Electrowave

Fernweh

Eventually, we entered the Sonnenbrandt studio, and there it was. Sonnenbrandt's 'Universum Machine'. So, there we all were, sitting around Sonnenbrandt's mysterious machine. It was a small remote control with a button on it. It didn't look all that important, although we supposed it must have been. We still had no idea what it was for or what it did. But we were soon to find out.

"Yes, Welle: Erdball will be perfect, we'll use them for this," Sonne said, looking down at the machine.

"Indeed. I hope you don't mind," Brandt smiled, although we didn't know what it was that Brandt thought we would 'mind'. We were still very confused by the whole situation.

"Use us?" Plastique said, "For what?"

"Testing," Herr Brandt replied as he wiped the dust from the machine, "We need to be here to activate this, so, I need... volunteers... and you, my friends, are perfect!"

"But volunteers for what?" Alf said, quickly becoming impatient with the mysterious machine.

"Volunteers to go through... into a parallel universe!"

Silence.

"Oh, yes, we forgot to say," Brandt grinned, "That's what the Universum Machine does, it takes you into a parallel universe."

"Nonsense," was all Alf said.

"It's true," Korg said, "You'll see."

And so Sonnenbrandt made us all step around the machine.

"I-I don't know about this," Venus said.

But if it was true, there were so many things we had forgotten. The C64, as broken as it was now, I still wanted to have it with me. What if the parallel universe we went to didn't have Commodore 64s?! What a tragedy that would be! No, we had to take stuff with us. Who knows what would be waiting for us in the other world?

"Oh," I said, "We'll have to go and get some things to take with us, is that ok?"

"Sure," Brandt said, "Take as long as you need."

---

And we did, much to Alf's annoyance as I made him carry the Commodore 64 and all of its parts.

"Honey, do we really have to take this through?" Alf held up the C64 that we'd brought with us.

"Yes, we bloody well do!" I said, "That's our entire life's work on that machine! I'm sure we can get it fixed somehow."

Korg just laughed at us, and Sonnenbrandt then told us to step inside a room. The 'Universum Room', they called it. Now I was holding the remote control that was the Universum Machine, and Sonne told us that when I pushed the button we and all the things we'd took would all be sent with us into the other world.

"Ok, so once you've gone we'll have to destroy all data about building an Electrowave. Also, we must go and bring Hertzinfarkt and Die Perlen back," Sonne said, "They should come with us."

"But please don't worry. We'll all join you eventually, and Die Funkhausgruppe will be reunited... in a parallel universe!" Sonne beamed.

"Yeah yeah, so we're just the test rats, then?" I said.

"Yup, pretty much," Sonne smiled.

Alf shot a glare at her through the glass window as we all stood inside the room. I dropped the remote which accidently pushed the button, but Sonnenbrandt didn't seem to notice as I picked it back up again. The remote started to beep.

"Sonnenbrandt destroyed the world..." Korg sighed, "But Welle: Erdball will save it. We know you will, we believe in you."

But it was too late, as the machine began to glow and the four of us disappeared. There was no time for any regrets now. Our country, our world, had been destroyed. This was our only escape. We had to go somewhere new.