The Sky Doth Fall. Part 1.

Tarka:
 
The spider circled its web, slowly building the web as it worked up in the 
corner. Allan watched it as he was sitting in the waiting room for his 
interview. The room was very plane looking, with nothing but the chair he was 
sitting in and two doors. An old floressent tube hung overhead.
 
A narrow faced woman opened the innor door to the office. "Mr Allan, would 
you care to come in for your interview?" She stared at him like something she 
might find under a rock. He was desperate, so he got up and smileed.
 
"Thank you!." He followe her through the door and into an unmarked hallway 
with locked doors leadding off to both sides.
 
Nothing here spoke of the odd addvertisement that he had responded to. 
"Looking for a rewarding job wher eyou can be a hero? Looking for a job with 
high adventure and far away lands? Willing to work cheap? Call 555-555-5555.
 
Now he was actually here... and there was nothing but a sinking feeling.
 
Terry:
 
Allan was far too nervous to ask about it, though -- maybe the explanation 
would come during the interview, how this shoddy old office building 
connected to high adventure and heroism. It did, at least, suggest 'work 
cheap', but that wasn't really the part that had attracted him. Well, not the 
second word of it, anyway.
 
His guide led him down the hallway to a door like any of the others, peeling 
fake-wood plastic panelling over some dull gray metal. She unlocked it with 
some difficulty, and opening it, motioned for him to go in. "This is the 
room," she said, "Good luck."
 
The room was unlit, but Allan thought he saw a desk and a chair. He hesitated.-
.. but he was fairly desperate, so he went inside, and wasn't too surprised 
to hear the door shut and lock behind him, leaving him in total darkness and 
silence.
 
Zander:
 
For a few moments, all around Allan was darkness. Slowly,  his eyes adapted 
to the lack of light and more details came into focus. The desk was cluttered 
with maps, empty soda cans, and more then a number of half drank cups of 
coffee. The chair was facing away from Allan  and behind the chair, there was 
a dark silhouette. 
 
The voice of a woman cut the thick silence. So, Mister Allan. I take it 
you've us easily enough? I've read over your application and I must say... 
Your job history hasn't exactly been... exemplary has it?  Could you tell me 
a bit about why you left your last job? The figure, shaded by the darkness 
and the chair took pause, waiting for a response.
 
Allan swallowed air nervously, shifting from foot to foot for a moment. Well, 
I... How to say... There was an incident at my last job.  He explained, the 
only other noise in the office being that of the chair squeaking. You see, 
being a patent clerk isn't all its cracked up to be.
 
Vassily:
 
"And I had no idea they'd be so serious about the second law of Thermodynamics-
. I mean, I didn't even think you could be prosecuted for violating it."
 
The woman turned slowly in her chair, the squeaking rising in pitch until it 
became nearly inaudible. "Go ahead." Her voice was slightly hoarse, with an 
edge of cigarette smoke.
 
"Well, I was doing some filing and I started wondering about all those crazy 
patents people keep trying to file for perpetual motion machines.  So I 
pulled as many as I could and started looking for patterns. Most of them were 
completely crazy. I mean, someone applied for a patent on an engine that ran 
on bad dreams. Rejected, of course. But a pattern emerged." Allan began 
moving his arms more as he talked. Gesturing with his hands into the 
darkness. "And just as I had it. They fired me. Misuse of government 
resources." He slumped back into the chair, causing it to emit a squeak of 
it's own.
 
"The principles are sound, but... I don't have a way to prove it." Allan 
realized he'd just talked his way out of a job again. He felt happy that it 
was dark in the room. He wouldn't be able to se her trying to spot a tinfoil 
beanie on his head. "It was just as well though, the job was stressful and 
amazingly dull for being so stressful."
 
WalksFar:
 
How had he allowed  himself to fall this low?  Surely a job sweeping floors 
or stocking shelves would suffice for now. . . .  At least he could extricate 
 himself from this before it went too far.  
 
He took a breath, fidgetted with the front of his shirt, managed a smile and 
spoke.
 
"I probably wasted enough of your time.  I mean, I never did get past the 
pattern of lunacy I managed to find," he said, nervously.  "Thank you for the 
interview."  He leaned forward and stood.  The chair beneath him groaned and 
returned to its upright position as if relieved to get him off it.
 
Tarka:
 
"Don't go Mr Allen. Your interview has gone very well so far. You see. We 
wrote that job add for one very spacific person that we were look for. Your 
background has already been checked and arrangements made. You already have 
the job. Now the question is. Would you be willing to work for me?" The 
shadowy figure stood up in the dark and came around the desk. Allan still 
coulding see her.
 
