trans_9 | What Some Take For Magic At First Glance [Opentastic]

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What Some Take For Magic At First Glance [Opentastic]

Howard has avoided The Warehouse entirely for the last few days. Something about wandering around in it alone seems like a profoundly unsettling prospect. Even when he returns to it, he decides it's a better idea to work out in the front yard than actually lounge around the living room.

Today's project is a roller fridge. Having found three sets of identical rollerblades (for someone with six legs? Or just three right feet?), Howard's set to dismantling them and fixing them to a mini-refrigerator he found in an unclaimed house down the tracks. He eventually plans on recalibrating the fridge into a freezer and attaching a handle to drag it to and from Hydroponics, but actually putting wheels on it seems to be the most difficult task so far.

After several failed attempts to use a candle-lighter to weld some sort of axle on, Howard gets a drill and an extension cord out. The sound of the drill upsets the cat, whom he's zipped into an old backpack, bar her head. He doesn't want her to run off onto the tracks, after all, or leave her alone in the house, and despite all the random junk he's accumulated, he hasn't yet found a small leash or collar.

She growls at him and struggles to free herself, but he routinely calms her down with cat treats and a sock full of catnip when the noise scares her too much. To keep her attention, he slips one of the cat treats up his sleeve and out of sight. That's just sleight of hand.

The fridge, on the other hand, may require more creativity. He sits with the backpack full of cat on his lap, chewing on a hangnail, trying to figure out how exactly he's going to give it wheels that can swivel.

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"GPS requires navigational satellites. This place doesn't even have an upper atmosphere." Zouichi looked around at the clearing, puzzled. "Deja vu? Have you been here before?"

Because Zouichi doesn't recognize the place.

"Hold the cat for a second," he says, handing Zouichi the backpack and pulling his flashlight out of his pocket. He sprints up a hill and disappears over a bluff, before popping back up again and running back to Zouichi. "This is from the FAYZ."

He's not sure whether to be happy about that or not. There's are quiet a few elements of the FAYZ he'd rather not show up on the ship, but the cliffs seem fine enough. The mine, which he saw a little down the way, is another issue. "There's, um. We might need to check out the mine or, like, report it to security or something."

Zouichi took Emergency Rations, following Howard at a walk. "What's wrong with the mine? Are you sure it's from your world? Geographical landmarks can be common between different versions of Earth."

He nods. "Definitely mine. That's where Crazy Mary tried to mass murder all the toddlers." He motions over to the cliff.

"The mine's got...well, I'm not quite sure what the mine's got, but it could be radioactive-contaminated, or still have a dead kid in there, depending on what Stacy brought with it."

Zouichi had almost started to think he'd heard all there was to hear about the FAYZ. Apparently not. He stared at Howard for a moment. "Do I want to know?"

Then he looked back at the mine. "I'm not detecting any ionizing radiation. We could get closer and have a look."

How far down did the mine go? He was reasonably sure the ship hadn't taken the entire thing. There must be a cutoff depth beyond which they'd be unable to reach.

"Probably not. Not exactly a highlight of the FAYZ's history." He takes the backpack back, clutching Emergency Rations close to his chest. "Not that I blame her, I mean. I'd have gone crazy too, being in charge of all the little kids and dealing with freaking Astrid breathing down my neck."

The last time Howard was at the mine, it had been night, and he was selling out Lana to Drake. He'd run off rather than stick around and find out what horrible thing was causing the terror that mine exuded. Now, in relative daylight (although Stacy's sun is going down), the mine doesn't induce fear so much as apprehension.

"Okay. You first, I guess." But he'll stick right next to Zouichi.

Zouichi took out his flashlight, clipping it to one of his front pockets, then started forward, heading down toward the opening of the mine. "How stable are the tunnels? Do you know?"

The rapidly setting sun isn't really an issue for him, but he's a little surprised Howard volunteered to follow him so readily. Not too many people wanted to explore a mine tunnel at night.

"Probably pretty stable. I mean, they're still up, aren't they?" That doesn't sound right. He vaguely remembers all those safety videos they had to watch in third grade explaining that mines are always dangerous, but he was always more distracted by the video clip of the kid with the motorcycle falling down the well-shaft.

"There's a tunnel in here too from the meteorite, probably. You'll tell me if the air's going bad in here, right?"

Howard doesn't necessarily want to explore the mine, but Zouichi seems interested, and he trusts Zou to keep him safe. Even from Space Jesus or whatever the hell was down here back home.

Okay, that was maybe not the answer Zouichi wanted to hear, but at least it hadn't been, 'oh yeah, those mines, they cave in all the time'. "The meteorite? Is that where this radiation is supposed to be coming from? And yes, although I'm not even sure we'll be able to get down far enough for that to become an issue."

He paused at the mine entrance, glancing back at Howard. "You don't have to come along if you don't want to, you know."

"No, the radiation comes from the fact that some dumbass decided to chuck a ton of uranium down here at the evil space alien. By the way, last I checked, that dumbass was our king." He rolls his eyes. "Ended up taking out the power plant, too. Most of our radiation came from the power plant, though. That's why we call Perdido Fallout Alley."

He catches up to Zou, still cradling Emergency Rations. It's a tempting offer, and the mine is intimidating.

"What, and let you have all the fun without me? But how will you ever defend yourself all by your lonesome?"

