Action Hero (3)

I grabbed the woman’s arm and together we ran around the hulk toward the boy. He was still standing agape in a bemused amazement and shock, no doubt considering his uncanny involvement in the situation which grows larger as obviously the woman from the chopper and myself have some kind of former connection.

“We…we need to run!” were his first and only words, as he calls his dog and runs toward the compound perimeter. Toward the edge along the street where the wall starts. Using the chainlink, he scrambles up the outside and levers himself to the top of the 15 foot wall. It is a thick wall of solid concrete, with a flush roof – no parapats. I was relying on his fear to be similar to ours in guiding his choice of action. I hoped I wasn’t wrong, and was delighted I was right, as he opened an access into the wall itself.

The three of us slipped into some kind of cramped service box. It was lined in plastic, and contained an airlock looking-access in the floor. He sealed the lid, rambling as he went about how his father was a big wig at the compound (apparently, its not a “security” compound, but simply a government center of some kind. Perhapse we were being picked up for questioning). In any case, it is clear from his rambling that he is frequently the cause of some greater or lesser mischief, and he will be a suspect in this incident even if he hadn’t anything to do with it. I gather that if his father, an even handed fellow, hadn’t dismissed his accidents that most of the base would have strung him up by now.

However, having a high-ranking father gave him a certain freedom at the compound, including the luxury of exploring these service compartments and corridors. He works a complicated lever which opens the airlock into a corridor below. We are still in a fairly small space, but are able to stand. He opens a door into a longer section of corridor, locates a gangway to one side, and again we clamber down into a constricted space.

In one version of the dream, the woman didn’t crash land, she proceeded on to the compound. In this version, she disappears without notice. In either case, I don’t see her again, for whatever reason no longer needed to sustain the storyline.

We are now in some sublevel chamber. He locates an exterior door, and it opens into the compound greensward. We are below the level of the perimeter; the landform inside allowed to roll and change for natural effect. Close by is the rank edge of a small pond grown round with reeds. Maybe this is a service and pump closet for this pond. His dog is near the pond, having found his own way into the compound, and stands waiting for some directions from his master.

The boy closes the door again, excited about where we were. He then produces a Gamma Engine from his coveralls. A gamma engine is a grenade-like device that simply produces a burst of gamma particles. Similar to a z-particle generator, except you never know what to expect with z-particles. They tend to have a randomizing effect on their area of use, most frequently affecting some kind of time-shift. Why he should have one handy, and find its use suddenly necessary is a mystery, but not so much so as to cause suspicion. I imagine he gets into alot of his mischief by deploying gamma engines.

It works by chemical reaction, the timing controlled by a series of glass cylinders, not unlike glass control rods in a reactor. Together we leaned into a corner (as if we needed secrecy) while he activated the device. Its a glass barrel about 4 inches in diameter and 6 inches tall. Inside are three layers of substrate around a mechanical core, each seperated by a glass cylinder. The seperation cylinders are loose in the container, apparently to allow reactants to mingle, or perhapse to control pressure. In any case, it was clear he was fumbling again.

He failed to get the now-activated core back into the center quickly enough. One of the substrates swelled too soon, and the cylinders shifted slightly, making reassembly difficult. The green glow from the core was beginning to give off a steamy gas, and the whole container was becoming warm. A look of amused panic spread across his face, which began to look more like desperation. The core finally slipped into place, but we didn’t have time to align the others. He slapped the cap in place and tossed the green glowing assembly out the door.

“RUN!” he shouted! and we both began an anxious climb back to the top of the wall.

(more…)