"Arragements have already been made? What does this job pay?"
 
"Pay is cheap. Mostly room and board. With a bonus at the end of the job. 
Some money for personal items, ect. As for arragements. You will be doing a 
lot of traveling. The meger amount of stuff you have in your appartment will 
be put into storage and you will only need one suitcase."
 
"But..." The figure reached over and turned on the lights in the darkened 
room and all thought of protest left Allan... the woman... no... creature 
before him was strange, clothed in a tight fitting jumpsuit, he decided that 
it was a she, or at best guess a she, and decidedly not human. She smiled at 
him, showing two mall fangs and round glistening eyes.
 
Terry:
 
Allan backed up against the locked door, and screamed! The creature watched 
him calmly, while he shreiked and gibbered and clawed at the door and walls, 
until his fingers and throat were sore. Eventually, he ran out of steam, and 
slumped against the door, staring at her.
 
"Are you done?" she said, and he found he wasn't quite done after all, 
screaming again, and scrabbling on his knees, now, as if he could dig through 
the tile and escape back into the hallway. As she rose from behind the desk 
and came to stand behind him, he felt a puddle of urine pool around his damp 
pants, and held his eyes tightly shut, praying for this to all be a dream.
 
Then he felt a prick in his shoulder, and suddenly he was calm -- not even 
embarassed at his actions. He turned to see her putting away a rather 
ordinary-looking syringe, and standing impatiently over him with her... paws 
on her... er... hip-like-things. "Um," he said.
 
"Don't worry about it," she said, making an odd gesture. "It happens to 
everyone. Do you want the job?"
 
Zander:
 
Allan tried to focus and think on the topic, however various chemical means 
made this significantly more difficult. Infact, the only thoughts to occur to 
Allan during this period of time  were the very privative "Food good. House 
good. Room and board mean house and food. " 
 
The inevitable answer of "Yes" came quickly out of his mouth. The 'lady' then 
smiles as much as her limited facial structure allowed and she proceeded to 
say. "Wonderful. We'll be leaving in one week. Pack your suit case and wait 
at home for a taxi to pick you up. We'll make all of the arrangements. Just 
one small issue, of course. Should anything... Unsavory happen to you, we 
will of course need to notify your next of kin. So a list of emergency 
contacts would be appreciated, so do remember to pack that as well with your 
personal items."
 
Allan smiled a smile that only a drugged up person who's mind has been 
exposed to too much, too fast. He slowly raised to his feet, when something 
vaguely inappropriate to the situation bubbled up to the forefront of his 
mind. It wasn't practical thoughts like "Next of kin, I might die!" or even " 
I am working for what appears to be a monster," but was instead the completely-
 ludicrous "I wonder what her name is?" This of course, was repeated out loud 
by Allan, who at that moment was unable to tell the difference between what 
he thought and what he spoke. 
 
Vassily:
 
It hadn't even occured to him to ask what the job actually was. The thoughts 
swam around in his disordered mind but failed to find each other in the fog. 
They bounced off of many other thoughts. Thoughts about fur and scales and 
fangs. Thoughts about where he was going to find a change of clothes. Even 
stranger thoughts, about his Mother and about Mornington Crescent. He shook 
his head a little to clear the fog. He squared his shoulders, held his head 
high and said, eloquently "Arugahuh?"
 
"Very succintly put. Arugahuh indeed." The womanish thing answered. "I can 
see you have some questions you'd like to ask me. Ans a showewr you'd like to 
take." The chair squeaked again as she sank back into it and folded his thin 
fingered 'hands'. The opalescent nails clicked together.
 
WalksFar:
 
Where the bloody "ELL had that come from?  Allan left in a fog, one thought 
on his mind besides a feeling ov embarrassment.  His pant legs clung to his 
skin with a clammy wetness he did not wish to think about.  Shower. . . .  He 
needed . . . fresh clothes.  Wot th' . . . where was he gonna get that?
 
 He pushed thorugh a door into a briliantly lit, white tiled bathing area, 
showers, lavatory to the left, stalls to the right . . . and on a bench . . . 
a neatly stacked set of what appeared to be shiny linens, or were they?
 
 No!  Clothes which seemed to be his fit.  Fashionable . . . something he 
would not mind being seen on the street thus attired.  Shower . . . then 
what?  He felt hungry. . . .
 
Tarka:
 
A week later Allan looked out over his appartment at all the neatly packed 
boxes. He thought hard about it and had decided that he woudl go with the 
strange looking woman for this new job. Next to him was one suitcase packed 
full of the things he wished to take. Some battires... a charger... and a 
book reader. For the times when he was alone and it was quiet.
 
