No Romance Chapter 24

I just went over this chapter for the first time since I finished writing it, and I'm seeing myself where it needs expansions and revisions. (Mostly in the first half of the Vanasmas climax, methinks.) Just so you guys know, I wrote Act III very, very fast (for me) (41,000 words in about three weeks?) and didn't really have time to give any of it a second look. So keep that in mind as you make your suggestions to me and don't judge my full authorial capacity on this, please, I beg you. Thanks.

-The Establishment

Chapter 24, "Rebellion"

Djetta got his tribe’s attention---which had hitherto been engaged in glorying in love and life---by shouting “Fire! Fire! Fire!”
            It didn’t turn into a panic as one might have thought, and instead a hush fell over the crowd. Djetta, chains jangling, clambered onto a nearby rock for height.
            “Forgive me, there isn’t really a fire,” he began. “But something worse. For much time we have lived in stasis with our former brethren. We respected their space, and they ours. But now they have sent us a message, through The One Chosen By The Gods, the Splotched One, the one who has freed us---a message of war!”
            He pinched the purple seed in his upraised hand, and as the crowd saw it, they let out a collective gasp.

Jack woudn’t have thought a guy like Djetta, so spineless and slimy, could ignite this kind of fire in anyone. But as Jack looked around the crowd and saw the anger in the Cardaccians’ eyes, the anger turning to hatred, the hatred turning to all-consuming rage, he knew this emotion was common to all of them. They all shared the same core underneath their various personalities---a unified malice toward the Johnsons, a desire to regain the shiny they had lost, and a sense of devotion for this mysterious sacred vine that the purple seed had come from. Almost like they were programmed machines, every single one of them, reverting to their most basic instructions. This was who they really were.

“This is the message from the Johnsons! They have discovered the treasure and challenge us to war over it! What say you, my brethren? Shall we fight?”

A resounding roar of approval sounded from the Cardaccians.

“Then let us go!” Djetta cried, and he jumped down from the rock. He then addressed Jack, in a somewhat quieter voice. “O Painted One, my friend Ignadjus informed me you know where our treasure is. Will you tell us?”

            Jack thought it was only fair that the Cardaccians know, as by now Ay, Bee, and Three of the Johnsons had certainly made it through the temple and gone back to report its location to their own people.
            “It’s on a little black island in the middle of a bright green lagoon by Mt. Diabolo. It’s not really an island, but it kind of feels like one. Oh, but you should know, there’s a volcano---”
            But Djetta had once again stopped listening.
            “TO MOUNT DIABOLO!” he screamed as he jumped back onto the rock.
            His people, men and some women, let out several warcries and started moving as one to the west. Jack heard thunder and felt a few raindrops as the group picked up momentum, turning into a stampede. He looked helplessly at Ann who looked helplessly back.
            “What do we do?” she said as darker clouds crept closer to the overhead skies.
            Jack thought for just a second, then appeared to have come to a conclusion, as he started to move with the tail end of the crowd.
            “Come on!” he said. “We have to keep up with the Cardaccians!”
            But Ann didn’t move. “Jack, that would be a complete waste of time.”
            “Why?” he said, turning back.
            “Because they’re headed for a fiery self-destruction!”
            “Oh. You’re quite right. Sad. What a trainwreck this is turning out to be! Although let’s hope there’s no actual trainwreck in this story. What an abrupt ending that would make...”
            “If we want to find a way to stop the volcano we have to get there before they do.”
            “OH. Damb it, that took way too long for me to remember. Where’s that old mine Djetta’s wife showed us?”
            “What?”
            “Just trust me on this. We have to find that mine.”
            Ann racked her brains, found it somewhere in there, told Jack to follow, and ran through the abandoned tents in the direction of the abandoned mine. Lots of abandoned places on this island. Isle. Maybe because, Jack thought, all who previously occupied these places were currently converging on one point.
            They found it a mere five minutes later, a dark and ominous entryway between some massive rocky formations. Jack led the way inside, and found the structure and lighting to be exactly the same as the other end: a couple of flaming braziers lighting a stone passageway. Also like that one, the ground ended a short ways inside, giving way to nothingness all the way down. But...there were no minecarts on this side.
            Jack was about to say “Damb it” when he saw, a little to his right, barely within the illumination of the flickering light of the torches, a stone island about twenty or thirty feet across the gap. Squinting, he could make out a single track and a single cart laid in it. But how to get there?
            Fortunately, a clean and simple solution always accompanies these puzzling problems. In this case, there were two objects also atop that stone island: a barrel and a tall, lone, square stone pillar, about thirty or thirty-five feet high.
            “One can sense the influence of the platformer gods,” Jack mused.
            Without even telling Ann what he was going to do, Jack took Wrench in hand and aimed directly at the barrel. He fired and it exploded, causing Ann, who was looking in another direction and thus unaware of anything that was going on, to shriek, and also the stone pillar to be knocked over. Its top end landed directly on the edge of the ground this side of the pit with a resounding CRASH, which caused Ann to shriek again.
            “Shut up and get across the bridge,” Jack said as he mounted the fallen pillar and began walking very carefully over to the island. Ann hesitated only a moment before following without a single word or frightened look from Annie.
            “Apparently there’s a never-ending pit beneath Rainswept Isle,” Jack remarked, looking over the edge of the stone island. “Somehow.”
            “So now what?” Ann said. “We ride in the cart?”
            “Precisely,” Jack said, smiling. Except Ann couldn’t see it, as they were mostly in darkness.
            He climbed in first.
            “We may have to work together to keep this thing balanced,” he warned. “So I think I need Paula for this job.”
            Ann shot a look at him. He smiled again as she got in behind him.

---

Paula didn’t last long. Many screams and moans and quick little breaths of terror later, Annie spilled out of the car onto solid stone ground much like Jack had done earlier that morning, staying low to ensure she didn’t fall off of it. She crawled to the wall just below the torch and sat against it as she caught her breath and righted her mind.

            Jack, meanwhile, had learned to have fun with it. When the motorized cart pulled in to the middle track at the end of its roller coaster-like journey, he laughed like a child, but then had to catch himself against the stone wall to prevent his dizziness from upending him into the bottomless pit.

When both had properly recovered, they made their way out and onto the boxed-in little cove in the corner of the turquoise lagoon.

“So this is where that leads,” she said.

“Shh,” Jack said softly.

The place was absolutely, unnaturally still. The only semblance of sound came from little raindrops dotting the lagoon, and the increasing wind blowing patterns across the surface. It all had a muted quality to it, however, such that Jack and Ann felt compelled to be just as quiet. The pebbles amid the wet sand crunched every so quietly as they crossed the beach.

Jack could soon hear a noise, a faint harmonica, lone and ghostly, as they took their first steps up the stairs. And as they continued their slow, hesitant ascent, the storm clouds above grew denser and darker, and the day seemed to be turning to night. They also began to perceive a very strong, very strange scent that intensified as the darkness descended around them.

With their last step on the black staircase, they saw a fire’s glow through the trees in the direction of the clearing. In a kind of hypnotized state, they looked at eachother, then looked back at the fire, and made their approach. They entered the clearing, and Jack swore he could hear the sudden strum of an electric guitar joining the haunted sound of the harmonica. Together they wove a song that tested the limits of Jack’s sanity.

And yet, all remained still, and quiet. Not even the three flaming bonfires, arranged in a triangular pattern before the steps of the black stone temple, were crackling. But...no. They were crackling. But every sound Jack heard felt alone, distinctive, as if it were the only sound present, the only sound that could penetrate their state of mind. It was like they were walking in thick new snowfall.

Neither Jack nor Ann said anything, just stood and looked deep into the fire. They had completely forgotten to examine the eruption sequence dashboard. Something else had taken their attention, had taken their minds. They sat down where they stood, Indian style. The music in Jack’s head died away.

            A man came, but they saw not from where. The fires seemed to have summoned him from their depths, and cast three towering, glowering shadows behind him on the temple walls. With their slowed minds, Jack and Ann didn’t recognize him, or even have the capacity to recognize him, but you will. Simple vest over a bare chest, tattoos of a donkey, eagle, and snake, parachute pants, and long dark hair tied in a ponytail trailing down his back.
            “The spirits whispered to me that you’d come here,” Vanasmas said, tall and mighty behind the flames. “They’ve been whispering to me my entire life.”
            He sprinkled some kind of powder onto one of the fires from his hand. The chaotic winds snapped the flames back and forth (though the light rainfall had no effect on them). Vanasmas frowned as the powder was blown away by the wind before it could fall into the fire. He checked a pouch hanging from his waist and frowned some more. He grit his teeth and turned back to Jack and Ann
            “I’ve been waiting quite a while. You two took far too long. I’m almost out of Super Peyote.”
            He went to another of the fires, took a pinch of powder from his pouch, and planned its placement carefully. He felt for the wind, then, anticipating, let go so the wind would carry it into the flames. But at the last second, the wind changed directions, and more of the powder floated away. Vanasmas cursed under his breath.
            “Fine,” he said. “I’ll check the stupid book.”
            He sat down on the steps behind the fires and opened a huge, red-glowing tome on his lap. He started flipping through the pages. He stopped on a certain page, looked closely, then started flipping again. Again he stopped, putting his finger to a paragraph, then cursed again.

