Chronometric Complications
The manager reaches the truck just as the driver steps down from the cab. He wears a dark blue suit, and looks like the sort of trustworthy sales person you rarely find in the business. He waits for the truck driver to finish writing on his pre-run checklist before speaking. "I see you have Archer's newest purchase loaded. Be damn careful with that one, he's a great customer, but boy can he be a hothead. That's to be delivered by three pm, sharp. Don't be a moment late." he says sternly, seeming concerned. The price tag on this purchase seems to have him a might bit stressed about anything going wrong. "It's not every day someone buys a concept car..." he adds, hoping to drive home the point.
The driver nods intently, "Yes boss, nothing will go wrong with this one boss. She'll be delivered, as with as much care as a newborn." he says nervously.
"It had better." says the manager, turning and heading into the dealership.
The driver tosses the checklist back through the window of the truck, mocking the manager as he repeats "It had better." in a somewhat girlish tone. "Goddamned uppity city slicker. Why in blazes did I ever move to this goddamned 'scaroburly' or whatever they call it? Fuck it.. I have to drain the dragon..." he mutters angrily to himself, heading off to the washroom.
Cernaek emerges from behind the corner of the building, having listened to the exchange. "So that's the vehicle Archer was babbling on about in that phone call. Next time I intercept him phoning for a new car, I'm going to make sure I have the computer record it, so I can fast forward through all his rambling about every little detail of the car." he says, eying the concept car. He watches the driver head to the washroom and follows him, quietly, and enters the washroom behind him.
The driver turns as he hears the delay in the doors closing behind him, but he never gets his head around. Cernaek executes a Vulcan nerve pinch on the mans right shoulder and incapacitates him instantly, causing him to drop to a limp pile on the ground. Cernaek proceeds to steal his uniform and badge, and change into it, pulling the mans ball-cap over the tips of his ears to complete the disguise.
Leaving the washroom, he heads back out to the truck, jumping in and driving off.
[The scene fades as Cernaek is shown turning onto highway 401, and heading in the direction of Mallorytown Ontario. The screen goes black before fading to an arial view of Cernaek's cabin in the Rocky Mountains. The camera pans in through the transporter room window, showing Julie in a Starfleet special ops uniform. The jet black uniform features an all black tool-belt, with a wrist-mounted flashlight on the right arm.]
Julie finishes entering coordinates into the transporter computer and the display zooms into a mountain range in Mongolia. As she checks the transport location again her comm badge chirps, and Cernaek can be heard speaking over the comm. "I'm in place Lieutenant, driving en route to Archers complex.. eta 5 minutes."
"Understood Commander, I've set transport coordinates for the Ondorkhaan facility and I'm prepared for beam-in. I'll be leaving before you arrive at Archer's complex. I'll have to maintain comm silence once there, so I guess this is the last time we'll be talking for a bit." Julie responds. She walks over to the transporter pad, her athletic figure sliding gracefully in the form fitting uniform. As she stands on the transporter pad Cernaek can be heard from her badge once more. "Good, be careful Lieutenant, and I'll see you when you get back."
"You as well Commander, Lieutenant Brown out." Julie responds one last time, before tapping her badge and removing it from her well formed chest. She places the badge in one of the many compartments of the belt. Returning to a standing pose, she says "Computer, Energize."
[A random array of blue sparks begin to spin around Julie and engulf her as the transporter engages, and the scene fades as she vanishes. The screen goes black once again before fading to Archers complex, as Cernaek pulls up the driveway with the new concept car in tow. The truck comes to a stop between the house and the car garage as Cernaek exits the cab and steps down from the truck.]
Cernaek pulls out the delivery slip as Chandler walks up to him and says "Ahh, there's Archers newest addition to the family. You have the paperwork for me?" Cernaek hands him the slip and says "Here you go." Chandler looks it over and says, "Very good, just drop it off there.. I'll go get this filed." as he turns and heads back into the house.
Cernaek raises a brow as he leaves, "Well.. that was almost too easy." he comments. He shudders as an ominous feeling creeps up his spine at that comment. He proceeds to unload the car, and park it in the exact same location as the Lotus Type 72D was previously dropped off over a year ago. As he finishes, Cernaek looks to make sure that Chandler has returned to the house, and no one is around, before removing a tricorder from his pocket. He opens it and starts scanning the area, heading towards the garage.
"No sign of the dish, or any underground entrances to any place he could be hiding it either. Hmm..." he says as he finishes scanning the garage. He turns and heads back towards the house, scanning the ground as he goes. He gets near the car again and says "This is where it landed, he covered it..."
