>>Just when he felt that nothing was going to happen--or that perhaps he'd
>>trigger the alarm--the door slid open, so rapidly he jumped!
MIKE: So then quickly he entered!
TOM: So eagerly he pressed buttons!
CROW: So long did he scream as the force necessary to press the buttons broke every bone in his fingers!
>>The elevator was old, reminiscent of the ones he saw in one of those old
>>tenements in New York City.
TOM: The balding black-guy working the buttons was a bit odd, he had to admit.
>>The walls inside appeared to be finished in a deeply scratched, dark,
>>enamel paint. There was a single light bulb in the ceiling above,
>>conveying a shadowy, oppressive light in the small cabin.
CROW: All right, we go through yards and yards of explaining and detailing nothing, we still don't know what He of Fragile Noggin even looks like, yet we take the time to detail this one, insignificant elevator. Thank you to whatever Gods I have offended. I shall be sure to sacrifice Servo at my next ritual for your unholy appeasement.
TOM: Hey!! Miiiiike!
MIKE: Now, now, we will have no robotic, or human sacrifices on board this ship. Don't make me take away your Ginsu knife collection, Crow. Again.
>>And nothing but a conventional-looking numbered panel in front of him,
>>to the right of the door.
>>It slid shut!
TOM: This was, of course, an unexpected and shocking turn of events, therefore needing this exclamation point to detail the full impact of this door sliding shut automatically.
CROW: Well, he didn't even know about Area 51 until a few days ago. He probably doesn't know about automatic doors or radio either.
MIKE: <Amish> Ay, thems are corrupting ways of the evil outside world and we'll have no part of 'em!
TOM: Too bad he never got a chance to enter the thing. Now he's going to have to puzzle out the meaning of those strange symbols on the map again and hunt down the itty-bitty return key.
>>But the elevator stayed there.
TOM: Amazing. An elevator that requires you to actually push buttons before it moves. The level of technology here astounds me completely..
MIKE: Uh-oh, he's slipped into sarcastic mode. We might have an impending blow-up on our hands.
CROW: What do you mean 'our' meat-boy? I have you as a shield.
>>Now, Perkins had never been quite accustomed himself to small
>>surroundings.
TOM: Wait, wait. Is Perkins inside, or outside of this thing? Story? We're slipping here.
MIKE: Well, the author was so worried about detailing the exact color of the interior finish that he sort of forgot about things like cohesive action.
TOM: Wait! Maybe Perkins is starting to demonstrate super-powers! The oil from the plane was radioactive and has mutated him into Rockoid man, able to teleport instantaneously!
MIKE: I don't think so, Servo.
>>His breath became ragged, he began to sweat and feel nervous,
>>frightened, almost overwhelmed.
CROW: Hey, that's how I've been feeling since this thing began, but you don't see me complaining, eh?
TOM: Snakes, dark, small places, security, lack of security, leaking oil, sliding doors. Is there anything that he's not afraid of?
MIKE: Shrubberies.
TOM: Shrubberies?
MIKE: Just the small ones.
>>He tried to concentrate on the task at hand, but it took a few moments
>>for his mind to clear, his breath to regulate itself.
CROW: <Drill Sergeant> You there! I don't see you moving fast enough! Are you oxygen or are you carbon dioxide? On your feet, move move move!
>>His choice was 1, 2 and B--for Basement, he presumed.
CROW: Unfortunately, B actually stood for 'Beat mercilessly about the head and body and then dump in the deep desert some five miles away from a rattlesnake which will stalk and hunt you till the end of your days.' The rest of the story is understandably shortened.
ALL: <dully> Yay.
>>He dutifully pressed the basement button. For a second, nothing
>>happened, then he heard a soft rumbling sound as the elevator went
>>down ever so slowly. In about thirty seconds or so, it stopped rather
>>abruptly, and it seemed as if it just slid back and forth a little raggedly.
TOM: He pressed the B button, the elevator went down to the basement. There, that wasn't so hard, now was it?
>>For one panic-stricken moment, Perkins felt that perhaps the elevator's
>>cable was frayed and splitting apart. Why was the damned elevator so
>>small?
CROW: Well maybe if some people weren't the size of the latest SUV model...
>>Then the elevator's door slid open so quickly that Perkins almost
>>shuddered!
TOM: And opening doors frighten him. I'm sorry far and distant alien race, but it looks like you are screwed.
>>He took a deep breath, cocked his ears,
MIKE: *ka-click* Yup, fully loaded, let's move out.
>>and looked over his surroundings.