“May Monty swallow you and eat you and digest you for a thousand years!” he said to the glowing red book. Then he stopped at another page. “But wait, this looks familiar!”

But no, it didn’t.

“Curse you for changing languages!” he said. “May Swiftfast pluck you out of the water with his talons!”

            Jack and Ann, once sitting patiently, started fidgeting and looking around, first at each other, then at the jungle and the dark sky above them, and the light rain falling down. The water, though not concentrated enough to douse the fires, was exactly what they needed to rinse the peyote from their minds. But it was a gradual process.

Vanasmas rose and threw the book on the ground before descending the temple steps very slowly, very purposefully. “It does not matter,” he said. “Jack McDowell, you hero. I know you have what I am looking for. The spirits have told me.”

“Like you need the map anymore,” Jack said groggily, then he and Ann started giggling in a very weird, but pleasant, way.
            “Not the map, you fool. The---”

“You’re already here! Why would you need the map?” Ann said with a burst of laughter that Jack joined in on.

“Fire! Look in the fire!” Vanasmas said frantically. “Breathe in the fire! The smoke, I mean! I mean, the scent! Breathe in the air all around you! Breathe!”

            “You want me to throw the map in the fire? Righto, boss,” said Jack, and Ann giggled some more.
            Though the, ah, disordered mental state of Jack and Ann was wearing off, it still had some effect on them. Just thought you should know.
            Jack took the map-wrapped scepter off his back and unrolled it. He took the cloth map in hand and, grinning ridiculously at Ann, tossed it into the nearest flame, where it ignited and curled in on itself as it burned. They both burst out laughing again. But Vanasmas didn’t care anymore. His eyes were drawn to somewhere else---to the faint green glow emanating from the now-exposed scepter.
            “You---you do have it!” Vanasmas said, gaping. “You---may Burro Bill kick at you with his powerful hind legs!”
            “Oh, and I suppose you chose the book?” Jack said in a bit of a drunken voice while Ann tittered.
            “That ridiculous Alligator Ay picked it up before I could get the Elder Weapon,” snarled Vanasmas. “And now the cursed thing has changed languages.”
            “It’s ‘cause you’re a villain,” Jack said, starting to sober up and gain control of his faculties. “You’re not allowed to read the Great Big Book of Everything if you’re going to use it for villainous purposes. It won’t tell you whatever you need to know at any point of time. Not this late in the story.”
            “But the spirits are on my side!” he shouted, his joined eyebrows looking like a unibrow in his fury. The shadows against the temple wall rose exponentially higher as he rose himself up to his full height and stretched his arms toward the heavens. “And I will prove it to you! I summon the fiercest god of all! From the fire, from the flames! Come forth, Carl Sagan!”
            And Carl Sagan, the gargantuan, magnificent Super Tiger, came trotting out from the darkness of the jungle, casting his own monstrous triple shadow behind the bonfires.

“Carl Sagan! Take the Sonic Scepter away from that man!” Vanasmas seethed, pointing at Jack. “With this sacred treasure”---indicating the scepter---”and with this secret of science”---indicating Carl Sagan---”animal becomes like man, and man like the gods! This is my DESTINY!”

            With these final words Vanasmas stretched his arms up again, and the flames rose with them, becoming, for a second, great pillars of fire, multiplying the myriad dancing shadows and temporarily forcing Jack and Ann to draw away with just a degree of fear.

And as the fires fell back, Carl Sagan leapt across the great center flame, mouth open, teeth bared, and landed in the middle of the triangular arrangement of the fires. And for a moment, Jack’s courage faltered, and Ann despaired---

            But then Carl Sagan flopped down on the ground in front of them and started rolling around on his back. Ann’s face brightened and she crawled over to him to scratch his belly. Jack looked up at Vanasmas in fierce triumph.
            “Where are your spirits now?” he taunted.
            But then a voice sounded in Jack’s head.
            We are here, it said.
            It was a familiar voice. He had just heard it earlier today. In fact, he had been hearing it subconsciously his entire life.
            Take the scepter now.

Jack obeyed without hesitation. He took the Sonic Scepter in his hand.

            This time it was Vanasmas who feared, who despaired, who looked utterly defeated. His open mouth had turned downward in something of an exaggerated, horror-struck frown. The transition from righteous fury to stricken, cowering terror had been nearly instantaneous.
            Jack raised the scepter, pointing it to the sky. The night-like darkness lifted, revealing an intense array of storm clouds overhead. The rain suddenly poured down harder, as if a giant umbrella had just been closed and put away. The steaming bonfires were gradually extinguished.
            He turned the scepter on Vanasmas. Vanasmas, shocked and afraid, was suddenly enveloped in the same kind of green glow the scepter gave off. It raised him off the ground and locked him within its gaseous aura. Though he could still move his limbs, he couldn’t leave the cage.
            “Well, huh,” Jack said, looking more pointedly at the scepter. “Impressive.”
            Ann sat where she was, motionless, looking on the scene with cautious, uncertain eyes. Carl Sagan, curled up near her, was in a similar state.
            Jack approached the floating Vanasmas.
            “Can you share with me what you’re doing and what you’ve been doing?” Jack said. “I’m in the mood for a good story. Be as bold and passionate as you want. Whatever you say and however you say it is probably not going to change anything, but I want to see what’s really at the heart of this whole conflict.”

Inside the cage-like aura, Vanasmas seemed wrong-footed, even though he wasn’t standing on anything. “Uh...okay,” he said, with some wary consternation.

            “It’ll just add to the atmosphere,” Jack said brightly.

“Fine. Here it is,” Vanasmas said, turning cold. “I have devoted my life to finding the treasures of my people, the treasures of the old gods. When the spirits began whispering to me at a young age, I knew that my destiny was to join those gods. To become as they are. And I knew the secret to that was to find their treasures, take them up in my own hand and command the world, the elements, the people themselves. I would take their weapons and instruments under the guise of recovering their treasure for them and thus become their equals, their peers. They could do nothing to stop me. Nothing at all. I had the spirits on my side.”

He touched his hands to his tattoos.

            “Except...the gods sent you. You, the hero, you, the true weapon. In my panic I ordered you killed, and accidentally played my hand. But I knew if I could stop you, I could stop them. So I tried again. And again. When I determined you could not be killed, I devised a stratagem with you as the fulcrum. Using you and your Chosen status and your innate abilities, I tricked you into finding the treasure for me. You were the only one who could do it. Neither myself nor anyone else would ever able to find it, ever since it all crashed here decades earlier. The treasure of the gods could only be found by the Chosen of the gods...or by anyone who had the map. For some reason the gods looked on that map as a legal document. It was fair game. No sacred barriers. Anyone who had the map could get the treasure. And before you came to this island, that’s what I intended to do.”
            The fair-minded look he had developed throughout that paragraph turned to a bitter but sly, plotting one.

“I knew Golbez knew where the gold was, but he never fully trusted me. Even so, I was able to learn about the map that had disappeared 30 years ago. The thief had been an employee of Golbez Industries, and went and got himself reformed. But he still was pleased when I contacted him and told him I wanted to use the map to destroy Golbez Industries, and Golbez himself. So he sent the map through one of his new friends. The friend’s name...was Eli Noyce. A legendary hunter of sacred relics and ancient artifacts and secret treasures. And he was coming here to give me the map and help me find it. I don’t think he never really knew what I was. I’m sure he thought I was just a friendly native who could show him the way. But...we never did meet, thanks to that plane crash.”

Vanasmas stared past Jack, not at him. He seemed to be pondering something. Then the stare moved back to Jack, and he pointed between them.

“We did, though. And I knew you had the map. Right when I heard of you. So I threatened you, bribed you, then tricked you. And I won that battle. Now I’ve found the gold and the temple. But neither of these matter to me. They were just means to an end. I don’t care about Golbez’s stupid gold. I don’t care about the treasure one whit. My tribe can go to hell, and so can the Cards. This is my journey. My destiny. The spirits have told me.” His eyes grew crazy. “And I will obtain that scepter of yours. The Sonic Scepter---The Magic Staff That Does Whatever The Story Requires! With this greatest weapon I can write my own stories, craft my own characters, weave my own worlds. When it is in my hand, I will be as the gods. The gods that seek to write, edit, and revise all our lives as they see fit. With the help of the great spirits, I will be as they are: A veritable god.”

Jack looked him in the eye. “So you’re the reason I’m here.”

