"ATTENTION. ALLENVILLE IS UNDER LEVEL 23 QUARANTINE BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY DIRECTORATE. STAY IN YOUR HOMES. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG. THERE IS NO REASON TO PANIC. DO NOT PANIC."
The blaring voice poured out of the loud speakers from every direction. UNSD trucks were planted at every exit to the town, and a perimeter of whirling blades, glaring lights, and machine gun nests surrounded the greater Allenville area in a 5 mile radius. The 609 residents of the quiet town had bolted their doors and taken refuge in their cold-war era nuclear shelters-- that is, all but the fifteen of them who had been in the local bar when it was flattened by the thing. There were also the case of Dr. Gallen, an English pathologist on sabbatical from the University of Chaldor. He was not in his motel, nor was his DNA recovered from the incinerated wreckage of the local bar.
Dr. Gallen had come to Allenville only the night before on an anonymous tip. The letter, which was written in impeccable yet undoubtedly German cursive, was slipped under the door of his vacation home on the Chaldorean home-island. It read:
"Herr Dr. Gallen, have you not had enough of vacation? There is a "hullabaloo" in a Allenville, IL. It involves a horrible disease. Be with the greatest haste and do not dilly-dally.
Sincerely,
A Friend."
The letter contained a ticket for ChaldorUSExpress flight 535, car keys, and a reservation at the Revelation 4:7 Motel in Allenville. Feeling immensely intrigued and somewhat flattered by the clandestine attention, Dr. Gallen was glad to leave Chaldorisland before the hurricane season, and he had intended to visit the mainland for a pathology conference at Princeton. On the other hand, a war was brewing on the mainland...a war between Chaldor and the Ivy League.
Dr. Gallen glanced around the corner. There did not seem to be anyone there, and yet... he looked again. The streets were completely deserted, every shade was drawn, and every door was bolted. But there was something, something attached to a sign post about 80 chaldees away*, and it was spewing some sort of aerosol into the dimly lit summer sky. Gallen had just been at the site of the ruined bar. He found a cool thingamajig in the ruins--it was like a saucer, but it gave off a cool light. He knew that he was supposed to be indoors, but the temptation to investigate the quarantine was just too great. While he reached into his coat pocket to get his binoculars, a breeze suddenly swept a delicate cloud of that mist around the corner where he stood. In an instant, the street lamps were not straight lines, and the light they cast was a brilliant cornucopia of colors. Then there was darkness.
The doctor awoke to a familiar voice--a woman's voice.
"Rick. Rick..." said the voice.
The doctor slowly opened his eyes and left the comfortable domain of chemically induced dreams.
"Samantha?"
Dr. Gallen was becoming fully alert. It was indeed Samantha, his most promising pathology student from the University. They had parted two years ago on uncertain terms. Influenced by Dr. Gallen's internationalist idealism, she had accepted a job with the UN, but in doing so she was disowned by her hyper-nationalist Chaldorean family.
"What are you doing in Allenville, Rick? You could have been... infected"
"I was, someone sent me a tip...they said that something in Allenville needed my attention."
"Well, this town is area 0 of a level 5 biohazard contamination. That satellite that fell on the bar was carrying a deadly space microbe. It is essential that everyone stay indoors until this whole mess is sorted out. You fell victim to the remote control anesthetic aerosol machine. We put it there in order to apprehend anyone trying to flee the quarantine zone."
"But Samantha, why is the UN involved in this? We're on the border of IVY and Chaldor territory. Whose jurisdiction is this really under? And what kind of satellite was that?"
"Dr. Gallen, most of that information is classified by the Directorate. All I can say is that the contagion is extremely dangerous. IVY and Chaldor need our help. You need to tell to me who sent you here and why you were outside even after the quarantine announcement.
"I got an anonymous letter...I don't know who sent it. I went outside because--"
"Please. You are reasonable man, and reasonable men don't travel two thousand miles on that little information."