MIKE: We'll just ignore these for the moment and try and find something more interesting.
CROW: Oh! Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue!
TOM: Incoming nosebleed alert.
>>With perhaps a little too much eagerness, he walked out of the elevator
>>and looked around, pointing his little flashlight around the small room.
TOM: Small alien in a jar, remains of some space-ship, two men in black armed with sunglasses and a red-laserlight flashing thing, a guy in serious need of zit cream growling about honor, giant spider looking things, Jimmy Hoffa and Elvis Presley drinking coffee and sharing stories about the JFK assassination. But no hot alien chick. Next room.
>>He looked hard and long. Everything there seemed conventional at the
>>surface.
MIKE: But here underground they were downright freaky.
>>There were large shelves and electronic instruments. He saw tools,
>>blueprints. He didn't pretend to understand the purpose behind all the
>>dials and displays, but nothing looked out of place or terribly different
>>from a conventional electronic repair station.
TOM: Lt., what seems to be the problem?
CROW: The lights keep blinking on and off out of sequence, sir.
TOM: Then make them flash on and off in sequence, dammit!
MIKE: The Airplane II sketch, ladies and gentlemen, thank you.
>>In the far left corner was the entrance to a bathroom and a water heater.
>>Perkins was both confused and irritated. "Damn! This is just a wild-
>>goose chase."
MIKE: Secrets of the Ages to your left, lavatory to your right. I don't know, it kind of loses some mystic when your study of alien artifacts is disrupted by the sounds of flushing.
CROW: Hidden elevators and indecipherable plans and strange lights mean nothing, nothing at all!
TOM: Again, little surprise he's no longer in the military.
CROW: You kidding? The 'We didn't mean to bomb you, our maps were out of date' military? The 'Whoops, that was inches, not centimeters, good thing we have another probe, eh?' military? Puhleeze.
>>Then he looked at the map to make sure he had followed Gonzales'
>>directions exactly. He slapped his head with his left hand. I'm so stupid!
>>A little scrawl next to the picture of the elevator read "Press the
>>basement button, count five seconds, press it again."
>>Stupid isn't the word for it!
<Silence>
MIKE: Oooooookay....
TOM: Miiiiiiike! The stories doing our riffs for us! That's not fair!
CROW: This is the sort of guy who calls up the Help Line all irate that he can't get online when he hasn't even bought a modem yet.
>>Perkins couldn't believe for a moment that pressing the button twice
>>would do anything. Having come all this way, though, he figured there
>>was nothing wrong in giving it a whirl.
MIKE: <Corny movie-Birt accent> Ah, jolly good show. Just going for an ol' spin down through the alien infested depths. Oh yes, should be a marvelous lark, just go round for a light look-see and then toddle off for a nice round of checkers with the missus, shouldn't be more then a moment so don't diddle-daddle now.
>>And yet again, he felt the presence of that alien woman, as if she were
>>looking over his shoulder, beckoning him to continue his quest--for what?
TOM: And, just in case you, the reader, had forgotten, he has a mystical connection with some alien chick far far away.
CROW: <Mr. Rogers> Can you say 'Captain Inept getting some'? I knew you could.
>>He counted out loud after pressing B the first time.
>>"One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, four-one-
>>thousand, five-one-thousand."
TOM: It was a good thing he had his left hand held out in front of him too, otherwise it's doubtful whether he would've been able to accomplish such a sheer mathematical feat.
>>Then he dutifully pressed the B button again.
MIKE: And the magic word for today is 'dutifully'. Whenever you read the word 'dutifully', I want you to scream, Ok?
BOTS: Ok.
MIKE: Very good. Let's try.
TOM: AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHH
>>For just a brief second, nothing happened.
CROW: So why mention it, hrrmmm?
TOM: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
MIKE: Ah, Servo?
>>Then he heard motors churning and felt the elevator vibrate. The door
>>slid shut. Clunk! More motors churned. There was another pause, and
>>Perkins thought, at first, that the elevator might be broken, or that
>>nothing was going to happen.
CROW: The elevator might in fact be a metaphor for this entire chapter. Lots of noise and commotion, but nothing ever really happens.
TOM: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa
MIKE: Servo?
>>Then, all of a sudden, the elevator did move.
>>But its motion was neither up nor down.
CROW: <Hitchhikers Guide Elevators> So I said to myself 'why bother with the boring old up and down anyways? It's just the same thing over and over. So I said to myself, I said, why not try sideways? And I replied, well, for one, that would shoot me out of the building all together and send me plummeting to my doom, and I said, yes, but that would be a lot more interesting then going up and down. Good point, I said, so here we are. Got a good hold of your hats sirs? Don't worry, we'll be on ground floor in no time!
