203 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
203 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
From: kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
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Okay, I admit it, I've seen "The Philadelphia Experiment II" and lots of
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other really bad science fiction films. I was recently moved to write
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this when I was hospitalized after having jammed Mentos(R) into my ears.
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For some reason I felt like writing something which would annoy Harlan
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Ellison as much as possible. If he comes over and beats me up I'll be sorry.
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Also, if this story gets made into a movie, it'll be really painful to
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watch. Good.
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There are some *extremely* obscure references in here, so don't be
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afraid to ask John Baez to explain them to you. In fact, some
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references will only be understood by two or three people on the entire
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planet. Enjoy.
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-- K.
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THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENTOS
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=============================
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"So if we connect the phase-flow inducer to the remodulating
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transceiver... and route it into hyperspace," said LeVar Burton...
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"...then the entire battleship will turn purple!" said Gerrit Graham.
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The two of them were mad scientists in this modern year of 1943, two
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mad scientists fighting for right and decency for us all!
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Outside the window, the USS Millipede was sailing around Philadelphia
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Bay in circles, waiting for the experiment to begin. The USS Millipede
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was to be the linchpin in a super-secret super-scientific experiment
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that could determine the course of World War II! Also, it was still 1943.
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"But one thing still puzzles me, LeVar," said Gerrit while using a
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pocket comb to try to get his hair to stop sticking up, "#Why# do we
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want the ship to turn purple?"
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"Well, Gerrit, as you know, it's 1943. We're fighting World War II."
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"Gotcha! Oh, now I see it. You're saying that because we're at war
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with the Germans, who are a nation of people so restrained by
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inflexible logic, that if we paint the battleship purple, because they
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know that #battleships are not purple#, to them it'll become invisible!
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LeVar Burton, you're a genius!"
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LeVar smiled and popped another peppermint-flavored Mentos(R) into his
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mouth, then he used the roll of Mentos(R) to flip the big red switch in
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really cool style.
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Absolutely nothing happened to the USS Millipede, and it was
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still 1943.
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* * * * *
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Meanwhile, in the present day, somewhere in hyperspace, an
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oatmeal-raisin cookie two miles wide tumbled and hurtled through a
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universe of special effects. Harlan Ellison clung to an enormously
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magnified tiny model of a building and wished he could rip the eyeballs
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out of everybody in the entire world.
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"What is that enormous oatmeal doing here, in direct violation of the
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square-cube lawawawawawawaw?" he said, the distortion of the
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slit-scanned hyperspace making his voice echo and flange digitally.
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The cookie flipped over, revealing giant locusts crawling around on the
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bottom. They were big, B. I. G.
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Of course, Harlan Ellison, being a fictional creation, isn't involved
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in this story at all. However, Spot, in the real world, looked up just
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in time to see an oatmeal-raisin cookie two miles wide falling on him.
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"Yap!" he screamed, before being crushed.
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Meanwhile, back in 1943, absolutely nothing was still happening to the
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USS Millipede, and it was #still# 1943 there. Spot wasn't, as the
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cookie had hit him so hard he had been blasted into another universe.
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And he was covered with crumbs! Poor Spot.
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Spot looked around the other universe. "Wow," he said aloud, "this
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universe looks identical to mine in just about every way! What a
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coincidence!" He knew he was in another universe, though, because all
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the buildings had burlap doors. "Ah!" yapped Spot, "#BURLAP DOORS!#"
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Spot liked burlap doors and spent the next few minutes running in and
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out of a nearby building, its dangling rectangle of burlap sliding back
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and forth across Spot's sensitive face. "#Ah! Burrrrrlap doors!#"
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* * * * *
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Back in 1943, Gerrit Graham tried to figure out why the USS Millipede
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hadn't turned purple or even do something simple like go into another
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universe or get hit by the tumbling Time Cookie. Suddenly he sneezed,
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spilling all his Mentos(R) directly into the phase-flow flux inducing
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transitory remodulation destabilizer field coil generator loop core
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zone. Lightning bolts shot out of it, hitting both him and LeVar
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Burton! Gerrit's hair stood up straight, forming a big semicircle
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around his cranium, while the shock blew LeVar's opaque contact lenses
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out of his eyes. "I can see! I can see!" screamed LeVar. He picked
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up a book and began to read it aloud.
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The title of the book was:
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IT'S STILL THE YEAR 1943
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* * * * *
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After striking Spot, the Time Cookie bounced away, skipping across the
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surface of space like a stone skipping across a pond filled with
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Jell-O. Harlan Ellison clung on for dear life, expecting to never be
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re-united with his prized collection of Barry B. Longyear novels,
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giving up all hope of ever collaborating with Rockne S. O'Bannon on
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writing the "NBC's seaQuest DSV" movie. Now he'd never get to finish
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renting all those Band Brothers movies! He sobbed into a hankie and
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clung to the tiny plastic buildings on the surface of the Time Cookie,
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designed to look like enormous buildings which were half the size of
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the ordinary locusts walking about on the other side.