Zouichi looked at Howard, considering. "You never really displayed any symptoms of radiation sickness, from what I could tell. Did you not get a very high-level dose?" Not even going to ask about the evil space alien thing.

He sighed melodramatically as he stepped into the tunnel. "You know, Howard, you can't protect me forever. Some day, my magical princess powers will be needed, and I'll have to leave this tower."

"I wasn't around for the 'chuck a rod of uranium into a giant pit at the alien' shenanigans, and my dad always said living around the power plant didn't mean the water was contaminated or anything. Totally safe, according to the California government. Who knows, after the FAYZ, though." He shrugs. "Might've been what caused the death cough or something."

He turns on his flashlight and follows. "Well, just don't run off with any princes or anything. I can't afford to pay for a wedding."

"Sometimes I'm kind of at a loss to decide which of our worlds sound more ridiculous. Whose plan was it to throw uranium at the space alien, and why?" Zouichi swept back and forth with the light, but thus far, there were no collapsing, rotted beams or methane gas or even horrible radiation.

"...You're not the boss of me."

"The telekinetic megalomaniac. The evil alien was using its psychic powers to mind-control him and tentacle-boy and convince them he was a hungry god. I'm not even kidding. Then they threw an eleven year-old at him and he let up for like, a month before releasing an army of kid-eating bugs." Howard pauses for a moment, then looks up at Zouichi with an ironic grin. "So, do I win or can your world top that?"

After taking a turn with the tunnel, the sun's completely blocked, and the flashlight's the only significant light source. Howard keeps close to Zouichi, though at the moment the mine seems like just a normal mine. Cart tracks, arches of wooden beams, stone walls slick with underground water and algae. Nothing unusual yet.

"More like the sidekick. It's cool, though. I like it this way."

"Oh, I don't know. My world was ruled by an evil CEO who wanted to turn the Earth into a giant ball of zombie meat. Do you think this space alien might still be down here?"

He stepped aside as some kind of rodent skittered by, squeaking. He wondered if it came with the mine.

"You like being the sidekick? I thought most people wanted to be the hero."

"Maybe. I don't know." It's not exactly a pleasant thought, and he'd rather not see Zouichi mind-controlled ever again. "The actual Earth in zombie meat? What're they going to do with a giant meatball?"

He jumps as the rodent skitters by his foot. The flashlight beam dances around before he gathers himself back together and rights the light.

"Do I seem like hero material to you? Nah, I'm totally fine being Lockheed to your Shadowcat."

"...Gain immortality?" Zouichi was not actually sure how that worked.

"Who's Shadowcat?" He paused; for a moment he thought he heard something other than the animal's footsteps, but the flashlight beam revealed nothing.

"That...makes sense." No, it doesn't. What the hell?

"She's an X-Man, although I guess we decided you were Wolv..." Howard definitely heard that. He comes to a stop. He puts a hand to scratch Emergency Rations' ears and feels the hair on the nape of her neck rising. "What was that?"

"I don't know. An echo, maybe? We don't know how far this tunnel goes." After a moment, he decided to continue forward. "Or maybe another animal."

He didn't see any recent signs of a person being in the tunnel, which was something.

Howard follows more to keep up with Zou than because he actually wants to forge ahead. The floor beneath them turns from stone to wood as they cross a hastily-patched hole. Howard grabs a pebble and drops it down between the slats. Despite the relative silence, there's no sound to indicate how far down it goes.

There is, however, another shuffling sound a few seconds later. Howard jumps and grabs Zou's arm to steady himself when the wood slats creak. "That's no echo, man."

Zouichi stopped, but there was still no sign of any intruder. He couldn't locate the direction from which the sound had come from, either.

A pale, wraithlike arm slithered up soundlessly from beneath the wooden slats beneath the two of them, grabbing at Howard's ankle.

The echo-filled tunnel really does nothing to make Howard's shrieking any less girly. He tries to throw himself back over to the part of the tunnel with rock flooring, while trying to hold onto Zou and not drop the cat, and only seems to accomplish dropping the flashlight - which, naturally, goes out the instant it hits the floor. One of the slats under them snaps and Howard's foot goes down and through, tugged by the phantom limb.

"Zou! Zou, help!"

Zouichi grabbed Howard around the midsection, pulling him backward and away from the patched hole. The ghostlike arm released Howard's ankle, disappearing into the darkness for a brief moment before it thrust itself out again. The forearm braced against the ground as whatever the arm belonged to tried to pull itself up.

"Come on," Zouichi said in a low voice, not quite running, but certainly walking with brisk purpose toward the exit.

Howard, having successfully upgraded from 'apprehension' to 'shrieking terror', doesn't bother with the brisk walk. He bolts about halfway back through the tunnel, crashing into rock walls as he goes, before skidding to a stop to look back and make sure Zouichi's behind him. Which is difficult to do in pitch darkness.

At that point, it becomes obvious that the tunnels aren't just a straight line back to the exit. "Zou, tell me you can see in the dark."

It doesn't take long for Zouichi to catch up, not with the darkness slowing Howard down. "Try to stay calm; don't run, we don't want to get lost. And I can see very well in the dark. Just--"

"Don't leave." He turned sharply toward the sound of the voice as the form of a man with a crushed arm slowly oozed out of the tunnel wall.

"Don't leave!" A woman with a gash in her abdomen and smaller cuts in her legs, coming up from the darkness behind them.

Okay, now it was time to run. He grabbed Howard's hand.

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