"Hey--what--let go of me!" Landis protested as Dabbler yanked him along. "What are you trying to pull?"
"Here it is!" Dabbler exclaimed. "Behind this wall is the plot device to end all plot devices -- the MarkT Device! It's the cause of all the shit that's gone down upstairs and outside -- in the whole damn AddVenture even, some might tell you. Shut this sucker down and it's all undone. No sex-slaves, no cops, no BE gun. Everyone free, going about their business.
"Sounds too good to be true," said Landis dubiously.
"Just watch." Drawing himself up dramatically, Dabbler plunged his hand into the wall. It went right through, and--
"Damn!" he muttered. "The wall's an illusion, more or less, but the device must be immaterial as well, at least to us. My fingers are going right through the switch...."
"Wouldn't help anyway," Landis told him. "We can't solve their problems, like gods out of some machine. All we're good for is fucking things up."
"Pipe down, before you fuck it all up," Dabbler snapped, noticing that the milling naked girls were slowing down again.
"It has to be from them," Landis persisted stubbornly. Cracks opened up in the fabric of the universe....
"Okay, okay," said Dabbler hastily. "Maybe it can be."
The world healed. The light in the basement dimmed slightly as someone entered the open doorway at the top. Dabbler and Landis both looked up.
It was Elvira. Magnificent. Impossibly buxom. Unbelievably pregnant. And ... oddly unsure of herself.
"Of course," Dabbler whispered. "Of course. A crisis like this ... just the thing to jog her memory...."
"What are you talking about?" Landis demanded.
"Shh! Her original mission. Before all the BE gun crap. Listen!"
Elvira was muttering to herself in that muted tone that seemed so characteristic of this world. "Yes," she breathed. "Just like I remember it. I didn't think I'd ever be able to slip away, but thanks to Jim's distraction...." She stepped forward and then hesitated, her foot poised in mid-air. "No, I've got to go on," she told herself. "There's no other way. Damn! Compelled or not, I was happy in this life. But with the police here and the gun gone it's all over anyway. At least this way, everyone stays out of prison."
She was descending the staircase. The octuplets on the floor looked up, and beckoned her with sultry arms and glances.
"It will never--" Landis started, as Elvira hesitated and the world slowed.
"It will!" Dabbler asserted. "Shut up and watch!"
Setting her jaw, Elvira resolutely advanced, and the waiting girls vanished, as if they had never been there at all. Dabbler pulled Landis to one side; the Mistress of the Dark was heading right toward them.
At the wall, Elvira paused again. She looked sad. "What will they think of me," she mused, "when they find out what I really am?" She glanced back, gazing longingly up the staircase. The girls were there again. They smiled, beckoning her, licking their lips.
Elvira turned away. "No other way," she repeated, and stretched her hand forward.
The brick wall was gone. In its place was a massive machine, some sort of computer or something. With a prominant switch that the woman proceeded to flick.
Again the world changed, but this time it was a change welling up from within, not a slowing and shattering from without. It shuddered. It shimmered.
And where Elvira had stood was now a gloomy-faced, middle-aged man. "I'm sorry, baby," he said, touching his now decidedly unpregnant belly. "So sorry...."
"I-I know that man," Landis stammered. "Somehow, somewhere, I know I've met him. But where is--"
"Sid Russell," Dabbler agreed with a sigh of relief. "It worked. It worked!" Somehow, he totally missed out on the fact that Landis' face was clouding over. But not for long
"You miserable little teenager!" Landis shrieked. "This is your fucking solution?!? Erasing the CHILDREN?!?!?!?"
The magician threw himself at Dabbler with clawed hands. The barefoot Author had time for just one plaintive "oops" before the world shattered again, this time definitively.
Maybe if Sid had used the thing instead of shutting it down, Dabbler thought uselessly, as he and Landis spiraled down toward the oblivion of a deeper level of subconsciousness. But the notion was too little, and far too late.
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Sat Oct 02 12:08:27 2004
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