His thought is cut off as the tricorder sets off a tri-toned alert, an irritatingly urgent sound. Cernaek raises both his brows as he eyes the readout, realizing what the tricorder has detected. "Chronometric particles.. the dish must have been irradiated with them still when it landed.. " he says as the alert suddenly becomes more urgent. "What the hell, the particles are reacting to the scan... they're unstable..." he says in shock to himself, trying to figure out whats going on from the readout.
[The camera changes scene to inside Archer's poolhouse, where blue sparks from excited chronometric particles can be seen under the water of the pool, causing an increasing number bubbles to rise to the surface as the turbulence below the water increases. The camera changes once more to the archery field, where the ground-hog fondly known as 'ground charlie' is staring in bewilderment at a swirling mass of excited chronometric particles. The particles are violently blowing the grass in the field around, and continue to move faster. Suddenly the destroyed mass of half of the Lotus Type 72D appears on the field, still surrounded by chronometric particles. The hulk begins to move across the field, digging up the grass as it goes in the opposite direction of when it landed on the field over a year ago. It finally bounces into the air, bouncing off the ground once more before taking to the air and flying over the garage towards Cernaek. The camera changes again to the inside of the pool-house, just as the other half of the car explodes from the water and crashes through the roof of the house, also in reverse of where it landed over a year ago. The scene returns to Cernaek, who is looking at his tricorder.]
Cernaek turns and looks oddly at the garage as he hears the bouncing metal from the other side of it. "What the hell?" he says, but his thought is once again cut short as the house blows apart from behind him and half of the Lotus Type 72D comes flying out from it. Cernaek goes wide eyed as he sees the car flying at him, and turns, looking even wider as he hears the other half flying through the air over the garage. He jumps as the two pieces come simultaneously hurtle toward the concept car, rolling away to avoid the inevitable destruction.
The two pieces of the Lotus are still engulfed in chronometric particles as they smash into the concept car, obliterating its frame and blowing glass and shrapnel in all directions. Cernaek covers his face and waits for the brunt of the explosion to be over before looking up. He stands, looking in awe at the sight before him. The concept car is destroyed, what didn't go flying from the impact is crushed and flattened into the driveway. Standing on top of it, is the Lotus Type 72D in mint condition, as it was the day it was delivered. Not a scratch can be seen on it, almost as if the dish impact had never happened.
"Oh fuck..." Cernaek says, as he pulls out his tricorder and scans the car. No sign of chronometric particles can be found now. He looks up and puts the tricorder away as he says, "I need to get out of here, and I need to talk to Julie... this is bad."
Cernaek jumps in the truck and drives away, as Chandler runs out of the house. Having heard the commotion, he yells "What the hell is happening here?" but stops short as looks in disbelief at the Lotus. "That's the Lotus from last year.... that's... that's impossible..." he stutters as he just stares at the mess before him.
[The camera zooms out to an aerial view as it once more fades to black. It stays black for only a moment before fading in to a scene of the Mongolian Jungle, deep in the mountains. Blue sparks begin to appear and swirl as Julie materializes in the black of the night-time jungle.]
Julie checks her wrist computer for the time, and sets it for the time-zone change. She then pulls out her tricorder to check her coordinates. The display shows a topographical digital grid of the mountain area, resolves to a full detail image of the area as if it were day. On the map Julies location can be seen as a red dot in the foreground, and another mountain featuring a large crater on top can be seen in the background area. A road can be seen on the map coming from down the front of the mountain Julie is on, and curving round the mountain and in between the backside of itself and the mountain in the back with the crater. On the other side of the of the road from Julie, is a cliff that wraps around the forward mountain, which has a large gravel off-road track of some sort at the bottom of it which extends to the base of the rear mountain. Two doors can be seen at the base of the rear mountain as well, and Julie pushes a button to make the rear mountain phase into a grid-line format, detailing a scan of a facility inside the mountain.
The base of the facility shows a large vehicle assembly, maintenance and testing floor; with several rooms and large open areas with different vehicles and people moving about inside. An elevator shaft can be seen closer to the front of the rear mountain, nearest the road. It extends from the base floor, through another floor which appears blurred on the display. It continues up to a third major level, which is inside the rear mountain and level with the part of the road that travels between the two mountains. This level appears to be three stories high, with various labs and testing facilities. Some of the rooms appear to be blurred, as the middle level is. In center of the second and third stories of the top level is a large, round, open area; featuring a self sealing opening that opens into the crater of the mountain. Several helicopters and vertical take-off jets can be seen parked inside.