“The spirits told me you’d be here, at this temple. While it might have been a trap, it was also the last opportunity I had to confront you alone.”

“No, I mean here on this island. I’m here on this stupid adventure...to stop you.”

Vanasmas said nothing.

“I suppose I knew that all along...but only in generalities. Now I know the specific reason. What has essentially become the literal purpose of my life. To keep this”---he indicated the scepter in his hand---”out of your hands.”

Jack was annoyed and underwhelmed at his discovery.

Vanasmas snorted. “The scepter is power incarnate. It can read minds, it can telepathically lift anything up, it can bind and imprison, it can shoot a laser, it can ruin and destroy, it can heal wounds, it can save lives. It can do anything you need it to, to tell the story you want to tell. We don’t have to be enemies, Hero. We are clearly after the same thing. Freedom. Godlike freedom.”

            The staff also has the power to disintegrate things into a million or more pieces, we said.
            Jack heard. And he relayed.
            “While this can save lives, Running Rat, it can also end them. That’s what the gods are telling me right now.”
            Vanasmas’s eyes widened, his pulse and breathing visibly quickened, but he said nothing.
            But clearly something other than the thought of death was going on inside Jack’s head. Something other than the words we were telling him. Something that, for some reason, we could not see.
            End him. Kill him. Destroy him with the staff, and your task will be complete.
            “So...you’re the reason I’m here,” Jack said again. “I keep coming back to that. All for this one little moment. I should think I’d want to kill you for that. For being the reason I had to go through all this ridiculousness. But...hmm. Maybe that’s the point...”
            “The spirits are here, Jack McDowell. They are whispering to me right now.”
            “Oh? And what are they saying?” Jack said distractedly, preoccupied with something else.
            “They are telling me to tell you that I can offer you freedom. I can offer you release. Just like I did when we first met in that prison. If you free me, I will free you.”
            We aren’t saying that last part. Most assuredly not. But in him you can find your salvation, your liberation from this island. It is in his death that you will truly be released.
            “They’re telling me something different, Vanasmas.”
            Vanasmas paused inside his green glowy-cagey thingy. “Impossible. The spirits whisper only to me. Burro Bill, Swiftfast, and Monty have chosen me.”
            Now is the time to tell him who we are. But first, you must know.
            And we told him. We told Jack. He listened. Then he started pacing back and forth in front of the floating Vanasmas.
            “See, the problem here, Vanasmas, is that the spirits whose authority you claim are the gods. You’re the one who’s been manipulated this whole time. The gods have been on my side for about as long as they’ve been whispering to you. And for the first time I know their names. They are William, Eagle Eyes, and Montgomery. Odd names for gods, but, well...”

Vanasmas’s eyes bugged and his jaw dropped with the weight of an anvil from Looney Tunes. It looked similarly cartoonish.

            Jack continued on. “They brought you and me here together, today, so I could destroy you, so I could keep you in their place for them, so I could shove you off the tower you were using to attempt to climb into the heavens. But if they brought me here for that...that means I’m being manipulated, too...Hmm. This is a dilemma, no doubt.”
            He kept this pensive manner far too long for us to be comfortable. Then his face cracked a grin. He had reached a conclusion. And we knew what he was about to do.
            We prepared the lightning.

“It is my theory that true gods grant choice. So I will make one, right now. The choice that they don’t want me to make. I think I have lived my whole life for this moment. I’ve been groomed, prepared. But not in the way they intended. In doing what they’ve done, they’ve bred an enemy, not a friend. Their tool, their instrument, their weapon, is now turning against them. Vanasmas, I will let you live. You are not to blame for me being on this isle, like they’ve been trying to tell me. They are.the ones responsible.”

Jack, as foolish mortals do, faced heavenward.

“So I rebel!” he shouted, shaking the Sonic Scepter at us.

Lightning struck at that moment---but it hit the scepter! The lightning was absorbed.

Jack laughed.  

“The power to repel a god! That is mighty,” Jack said fiercely, angrily, still gazing into the storm. “And if I keep this for my own? What can you do then?”

After a second so totally silent that Jack thought his eardrums had exploded passed, a resounding CRACK of thunder sounded at the same instant as Jack saw lightning strike the ground literally right next to Ann. She was thrown screaming twenty feet away, and all that remained where she had sat was Carl Sagan, electrified but very much alive---a pulsing glow throbbed around him: just as the scepter had done, he had absorbed the bolt of lightning.

And even though no one had been hurt, Jack got the message: Annie was vulnerable, and he couldn’t protect her forever. And he realized that in some way, somehow, he cared for her enough to let go of the scepter---let go of the power. It clattered to the ground.

But then with a rising roar, Jack picked it up and threw it---past Vanasmas and into the open temple door. “You aren’t true gods!” he cried. “If you’re threatened by a little tool like that!”

The temple door, sensing the motion of something entering, slid shut.

“Now no one can ever go into that temple again!” he said. “Now it’s closed off forever, and with it the scepter and the weapon, because that door won’t open unless someone solves that first puzzle. Are you happy now?!”

The power of the scepter that had lifted and imprisoned Vanasmas faded away, and he was lowered to the ground

“Dynamite can be a very helpful thing,” Vanasmas said simply.

“I doubt it will work on something like that,” Jack said, his head bowed and his rage subsiding. The pouring rain had soaked them all, and his wet hair hung down around his face.

            Then a booming voice resounded in the air, loud and majestic as the thunder.
            “Jack. You have displeased us. You betrayed your purpose in not striking down Vanasmas, whose villainous and prideful ambition we have tracked since he was a child. He has tried to bring beasts up to the glory of a god, and you nearly let him take the divine instrument we have worked so hard for many generations to keep safe. It is only meant to be in the hands of a chosen few. And though you were chosen for the duty of protecting that instrument, you are not among the few destined to wield it. You have gone contrary to our will, fully knowing that there would be consequences. Furthermore, you rebelled against us even when there was no purpose to that rebellion. Vanasmas’s tribe has been listening in the trees the whole time. They know of his own personal ambition, that he meant for the treasure to be for him alone, when they thought he was trying to bring glory to the entire tribe. His fate will be up to them, and though it should have remained in our hands, it will be the same as if you had killed him with the scepter. Your choice changed nothing but your own fate. You have failed us, Jack McDowell. And you will be punished accordingly as the gods confer.”
            Jack, growing more numb with each word from the gods, looked into the trees with deadened eyes. Now that night had drifted away, he could see the tribe of Johnsons, Treike and Three Seas in the forefront. All were armed, crossbows and compound bows drawn and ready for warfare.

Chapter 23 of No Romance

Okay guys. All of you who have been reading so far need to be aware that while I was writing the first act of this story, I didn't know what all was going to turn out to be important and etc. At the end of last chapter, Jack said that he knows where Norrigan North is. Unfortunately, you as a reader will not, because I forgot to set this up properly way back in chapter 3. I have since added the necessary part, but haven't (and won't) re-post chapter 3 because it's not really a big deal; just accept it and move on. This will also be the case with a certain letter Jack was meant to take to Golbez from Malandra but forgot. This letter will be a pretty big deal in the last four or five pages of this story, but, like with this chapter, you're going to just have to accept it and move on. 

Thanks.

-The Establishment

Chapter 23 “The Law of the Western”

Jack knew the place would be used at some point. But when he first discovered that desert arena out in the middle of the jungle, he hadn’t met Norrigan North yet. And when he did, something in his subconscious had registered, clicked. Then, as North’s disappearance was revealed, it manifested itself openly. A gun-duelist, sharpshooter, quick-draw expert, lost in the middle of a tropical jungle with only one spot that felt even remotely similar to the Old West?

Where else would he be?

            Jack told Annie to join the Cardaccians on the train, both to calm things down and let them know what was going on. He told her to tell them the train would be moving within an hour, and for them to be patient until then. Then, when Jack had accomplished his purposes, he would meet them back at Butterknife Bay, and they could ride the train together up to Machete Bay, which was just a ten-minute walk from the Cardaccians’ home.
            Jack accidentally almost caught up to Golbez’s army in his dash through the jungle. He found them trooping through the trees in a disorganized, casual formation and had to remind himself that they weren’t really an army, just a bunch of nameless, soulless killers for hire who didn’t know much about discipline, or how else would he have felled so many of them so easily? Not real soldiers, just bullies with guns.

Now, regarding his plan for dealing with North, it was Jack’s philosophy and experience that bad guys who aren’t really bad will turn their hearts to good if you beat them at their own game. This shows them the futility of their existence and makes them want to do something worthwhile. Or in North’s case, set their sights on the real bad guys, the ones that wronged them.

            When he had at last come upon his destination using a compass he conveniently found in his pants pocket, Jack looked for a small gap in the trees that he could use to check the placement of the sun. Upon finding one, he looked up. It was high noon.

Perfect.

