SUNGLASESS AND ROCKETS Part 2: The Machine

LICENSE TO FLY THE MOON

The news startled me in such manner that I almost untied myself completely. Floating in empty space, I asked harebrained: "What'd happened to Earth?"

Darwin reclined and removed a wire from my boot.

"We haven't gotten any news yet."

I was speechless. Totally blank. Darwin got up and pushed the activation buttons of my jet-pack.

"How's everything?" you could hear the doctor say.

My friend made a gesture.

"Everything is fine."

He began to turn, getting ready for a dive. I activated my jet-pack by instinct, but questioning Darwin with my eyes first.

"The bomb is about to explode," he explained.

Damn!

He was nailed to the platform again. To the bomb! And I, still stunned, followed him. We went down on a side of the SVM, now less shiny. The doctor kept working on the base. Darwin hunched down and joined him.

"We're not leaving without you!"

"I told you to get out of here!" the doctor scolded. "Go out and find Lucas!"

Clearly, that order couldn't be complied. I cast myself downward and landed on the right of our busy boss. Using both hands, he was trying to pull a part of the container where the explosive was.

It was hard to maneuver in zero gravity.

"Darwin," he called, resigning himself to our presence. "Grab my waist."

Darwin obeyed at once. Next, the doctor found a way to loosen up a plaque that had many different colored wires attached.

"Gordo," he said, "cut them."

I opened the Velcro case on his arm and grabbed a pair of pliers.

"Which wires?"

"All of them."

With a shaky hand, I took the pliers and cut the wires one by one. The chronometer was still running.

But the doctor ignored it; he got rid of the veneer at the same time he got a screw driver out of the case to introduce it into the box.

"The chronometer is still running," I told him.

"I know. This is the kind of bomb that always blows up."

Oh God!

"Both of you hold me down," he continued.

We did as he said. The doctor let go of the tool, grabbed the sides of the box and pulled hard. The box was loose.

"Help me."

We helped him get out of the huge ball's base seizing him by the arms. Once on his feet, the doctor placed the huge box with explosives on his lap and looked up. Mechanically, I followed his gaze: the luminosity of the gigantic cylinder had almost faded in a far end.

I dropped my eyes and saw the timer. It displayed 1.2 minutes!

"What if we launch the bomb to the bottom?" I asked eagerly.

"There would be no way out," the doctor answered and explored a lower region. "I'll take it out of here."

He activated the thrusters of his jet-pack and he was fired obliquely.

"Doctor!" Darwin and I said in a chorus.

He was flying toward one of the cavities in the wall just like a Rocketeer.

"We'll deactivate the machine when I come back!" he exclaimed. "I already know how it works!"

He went into the cavity and we lost sight of him. Next, a static noise was heard, followed by a crack.

"Professor Masterton? Gordo, Darwin? Can you hear me?"

It was Lucas.

"Lucas!" Darwin replied. "The doctor has just left with the bomb!"

"Which way? Many Vampires have just entered the building!"

I looked up worried.

"This building?"

"Yes. We must get out immediately!"

Darwin and I turned our lights off at once.

"Lucas is right!" the doctor's voice was heard. "Take the SVM and take it to the base! We'll deactivate it there!"

"Doctor!" Lucas called. "Where—"

"Darwin and Gordo are with the SVM at the bottom of a—"

Transmission was cut off.

"Doctor!" Darwin and I said in unison.

"Where are you?" Lucas asked.

"At the bottom of a cylinder the size of skyscraper..." Darwin answered.

"I'm getting to some sort of..." He stopped talking, "a gigantic..."

The unmistakable Pterodactyl's nose loomed through one of the cavities at a distance that might equal ten stories up from the ground.

"We're down here!" I exclaimed. "Down here!"

Excited, I followed the fantastic scene of the Pterodactyl coming into the gigantic tube with my eyes.

It wasn't the only spaceship. Another one much bigger, showed up suddenly several feet higher, in the middle of a cloud of rubble.

"Another ship!" I yelled. "A Vampire!"

The Pterodactyl made an incredible maneuver and descended instantly. It landed a few feet from us. The doors were opening already.

"Get in!" Lucas ordered. "Get in!"

We hesitated.

"We have to take the SVM!"

"Get out!" the doctor's voice was heard. "There are more explosives in the entire—"

A flash shone on our visors. My eyes rolled up. An enormous fireball and rubble was coming down like an infuriated mythological character...It was dragging the huge Vampire!

And suddenly, another large black stormy cloud was formed! The vault was being detonated!

"Get in!" the pilot yelled. "Hurry up!"

My fingers pressed the jet-pack's button. I flew toward the spaceship. I bumped against the door which bounced me off toward the front seat. I turned around.

"Darwin!"

I saw his boots. He entered the rear line headlong.

"The SVM!" he shouted. "We can't leave it!"

The hatches shut down and the ship backed off. Surprised, I saw a mechanical arm unfolding to the ball.

"Lead me!" Lucas requested.

"A little to the right."

The arm's claws, well-aimed like a gigantic hand, covered the ball from the base.

"You got it! You got it!"

The spaceship jolted. Some rubble hit the tail as the ferocious radiance came through the windows.

"Let's go!" the pilot yelled.