Suddenly, a trembling roar shook the ground. There was yelling and screaming outside.
"Wait here," said Samantha.
She hurried out of the tent attended by several UNSD guards.
Seconds later, Dr. Gallen heard a ripping sound, and, looking at the fabric wall behind him, he saw a pale, seven-foot tall man entering the tent through a rip in the fabric. He wore a tweed suit and had impeccably combed hair. His clothing smelled uncomfortably like stale books and his nose was impossibly upturned. In his left hand he held...a remote bomb detonator.
The man gestured to Dr. Gallen, "Come now. You must leave with me."
Gallen immediately obliged.
The two ran over the midnight landscape. In the distance, a fire raged through a UNSD command center. Before them, a small hill rose from some untilled field. The man said something strophic, and a door opened up from between the hill. The man beckoned Dr. Gallen inside.
There were others inside of the hill hide-away. Each of them looked nearly identical to the first man, and they were all standing around a table covered with old manuscripts.
The first one spoke with a voice as mellifluous as a spring breeze and yet as arrogant as a million silver platters: "Excuse me for the abrupt and frightening manner by which I have been forced to rescue you from the clutches of a foe which, although you are as yet unaware, is a mutual enemy to both IVY and.." he grimaced slightly and the tip of his nose turned 20 degrees north, "Chaldor."
"Yes," said another, the moment the first had finished speaking, "they have been misleading you, those rascals they. There is no microbial disease."
"No," continued a third, "the satellite was carrying the lamp of cyblele, a transdimensional artifact forged by Hephaestus himself in the bowels of Mt. Olympus."
"And," resumed the first, "it has the power to end poverty and launch this world into thousands of years of peace and prosperity. It was placed in that satellite by Zeus with the aid of the Emperor Augustus."
"You will notice," said another, "that the satellite was made of bricks and antique ceramics."
Then they all spoke in unison, "the Lamp of Cybele must be found."
The first continued, "twenty four hours ago, the satellite was knocked from the heavens by a Chaldorean retrorocket; the Chaldoreans intended to harness the power of the lamp for their own evil intentions. Eighteen hours ago, two bands of operatives, one from Chaldor and one from Yale, arrived in Allenville to recover the lamp. We are the Yale team. We are yet, however, unable to find the device. When the United Nations heard about the incident, they sent a small army of recovery experts to the site under the guise of level 23 quarantine for an infectious disease. We fear that a new power has arisen on the mainland: the power of the UNSD. We must stop them. We must find the lamp! You were sent here by someone. You must tell us who that person was, and why you have come all this way."
The doctor was speechless. He could not tell if this was an elaborate joke or simply insanity.
The IVY agents waited in utter silence and stillness.
"I, well, I don't know who sent me."
"Then," said the first one, "you leave us no choice"
He began pulling something out of his pocket--
but just then, an arm appeared in the middle of the room. Holding a long saber of Chaldorean design, it cut down the IVY agents in a single swipe. The IVY agents had no blood. A whole body materialized out of thin air. The doctor knew immediately that it was one of the fabled Chaldorean trans-dimensional bounty hunters. Dressed in the traditional garb of a Chaldorean soldier, one could see only layers and layers of dull fabrics that seemed to resemble the shape of a human being.
"Dr. Rick Gallen," the agent said, "give me the lamp."
The doctor, panicked and driven nearly mad by the incessant contradictions and conflicting stories, ran out of the hill hide-away and into the field. Just as his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized that he was surrounded by seven UNSD troops. Samantha stepped forward holding a directorate-grade plasma turbine. "Come now, doctor, time to return to base."
Just then, a seven IVY agents rose from a door in the earth.
"No," said one of them, "he comes with us."
"No," shouted yet another voice, "he belongs to Chaldor." Seven Chaldorean agents materialized behind Dr. Gallen.
The three competing groups drew their weapons at each other.
