《Spaced Out》Chapter 1: Jumping!
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'BZZT' An electrical bolt arced from the circuit board to Gabe’s finger. “Ow! Fucking dick!.” He had shouted from the sudden shock. He rubbed his index finger and thumb together to alleviate the pain that he was suddenly caused.
“God damn. Fuck that hurts.” In hindsight, Gabe should’ve probably disconnected the power from the board as he was working on. Letting go of the tool it rolled harmlessly onto the carpeted floor of his room.
Reclining back in his chair he brought his hand to his face and thought. What would I do with a teleporter? Sure at first he was building it simply for the fun factors like traveling to Egypt, having a drink in Rome or dance in Tokyo. But after the months flew by he started to think about the implications that could benefit society. He could totally patent it and make his own transportation service and let the money slowly come in...or he could totally just rob a bank and get away with no one being the wiser. His train of moral thought broke after that. He could rob several banks and acquire more wealth than he would if he did any of the aforementioned benefits.
Gabe began to salivate just thinking about the things he’d be able to do with all the money he’d get. He’d have like three wives. Two cars with gold plated rims, four plasma-screen TVs, and a 3 story house just to accommodate everything. He broke from his fantasy and began to work back on the project with a newfound determination.
He looked up at his second monitor to double-check his wiring. "Spot on!" To be completely honest, the image was just his own diagram that had been poorly drawn on a paint program that came with the computer. He had made a smaller scale teleporter that received power but required a tremendous quantity of power, so he slightly altered the design, in theory, was a more optimized one for the larger final project.
The last spark flew into the air as he wielded the last piece onto the board. “YES!” He said on the top of his lungs.
He stroked the side of his precious creation. “Time to get you hooked in!” The giddiness levels in his body rose to levels that were previously unheard of. He sprinted out of the room slamming the once open the door to his room and jumped down the stairs. He nearly face-planted a landing on the last step wrong but good thing railings exist, right?
Clearing the final stairs leading towards the basement he came to a skidding halt, comically the dust on the ground was kicked upward. He stared in amazement at the fruit of his labor. A giant 2-meter tall cylinder stood unpowered. He smiled like a kid in a toy store with everything being marked free. The unimaginable riches that awaited him in just mere moments filled him with increasing glee. He just couldn’t wait to move out his parent’s house and live somewhere gated off complete with its own pool.
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Gabe reached over to an empty slot in the side of the cylindrical construct. He connected the male and female connectors together. The machine began to sputter to life. Lights on the control panel began to slowly fade and fade out. A soft 'Dum Dum' faded in and out through the speakers. The sound wasn't exactly a part of the machine's purpose but damn did it make the place feel intense.
Gabe approached a wooden desk. On top, a stuffed teddy bear sat next to a big red button with a thick cord leading down the leg of the deck to the machine. He grabbed the teddy bear and gave it a squeeze. It played its pre-recorded message: “I love you!” He chuckled and threw it into the open doors.
He stood behind the desk and started a countdown. “Countdown in... Five! Four! Three!” He paused. Who was he counting down for? The only person in there was him. He slammed down on the button, a quiet “That was easy.” played. At first, the machine slowly vibrated much like a clothes dryer first being turned on. It quickly became more and more violent until pretty much all of the neighborhood could assume there was a small earthquake.
Gabe hid behind his desk. He knew it wouldn't save him from an explosion, but it gave a slight form of safety. The basement lights flickered rapidly for a few seconds before it ultimately just shut off leaving the only source of light being from the sparks the teleporter.
Now completely ducked behind the wooden desk, he could not see what the teleporter was doing anymore. Then he heard a loud 'Ding' much like a toaster oven finishing. He peeked above and saw that the teddy bear had completely vanished.
“YUSH!” He yelled both his arms held high above his head. “It Worked!” He slammed the button and ran to the open door of the chamber.
At first, nothing happened.
Damn this was gonna be one helluva bill against his power usage. The door slammed closed. He began to feel really giddy at the fact that his labor is starting to bud its fruit.
“Oh no.” It finally hit him, the most important thing ever. He did not add a way to pinpoint a location to where he wanted to go or a way to return.
He began to scream and bang against the side of the machine. Everything was going wrong in a matter of minutes. He should have also put an emergency stop inside just in case. But he for some dumb reason decided against it. His vision began to distort and become blurred.
The light seemed to be getting brighter until it became blinding. He put his arm in front of his face as a shield.
Then everything flashed.
