> MZ
> The anachronistic fossil was quite intriguing, but I doubted
> we'd ever figure out the story behind it. We went back to our
> haphazard exploring. I quickly discovered a crate of paperback novels
> entitled "Catch 23". I pocketed one for later reading.
ARL: But, he didn't take a copy of "Steal This Book." Ironic.
> Meg discovered a crate labeled "Lot 49" - I advised her not to open it,
> just in case. Most intriguing was the crate labled "Lot 31416 Grails,
> Holy" (one of the few crates to be labeled with anything other than a
> lot number). Inside was a fairly standard moving pack full of what
> appeared to be about a dozen Holy Grails, all alike.
RACE <Zoner>: Hey Gryph, we need a Holy Grail?
TBS <Gryphon>: No, we've already got one, you know.
RACE <Zoner>: Excuse me?
S.D. <Meg>: He said he's already got one!
ARL: He probably *does*.
MMK: Fury found it during one of his many epic journeys!
LOONS: YAY! FURY!
> a
> large stack of MREs, a water cooler, and a bank of computers.
> The bed looked recently slept in.
> "Who do you think lives here?" Ben asked.
MMK: Ben Stein.
> "I have no idea. But I doubt they're sanctioned by the base
> commander."
RACE: CATS?
> "Well, maybe we should leave their stuff alone then," Meg
> suggested.
> "Good idea."
MMK <Meg>: Let's mess around with all this other stuff instead!
ALL: Yay!
> Ben resealed the crate and we continued poking around. I
> checked my watch, amazingly an hour had gone by already. Exploring an
> old warehouse full of weird stuff made time go by a lot faster than
> crouching behind a dumpster. Of course, it also raised the
> possibility that we'd be caught (or worse), but that's life.
ARL <Gryphon>: Sure, I could end up getting thrown into a maximum security
prison for the rest of my life, but I'll just get out of it with my
amazing powers of SMARM!
S.D.: Lets see how well his smarm works when he's biting pillows in D Block
with his new "friend" Rufus...
> I spent some time reconnoitering without finding anything of
> note, then I noticed a cool breeze coming from a large crate. I had
> to pry the front open, allowing clouds of billowing vapor to roll out
> across the floor. Inside was a large metal door with a display in the
> middle. Scraping away the frost I could just make out what it said.
> "Hey Ben! I don't know what this is, but this display says 0.001
> Kelvins!"
> "Whoa! Put it back, someone is saving it!"
> Seeing as I'd left my thermal undies back in Massachusetts, I
> decided not to follow the fabled feline, and resealed the crate.
> Suddenly, the warehouse was filled with the sound of wind
> howling through a yawning emptiness. A breeze plucked at my
> clothing. Wandering around the corner toward the noise, I found Meg
> staring blankly into an open crate, into which loose debris from the
> surrounding area was being sucked. As I watched, her uniform cap was
> sucked in as well.
RACE: Now let's go, shirt!
> This was all quite fascinating, as the crate was
> about the size of a refrigerator box and stood clearly alone, some
> distance from the nearest wall.
> "Um, Meg, what's in there?"
ARL <Meg>: A plot hole.
RACE <Gryphon>: Huh. I'm suprised it isn't bigger...
> "nothing," she replied, her voice flat.
> "You mean it's empty?"
S.D.: It can't be. It has her hat.
> "no... it's nothing."
> "Ah, staring into the abyss and all that. Well," I said,
> edging over to her, "why don't we just close that little box up then,
> shall we?"
> "ok."
> Quite deliberately -not- looking into the crate, I swung the
> lid closed.
MMK <Zoner>: And what are you going to say after I did that for you?
GAVOK <Meg, timidly>: 'nk you.
>It got about halfway there before being grabbed by the
> wind and sucked shut with a jarring BANG, the latches falling into
> place automatically as it closed. Meg continued to stare blankly for
> just long enough for me to start to worry, before blinking and
> staggering back slightly. "Whoa, what was I doing? Hey, what's in
> this crate?" She reached for the latch.
> Quickly moving to block I replied. "Oh, it's nothing. Just
> an empty box. Why don't you check out one of those?"
> "Uh... OK." She moved off in another direction, shaking her head.
> While I stood their pondering the purpose of a box full of empty,
GAVOK: It makes a great conversation piece. "Hey, what's in that box?"
"Absolutely nothing!"
MMK: Ohh, so *that* was the prize on Wheel of Fish.
S.D.: It would make a great place to hide bodies, too.
ARL: Shady?
S.D.: I'm just *saying*...
> I was interrupted by a cry of "Hey, neat!" from Ben. I found
> him holding a colorfully decorated tiki mask, complete with feather
> fringe.
TBS <Gryphon>: Up yours, Crash! It's mine!
> "What's with the mask?"
> "I don't know, but isn't it cool? I think it would look great
> on the wall in the den."
> "Look, the thing is probably cursed, or something. I don't
> think we need to be hanging anything we find here on our walls.
