Authors: John Luke Robertson

Si in Space (10 page)

ROAD TO NOWHERE

YOU BOTH GET OFF THE THREE-WHEELER
and head right. Hey

—right can’t be wrong, can it? You walk down the hallway and pass through several doors that slide open as you approach them.

You find yourself in some sort of shipping area where dozens of people are working. They have weird plastic suits on that are all sorts of different colors. Bright colors. Yellow, orange, red, green, purple, and blue. Their faces are covered by masks.

“Should we head back the way we came in?” John Luke asks.

“No. Let’s see what’s going on here.”

Despite these workers’ colorful suits, they all seem to be running a typical assembly line operation. You walk around and soon discover what they’re packaging.

It’s the same thing you saw pictured in the large bay area you just left behind.

Froot Loops.

This makes no sense. . . .

That’s right. The secret to the universe is Froot Loops, folks, and little did you know they were made in outer space.

You see the boxes and everything.

“I don’t get it,” John Luke says.

“Oh, we’re gonna get it.”

Some of the workers on the line are individually sorting the Froot Loops. They seem to be examining every one of them.

No, not examining them, but putting something on them.

These inspectors hold tiny tubes in their hands and appear to be attaching something to the individual
red
Froot Loops.

You think about asking someone what’s up with the red ones. Why not orange? But abrupt shouting across the room sorta makes you forget the question.

Especially because the voice is yelling, “Intruders! Stop them!”

“Is he talking about us?” John Luke asks.

“Yeah. Run!”

You spot the nearest exit, which is different from the door you came in. You tear through it, making sure John Luke is following you. But he passes you by, and then he seems to realize he can’t follow you
and run in front of you at the same time. So he slows down, and you plow right into him.

When you get up, you turn and see a group of men approaching you. You start to laugh because they’re dressed like pirates. Maybe not the “yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum” sort of pirates since this isn’t the seven seas nor is it a Disney ride, but still. Pirates.

“Come on, Uncle Si!” John Luke says.

There’s a blinking red sign on the doorway you’re now approaching. A sign that says
Do Not Go In
.

“Come on, Uncle Si!”

“You just said that!” You’re wondering if John Luke is feeling okay. Can he not see the sign?

“Hey, John Luke, I don’t think

—”

But John Luke opens the door anyway. The door with the sign that says
Do Not Go In
. Then he enters and disappears with a loud squeal.

Did he just fall?

You stop for a minute and contemplate whether you should follow. Until you see a six-inch dagger soar by your ear and stick in the wall next to you.

Okay, I’m going in.

When you walk through the doorway, two things happen simultaneously.

You feel yourself falling.

And you smell something really, truly dreadful.

Then you land in a pile of mushy mush.

And for a moment you black out. But not because you’re sixty-six years old and fleeing for your life through space.

It might be because you just flung yourself into some kind of Dumpster on a spaceship and you landed on a giant metal something-or-other.

At some point you wake up again.

“Uncle Si?”

It’s John Luke, standing over you.

“Where are we?” you mutter.

“I shut the door. The problem is . . . I shut all of them.”

You have the worst headache ever.

“Were those pirates following us?” you ask.

John Luke nods.

“Are we currently in a smelly trash heap?”

He nods again.

“Well, it could be worse.”

Then you hear something awful. Something unspeakable. Something dreadful.

And it’s right beneath you!

“Something seems to be alive in here,” John Luke says.

Hmmmmmm.

Do you get your pocketknife out and try to deal with the thing underneath you?
Go here
.

Do you try to open the doors to the room you’re in?
Go here
.

LIVE AND LET DIE

AS THE NIGHTMARE SHOCK WAVES
of the alien duck call continue to go off, with all of your comrades now on the ground writhing in pain, you decide to do something.

The only thing you can do.

You switch your radio to the broadcast setting, and you start to sing.

“‘Who let the dogs out

—
woof
,
woof
,
woof
,
woof
,’” you belt out.

Hey, it’s not much. But it’s the only thing you can think of.

“‘Who let the dogs out,’” you keep singing.

Suddenly the shrieking duck call stops. It actually stops, Jack!

Everybody stands up again, breathless and dazed and trying to recover.

John Luke speaks first. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” you say.

“Why’d it just stop?” Commander Noble asks.

“I was just

—I started to sing, but

—”

The shrilling duck call sounds again in all its awful terror. So you quickly resume singing.

“‘Live and let die . . . ,’” you sing, then realize you don’t know the lyrics. So you just start humming and making sounds to the music.

The duck call stops.

“Keep singing,” John Luke says. “Go, Uncle Si!”

“Give me a song,” you say. “Fast! Anybody.”

“‘Happy,’” John Luke suggests.

“‘Jump’ by Van Halen,” Commander Noble says.

“‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,’” Ashley Jones adds.

Everyone looks at her with glances that say,
Really?

You decide to go ahead and pick your own song.

“‘You should be dancing, yeah; you should be dancing!’”

The giant floating duck call does the unexpected. It blasts out into space and begins to move erratically through the sky.

“It’s doing it! It’s dancing,” John Luke says. “Kinda like WALL-E.”

“Keep singing, Silas!” the commander says.

You start singing whole songs or only their choruses. The problem is, you don’t always remember even the whole chorus. Or any of the lyrics. In which case you just make something up.

You might be the first one in the history of man to go from “Ticket to Ride” to “Low Rider” to “Friends in Low Places.” Hey, Jack

—you can’t explain how your mind works.

“‘Beat it, beat it,’” you call out while the black thing in the sky swirls and streams back and forth. “‘Don’t have a heartbeat, so beat it. Tell ’em you’re funky; tell ’em you’re right. If they don’t get you, know you’re gonna bite

—so beat it.’”

“Uh, Uncle Si,” John Luke says over the radio.

“Don’t mess with the magic.”

You’re searching your thoughts for more songs so you can continue as the human jukebox when you see the gliding duck call fly directly into your ship. There’s a massive explosion in the sky.