Then he ducked through some more branches, barely avoiding a giant beetle fighting a giant ladybug, and emerged slowly and dramatically into the arena. As established before, it was a perfect circle, about fifty meters wide, surrounded by green, leafy jungle but for whatever reason covered with golden, dirty sand. In the middle of this desert circle was a hollowed-out log. Sitting upon this log was Norrigan “North” East, facing away from Jack, in the direction Jack knew to be south.

“Hello, Norrigan,” Jack said, stepping onto the sand. “Or should I call you Northy?”

North was on his feet in a flash. The fingers of his right hand danced above the revolver in his holster. But Jack held up his hands to show he was unarmed, and North stilled his hand. Still, he kept a wary raised eyebrow on Jack.

“Norrigan, I’m here to get some important information out of you. But I think I understand your protocol, and I’m willing to wade through the red tape on this. I just want to assure you that I don’t think of you as an enemy or even much of a bad guy at all. You just happen to be on the wrong side of this situation.”

Jack began to walk around North, who slowly and silently revolved on the spot.

“So you’ll see we’re here, in this divinely-created coliseum, the only place on this isle fit for a proper gun duel, living out the Law of the Western. Cliches are cliches no matter the genre. And I’m happy to cross-over, as the gods seem to want me to do. You, it seems, did that years ago.”

            North’s mustache and eyebrows had been joined by long white strands of stubble on his cheeks and chin. The old man looked even more senile than he had the first time Jack saw him. Jack wondered how long he must have been out in the jungle, presumably lost, before the gods led him here---here where he most assuredly felt more at home than anywhere in Golbez’s villa.
            “I need to get on the train to get out of this place. A plot I’m sure you’re familiar with. Lots of trains out there, where you’re from. And that’s where trains belong, isn’t it? The idea of trains in the jungle doesn’t make any sense to you. Allow me to say that you’re welcome to come along with me when I leave. Board that train and get back home, where you belong. Not this patch of desert. This isn’t your real home. It just kind of looks like it. A little terrarium for Golbez’s exotic pet from 19th-century Utah. That’s what you really are when you’re on this isle. So come with me. Tell me the password for the train to get started, and we’ll ride it together out of this line of latitude. Get somewhere more dry. More arid. More free.”
            Jack continued circling North.
            “But that’s not how things work for you, is it? We have to follow standard protocol. Like I said, I’m perfectly willing to go through that process. And perfectly able. I know I’m going to have to earn the information you have. But I thought I’d give diplomacy a chance.”

Jack stopped at exactly the spot North had been staring at before.

“So, Norrigan North. I challenge you to a duel.”

            North, one bushy eyebrow raised, didn’t utter a word in reply. The two simply stared at each other. A whole minute passed before North’s eyebrows narrowed downwards on Jack McDowell, and he started backing up.
            Jack could hear music as North moved into his rightful place, directly across from Jack with the hollow log in the middle. The strums of a Mexican guitar, the plucking of its strings, and then the blaring of brass, rising higher and higher, and even then a choir singing, testifying to the melodramatic significance of the event.
            Then silence.
            Then two lightning-fast draws and two BANGS like thunder, so close together it sounded like one shot.
            An unintelligible cry of pain burst from North’s mouth as his gun went flying into the air, landing several feet away from him. Jack, Wrench in hand, calmly made his way across the arena, stepping over the log in the middle, and coming to a stop at North’s gun. He picked it up.
            “‘Trustwerthy,’” he read, then looked at North, who was getting himself up. His gun-hand was shaking like mad. Wrench had disarmed North, hitting a bullseye on Trustwerthy’s barrel. The stinging heat of the gun had ejected it from North’s hand.
            “You weren’t always a ward of villainy, were you, Norrigan North?” Jack said with genuine interest. He had not expected to see such a weapon here. “This is no ordinary gun. This is a hero’s gun. Like Wrench.”
            North still had yet to say a word. He merely glowered at Jack.
            “You should have beat me,” Jack said, stepping towards him. “In any other setting, you would have. But you know why I won? Because I’m the damb protagonist. The gods are on my side. And your weapon, though just as powerful as mine, was fighting on the wrong side. I don’t know your story, Mr. East, but I’ll bet it’s a sad one. You could have been like me. Maybe you once were.” Jack looked sadly on the pathetic mess of a man in front of him and pondered his own future. “But I’ll bet I know what tipped you. It was Golbez, was it not? He told me he beat you in a duel, and you followed him ever since. You respect power and authority. Well, buddy, right now that’s me. I beat you fairly. But guess what: Golbez didn’t. He told me when I first met you that he cheated. Worth it to him, to get a sharpshooter like you. And guess what else: he’s been using you for villainous, dishonest, thug-like things ever since.”
            North’s eyes progressively widened with each of Jack’s sentences. Now his eyebrows were so high up on his face, one could forget they were there at all. Almost more than would be ordinarily physically possible for a human. North put Trustwerthy into Jack’s hand and clasped it with his own. He opened his mouth to speak, and Jack almost turned away in disgust at the horrid breath that came out.

“Avenge me! Avenge my shattered soul with my own weapon!” he said with a righteous and/or senile intensity.

Jack reached into his pants pocket and drew out the compass. He pressed it into North’s free hand.

“Avenge yourself.”

North, huge mustache quivering, gave him a single affirming nod and turned away. He now had his gun back and a compass.

“But before you go, Mr. East---I need you to use that wristwatch radio of yours to call in the password so that the train can move along.”

North stopped and looked at his wristwatch, as if remembering that it existed for the first time. He probably felt really stupid for being lost so long when he had something like that to retrieve help with. But he got over it and spoke a single word into the built-in radio receiver.

“My.”

---

Ten steps into the jungle, Jack realized that the train, having been given the password, was going to get started without him. So he would have to make it to Machete Bay on foot. That would waste precious time; the volcano only had a few hours before it would blow, and Jack had already used up a good hour on North.
            “Damb it,” he said under his breath.
            He heard a noise crashing through the thicket to his left. He didn’t even have time to draw Wrench before it appeared---a magnificent beast, striped orange and black. It tackled him to the ground---and started licking his face.
            “Carl Sagan!” Jack said with delight. “Hey, buddy!” He regretted opening his mouth, however, when the Super Tiger’s tongue slurped over it.
            He ruffled Carl Sagan’s head and pushed him off his chest. Then he stood and saw just how big the big cat really was. And a wonderful thought came to him.
            What was the point, Jack wondered, of having a cat this big if you can’t use him as a steed?

---

“We need to catch up to the train!” Jack said into Carl Sagan’s ear as they galloped through the jungle together. “Do you know where that is?”

            “Roar!” said Carl Sagan in response. But this one sounded like a tiger’s roar, not like Ryan’s. And Jack interpreted it as, “I know exactly where the train is---not just the train track but the actual train! And I can take you there right now and then do whatever it is you need of me next.”
            “What a helpful Carl Sagan you are!” Jack said, patting his side as they burump-burumped across jungle terrain. “Keep up the pace!”
            They continued on. Carl Sagan leapt over chasms with ease, dodged stones being thrown at them by mischievous monkeys, and one time did a barrel roll in mid-air. Jack was barely able to hang on, and finally knew what it was like to be Annie during their chase scenes. Carl Sagan was surely a god among beasts.
            It wasn’t long before they came across the train tracks. Jack was sure that the train would be behind them, that they should stop and wait to see if it came, but Carl Sagan knew better, and he plowed forward, parallel to the tracks.
            A few minutes later they heard the tracks rumble, and Jack knew they were nearly there. It was in that instant that he realized how fast Carl Sagan was. They were catching up to a train!
            He really was a fantastic Carl Sagan.
            “Faster, buddy. We’re almost there. Faster!”
            And Carl Sagan galloped faster. The two of them became an orange and black blur against the green-colored greenery behind them. The train was in sight now. Twenty meters off. Fifteen. Ten. Five. Jack could spit on it, and Jack was notoriously terrible at games of expectoration.
            The ladder on the caboose was within grasping distance. When he was near enough Jack jumped from the back of the big cat and swung around on the iron ladder, landing with his usual flair on the back porch of the caboose.
            “Carl Sagan! Meet us in Boxcutter Bay!” he called out, watching the big cat slow and fall away from the swift-moving train.
            The Super Tiger huffed a nod of confirmation and shot back into the jungle.
            Jack, after seeing Carl Sagan’s tail disappear into the brush, turned to go inside the train. The caboose was crowded with Cardaccians; Jack had to elbow his way through them.
            “Excuse me, excuse me, oops, sorry, ma’am, hope your foot feels better, oop, come on, come on, excuse me.”
            But the next car on the train wasn’t carrying passengers, and neither were most of the darn things. Jack remembered that this was a freight train, primarily used for smuggling cargo, so that’s what was inside most of the cars. Obviously.
            He climbed up the next car’s ladder and stood atop it. The cool wind felt wonderful on his sweaty face, and looking up into the sky he discerned some dark clouds on the horizon. Nimbus clouds---harbingers of storm.
            Turning his attention back to the matter at hand, Jack made his way to the front of the train, leaping from car to car until he came to the head. He dropped down here and entered through the back door.
            Annie gave a little scream but it died quickly. She and three other Cardaccian men all turned around as Jack’s figure filled the door frame.
            “So it looks like I was successful!” he said with the cheery and confident air of a man who just produced some powerful endorphins.