Julie hmms to herself as she eyes the scan. "It's amazing that the ore shielding on the second level and some of the labs is actually strong enough to prevent 24th century scanning technology from penetrating it." she says aloud. "There must be a way in I can take without being detected..." she says as she presses a button, turning the display so that the forward mountain is on the left, and the mountain containing the facility is on the right.
The new angle reveals a small additional maintenance section attached to the top level of the facility, in the section of the mountain closest to the road. This section is where the motor to the elevator is, as well as a large boiler room and furnace. The boiler and furnace have pipes and ducts that extend into a tube system, leading into the lab level as well as the lower levels of the facility. "Hmm, this mountain has a sort of easy access maintenance system.. like jefferies tubes." Julie says as she presses a button to cause the system to become highlighted on the screen. The system extends to a large vent the side of the mountain, in the jungle near the front door. "There's my in, now I just need to get there." Julie says, closing the tricorder and returning it to her belt.
[Scene zooms out and behind Julie as she moves forward through the jungle, following the road. It changes to a scene of her further along, crossing the road about a mile past the front door of the facility, between the mountains. It changes once more, showing Julie crouching in the jungle near the vent. The vent is revealed to be a distance from the actual main door, likely for aesthetic reasons.]
Julie is silent as she watches a guard walk past from her hiding spot in the jungle. Obviously this entrance was thought of, however her scans show no security sensors near the vent. A guard simply patrols from the front door, to the vent, and back again. The guard is a native Mongolian, wearing an American style jungle camo jumpsuit and a ball cap. On the sleeve of the suit the logo for Archer industries can be seen. In his hands he holds a modified AK-47 design patented by Archer Industries. She waits for the guard to move on, closer to the door, and then moves in for the vent. Removing a type I phaser from her belt she lowers the setting, and melts the screws from the four corners of the vent. Removing it she crawls in the tube, pulling the vent back over and using the phaser once more to weld it back into place. She then returns the phaser to her belt and continues through the tube and works her way towards the lab area.
Once she reaches the labs, Julie removes her tricorder from her belt and gets another scan, detecting something in second lab ahead of her. "Duranium... that hasn't been discovered yet. That could have only come from the deflector dish!" she says quietly to herself. She moves forward through the tube and locates an access panel into the lab. Finding it to be empty, she removes the panel and crawls into the room. Looking around she sees no sign of the dish, just a few empty tables. On one of them she sees a small metal shaving, no bigger than a needle. She walks over to the table with her tricorder in hand.
"Must have been the only piece they managed to scrape off the dish without 24th century laser cutters." she says to herself as she notes the small size. Suddenly her tricorder begins the same alarm tone as Cernaeks had had earlier, and the same blue glow of chronometric particles can be seen forming around the splinter of metal. Julies eyes go wide as she looks at the tricorder readout, "Unstable chronometric particles.. and their reacting to the tricorder scan! The reaction is expanding, I need to get the hell out of here..."
She moves towards the door just as the chronometric reaction begins to swirl and expand, engulfing more and more of the room. Julie finds the handle of the lab locked from the outside, and in a panic, removes her phaser from her belt, and fumbles a moment. Dropping the phaser, Julie looks up to see the reaction expanding more, nearing her and the door. Julie bites down and gets a serious expression upon her face, grabbing the phaser and melting the lock off the door. She exits the room and runs a few feet from the door, just as the reaction reaches the door.
Julie turns and looks as the reaction climaxes, and suddenly, rock fills the entire room. The chronometric particles once again returned the missing particles that were in the area surrounding the reaction over a year ago to whence they came. Black molten boulders with sharp jagged edges and various jewels in them can be seen filling the room, with a small open area from a lava chute that had once been in the mountain.
"What the hell just happened?" Julie exclaims aloud, but her thought is quickly cut short. Alarms sound as security sensors pick up Julie in the hallway, and the damage in the lab she was just in. Two guards come running around the corner with weapons drawn, immediately targeting Julie. Julie draws her phaser, but leaves it on the lower setting, using it to melt the guns the two guards have rather than kill them.
However Julie doesn't notice the guard approaching from behind her, and she is caught off guard when he digs the barrel of his gun into her back, causing her to drop her phaser. "Don't move, or you die. Understand?" the guard grunts, with a heavy Mongolian accent. Julie nods her understanding, and thinks "Oh fuck." to herself. She just delivered herself into Archers hands.
[The scene fades to black.]
Comments
Pritrostell
kt6550
Hmmmmmmm.
savage_cushions
Rob Kosy
Great dialogue, as always, Verm & a perfect pace.
boneyg
I am really enjoying this!