Seeing as he didn't end up at the bottom of the ocean, he unshielded his face to allow his eyes adjust to an unfamiliar sight. It was a large room, much larger than his dank basement. Multiple lights and buttons were seemingly everywhere. There were also large windows looking forward was a more sunken area of the area that had a set of 3 chairs paired with a singular screen in front. On the middle most chair, a pair of long, triangular fuzzy gray things slightly peeking out.
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He tilted his head to the side trying to make sense of what that could be. The whole room began to tremble in short spurts. he had caught his balance on a nearby protruding metallic rod. Once the post transportational ear ringing stopped he could begin to hear the sounds of the environment, and it was a lot of yelling.
The voices he heard spoke in an unintelligible voice.
Gabe continued to stare at the two fuzzies frantically move side to side until their owner decided to leave the chair. The creature swung backward to immediately face Gabe. They stood there in silence for several seconds in awkwardly unsure of what to do. In the meantime, Gabe received a good look at the clearly alien person.
She was apparently female, at least judging from the well noticeable breasts she possessed alongside her hair being cut short with two long bangs drooping downward, ending at her collarbone. Her face was strangely human except for her eyes, strange enough they had a more feral animal look to them. Her outfit was pretty peculiar too, it consisted of a gray skin tight tank top tucked into a pair of cargo pants adorned with a waist cape. Behind a gray tail swished back and forth.
She pulled a metallic object from a holster on her hip which resembled a gun but wasn’t anything that Gabe had ever seen. He put his hands up. “Don’t shoot! I come in peace!”
She yelled at him. It obviously wasn't something he could understand. In almost a blink of an eye she closed the distance between them. Once she got close enough she grabbed the back of his neck and kicked the leg from beneath him. He landed on his stomach. He attempted to pick himself up but found that he couldn’t. She had placed a boot on his back forcing him to stay down. She delivered a swift kick to his face and everything went dark.
By the time he woke up he found he was inside a room with several metal crates of varying sizes scattered around. Looking around he found that he wasn’t alone in the room. The wolf-girl had her boot on top of a small crate with her gun in her hand.
“I’m sorry for whatever I did, But I swear it was on acci-” She pulled the trigger of her gun. The muzzle produced a red laser blast that was almost too fast for him to see but still slow enough know that it was fired. Gabe stopped talking and she pulled out a device from a pouch on her side. The tiny device had wires that began to squirm around almost like it was alive. She walked closer to Gabe and placed the device near him on a crate.
The device flipped itself and resembled a spider with long spindly legs. It began to scurry around dodging boxes and using others as jumping platforms. In the short amount of time that it had been moving around it had already latched onto his pants leg crawling upwards, Gabe tried to swat it away but ended up just falling on his butt. He screamed and flailed around.
every time he tried to grab it the device would just slip through his fingers. The device continued to make his way into his ear where it planted itself leaving out a piece of the body like an earbud.
At first, it his ears rang loudly but calmed down as time passed.
He hadn't noticed before but the wolf girl had been standing right next to him, she peered down at him and spoke. “How’d yah get on my ship?”
Gabe widened his eyes in surprise. She was now understandable. Whatever this piece of technology was could convert languages into another language as if they themselves spoke it. Th- She shot her laser again.
“If yah don’t answer. You’re gonna get spaced.”
“At first I was broke so I decided to build a teleporter to go inside of bank vaults and become rich without trying any effort of actually obtaining it a legal way.” Gabe took a deep breath. “But it malfunctioned, not really malfunctioned more like a design flaw and, and…”
She looked at him angrily as he spoke. “Blitz!” She yelled.
A few moments later and a voice sounded over on the intercom. “Yes, cap?”
“Translator ain’t working.”
“Oh it’s working,” he responded. “It just has no data on this creature’s language.”
“So what you’re saying is that we got-”
“A new species, yes.”
“So what you ‘sppose we do with it? I vote that we sell it to a rich Gorr’rakkien”
Gabe had no idea what a Gorr-whatever was but it reminded him of a certain green giant slug. He frantically shook his head repeating “No.”
She laughed. “At least we know one word of its language.”
Blitz simply replied, “noted.” He paused for a moment “Or perhaps you can recruit this one to your merry band, We, after all, Don’t know anything about it yet...I personally would like to study this one.”
Well, it was a better choice than being made into a slug’s bitch. Gabe put his hands together and nodded his head rapidly.
She opened up a silver crate and pulled out a collar.
“Put it on. For now, on you belong to me.”
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