Annie threw her arms around him, and he stiffened.

            “None of that,” he said sternly.
            She blushed and withdrew.
            “So, Annie, what’s the situation?” he said, though he meant it for the car at large.
            A shadow passed briefly over Annie’s face and left it much more serious.

“Call me Ann,” she said.

Jack noted the change and played along.

            “Ann, what’s the situation?”
            One of the there Cardaccians stepped forward. He had a thin white goatee around his mouth and a rapidly receding hairline, but he seemed strong and able. “I’m Ignadjus,” he said, holding out his hand for Jack to shake. He had only the slightest hint of a Cardaccian accent. “Djetta passed the word down that you might need help. And it turns out, you help us. We’re free now, thanks to you and Paula here.”
            “Ann,” she said with a brief glare.
            So Djetta isn’t entirely a slimeball after all, Jack thought.
            “Ann, I’m sorry,” said Ignadjus with an apologetic smile. He pointed at a map of Rainswept Isle on the wall. “We’ll be arriving in Machete Bay right here”---he tapped a spot on the map---”in about ten minutes. From there I’m going to leave the rest to you.”
            “That’s okay. I believe we’ll have someone lined up to help. But what does ‘the rest’ entail?” Jack said, going over to the map and buckling down for business.
            “Unfortunate things, I’m sorry to say. We can stop in Machete Bay because there are still a few hands working there. But...the next two stops, Guillotine Bay and the Potato Peeler Bay...no one’s there. Totally empty.”
            “And what does that mean?”
            “Every bay has a password-protected checkpoint, and if you don’t have the password, the train stops and can’t go on. But the train can only stop if there are workers at the facility because the brakes are applied manually from there. We already called ahead and Machete Bay will be stopping for us, but there’s no one at those other two bays, so the passwords need to be digitally entered from afar to open the gates. The checkpoints are sealed and bombs are rigged to go off if the computer doesn’t get the password in time.”
            “Bombs?” Ann said, gaping.
            “That’s not the worst part. Rumor has it they’re nukes.”
            A moment of stunned disbelief.

“Oh come on,” said Ann. “So we have a volcano AND nuclear bombs to deal with?

            “That,” Jack said with a particularly straight face, “is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life.”

Ignadjus shrugged. “I was just trained in this job in the last few weeks and that’s what they told me. I kind of doubt that’s the case, I mean, where would they get them? But...with Golbez, you never know.”

“That is a fair point.”

“So I would prolong your journey out of Machete Bay for as long as possible. Once this train leaves, you’re ticking down the clock.”

“Okay,” said Jack, nodding to himself, “Okay. Two clocks at once. So who else has the passwords?”

“Mr. East had Butterknife, Dr. Aperture had Machete, Mr. Blake knows Potato Peeler’s---”

            “Darn it, Blake is in Boxcutter Bay. We’ll have to get him at the tail end of our trip.”

“It’s okay,” said Ann. “Potato Peeler is the second-to-last, so we’ll have time. Not a lot, but time.”

“---and Amon Dem should know it for Boxcutter,” Ignadjus said with some uncertain finality.

“That still leaves one,” said Ann, looking down at the ground, hand on chin. “Guillotine Bay.”

“Er...” Ignadjus (kind of) said.

“What?” Ann said looking up at Ignadjus.

“Well, the person who’s supposed to know the password for Guillotine Bay is, um...”

“Who? It can’t be Vanasmas. Out with it, man!”

Jack had already perceived the answer before Ignadjus gave it.

“You, Paula.”

Ann didn’t bother to correct him, but she did get angry. She looked back and forth between Ignadjus and Jack, as if they were accusing her of something. “Me?”

“It makes sense, Annie,” Jack said fairly.

She corrected that one. “Ann, you idiot.”

“My trainer told me Guillotine Bay was once in the charge of Golbez’s old friend Johnny Hit,” Ignadjus said. “He was Golbez’s personal hit man.”

“That was a VERY long time ago,” Jack said to Ignadjus before turning to Ann. “So, do you know it?”

Ann started to say something but a far-off expression came across her face. “No...” she said, almost dreamily, but with a knitted brow. “But...maybe.”

“Whatever, we’ll deal with it later,” said Jack with a significant look at Ann. “Maybe plumb those depths some more.”

She squirmed, clearly uncomfortable with the idea. But she tried to change the subject. And succeeded.

“Jack, let’s talk a little more privately, please.”

Jack got suspicious, but allowed himself to be pulled over to the corner. But his suspicions weren’t justified.

“So are you going to tell me more about this volcano business?” Ann said, folding her arms and looking up at him.

            “Well, it’s pretty self-explanatory,” Jack said. “There’s a volcano in Mt. Diabolo. Dr. Aperture made it years ago. Remember that thing that said ‘Eruption Sequence’? Yeah. That’s the volcano. Golbez was arming it while we were there last night.”
            “And it’s impossible to stop?”
            “That’s what Golbez and Dr. Aperture said.” Then Jack slapped his face with his palm. “Aw, damb it, we were interrogating the doc and we could have got something out of him! Damb it!”
            “We’ll just have to find out on our own. If you want to risk being there when it blows.”
            Jack grimaced and looked out the window at the jungle flora flying by. “We’re just going to have to trust the gods, damb it all. I’m pretty sure they want me to be there. If they want the volcano prevented, they’ll show me how to do it. If not...then I don’t know. Maybe we’ll be able to persuade everyone who’s there to get away. Tell them the situation. We’ll just have to see how much everyone cares about the gold over there.”
            A silent moment passed. Neither Jack nor Annie noticed Ignadjus listening in on them in the background.

“How did you beat North?” Ann said conversationally.

            “Oh, that. I figured he was called ‘North’ for a reason. I disoriented him by circling a lot and made sure he was aiming south and it just seemed to work. I don’t know if that’s what saved me in the end; it could easily have been because I’m the hero, like I told him. Maybe the gods want me to think it was because of my cleverness, and---well, whatever. It doesn’t matter.” Jack took Ann by the hand and led her to a corner of the head car. He made sure the Cardaccians were in their own conversation before turning back to Ann. “What I’m more interested in, and what I think is more relevant given the news that a secret somewhere inside you can help get us off this damb isle is...you.”
            “Me?”
            “Yes. I’m curious: who is...Ann?”
            Ann turned away. “I’m...whatever you need me to be.”
            Just like the scepter, Jack thought.
            “But it looks to me like one of you won out last night.”
            “I did. All of me.” She sighed. “It took all night, but somehow things got sorted out. I think I just needed to be perfectly open about it to someone. And now I’m in control of all three of me. I got back in Paula’s clothes and this silly wig early this morning, before meeting Golbez. I wanted to spy on him, know what he was planning, if anything.”
            “You call it silly yet you still wear it.”
            “It makes me feel more worthwhile,” she said. “So shut up.”
            “Yes, well, you must be exhausted,” Jack said. “Up all night, moving ever since.”
            Ann nodded, not looking at him..
            “So you can use any of those personas at will?”
            “I’ve started being able to use them, yes,” she said, still not looking at him.
            Jack smiled. “Talk about a strong female lead,” he said. “Do you think you’ll be able to find that password Paula knows?”
            She glared at him. “Maybe.”
            The train started slowing down.
            “We’re here!” announced Ignadjus.
            Through the windows of the train Jack and Ann saw the Machete Bay facility, and straight ahead of them a thick gray cement gate lined with yellow and black stripes presumably indicating hidden explosives within.
            “That’s comforting,” Jack said.
            “When you’re ready to go,” Ignadjus said, “just enter the passwords on here.” He tapped a keypad and display on the dashboard. “And don’t press that red button until you’re ready. It’ll get the train moving again. Thanks again for what you’ve done for us.” He gave a grateful nod and exited out the sliding door after his two fellows.
            “Here’s hoping for Hilti Higgins,” Jack said to Ann as he made to jump out of the train and onto the platform.
            “You never explained that to me,” she said as she jumped after him, landing like a ninja. “That bit about Hilti.”
            “That’s okay,” Jack said. “Because he’s right here.”

---

After saying “hullo” and “sorry for not going back to help you after that incident in the encampment,”  Jack told Hilti and Clara Higgins the dealio. The dealio of the checkpoints and the passwords and the whole business about the train. Then about the bombs and the ridiculosity of the situation they all found themselves in. They all had a good laugh about it and then the Higginses agreed to the plan with an adorable double “Yis.”