Gallen, standing in the path of at least fourteen weapons, dropped to the ground, and out of his coat pocket fell a small, onyx black, shiny clean saucer-like thing. It shone a gleaming light from its top, and its brilliance illuminated the entire field in a dull pastel glaze.
Everyone froze.
"It is...the lamp!" said Samantha.
"Yet it!" yelled someone else.
"No! Cried Dr. Gallen." He snatched up the object and held it tightly.
"Dr. Gallen," spoke an IVY agent, "give it to us. We will save the world from evil!"
"No," said Samantha, "they will misuse the device. I will manipulate it to cure cancer."
"Zey are all rong, Dr. Gallen," said a German man dressed in a bright green jump suit, "Zey are all rong. I rote you zet lette, und it vas I who tolt you to come 'ere."
"President Choldor**? Why are you here? Why did you send for me?"
"Gallen," said the President of Chaldor, "it was purely by accident. A friend off mine in ze Allenville got ze flu...so I trickt you to come and help heem. But zat ist beside zain point. You love Chaldor. Chaldor iz your 'ome. Zis lamp can do one zing only: sink our homeisland beneat ze vaves! Vat ever you do, do not open ze lamp, nor let any ozer do so: for it shall destroy Chaldor!
There was a soft breeze in the air, and a distant street lamp shone ghostly in the night. Yes, it was quite a breeze, and that street lamp had a remote control anesthetic aerosol machine attached to it. For the second time that night, Dr. Gallen breathed in a whiff of hyper-hallucinogenic vapors. The lamp in his whirling hands seemed to tempting. What was inside of it? He just had to know...
Choldor let our a cry of desperate pitiful horror at Gallen lifted the lid off.
*Note: one chaldee is equivalent to three chaldi
**Note: President Choldor is the president of USA-Chaldor
Then Rick Gallen woke up. It was just a dream. He had a miserable life. He was 30k in debt to the Bank of Chaldor, he worked as a grocery store manager, Samantha was his mother-in-law, and Choldor was his German shepherd. He hated Chaldor. He hated IVY. He wanted the USA back.
(OP: Ben, September 13 2008)
The blaring voice poured out of the loud speakers from every direction. UNSD trucks were planted at every exit to the town, and a perimeter of whirling blades, glaring lights, and machine gun nests surrounded the greater Allenville area in a 5 mile radius. The 609 residents of the quiet town had bolted their doors and taken refuge in their cold-war era nuclear shelters-- that is, all but the fifteen of them who had been in the local bar when it was flattened by the thing. There were also the case of Dr. Gallen, an English pathologist on sabbatical from the University of Chaldor. He was not in his motel, nor was his DNA recovered from the incinerated wreckage of the local bar.
Dr. Gallen had come to Allenville only the night before on an anonymous tip. The letter, which was written in impeccable yet undoubtedly German cursive, was slipped under the door of his vacation home on the Chaldorean home-island. It read:
"Herr Dr. Gallen, have you not had enough of vacation? There is a "hullabaloo" in a Allenville, IL. It involves a horrible disease. Be with the greatest haste and do not dilly-dally.
Sincerely,
A Friend."
The letter contained a ticket for ChaldorUSExpress flight 535, car keys, and a reservation at the Revelation 4:7 Motel in Allenville. Feeling immensely intrigued and somewhat flattered by the clandestine attention, Dr. Gallen was glad to leave Chaldorisland before the hurricane season, and he had intended to visit the mainland for a pathology conference at Princeton. On the other hand, a war was brewing on the mainland...a war between Chaldor and the Ivy League.
Dr. Gallen glanced around the corner. There did not seem to be anyone there, and yet... he looked again. The streets were completely deserted, every shade was drawn, and every door was bolted. But there was something, something attached to a sign post about 80 chaldees away*, and it was spewing some sort of aerosol into the dimly lit summer sky. Gallen had just been at the site of the ruined bar. He found a cool thingamajig in the ruins--it was like a saucer, but it gave off a cool light. He knew that he was supposed to be indoors, but the temptation to investigate the quarantine was just too great. While he reached into his coat pocket to get his binoculars, a breeze suddenly swept a delicate cloud of that mist around the corner where he stood. In an instant, the street lamps were not straight lines, and the light they cast was a brilliant cornucopia of colors. Then there was darkness.