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The cookie sailed off into the infinite unknown, passing a 40-column
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ASCII graphic of a space station--the name of the place: Babylon 1.
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Michael O'Hare looked out the window and waved at Harlan, then ripped
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off his mask to reveal he was really Barbara Bain! Harlan screamed and
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lost his grip, falling off into the void, never to be seen again.
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Somewhere else, people started erasing his name from the "Terminator 2"
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credits again.
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* * * * *
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Spot was getting tired of rubbing his face against hanging burlap, and
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besides, it was getting dark. He went through the burlap door and
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turned on the light. He seemed to be in someone's home.
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"Hi, little puppy," said the home's occupant, "My name is Clutch
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Cargo. Please don't be frightened by my hideously grotesque appearance
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but I have a rare lip disease known as Synchro-Vox."
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Spot felt his lips twitching uncomfortably. A strange hazy
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ellipse-shaped ring began to materialize around them! Clutch gasped.
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"Oh no, doggie! You've caught my Synchro-Vox!"
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"ARF." said the bright orange film of a pair of human lips that were
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now superimposed on Spot's face. "BARK." Spot wanted to ask if there
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was a cure for Synchro-Vox, but the evil lips had assumed control of
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his face! "WOOF." He was unable to move his facial muscles at all!
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"BOW WOW."
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* * * * *
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Gerrit finished getting his hair to lie reasonably flat. "And one
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more thing that bothers me, LeVar..."
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"Yeah?"
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"It's still 1943, right?"
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"Yeah, so?"
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"But #why# is it 1943? Oh, sure, last year was 1942, and the year
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before that was 1941, but why were #those# years 1942 and 1941? Why
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isn't it, say, 1066?"
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LeVar grinned. "Easy question, Gerrit. It's 1943 because we're in
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the middle of World War II. If it were 1066, we'd be in the middle of
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the Battle of Hastings, and as you may have noticed, we're #not#
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wearing suits of armor!"
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Gerrit's hair jumped back into upright position. "Ah, 1066, the
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Battle of Hastings! They used whattle-and-daub construction then! In
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the olden days, ruffians would steal from barrels by removing the
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staves!" He began to twirl around madly for no reason.
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LeVar couldn't believe his eyes! He was seeing the Blezmo Effect for
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himself! Gerrit was in the grip of powerful forces first discovered by
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Prof. Belrick Blezmo! "Uh oh, Gerrit, I think this is a sign that
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we've been monkeying with powers beyond our control! You've been
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bitten by the Blezmo Effect!"
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Gerrit didn't answer, as he was too busy spinning around and
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passing out.
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* * * * *
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Spot ran and ran down the main street of the alternate version of his
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home town, in the other universe, upset that all the other dogs were
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making fun of his really fake-looking orange lips with an oval around
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them! Dogs can be so cruel, especially to other dogs who have human lips.
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* * * * *
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Frantically, LeVar worked the controls of the megamodal multiphasic
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periodic interositer, attempting to reverse the polarity of the neutron
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flow. He switched on S.U.S.I.E. (the Synchro Universal Sinometric
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Integrated Equitensor) and rubbed a fresh roll of Mentos(R) against the
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input sensor, hoping this would repair whatever damage they had
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accidentally done to the space-time continuum. He set his slide rule
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to 7 and then activated the vorpal nexus of a hexagon's square root of
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the fourth dimensional relativity factor.
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* * * * *
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The Time Cookie swooped down and bumped into Spot, knocking his fake
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lips off! "Gee, thanks!" barked Spot as the cookie readied to make a
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strafing pass. It flew past, spitting rock-hard raisins at him, then
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did a lovely Immelmann followed by a bank turn and a three-cushion
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maneuver, plowing into Spot so hard that he was propelled back into his
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original universe. However, he didn't return to the present--he
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returned to the past. The past, where it was--
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NINETEEN FORTY-THREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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* * * * *
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Gerrit woke up just in time to see Spot appear in mid-air before him
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and fall to the ground with a soft thud. "Hey, LeVar, what's this?
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You've materialized a puppy! Better run a Level 3 flea scan on it!"
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Spot wondered what the heck was going on. As always, when Spot's
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train of through passed the speed of spreading lichen, he began to
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drool uncontrollably. Seeing several Mentos(R) lying on the floor made
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Spot's saliva into a raging torrent of spittle! Some of it landed in
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the interositer, causing S.U.S.I.E. to create a group of big gold
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octahedra which floated around the room and then strangled Gerrit.
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Then a giant computer-generated octopus materialized in the middle of
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the room and sawed the lab in half with a laser beam, while a
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badly-digitized picture of Patrick MacNee talked about how great the
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Millennium Power Pack battery was. LeVar grabbed Spot's collar and
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started dragging him towards the door. "Come on, little dog! We have
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to get out of here--now!"
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As the vast scientific complex blew up behind them, in 1943, they got
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into a submarine, closed the hatch, and set out into the Atlantic at
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full speed. Unfortunately, they both died, because the submarine had
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burlap doors.
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(C) 1994 James "Kibo" Parry
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