            Clara, it seemed, was a pleasant enough woman but without much personality besides being essentially a female clone of Hilti. Jack wondered if her character might stand out more in a story that was a little more dependent on it, and thought that she and her husband’s treasure-hunting hobbies might make for a great spinoff story of its own right some day. But, they told him, this was their last adventure before the true adventure: advancing into the new frontier of settling down and creating and raising a family---and what a climax this last one had been!
            Jack asked if they had taken any of the rewards at the end of the temple and they said they were a little too distracted to choose properly and they think they got the orange crystal, as it had smelled very nice---something like high-end laundry detergent---and some of their senses were more heightened than others at the time, so it seemed the most attractive.
            Jack thought that was a fair reason and inquired as to Mortimer and the note he had passed along. They informed him in their New Zealander accents that he had chosen to go through the temple again, and was content to stay on this island, so they wouldn’t need to worry about including him on the train’s passenger list. The note had of course been delivered successfully because obviously here they were and they agreed that the train was the best way of getting off the island, which was instantly corrected to isle by Jack.
            “It’s wonderful to get along, isn’t it?” Jack said. “No need to worry about you two stabbing me in the back.”
            “So nice to have friends and allies!” Clara remarked.
            “I’m glad you’re back on our side after nearly killing me and Ann here in that seaplane.”

“Her?” Hilti said. “Oh, that’s...Annie? Didn’t recognize her. Nice clothes.”

            “Let’s just say yes and leave it at that,” Jack said, not wanting things to be any more complicated than they already were. “So...yes?”
            “Yis.”
            “Yis.”
            “Yeah.”

---

“Now to Djetta,” said Jack after they had arranged for a radio system (via one of those excellent radio wristwatches!) to be set up between the Higginses on the train and himself. “Eventually we’ll need to get to Blake. And Amon Dem. We’ll work that out after we deliver this purple cantaloupe seed to Djetta.”
            “What’s that seed supposed to mean again?”
            “Peace and brotherhood, I think. From their sacred vine.”
            “Maybe it’s some kind of invitation to share in the treasure?”
            “Maybe. After Djetta’s gift to the Johnsons, they might be more predisposed to shake hands and make up.”
            “Djetta’s gift?”
            “Us. How he sold us to them for favors.”
            “Ah, yes, I remember now.”
            They followed the trail the Cardaccians had paved through the jungle south of Machete Bay. After ten minutes of walking they came to the area where Jack and Spyder had found Annie, and then the river, which they were able to cross with just a little difficulty, and finally to the Cardaccian camp. It gave Jack and Ann some cheer to see it full of people, free and reunited, celebrating and congratulating, and making jokes about food and starvation and slavery, and then finally making food itself.
            Djetta, draped as always in gold chains and colorful jewelry, found them before they found him.
            “Master McDowell, Master McDowell! It is done! Our people are liberated! And we finally have guns we can use to defend ourselves! And---”
            “---only in defense,” Jack interjected sternly with a pointed forefinger. “Not to be used for offense.”

“Yes, of course, Chosen One, of course! Never attack, never war. We wouldn’t think of it!”

“The Johnsons want to make peace with you,” said Jack. “And I have a gift from them to prove it.”

He stuck his hand in the right pocket of his leather jacket and started digging around for the seed. At first he thought, with some annoyance, that he had lost it. It would make sense; he had been through quite a bit since visiting Johnson World. But no, there it was, deep within a corner.

“Here!” he said, revealing the purple, fingernail-sized seed in the palm of his hand. “By the way, you still owe me something for literally trying to sell us out to the Johnsons.”

But Djetta wasn’t listening anymore. He was staring at the seed, speechless. For a long time he said nothing, leaving Jack to wonder what was wrong. Or, he could just be shocked from hope and joy and brotherly love...

No, Jack sensed that wasn’t quite it. Maybe it was the indignation growing in Djetta’s expression, or the evil, angry eyes growing wider and wider, or perhaps the fury with which he grabbed the purple cantaloupe seed from Jack’s hand and raised it high in the air as he turned around to address his people, but Jack gleaned that the seed was not quite as full of fellowship and fraternity as Chief Treike of the Johnsons had led him to believe.

Chapter 22 in No Romance

Chapter 22, “The Emergency Plan”

Golbez drove up, a steady stream of curses flowing from his mouth, the politest of which was “What the hell is going on here, lassie?” when he wasn’t even near enough for her to hear.

But it turned out there was nowhere “near enough for her to hear.” Even after he had stopped the jeep, the two sides were making so much noise that Golbez asked Jack to fire a warning shot.

Jack obliged, drawing Wrench from his waistband and firing straight up in the air. It went off like a cannon. The two sides quieted down immediately as Jack and Golbez exited the jeep. Ann Paula, seeing Jack, walked in long, swift strides to meet him.

“Jack, the train is here. We have to hurry. I don’t know when it’s going to leave.”

It appeared she had not noticed Golbez. But he noticed her.

“Paula!” Golbez said, horror dawning in his features. “Paula, what does this mean? What’s going on? What have you done?”

She looked at Jack, then back to Golbez.

“I’ve freed the Cardaccians!” she announced firmly.

Golbez looked stricken. “But they’re a crucial part of my retirement plan! And now you’ve given them guns! Now they can fight back! Why have you done this thing? Why have you thus dealt with me?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do!” she said boldly. Then, with a little less boldness, she turned back to Jack and said, “Right?”

Jack gave the heavens a little nod, then turned to Ann Paula, gave her a little nod, and finally stepped up to her side, and turned finally to Golbez.

“Yes,” he said. “Golbez, you’ve lived a life of wannabe villainy. But I don’t think that’s who you really are.”

Golbez looked like he was about to faint, either from despair or from anger, we knew not. Not right that second, anyway.

“You...you and Jack...don’t you want to be a part of my retirement plan?” He weakly held up the folded up plan Jack had been reading in the jeep. “But you’re like a son to me, Jackie boy.”

“Yes, just like one,” said Jack with a cough.

“And you,” Golbez said, turning to Paula, “You were like---”

“Not a daughter, surely?” she said, one eyebrow raised. “You came on to me every single day---”

“No, not like a daughter! Like a daughter who isn’t a daughter but rather someone whom I wanted to be with all the time and also a female! Like a companion! Like my Malandra!”

He was on the brink of tears.

The armed men in the background continued to hold their peace, allowing the scene in the foreground to take place in clear silence.

“Jack, you’re a hero, a star,” Golbez said, white-faced. “You can have any girl you want. Why do you want...her?”

Jack looked him straight in the eye. “Because she chose me. Chose me when she didn’t have to. And no one’s saying I want anything or anyone right now. But she...she’s who I choose to be with right now. Just right now. Let the record”---he looked up at the sky---”show that it’s just right now. I only choose to be with her right now. Got that, guys?” And again he shook his fist at the heavens, as if that’s where the camera was. Then, in a whisper to Ann Paula’s questioning look, “I’ll explain later.”

Golbez just stood there agape, processing it all. Ann Paula turned back to the conveniently peaceful crowd. “Cardaccians! Get on the train! Those with guns keep your eyes on the guards! Back slowly and get in the cargo cars! We’re taking you back to your home!”

They started doing as she said, moving up the beach to the train platform, then to the open cars. Jack, however kept his eye on Golbez, whose face was turning from white to red. And that was not a blushing red.

“It won’t go until I say it can go,” he seethed, arms folded. “Or rather, until North says it’s okay to go. He’s the one with the password. And he hasn’t been seen for days! Hahahaha! Well, there goes another of my colleagues, my friends, so the whole retirement plan is bust regardless. Yes, time to turn to my backup plan, my emergency plan. Yes...yes...” And he started cackling to himself.

“Golbez, we’re not trying to destroy you---” Jack started to say.

“Don’t apologize, man. I won’t accept it. There is no apology for it. You!” he said, and Paula instantly knew he was speaking to her. “You were a plant! All along, a plant to destroy me! A femme fatale! It worked, honey bunny. I am most certainly finished. You took away my workers and you’ve taken away my son. How dare you! How dare you throw a wrench in my retirement plans!”

Jack took that moment to draw his gun from his belt and fire a shot at the folded-up plans on the ground near Golbez’s feet.

Golbez and Ann Paula gave him a look.

“What?” he said.

Then they turned back and Golbez continued his tirade, saying more words that are not printable, which had on the audience an effect like a strong gust of wind. Go ahead and pretend that a strong gust of wind blew into your face, through your hair. There, now you’re all windswept. Just like the mountain peak.

“You two are conspiring against me!” he raged. “You think I’m the villain! I’ll just have to show you how villainous I can be. Captain Tommy Blast! Take these two to Dr. Aperture’s warehouse. He’s just finished setting up a new invention of his, and they’ll be dying to see it! Bwahahaha!”