The doctor awoke to a familiar voice--a woman's voice.
"Rick. Rick..." said the voice.
The doctor slowly opened his eyes and left the comfortable domain of chemically induced dreams.
"Samantha?"
Dr. Gallen was becoming fully alert. It was indeed Samantha, his most promising pathology student from the University. They had parted two years ago on uncertain terms. Influenced by Dr. Gallen's internationalist idealism, she had accepted a job with the UN, but in doing so she was disowned by her hyper-nationalist Chaldorean family.
"What are you doing in Allenville, Rick? You could have been... infected"
"I was, someone sent me a tip...they said that something in Allenville needed my attention."
"Well, this town is area 0 of a level 5 biohazard contamination. That satellite that fell on the bar was carrying a deadly space microbe. It is essential that everyone stay indoors until this whole mess is sorted out. You fell victim to the remote control anesthetic aerosol machine. We put it there in order to apprehend anyone trying to flee the quarantine zone."
"But Samantha, why is the UN involved in this? We're on the border of IVY and Chaldor territory. Whose jurisdiction is this really under? And what kind of satellite was that?"
"Dr. Gallen, most of that information is classified by the Directorate. All I can say is that the contagion is extremely dangerous. IVY and Chaldor need our help. You need to tell to me who sent you here and why you were outside even after the quarantine announcement.
"I got an anonymous letter...I don't know who sent it. I went outside because--"
"Please. You are reasonable man, and reasonable men don't travel two thousand miles on that little information."
Suddenly, a trembling roar shook the ground. There was yelling and screaming outside.
"Wait here," said Samantha.
She hurried out of the tent attended by several UNSD guards.
Seconds later, Dr. Gallen heard a ripping sound, and, looking at the fabric wall behind him, he saw a pale, seven-foot tall man entering the tent through a rip in the fabric. He wore a tweed suit and had impeccably combed hair. His clothing smelled uncomfortably like stale books and his nose was impossibly upturned. In his left hand he held...a remote bomb detonator.
The man gestured to Dr. Gallen, "Come now. You must leave with me."
Gallen immediately obliged.
The two ran over the midnight landscape. In the distance, a fire raged through a UNSD command center. Before them, a small hill rose from some untilled field. The man said something strophic, and a door opened up from between the hill. The man beckoned Dr. Gallen inside.
There were others inside of the hill hide-away. Each of them looked nearly identical to the first man, and they were all standing around a table covered with old manuscripts.
The first one spoke with a voice as mellifluous as a spring breeze and yet as arrogant as a million silver platters: "Excuse me for the abrupt and frightening manner by which I have been forced to rescue you from the clutches of a foe which, although you are as yet unaware, is a mutual enemy to both IVY and.." he grimaced slightly and the tip of his nose turned 20 degrees north, "Chaldor."
"Yes," said another, the moment the first had finished speaking, "they have been misleading you, those rascals they. There is no microbial disease."
"No," continued a third, "the satellite was carrying the lamp of cyblele, a transdimensional artifact forged by Hephaestus himself in the bowels of Mt. Olympus."
"And," resumed the first, "it has the power to end poverty and launch this world into thousands of years of peace and prosperity. It was placed in that satellite by Zeus with the aid of the Emperor Augustus."
"You will notice," said another, "that the satellite was made of bricks and antique ceramics."
Then they all spoke in unison, "the Lamp of Cybele must be found."
