[Spoon-business] Um... Right

[Wonko <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Okay, on the REAL public forum this time.


{{
__The Return__

[[Across the Grid, things were busy. Gremlins move daround, playing with the
scenery. Players threw gnomes and beer cans back and forth. The Yeti busily
gathered sticks. None of them watched the little WBE Research Lab at
(18,18). None of them were aware of what was going on there at that very
moment.

They would be soon.

------------------------------------------

"Why would they leave those in?" asked Rick, "They took out all the rest of
the Dimensional crap."
He held up a pair of plugs extruding from a tangled mesh of wires and metal.
"Why not these too?"

"C'mon, Rick, these are vSOI mechanics we're talking about here" Ross
sneered, "They couldn't tell their asses from their elbows! You think they'd
even realize what these did? Anyway, it doesn't matter why they're there,
the important thing is, do they still work?"

"As far as I can tell, they should work just fine. But we've gone over it
dozens of times already. We can't tell for certain if it'll work 'til we try
it." He adjusted his lab coat slightly. "Art, you got that thing fixed yet?"

An enormous pile of machinery in the corner shifted slightly. A voice said,
"Yeah, gimme a sec here. I just gotta get this thingy lined up with the, uh,
other thingy."

"Very descriptive, Art. I'm sure we'll all be glad you put the 'thingy' next
to the 'other thingy'."

The pile of machinery jerked slightly, and a rather dishevelled young man in
a faded lab coat emerged from behind it carrying a device which looked like
somebody had put a giant spider in a blender and cross-bred the result with
a shopping cart. The man looked like he hadn't slept in a week.

"Gimme a break, Rick, I haven't slept in a week." said Arthur. "But yeah,
this baby's done. It should work just fine."

"Remind me again, gentlemen, exactly what it is that this 'baby' is expected
to do..." said a trenchcoat in the shadows.

A chill fell over the room as the scientists remembered who they were
working for.

"It's a, uh, a sort of dimensional, uh, a dimensional sewing machine, sort
of." Ross could feel the sweat running down his face.

"My boss is not paying you to make embroidery out of the fabric of
space-time," said the coat.

"No, no, what I mean is, it sort of, it takes two places, two Dimensional
Locations, and sort of, stitches them together. Like, it pulls them
together, then connects them."

"Which means what, in a practical sense?"

"It means," said Ross, warming to the subject now, "that it should be able
to create a sort of hole in DimSpace connecting two dimensional regions. We
based the design on some plans we got from an M-Tek scientist we bribed.
Remember the DimShips? Well, this device is basically a double DimShip
engine. By pulling in two different directions at once, it ought to be able
to pull two DimSpace locations into each other, making a sort of portal
between them. We should be able to get all the power we need from the drive
of a standard vSOI Speeder - they forgot to take out the main drive which
powered the Dimensional Transport coils. That ought to be more than enough
to power this device."

"I don't like the sound of all those 'shoulds' and 'oughts', Mr. Galway. My
Boss does not pay you to make things that 'should' work."

"Don't worry," said Rick quickly, "it'll work fine. We've run dozens of
tests on it, and there's absolutely no danger of... of anything!"

"Of what, Mr. Wodson? What were you going to say?"

"Um, well, our calculations do show a slight chance that, um, well, it's
possible that perhaps, it's very unlikely, mind you, but, perhaps, um, the
machine could, well, uh, explode."

The man in the trenchcoat stared evenly at Rick. "Explode, Mr. Wodson?"

"Um, yes," continued Rick wretchedly. "And a rather large explosion at that.
Um."

"How large are we talking, Mr. Wodson?", the coat said, slowly and
deliberately.

"Well, um, you know how, when, um, global entropy gets too big, and the grid
sort of, um..."

"Explodes everywhere at once? Yes, Mr. Wodson, I know what happens. This is
what your 'baby' could do?"

"Well, no, not exactly... It would be sort of like, um, a hundred of those,
all happening at once, sort of... But it's incredibly unlikely!" He finished
quickly.

"HOW unlikely?"

"Oh, must be a billion to one chance, sir."

"I see. Proceed, then."

"Thank you, sir." Rick took the device from Art, and connected it to the two
plugs hanging out of the Speeder engine. He nodded to Ross, who sat down in
the pilot's seat.
"Cross your fingers, guys!" He hit the ignition.

A deafening explosion failed to rock the Grid. A hole into another Dimension
suddenly didn't form at all.

In fact, nothing happened except that the speeder's turn signals started
flashing.

"Isn't something supposed to be happening, gentlemen?" asked the trenchcoat.

"Um, yeah," said Ross nervously, "something should be happening..."

"Ross, change the target dimension," said Rick. "You're making a portal
between where we are and where we are."

"Oh. Right," said Ross, feeling slightly sheepish. "Okay." He reached up and
turned a few dials, then pushed the big red button marked 'Do Not Push' on
the dashboard.