MMK <Zoner>: Remember what happened when the Brady Bunch tried it.
> I just pulled Meg away from a box full of /dev/null. I'm wary of
> bringing this stuff home."
> "Oh, but..."
> "Fine. I have my curse, you can have your curse. Enjoy."
MMK <Gryphon>: Fuck.
GAVOK <Zoner>: Shit.
> Anyway, my curse looked a lot better than the mask, nice though it
> was.
RACE: I know I'm going to regret this but... what's his curse?
MMK: Well, he fell into a spring while on a mission in China, and--
RACE: Stop.
> "Hey Zoner - what the hell's Wumpa Fruit?" he wondered,
> examining the crate next to the one where he'd found the tiki mask.
> I just scowled.
> "Ok, just asking."
> We had barely scratched the surface of the warehouse
> contents. The place seemed much larger from the inside than it did
> from the outside, with long rows of crates in a bewildering range of
> sizes. I had just happened upon one large crate marked Props, Apollo
> 11, Misc"
TBS: But the space shuttle couldn't use props; there's no air in space, so
it can't--
ARL: Snot?
TBS: Yeah?
[ARL sighs.]
ARL: Never mind.
> when Meg called out from near the door:
> "Hey guys, it's dark."
RACE <Doctrine Dark>: Somebody's been sleeping in my bed!
> Well, maybe I'd come back someday to check out the rest of
> this place. But right now it was time to go.
ALL <singing>: And now it's time to say goodbye to both our fanfic stars! G-R-Y!
GAVOK: "Y" ask why?
ALL <singing>: F-O-N!
GAVOK: "N"yone notice we spelled it wrong?
ALL <singing>: Z-O-N-E-R!
> G
> Building 19 was a fairly long hike
[MMK and GAVOK stand up and start jogging around the theater.]
MMK <Gryphon>, GAVOK <Zoner>: Hike, hike, hike, hike, hike, hike...
> down the dusty tarmac, and
> if we had tried it in daylight, even discounting the detection aspect,
> we'd have been sweating like pigs. As it was, we kept up a brisk
> walking pace that kept the chill off, and had a pleasant evening
> stroll,
S.D.: Awww... how romantic.
RACE <Gryphon>: I'm a self-important Godboy who enjoys long walks along dusty tarmacs in the dead of the night...
> if you disregard the nerve-shattering tension.
ARL <Gryphon>: We're going to miss "Sanford and Son"!
> It took us half an hour to reach the man door at the back of Building 19,
GAVOK <singing>: Make a belch and turn the knob! Open it and be a slob!
Iiiiiiiit's the Man Door!
> and a minute ten for Meg to pick the cheap padlock in the dark.
> The hangar was dimly lit and smelled of dust, metal and stale
> kerosene,
MMK: Simon and Garfunkel were going to sing a song about it,
but "rosemary" sounded better.
> and though it was enormous, it was entirely dominated by a
> single item.
> Unlike Zoner, I had never heard of the Bionic Six before
> meeting Meg. Living a sheltered life in the woods of Maine,
RACE: --raised by wild monkeys--
> not often watching the news, isolated from all but the most pervasive
> marketing efforts (hey, we missed 'Robotech', too), I'd never seen a
> picture of Sky Dancer, which, I think, made seeing the real aircraft
> there in front of me all the more impressive.
> It rather resembled a Concorde SST, though a bit blockier. I
> don't know how big a Concorde is, so I couldn't make a guess as to
> relative scale - I'm lousy at judging that kind of thing by eye
> anyway. It was, anyway, a big plane,
MMK <Gryphon>: Sorta like how Mark Henry is really black.
> longer than the Prince of
> Thebes, although with faster and less spacious lines. We did a slow
> walkaround, silently taking in the aircraft's graceful, sweeping
> lines, while Zoner's practiced eye examined the control surfaces and
> the ship in general for airworthiness.
GAVOK <Zoner>: Yep. Looks like a pelican. Ought to fly.
> At length, after a complete
> lap around the plane, we stopped underneath the rather tall landing
> gear, near the nose.
> "Think you can get the belly ramp open?" Zoner asked Meg.
> "If they didn't change the security codes, I should be able
> to," she replied. She pushed back the sleeve of her uniform jacket -
> that wrist computer was back - and tapped a couple of keys. Then she
> frowned thoughtfully at the display for a moment, brightened, and
> tapped a few more.
S.D. <Meg>: It erased my FreeCell scores.
> Sky Dancer thought about it for a moment, and then the ramp
> began to descend. Zoner grinned, took off his uniform jacket,
> loosened his tie, and started up the ramp with Meg right after him. I
> followed, and stood near the back of the flight deck as Zoner strapped
> himself into the pilot's seat and Meg took co-pilot. I wasn't miffed;
> she knew the aircraft a hell of a lot better than me or Zoner, so the
> seating arrangement made sense.
ARL: So why in hell didn't Meg take the pilot's seat?
MMK: The co-pilot's seat has the only airbags on the plane? (He ^_^s)
ARL: ...right.