The first continued, "twenty four hours ago, the satellite was knocked from the heavens by a Chaldorean retrorocket; the Chaldoreans intended to harness the power of the lamp for their own evil intentions. Eighteen hours ago, two bands of operatives, one from Chaldor and one from Yale, arrived in Allenville to recover the lamp. We are the Yale team. We are yet, however, unable to find the device. When the United Nations heard about the incident, they sent a small army of recovery experts to the site under the guise of level 23 quarantine for an infectious disease. We fear that a new power has arisen on the mainland: the power of the UNSD. We must stop them. We must find the lamp! You were sent here by someone. You must tell us who that person was, and why you have come all this way."
The doctor was speechless. He could not tell if this was an elaborate joke or simply insanity.
The IVY agents waited in utter silence and stillness.
"I, well, I don't know who sent me."
"Then," said the first one, "you leave us no choice"
He began pulling something out of his pocket--
but just then, an arm appeared in the middle of the room. Holding a long saber of Chaldorean design, it cut down the IVY agents in a single swipe. The IVY agents had no blood. A whole body materialized out of thin air. The doctor knew immediately that it was one of the fabled Chaldorean trans-dimensional bounty hunters. Dressed in the traditional garb of a Chaldorean soldier, one could see only layers and layers of dull fabrics that seemed to resemble the shape of a human being.
"Dr. Rick Gallen," the agent said, "give me the lamp."
The doctor, panicked and driven nearly mad by the incessant contradictions and conflicting stories, ran out of the hill hide-away and into the field. Just as his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized that he was surrounded by seven UNSD troops. Samantha stepped forward holding a directorate-grade plasma turbine. "Come now, doctor, time to return to base."
Just then, a seven IVY agents rose from a door in the earth.
"No," said one of them, "he comes with us."
"No," shouted yet another voice, "he belongs to Chaldor." Seven Chaldorean agents materialized behind Dr. Gallen.
The three competing groups drew their weapons at each other.
Gallen, standing in the path of at least fourteen weapons, dropped to the ground, and out of his coat pocket fell a small, onyx black, shiny clean saucer-like thing. It shone a gleaming light from its top, and its brilliance illuminated the entire field in a dull pastel glaze.
Everyone froze.
"It is...the lamp!" said Samantha.
"Yet it!" yelled someone else.
"No! Cried Dr. Gallen." He snatched up the object and held it tightly.
"Dr. Gallen," spoke an IVY agent, "give it to us. We will save the world from evil!"
"No," said Samantha, "they will misuse the device. I will manipulate it to cure cancer."
"Zey are all rong, Dr. Gallen," said a German man dressed in a bright green jump suit, "Zey are all rong. I rote you zet lette, und it vas I who tolt you to come 'ere."
"President Choldor**? Why are you here? Why did you send for me?"
"Gallen," said the President of Chaldor, "it was purely by accident. A friend off mine in ze Allenville got ze flu...so I trickt you to come and help heem. But zat ist beside zain point. You love Chaldor. Chaldor iz your 'ome. Zis lamp can do one zing only: sink our homeisland beneat ze vaves! Vat ever you do, do not open ze lamp, nor let any ozer do so: for it shall destroy Chaldor!
There was a soft breeze in the air, and a distant street lamp shone ghostly in the night. Yes, it was quite a breeze, and that street lamp had a remote control anesthetic aerosol machine attached to it. For the second time that night, Dr. Gallen breathed in a whiff of hyper-hallucinogenic vapors. The lamp in his whirling hands seemed to tempting. What was inside of it? He just had to know...
Choldor let our a cry of desperate pitiful horror at Gallen lifted the lid off.
*Note: one chaldee is equivalent to three chaldi
**Note: President Choldor is the president of USA-Chaldor
Then Rick Gallen woke up. It was just a dream. He had a miserable life. He was 30k in debt to the Bank of Chaldor, he worked as a grocery store manager, Samantha was his mother-in-law, and Choldor was his German shepherd. He hated Chaldor. He hated IVY. He wanted the USA back.
(OP: Ben, September 13 2008)
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