through his body as the pillar of light exploded, the dark clouds shimmering where the pillar had penetrated it, then the shimmering turned to sparkling as the dark clouds fizzled outwards, lighting up the sky like a carbonated version of the northern lights. "Whoa.... purdy." Santo just said, standing and staring straight up.
Melati: "Hey! What's happening!?" Melati's claws cracked the stone on Santo's shoulders as the lizard girl scaled her walking rock. "Don't tell me I missed... wow." Not even her long tail moved while she sat on his shoulders, her head tilted all the way back, and stared open-mouthed into the sky.
Melati: "Tell me, Santo, did we eat some more of the magic mushrooms and forgot about it?" she asked, unable to take her eyes off the mesmerising spectacle of dancing light.
Santo: Santo stared open mouthed, not answering Mel at first, but when he did get the clarity to say something, all he could manage was, "I dunno... but whatever it is... it sure as hell look magical."
:invisiblewoman :spiderwoman