TG Race Week 3 Day 5d
“Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Team Cod?”
After Vince’s visit, Tracey returns to her spot in the driver’s seat. Her partner looks at all the dots on the GPS screen, “So, which one are we going to take?”
Tracey looks them over again. She picks one near the center but off to one side. “This one,” she says stabbing the device a little hard. A line is drawn from their dot to the exit. Please turn to your left.
Doc heads to the back. Tracey turns the van accordingly. Proceed forward 53 yards. Tracey steps on the gas, but quickly is stopped by the volcano wall. Continue for 21 more yards. “I can’t. There’s wall there.” Continue for 21 more yards. Tracey thrusts her finger at another exit. Directions are conflicting. Original course resumed. “Why you little …” Tracey stops herself. She gets a strange idea. She backs up the van. You are going the wrong way. Proceed forward 47 yards.
There below the water under the wall is a cave. “Great.” She hits the button to the back. “Doc, we’ve got a problem. I can’t reprogram the GPS and it wants us to go under water.”
He ambles out the back, “Let me try.” Proceed forward 47 yards. She switches with him and heads to the back. She flops into the chair and a paper flutters down from behind the monitor. “What’s this,” she asks pulling it out. “It’s the plans for Big Betty.” She prepares to toss it away when her eyes fall on the word Submersible. “What?” She brings it back and reads it carefully.
“Doc! Doc! Do a barrel roll!” He turns to her with a confused look. She reviews what she said. “No, I mean, Do a loop de loop and engage Big Betty.” He starts the procedure. She slides back against the wall. She hugs the paper and continues, “My brother at NASA is so cool. He sent us a prototype from a project that was scrapped. That rocket can go under water. It doesn’t need air and it burns so hot that the water can’t put it out.”
CLANK! A machine bounces in front of the window mid loop and starts generating something mostly transparent. Tracey braces for change, but it never comes. The device does slide away from the front window as the Bus finishes its flip. And then the thrust happens. SPLASH! They dive toward the underwater cave.
CREEEEEEAAAAKKKK! Tracey is tossed from the wall. Caution. A vertical turn in 2 yards. “Doc, why did we stop?”
He peers out the window. “I don’t understand it. It’s wide enough for our wings and tall enough for our van.” CREAK. A small tear appears in the roof just in front of the sun roof. Water drips in.
Prepare for a vertical turn in 2 yards.“Stupid thing. We are stuck.” CREAK. The drips come faster. rrrrrRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUMMMMMMBBBBLLLLLLEEEEEE! “Uh oh!” Clank. Clank?
Tracey looks back to find a round orb lying on the floor presumably having fallen out of the cabinet there. “Ed’s holo-thingie!” CREAK. RUMMMBLE.
“Holo? Thingie?” ssssssSSSSSSSSSSSSS! The smell of molten metal wafts to their noses as the misty film bubble dissolves around them. The lava rises, surrounds and melts the rudder.
SSSSSSSSSSS! The rear propeller goes, too. “Ed gave it to us between races. How did it work again? We don’t need multiple copies. No re assemble. No Hard. SOFT!” The bus surges forward into the larger vertical shaft, viscous van dripping behind. Doc yanks back on the yoke. The ailerons act and they fly upward.
Tracey declares all parts clear and speaks to the ball, “HARD.” RIP! The TRS-8000 sticks into the side and tears off. “Oh, poor van.” Proceed vertically for 1,540 leagues. The female driver turns confused, “Leagues? Who counts in those?” She heads back and grabs a vial of metal bots. Soon the hole is closing.
Through the front widow they see the tube narrowing. SKKKKKRRRRRRRR! The sound of scraping fills the vehicle. Tracey looks out the side window to see the edge of the wing sparking while rubbing the rock wall. SNAP! SNAP!
Suddenly what she was watching disappears. She checks the other side and finds the same is true. “Doc, our wings are gone!”
He opens his mouth to reply but is interrupted. Continue on this course for 1000 more leagues. Doc gently turns the steering wheel and then pushes the pedals. “It seems we have lost our rudder as well.”
The walls flash by. They widen and then shirk in varying circular shapes. RRRRRRRRRRIP! Their assent slows. Proceed 537 leagues. A partial hole appears over the safe room. The whirr of Betty quiets and gets crushed by the rumble of the eruption. The holocontrol is set down and more metal bots are applied.
Having no forward propulsion, the former aeronautical vehicle stops and begins falling backward. Doc presses another button on the dash. GURGLE, GURGLE. The sounds of the lava are heard moments before WOOOSH! The last set of rockets spring to life.