“We don’t have to come quietly, you know,” Jack said quietly and coolly, concealing the panic in his voice. “We could start a war right here, right now. And that means you’ll lose even more than you already have.”

“I’m going to lose everything!” Golbez said wildly, eyes aflame. Then, in a more reasonable tone of voice, he said, “But we won’t start a war if you two give yourselves up.”

Jack looked at Annie, and Annie looked at Jack. Their eyes connected and Jack knew that Annie, not Paula, was truly in control. Despite wearing Paula’s get-up, despite the swearing, despite the power she held and exercised on this beach, in this day, he knew it was Annie. He could tell by the fear in her eyes. Those eyes wordlessly confirmed her identity.

“I agree to give myself up,” Jack said. He was in the middle of thinking confidently about how he could get out of any situation when the two of them were clubbed over the head by the butt of C Toon leader Tommy Blast’s assault rifle.

---

Several minutes later (they didn’t know it was several minutes, but we do---about eleven or twelve), they woke up. Both were bound with ropes, Jack tied to some kind of wooden contraption, and Annie (we’ll just call her Annie) sitting against a wall before him with her mouth covered by a mask. A series of little tubes connected the mask to a gas-filled bag hanging from a medical station a few feet away.
            They were in a warehouse. But this house was not filled with wares---as Jack craned his neck to see around him he only found more mechanical contraptions like the one he was lashed to. From what he could see, it seemed like a series of physics experiments all linked together in a complex array. And they weren’t just parts of machines---Jack saw a small blossoming sapling in the middle of it all, and thought he might have heard a bleating sound as well. Other parts had springs or tracks or bowling balls. The whole warehouse was filled with them, Jack tied to one at the far side. And as he registered all this, he saw ahead of him, right next to Annie, a wall of three-foot-long spikes pointing straight at him.
            And at last he determined his own position: he was tied to a catapult.
            “My, what a splendid device!” came the voice of Golbez. “What do you call it?”

Jack looked and beheld Golbez on the other side of the warehouse, strolling by with admiration and awe in his face. He was accompanied by an older man in a white laboratory coat with a reflector headband on his head. Dr. Aperture.

            “It is part of Operation Diabolical Doomsday Dropkick,” Dr. Aperture said. His voice was nasal and arrogant. “ I haven’t decided what to call it; either the Doctor Device or the Doomsday Device.”
            “Both are pretty derivative,” Jack reported from his position on the catapult. He just started noticing a pounding pain on the back of his head. It irritated him.
            Dr. Aperture and Golbez turned to Jack.
            “I think it’s called a Rube Goldberg device, to be honest,” Jack continued, wincing from the headache and the annoying situation he found himself in.
            “No, no,” said Dr. Aperture. “I am certain only I could have invented or discovered such a thing. I am the scientist here, after all.”
            “You know, doctor,” said Golbez, “after three decades of funding your research and observing your experiments---all sans ethics, which I heartily approve of---if after three decades, you made this as the culmination? Then I am extremely proud and very much impressed.”
            “It’s a pretty simple principle,” Jack said. “Just cause and effect. One thing leads to another.”
            “And ultimately to your demise,” said Dr. Aperture with narrowed eyes. “And you have no choice in the matter. Like you said. Just cause and effect. Locked in eternal combat, never to be broken. It---is---all. All. And that’s science.”
            “And what’s Annie here for, then?” Jack said.
            “You know Annie, do you?” said Dr. Aperture. “Is that who she is now? Not Paula?”
            “What is this?” said Golbez, turning to Dr. Aperture. “Annie? What Annie?”
            “She has a divided mind,” Dr. Aperture said shrewdly. “It’s never been a problem for you before, has it?”
            “No...” said Golbez, looking ponderous.
            “Then give it no thought. Turn your attention to our subject over here. He seems to want it.”
            “Yes,” Golbez said, turning back to face Jack. “Yes, he does, doesn’t he? Hmph!”
            “So are you going to trip this Rube Goldberg device and get on with it?” Jack said, the throbbing getting more intense.
            “No, old boy. I will do no such thing. I’m not here to kill you.”
            “No?”
            “No, that’s the doctor’s job. I’m here to explain what’s going to happen next and why it’s going to happen.”
            “To monologue,” Jack summed up.
            “I don’t know what that means. I refuse to give it any credence or any attention or any support whatsoever! Are you trying to derail me, old boy?”
            “Quite the opposite. I want you to get on with it already.”
            Golbez stood there, arms akimbo and bulbous as ever. He waited until all parties were entirely silent. Then he began his monologue.
            “You were my son. My boy. You came here to see me, on word of your mother. But you came here to rebel. I should have known what was coming when you refused to add that A to your last name. Rebellion! From my own son! But I forgot about it, as my mind tends to do, and we moved on. My mind can forget things from time to time, but it’s all still in there, somewhere. Nothing ever really goes away. Even now I remember forgetting things, but I can’t bring them back just by will. But you came back. You came. And I welcomed you. I cooked the fattest calf for you! And then you stole my map, you stole my Paula, and you stole my treasure. You’ve taken everything away from me. And now, even if you were to somehow give it back, I wouldn’t accept it. Because everything is tainted now. Damaged irrevocably. I might forget that this ever happened, but from time to time it would come back and haunt me. Just like you have done. Just like what Malandra is doing to me. I’ve read the letter now, boy. The letter she sent. I don’t remember much of the damn thing, but I do know what she was doing. And she’s going to succeed. But I will have whatever revenge I can get as I go down. You convinced Paula to betray me, and stole away Norrigan North, one of my oldest friends. You took my workers away. I was giving them benefits and you had to go and give them arms! How am I to run a business of repute without slaves? And---and finally, you led my noble father’s enemies to my greatest possession. Now that is tainted too. So, like all of this horribleness, it will be purged, destroyed. And I with it. I will take my soldiers, my orphan sons, up to the place of Diabolo, and do battle there against my enemies the Johnsons. Battle to the death. Battle to destruction, as the volcano will blow in the next few hours. That artificial volcano is impossible to un-trigger, isn’t it, Dr. Aperture? Yes, see, he’s nodding. It, with the rest of this island, will be my funeral pyre. That is my Emergency Plan.”

Jack just watched him, expressionless. But something behind those eyes, in that heart, was moving, was being moved.

Golbez added an addendum.

            “That, and the fact that old Norrigan North has been missing for days, and the train can’t continue on without his password. So that hurts my business significantly, if I don’t have my train. Oh, how I love trains. Jackie, old boy, we could have built model trains together! Instead...this.”
            He sighed unhappily as he glanced around the warehouse.
            “And now I’m putting my own son to death. That’s what it’s come to.”
            His shoulders slumped, and he started walking away, towards a door. He had his hand on the knob when Jack called out to him.
            “Dad.”
            Golbez paused and turned his head halfway around.

“I’m...sorry.”

Golbez waited another moment, then pushed open the door. A few seconds later they heard his grizzled voice on the telecom system, speakers in and outside of the warehouse.

            “ALL EMPLOYEES DISREGARD THE CARDACCIANS ON THE TRAIN AND RETREAT TO MOON BASE. OPERATION DIABOLICAL DOOMSDAY IS BEING COMMENCED. CODE REDDISH-BROWN. REPEAT, CODE REDDISH-BROWN, FIVE-TWO-EIGHT-FOUR-NINE-ONE.”
            When it finished, Dr. Aperture turned his whole attention to Jack, who hadn’t given an ounce of struggle against his bonds.
            “At last,” said Dr. Aperture. “We may test this experiment.”
            Jack watched as Dr. Aperture walked to the far side of the warehouse, barely within Jack’s view, and flipped a switch. A small light came on, a fan started whirling, and literally the ball started rolling. The doctor’s device, like the volcano, had been triggered.

Annie was still struggling against the wall. Her wide-open eyes were trying to communicate something to Jack. Jack interpreted it as fear of some kind. Maybe of death? Of watching death? Whatever it was, Jack didn’t care. But he was a little curious. So he asked.

“What’s your plan with Annie here?”

Dr. Aperture glanced unconcernedly at Annie, still hooked up to the tubes at her mouth.

“Her? Golbez has no further need of her, so he had given her to me. Very soon your lovely lady will be neither of the women who reside within that body. She is inhaling gases that I specially concocted. Great trauma or emotional shock---in this case, the sight of your gruesome death---acts as a catalyst that will turn her into someone very different. She will be my assistant. My Sciencess. And you will be out of the picture forever.”

            “That would make you...her Science.”
            “Yes, that’s correct.”

Annie’s wide, angry eyes looked at him as if to ask, “Why aren’t you doing anything to escape while he’s talking?” but he just looked back with disinterested eyes. He knew what he was doing.

“The first and last thing you need to know about me is that I am pro-Science,” Dr. Aperture said further. “All else is secondary.”