TOM: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
MIKE: SERVO!
TOM: AAAA- <ahem> Sorry, sorry. Just needed to... purge there for a moment.
MIKE: Yeah.
>>The motion was so disconcerting that Perkins nearly fell to the ground,
>>and for a second he could barely keep his balance.
CROW: Sadly, his inability to handle any sort of moving surface very nearly resulted in tragedy when young Perkins made his first attempt to ride an escalator at the tender age of five.
>>The elevator didn't go down, but went sideways to the right!
TOM: Ah, going to the right! Now, if it was going to the more stately left, we would've been able to spare this exclamation point and instead return it to the wild plains of Africa to breed and nurture its faltering numbers.
CROW: This chapter alone wiped out three herds of these noble beasts.
MIKE: Do your part to protect the dwindling Exclamation Point species. Call 1-800-NO-ROCKOIDS and pledge your donation today.
>>He was startled, frightened, and ready to push the "alarm" bell for help.
CROW: <snort> Yeah, there's something to do while deep inside a military base.
MIKE: <Snagglepus> Startled, frightened, scared even...
>>He knew that would probably bring him to the attention of the guards
>>and end his "expedition" very fast (not to mention probably ending up
>>getting him arrested).
TOM: 'Arrested' in this case meaning 'shot, drawn and quartered, burnt into a crisp, turned into a genetic experiment, and all traces of your earthly existence wiped out', yes.
>>However, just then, the elevator stopped, paused, and started going
>>straight down again.
>>Unfortunately, the single light bulb burned out at that moment!
TOM: <sighs> One. Bulb. One. Single. Bulb. One. Single. Old. Faulty. Bulb. If this is how they treat the fabled Camelot of conspiracy theories, I'd hate to see what a normal base looks like.
>>He looked around, but all he could see was blackness.
MIKE: What with the light being out and all.
CROW: Not to worry, he had the mystic space fairies to guide his path!
>>He looked around for his flashlight, but he realized he must have left it
>>back in that little basement repair shop.
TOM: All right, folks, I realize that it's good to inject a few shortcomings in your hero to make him seem more human, but there is such a thing as over-doing it. There really is.
MIKE: Just wait till he goes home to discover that the only reason his house didn't burn down due to the stove being left on was the fact that the over-flow from the running sink snuffed it out.
>>All this and now he developed a penchant for losing flashlights!
CROW: Oh, I think our gallant hero has lost a lot more then just a flashlight, believe you me!
>>What next, his mind?
<much coughing and clearings of throats>
>>Well, he thought he'd lost that long ago, and for a second, nothing
>>seemed to matter...nothing except to continue, to wherever this insane
>>errand might lead.
TOM: Ah, dark angst and brooding. Was wondering when we were going to get to that.
CROW: Cool! Does this mean that we're going to get to see Vampires sit around and complain about the futility of existence before going out and gorging ourselves on the blood of the living and then fight and kill and be smug and oh so angsty, huh huh huh???
MIKE: No, no, no, no, no, and definitely no. And when we're done in here, you are both going to show me your RPG book collections.
CROW: Awwwww...
TOM: Smooth move, Count Crowdula.
CROW: Bite me.
>>And then suddenly
TOM: And without warning.
>>the elevator stopped. The door opened, leading out into
>>a long, dark tunnel.
MIKE: The tunnel is dark. There is a Grue nearby.
CROW: Light lantern
MIKE: You do not have a lantern. There is a Grue nearby.
CROW: Strike match.
MIKE: You have no match. There is a Grue nearby.
CROW: Panic.
MIKE: Don't Panic. You have been eaten by a Grue. Game Over.
>>"Oh great! I hope I'm not lost!" he exclaimed to himself. He wondered
>>just what would go wrong next.
MIKE: And with that phrase, Murphy descends in all his unholy might upon our hero.
TOM: Well, let's see, you haven't fallen into the Cursed Spring of the Drowned Girl yet, that's a plus.
CROW: Speak for yourself. <Drooool>
TOM: Crow no Baka!
>>But then again, Level S4 was supposed to be at the bottom of Area 51,
>>and that was probably where he was. This tunnel just might take him
>>directly to the room that contained those alien bodies--that is, if they
>>existed, of course. To think he'd embarked on this silly adventure all
>>because of those terrible dreams! What would he tell the authorities if
>>they ever caught him?