Doc releases the yoke but still sits in the seat, “I’m not sure why I’m still holding onto this. It doesn’t do anything anymore.” Tracey smiles. Continue for 314 leagues.
With no control and nothing to do they sit there in silence. “Wanna listen to the radio?”
“Indeed. Its noise will be most welcome over the others.” He reaches for the knob.
“The wheels on the bus go round and round. Round and round. Round and Round. The wheels on the bus go round and round all through the town.”
“How ironic.”
“It’s amazing that we can get reception down here. How far are we?” Please continue for 127 more leagues, it answers her. She eyes it suspiciously once more.
After “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” the volcano ends and empty sky begins. The rockets sputter and stop. The two thousand pound guided missile slows.
Tracey looks around quickly. “Hamlet. Ophelia. Go!” They nod their heads and start running. The propeller comes to life and pulls them slightly forward.
At the apex of the vehicle’s arc, the occupants experience a moment of weightlessness. And just as quickly as it started, it ends as they began their rush back to the earth. The tiny island of Sicily is below them. You have reached your destination. Tracey turns to the driver, “Ok, get us down.”
“Not much I can do about that.”
“What?” Tracey does a quick mental checklist of all the missing parts and her eyes grow large, “We don’t have anything!” Doc gives her a weak smile. “There must be SOMETHING we can do! We can’t lose VanGo, now!”
“VanGo? You are naming the bus now?”
“Well,” she bites her lip nervously, “Good names take time.”
“Unfortunately there is not much we can do at this point. Soon we will reach the maximum speed allowed by gravitational pull. The good news is we won’t feel anything when we land …” His mind switches gears, “unless …”
“Unless …,” she prompts.
He gets up and heads to the cabinet. He pulls out a huge white package with straps on it. “We have this parachute. I got it off of the C-5 that brought us to Iceland. They had attached it to us, but we didn’t need it. So I pulled it off …”
“No time for that. Fly out there and put it on!”
“Impossible. I had my wings removed.”
Tracey slaps her face. “Now how are we going to put it on?” Doc shrugs. Tracey rummages through the cabinet. “C’mon! Give me something.” You have reached your destination.
She opens the sun roof and looks out. “My guns!”
“Guns?”
“Yes, they weren’t ripped off in the lava tube.”
“How … ?”
“No time to explain. Come here.”
She pulls out the two plunger magnets with their respective ropes. She ties Doc hand and foot and hands him the parachute back. She carefully helps Doc onto the roof.
One plunger foot steps onto the roof then the other. Tracey releases the right. Doc takes a step. She releases the left. He takes another. They quickly get into a rhythm and he ties half of the parachute down.
Sicily is filling the scene below them. The city below the volcano is visible now.
The inventor trudges to the other side and secures the other side. She looks down. She shouldn’t have. The tops of the buildings are nearing. Hopefully this won’t rip the parachute. He returns to the middle. Tracey ducks back inside.
FWWWOOOOOOMMMPP! Tracey is pressed toward the floor.
Once the pressure eases, she peeks onto the roof. The parachute is huge and old like the army ones in World War Two. Doc is trying to step but his feet are stuck. Tracey looks down. They are about to land on the finish line. “Too fast. Projectile Protectors.” She dashes and splashes.
She helps her co-driver into VanGo just as it touches down. He falls into her arms knocking them both to the floor in a jumble of limbs.
They manage to separate. You have reached your destination. “You can say that again.” You have reached you destination. She shoots it a look and frees her partner. They head out of the passenger side door.
They pass Ed’s rebuilt Incognito. They smile and give him a thumbs up. They pass the stealth jet on wheels and its driver. They wave at him. The small pixie of an angelic flying school girl swirls around them they pat it on the head and it flies away. They continue on and see Vince hovering in place without his car. He peeks an eye and they smile at him. They see Mask, but not Dark Master and cringe slightly.
Finally they step across the finish line onto a rubber pad with the words “The Amazing TG Race” emblazoned on it. Rugburn, the skeevo bird, studies them with a serious expression, “Doc. Tracey.” He pauses for dramatic effect and then continues with an equally serious voice, “I’m sorry to say you are the last team to arrive.”
The exhausted team wearily looks at each other and then with smiles jump in the air, “Woo Hooo! We did it!”
Then turning back to all the racers, “Free Reversals for everyone, on us!”
In the distance the clock declares the time. BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!