What happened next was very interesting, and also very hard to describe.
Imagine, if you will, a microwave. A very large microwave. Inside this
microwave, there are a dozen fireworks, and an enormous vat of approximately
50 different shades of food coloring. Imagine, then, that this microwave is
dropped into the middle of a vast whirlpool in the ocean, and turned on.
Partway down the whirlpool, the firecrackers go off. The microwave explodes,
and the food coloring splashes up and down the whirlpool. Imagine then, that
nothing of this can be seen except for the fireworks and the food coloring.
Imagine that this image, of a bunch of fireworks exploding and making a
whirlpool of bright colors, has been videorecorded, and sent off for three
years of intensive care by Industrial Light and Magic.

This doesn't really describe what happened in front of the speeder, but it
would look really cool.

The colors in front of the speeder gradually solidified into what appeared
to be a hole in the air.

The four watchers looked at the hole. They saw, through the hole, a
swingset. They looked closer. Saw a slide, and a sandbox. Saw the children
playing in the yard. Saw the sunlight suddenly being blocked by an enormous
shape. Heard the laugh.

HU-HOO!

------------------------------------------

On the Grid, the players' heads all jerked around as they heard the crashing
in the distance. Where there had once been a WBE Research Lab, there was now
a pile of rubble, and a dinosaur whose proportions and colors boggled the
mind.

OH BOY! NEW FRIENDS TO MEET!

------------------------------------------

In the grungy cabin of the S.S. Wealthiness, a sandwich wrapper fell to the
ground. No orders had come in lately, so the pilot was eating lunch. It
wasn't often that he got a chance to sit back and relax like this. It was
nice. He put his feet up on the dashboard and reached for his drink. A few
seconds later he spewed diet coke all over the dashboard as a massive,
purple, well, it could only be described as a thing, a massive purple thing
moved in front of his window, obscuring the rest of the Grid.

HU-HOO! LOOK AT THAT PRETTY SHIP! IT JUST LOOKS SO NICE... I WANT TO GIVE IT
A NICE BIG HUG!!!

The pilot fell to the front of the speeder as the entire thing was lifted so
it was almost straight up. He heard creaks and pops as the rivets holding
the thing together broke under stress. He reached across, or rather, down,
as that was its new position, and grabbed the trigger. He pulled hard.

There was a crack and a boom, as the dozen laser cannons on the speeder
lashed out at the monster.

HU-HOO! THAT TICKLES!

The pilot grimaced and groped around for the thrust.

There was an audible *POP* as the airspeeder jetted out of Barney's grip
like a bar of wet soap. The pilot slammed on the accelerator, and rocketed
across the grid.

OH, DON'T LEAVE, WE WERE HAVING SO MUCH FUN!
Boomed the voice across the Grid.
OH WELL, WHO ELSE CAN I HUG?

The thunderous footsteps faded as the monstrosity stomped away in search of
new 'friends'

The pilot sat down and took a deep breath. He popped open the cargo bay, and
reached for the Vodka Gnome therein. He paused, thinking...

Turning back to the little console in the dashboard, the pilot began to
type. After a few minutes of furious keying, he hit the 'send' button.

------------------------------------------

In a lush, overdecorated room deep inside WBE, the Wealthy Bastard looked up
as eir mail bin started to flash. E opened the msg:

To: The Boss
From: Wealthiness
Subject: Danger
Priority: High

Sir,
    I have encountered a new danger which poses a great threat to the
company's financial interests. The Research lab at (18,18) has already been
destroyed, and the Wealthiness has taken severe damage.
    None of the data banks have any mention of this creature, but I have
concluded this much about it:
]]
Create:
{{
__Barney__

There exists an entity called Barney. Barney is a passable MO. At the
beginning of each nweek, Barney moves three spaces in the direction of the
nearest speeder to eir location. If Barney attempts to move onto a square
which contains a Big Rock, an Ancient Monolith, or a Service mall, that
object is destroyed, and Barney continues into that square. If Barney
attempts to move into a square whose depth prohibits em from entering it,
Barney decreases that square's depth by 2 repeatedly until e may move into
it. If Barney enters a square of type Void, e first alters that square's
depth to match that of the square e is moving from. [[The methods by which e
does it I have not yet ascertained, but it could have enormous financial
benefits if it can be figured out.]] If Barney reaches the location of the
nearest Speeder to eir location, Barney does not move any further that
nweek, and instead gives that Speeder a Hug. When a Speeder is Hugged by
Barney, it loses 20 points of integrity.
}}
[[
The creature appears to be impervious to our standard weapons. If this being
cannot be destroyed quickly, I fear the company faces severe financial loss.

-----

The Boss read the mail through again to be sure e hadn't missed anything. E
sat, brooding, for a moment.

E pushed a button on the speakerphone on eir desk.

"Ms. Collingsworth, would you please tell the head of the Special Weapons
department that e wishes an audience with me? Now."

----------------------------

To be continued...
]]

Destroy the WBE Research Lab and the Service Mall at (18,18), replacing them
with four Large Lumps of Scrap metal, six Piles of Kindling, and Barney.

}}

-- 
Wonko



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