“Does your portion of the Golbez Industries budget get grouped in with Science, or is that one of the secondary things?”

“Secondary.”

“And that’s why you came to this island, isle, with Golbez thirty years ago, isn’t it?”

“He offered millions for me to do my experiments on his island.”

“What, did he want to seem cultured or something? Oh, no, I get it! Of course. That makes sense now: he wanted a mad scientist working for him! Brilliant, Golbez. Brilliant. Tell me, Dr. Aperture, will the next generation of super-animals have wings, or at least the capability to fly?”

            “Yes, how did you know this?” he said, eyes cross and curious.
            “Logic. Cause and effect. The only thing Carl Sagan couldn’t do was fly, and you seem the ambitious sort, so of course that’s where you were going next.”
            “You know the name of that magnificent beast? How is that possible?”
            Jack shrugged, as much as one could shrug when one is bound with ropes. “It was on his collar. Strange that you put a collar on a god.”
            Dr. Aperture stood tall with pride. “It is representative of my brothers and sisters in other lands. Many of them wish to practice True Science, but their civilizations bind them and keep them down with talk of ‘ethics’ and ‘humanity.’ I will show them how pitiable ‘humanity’ truly is. It is the lesser form of being. I have discovered the greater. And this because I do my work on this island, away from their ridiculous laws. Most of my research and experiments would be highly illegal in those supposedly civilized countries, but that is because they do not understand the aims of science.”

“What are the aims of science?” Jack asked conversationally.

            “To know all! To understand everything! To be able to do anything! To be omniscient! And omnipotent! In other words, to be gods!”
            Dr. Aperture ended with his hands in the air, as if inspiring a crowd. But all that sounded in the aftermath of his declaration was silence. That, and the whiz of a toy race car zooming around a track.
            “Uh, huh...” said Jack after that moment passed.

“It is because I’ve been performing my own experiments for the last thirty or so years, and because I have been cut off from the scientific world of civilized society, that I have discovered things they haven’t!”

“Like give real sentience and a love of music and roller-skating to an eagle, while also hindering its ability to fly.”

“Spyder could fly if he wanted to!” Dr. Aperture shouted defensively. “He was just hanging around that do-nothing master of his who only knew how to live off the teat of shiny treasure! Dependency breeds dependency, and Spyder never flew because it was just too much work for him. He didn’t have to fly to get around or fed, so he never did.”

“And Ryan?”

Dr. Aperture suddenly went quiet and turned away. Jack glanced at Annie, who still maintained that fearful look. In the background a series of cogs ticked mechanically and a roll of duct tape unspooled stickily.

“In that silly dinosaur was the preserved consciousness of my son, who, for all intents and purposes, died of cancer thirty-five years ago.”

In the silence that followed, one could practically hear a pin drop. Then a pin actually dropped, and all three present in that room heard it loud and clear. Even Jack didn’t have a witticism to remark with. Or at least, he didn’t want to say it.

But then Dr. Aperture came back, roaring like the T-Rex had roared.

“What did you do to him?!” he, well, roared. “Did you kill him?”

“No, no, no, no. Calm down. I don’t kill people with names. Or at least, not people whose names I know. We just gave him some much-needed love and comfort and opened his little T-Rex mind to the possibility of a life beyond mere terrorizing. I don’t know where he is anymore. But he’s safe. Hard for a T-Rex to not be safe. How did you create him, by the way?”

“With science!” said the Doctor, gesticulating with a raised forefinger pointed into the air. “Science can do anything, and answer any question!”

            A mechanical hand patted a real, genuine, living sheep on the head. The ewe seemed pleased by the pat, so it meandered forward a few paces to eat some grass on the floor. After chewing and swallowing, it bleated. A sound receiver near the sheep’s mouth was activated by the bleat and that set off an electrical charge that lit a flame.

“And with some help of a treasure,” Dr. Aperture said more quietly. But his voice grew, from a sigh, all the way up to a scream. “An artifact I helped build that temple to hide within. The temple that Ryan guarded. The temple that is no longer safe from outsiders! Outsiders who will want to pilfer and destroy! Thus is the purpose of the volcano! To keep noisy, nosy pillagers like you away from it! And very, very soon, the dirt and dust upon Windswept Peak will be swept aside to reveal the volcano’s fiery mouth beneath! The flaming jaws that will consume all beneath it!”

Dr. Aperture laughed demonically, and Jack didn’t feel sorry for him anymore.

And that’s when a crank attached to the catapult started winding, drawing the beam down and taut. Jack was slowly being lowered to a horizontal position. Before he was down all the way he winked at Annie, whose face was filled with more fear than ever. But Jack knew exactly what was about to happen, and he smiled, remembering the last time he had been in the clutches of this catapult. How he had been sawing at the wrong rope, and had just about severed it, thus nearly neutralizing the catapult’s possibilities.

A tiny lever tipped, and Annie gave a muffled scream. The catapult launched forward.

Except it didn’t. The strain on the sawed rope was too much, and it snapped, rendering the catapult useless. Jack was thrown up enough that he landed on his feet, and that was it.

Now, what next? Well, the next thing he did was look around quickly for the map-wrapped scepter he knew Golbez must have taken away from him. He found it in the corner, a slight green glow emanating from it. How had Dr. Aperture not seen this?

He dashed for the corner, passing a bewildered and now fangless Dr. Aperture, who didn’t care too much about what happened to Jack, but who was clutching his head in both his hands, looking over the catapult and realizing his failure.

“How could this be? How could this be?” he muttered over and over.

Jack, meanwhile, had gotten to the corner and started unrolling the scepter with his foot. When it had been fully unveiled, he lowered himself to the ground and rubbed the ropes against the scepter. They consequently burned off, giving him perfect freedom. He took the glowing rod in hand and marched over to Annie, once more passing Dr. Aperture.

He swung the scepter against the hanging bag full of gas, and it evaporated into nothingness. Then he reached down to Annie’s mask and pulled it out with his bare hand. She could breathe again, and he touched the scepter to her ropes and they burned off like his had. Then he spun to face Dr. Aperture, face full of fury.

But it was Dr. Aperture who spoke first. Raw shock was in his features.

“How...how did you get the Sonic Scepter? HOW?”

“A friend,” Jack said coldly.

“The platformers said those puzzles would be impossible to solve! They said...!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but your science ends now.”

He tossed the scepter to his left hand and pulled Wrench out with his right.

“You guys never think to check me for my weapon,” he said. “And that seems inconsistent with the type of people you are on this island, but I’ll take it. So now you’re going to feel something painful, and if you cooperate, it will be less painful.”

Jack aimed at Dr. Aperture’s left shoulder and fired. Like the shot on the beach, this lone discharge sounded like a cannon, and rang in everyone’s ears for a few seconds afterward. Dr. Aperture fell to the ground, shrieking in pain. A spurt of blood had sprayed from the wound.

“Pain’s something you understand, right? Pain is scientific?” Jack said through clenched teeth. “Paula, will you do the honors?”

Paula, her face similarly indignant, knew instantly what he meant. She walked over to the doctor’s sprawled-out body and hovered her boot over his bleeding shoulder.

“Paula and I, we need to get off this isle. The train is our only realistic way of doing so. But right now it’s stopped. And Golbez has said it will stop at other places past this one, and that we need some kind of password or code to make it through. We know you have one of these passcodeword things. You have the option of telling us now, or telling us after she steps on you a little bit. Paula, go ahead.”

The millisecond her boot touched the bullet hole he screamed. At first it sounded incoherent, but then some syllables popped up that weren’t in the general lexicon of screaming-related sounds. And ultimately Jack was able to discern the word being said.

“MORIARTY!”

Paula took her boot off the wound and looked at Jack. He seemed surprised this had worked so quickly. That made him suspicious.

“Are you absolutely sure?” he said in an accusatory voice. “You don’t want to be wrong with us, do you?”

“Fine! Fine,” the doctor panted through the pain. “It’s ‘Son.’ Like a child. Son. Like...like Ryan. But that will only get you through Machete Bay. It won’t work anywhere else.”

Jack’s eyes thinned on the man, the mad scientist.

“If you survive this whole thing, go find Ryan. He needs a father. Be better to him than Golbez is to me. But maybe you don’t know how. ‘Science’ doesn’t teach you that.”

And he spun on the spot, and walked away. Ann Paula followed after him. He seemed impatient.

“See, as soon as I give in, even in the slightest, something like this happens,” Jack said to her. “I told you.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll keep my distance from you. I’m sorry. But what do we do now?”

            The doctor moaned in the background.

“Physician, heal thyself,” Jack spat. Then he turned back to Annie. “We’re going to get that train moving,” he said.

            “How?” Annie asked.
            “By getting that password.”
            “How?” she said again, in exactly the same tone. It could have been a direct recording.
“I know something Golbez didn’t,” Jack said. “I know where Norrigan North is.”