Someone knocked on the door a momment later and he opened it. Outside stood a 
scruffy looking black man. "Helly... yo mr Allan? I'm supposed to take you to 
the airport." Two other black men were with him, both dressed in coveralls.
 
"You can leave your keys with us and we will move your things to storage Mr 
Allen." He reached out with the keys and then took his suitcase and followed 
the taxi driver.
 
The trip to the airport was uneventful but they didn't pull up to the main 
landing... but to the private airport arrivals area. "Here you are Mr Allen."
 
Out by the curp there was a hevally clothed woman looking out from under 
large glasses and a scarf... he recognized the strange creature just looking 
at her. "I'm here."
 
Terry:
 
She nodded, and offered him her hand. He flinched, but took it. He could feel 
the strange bones and muscles, and his stomach twinged, but it wasn't nearly 
as bad the second time.
 
She led him past the terminal and out onto the runway, where a small 
two-engine prop plane was parked. Her grip was firm, and she seemed to be in 
a hurry. To help calm his nerves, he babbled. "I read the pamphlet you left 
with me. Are those pictures supposed to be real? I don't know how well I can 
handle all this strangeness, at least without that drug you used. Do you have 
any more of it? Of course, I don't know how much use I'll be if I'm on it, 
but maybe..."
 
She shushed him, then led him into the plane, and pointed to the single seat 
set up in the middle of the passenger compartment -- huge, padded, with more 
straps than he could possible imagine. "Sit," she said, "And strap in."
 
Zander:
 
Hours pass. Many, many hours pass in relative silence. Relative is the 
keyword here. Throughout the flight, honestly Allan asked many questions. 
Almost all of them where answered with little more then a glance. There was 
only one question given with a satisfactory answer, and that was posed 
roughly in the fifth hour of the flight. 
 
Allan was still thinking about the brochure of course. The details were 
sparse, as any brochure is, but basically highlighted something so completely 
mind boggling that it still flummoxed Allan when he thought about it. The 
company that Allan signed up with was named "Creation Engines Unlimited" and, 
through the buzzword filled pamphlet, explained the general business of what 
they did. 
 
The Creation Engine was their core enterprise. What the Creation Engine did 
was create a small universe in which a specific item had a particularly high 
probability of existing. So if you wanted, lets say, a high efficiency solar 
powered engine, all you would need is to program the specifications of what 
you wanted into it, and lo and behold, after a while, you'd get it. Creation 
Engines Unlimited had only one flaw with it's logic. It didn't actually have 
a functioning creation engine.
 
This line of logic ran over and over Allan's head even when he asked that one 
simple question, and the only one with a answer. That question was "So, where 
are we going?" The answer was "Tunguska, Russia." 
 
Vassily:
 
"Siberia, near Lake Baikal?" She turned towards him, and possibly smiled 
under the scarf. "Very Good. What else can you tell me about it?" Allan 
shifted against the straps, trying to make himself more comfortable. "Well, 
it's near the cosmodrome at Baikonur, if you mean the 1908 event. There was a 
large release of energy that knocked over a lot of trees in a pattern vaguely 
suggestive of a Lornz Buterfly. No one is really sure what happened exactly. 
It was remote enough that no one got out to the site until 1921. No scientists-
, anyway."
 
"That's more or less correct. If we're correct about the cause of the event, 
we should be able to bootstrap the Engine. Which is where you come in." He 
blinked a few times, slowly. "Where I come in?" She wriggled her neck and he 
heard the vertebrae pop softly. "We need you to reduce the amount of Entropy 
locally. We also need you cut cut some firewood."
 
WalksFar:
 
 "Uh . . . gimme an axe."  entropy?  He understood, but rocket scientist he 
was not!  What did they want from him?  REALLy want?  Being a Patent clerk 
did not make him an aeronautical engineer, or a physicist.  Suddenly he began 
to understand.  Whatever  happened here almost 100 years ago . . . that was 
them!  whatever she was, that it.  They caused it!  Maybe inadvertantly, but 
. . . he now was sure, it had to be them.
 
 However, the what in the equation did not make sense . . . not yet?  He 
glanced at his "alien" companion, nodded and let his thoughts continue.  
 
 Then he thought he saw it.  Why had he not thought of this?  They had no 
working engine . . . yet.  Okay.  that's why they needed others in this 
venture.  Simply put . . . "they" wanted to go . . . home!"
 
 Everyone else was a part of it.  Travel?  Hah!  They were destined to be 
crew?  What else could there be?  An old episode of Twilight Zone passed 
through his recollection.  He shook his head in dismissal.