CROW: Actually, I'm not really Perkins, I am really a lab rat who has taken on this guise as part of an elaborate ruse to take over the world!
TOM: Narf!
MIKE: Actually, Perkins does sound a lot like something Pinky might call himself.
All: ....
CROW: And the way he acts...
TOM: And the intelligence that he's shown...
MIKE: And the massive delusions and visions and plain bizzareness...
ALL: ....
ALL: AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!
TOM: Please let us be wrong, please let us be wrong, please let us be wrong...
>>Right now, however, Perkins had another problem to contend with
CROW: Oh, he has a lot more then just one, pal.
TOM: What is it this time? Chronic fear of badgers, scraping his knuckle against the wall and going into shock from the blood-loss? Don't spare us story, show us the noble Perkins at his worse!
>>--whenever he stood up to his full height, his head bumped into the low
>>ceiling, so he had to crouch uncomfortably. His back began to ache as he
>>stumbled on. His muscles hurt, already battered and bruised from his fall
>>earlier. He continued to crouch, trying hard to keep a steady pace.
CROW: Have we ever heard of crawling? Just a thought.
TOM: Ah yes, his dreadful fall of two feet onto the yielding gravel while wearing pants and not even really moving that fast to begin with was caused massive internal injuries.
MIKE: Now now, be nice to Perkins. We all know he has to do warm-up stretches before he dares risk the terror of the stairway.
>>In a few minutes, the tunnel became brighter, and he saw an occasional
>>recessed fluorescent light in the ceiling.
TOM: Ah, so he did die somewhere along the line. Wonder what did him in. Falling on gravel or dripping oil in his mouth?
MIKE: Go towards the light, oh ye of Woody Allen heritage, go towards the light...
CROW: <Allen> Um, lord God, this really isn't the best time. See, I was right in the middle of my therapy session, and I was about to pickup my girl-friend from her High School, and, well...
>>At the same time, the tunnel got wider and taller, until he was finally
>>able to stand erect comfortably.
TOM: And thus did the primitive dweeb evolve into the mighty nerd that we know and cherish today.
CROW: <Baptist> Ah, it's all just a fraud, you know. It's all a bunch of hooey.
>>He now saw his surroundings a bit more clearly, though the lighting
>>remained rather dim.
CROW: Rather like our hero.
MIKE: Now, that's enough.
>>He was in a long, curved hallway, and it seemed to go on and on with no
>>end in sight.
MIKE: Or rather, the curved hallway curved out of sight. Just maybe?
CROW: Trapped, alone and dying in the ruins of Z'ha'dum, Captain Sheridan tried to remember who, or what, had saved his life. And then he saw this guy.
TOM: <Sheridan> "Next time, I'm letting myself get blown up along with the evil, symbolic spider-people."
MIKE: All right boys, I think we're approaching our quota for Babylon 5 jokes.
BOTS: Awwwww...
>>Finally, Perkins just stood there, stretched his arms, and did a couple of
>>those neck exercises his martial arts guru had drilled into him many
>>years ago.
CROW: Actually, those were taught to you in the hopes that you would successfully break your own neck. Never worked though; Sensei was very upset.
TOM: Am I the only one who finds the thought of this guy trying to break anything with his hand, let alone his head, vastly amusing?
MIKE: No.
CROW: <Perkins> Ow! Ok, I think I very nearly got it that time. Now just let me wait until the fractured skeletal system of my wrist repairs itself and I'll try again. This cardboard is tricky stuff, eh Sensei?
MIKE: <Sensei> <sigh>
>>He wanted to do more, as the aches began to subside,
CROW: Ah, he's starting to recover from his brush with gravel-induced death. Good. Another few days and he might have gotten that nasty oil taste out of his mouth.
TOM: I'm sure it had some point, that the fact he has some drops of oil on his uniform will become vitally important any paragraph now...
MIKE: We're talking about a guy that has his character trip over manhole covers here, I don't think continuity or cohesion is one of his big points.
>>but it wouldn't make sense to just sit there, waiting for the security
>>detail to capture him. But he couldn't help but chuckle at the vision of
>>the guards seeing him, lost in the recesses of a top secret government
>>facility, doing martial arts exercises. Now that was something that would
>>be hard to explain.
TOM: Actually, I am not really Perkins, I am really a lab mouse-
MIKE: All right, enough people.
CROW: He's an agent from SEMME! Out to fight against the Power Booster Rod!!
MIKE: And that's as obscure as we're going to get people. We hope.
TOM: Besides, it's just a big stick.