>>At this point, he began smelling a faint trace of a gas that seemed
>>familiar to him.
TOM: See? See?! It's the gas that's on his shirt, see?!?
CROW: Of course, Servo, of course... <aside to Mike> It's so sad to see them just before they crack.
MIKE: I know.
>>It was the same odor he sometimes smelled in his home right after he had
>>those weird dreams of battling alien craft in outer space.
CROW: And right around the time he took those Happy Pills his doctor had prescribed for when the giant spaceships started talking to him again.
>>The odor slightly resembled burnt sulfur.
TOM: <ahem> He smelt burnt sulfur, a smell that he had come to associate with the strange dreams of... yadda yadda.
CROW: Sort of, slightly, kind of, maybe, could be, perhaps... News-flash kid, when it comes to descriptions, use digital, not analog.
>>It was the same odor he had first smelled back in the Gulf War, right
>>before he was struck with that mysterious gas during that awful enemy
>>attack.
MIKE: His commanding officer called it sulfur gas, but he knew better. It was magic dust sent to him by the fairy people of the Orion Cluster in hopes that he would be able to unlock the true power of the Mega-zeon-super-spicy-zword Powerstone. At least, that's what he told his commanding officer shortly before he was given the nice watch and extra paycheck. Very nice of them he thought.
>>It was hard to forget that odor. It had often accompanied the sighting of
>>strange glowing lights in the sky, lights he had thought (at the time) were
>>just enemy aircraft.
CROW: Admittedly large and circular enemy aircraft that liked to beam up camels and remove their innards. And come to think of it, the people inside had been rather light-skinned for Arabians, and some of what they did in there most definitely violated the Don't Ask Don't Tell rules, he was sure of it.
TOM: Ick! Ack! Bad mental image, bad, bad.
>>Ah, he now remembered exactly when those dreams had started.
TOM: All right, now I must admit that this flashback has been inserted with much less confusion and bizzareness than a vast portion of the rest of the story. I have to give it three stars for effort.
CROW: Eh, two stars, the rest of it's still crap.
MIKE: And .00008 stars from the Russian judge.
>>It was soon after he was brought, unconscious, to the base hospital.
CROW: <Doctor> It's strange sir. We can't figure out if it's LSD, pot, crack, speed, or mushrooms. Our equipment is picking it all up at once. Of course, no one would be stupid enough to try all that stuff at once, right? Right? Sir, why are you banging your head against the wall. Sir?
>>At first, they were indistinct, but then they became clear and colorful and
>>terrible at the same time, and he even had vivid memories of sounds.
MIKE: Mainly Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" on eternal repeat. Horrible. Absolutely horrible.
TOM: Well, it explains why he now talks to the alien chicks in his head if nothing else.
>>He wrote up what he could remember of those dreams in a journal and
>>used them as background material when he wrote his well-known
>>computer games.
CROW: And just after the giant silicon zombie is destroyed using the Omni-Lazor-Death-Deep-Fryer, a marble naked chick will jump out of the corpse and do a lap dance to the beat of the Bee-Gee's "Staying Alive".
MIKE: Soon to be a major motion picture based on the book that's inspired by the comic that's related on the sequel that's a rip-off on the game that came from some sexually-deprived, possibly homicidal loner and his delusions of sci-fi grandeur.
CROW: Hey, still beats out most of Hollywood.
MIKE: <checks list> Let's see.. That just leaves us with the mandatory lawyer joke and we're free to do our own.
>>But right now he didn't have the time to think about how he had gotten
>>into this mess.
TOM: Segue in: good. Segue out: As subtle as an elephant being given an enema.
>>He was here, and he didn't know if he'd get out with a whole skin.
MIKE: Tip. If you see anything from the X-files that's not a main character, avoid it.
CROW: And don't sit on any toilet seats.
TOM: Oh, thank you so much for reminding me about that. I was finally starting to be able to keep my ram-chips down.
CROW: Heheheh...
>>Again the vision of being incarcerated in a dark cell impinged itself on
>>his consciousness.
CROW: It would be in very poor taste if I was to make another anal probe joke here, wouldn't it?
MIKE: Yes. Yes, it would.
TOM: <Borg> We are Bubba of Borg. Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. In the worst possible way.
MIKE: That's enough out of the both of you.
>>He tried to breathe in a shallower fashion
TOM: And here, waddling down the ramp in the latest spring attire is Perkins. Notice the slim breathing, the frantic look of surprise and shock, the ever-constant expression of bemused incoherence. This wardrobe just screams 'Hero on the move.'
>>to reduce the effects of that terrible odor, but it grew worse as he
>>continued along the dark, curved hallway.
CROW: There's some really nasty bathroom humor in this piece, if I just knew where to find it...
MIKE: Looks like these strange alien creatures have yet to develop the invention known as deodorant.
TOM: Oh, come now, after the state of the rest of the facilities, are you honestly expecting Area 51 to have decent showers at this point?
>>He considered, not altogether seriously, whether he might be coming
>>closer to these strange alien creatures that had been rumored to exist
>>there.
TOM: Actually, the strange-alien-creatures-that-had-been-rumored-to-exist-there were actually living peaceful lives in the outskirts of Boise, Idaho, where they had settled some years before after deciding that the commute to cattle ranches was just too far.
>>The very idea just seemed ridiculous!
CROW: Oh, I don't know. Compared to some of the stuff I've been asked to believe today...
TOM: I mean, gravel? Snakes? Security? Flashlight? Phobias?
MIKE: Why, next they'd be expecting him to believe that apes could turn into men, you could stand on the bottom of a ball, and it got colder the higher you got towards the sun!
>>The odor soon became so unbearable that he couldn't take it anymore,
>>and he almost fainted,
CROW: Couldn't he try, oh, breathing with his mouth maybe? Perhaps wrapping his shirt over his nose and breathing through that. You know, just a thought...
MIKE: Oh, come now, in order to do something like that you'd need years of advanced... military... training... Um.
TOM: So Area 51's air-freshener budget was just as low as their security. We get the idea. Move along, story.
>>but he managed to tolerate it until he emerged from the hallway into a
>>small lighted room with...still another elevator!
TOM: And a sink! With running water! And seats! With leather cushions! We can not emphasize enough the fact that there is interior decorating in this place!
>>Oh, no! That last elevator was quite enough to drive him to distraction.
>>Was there no end to this?
TOM: I've been asking that question for pages and pages now, my friend. The answer is still "No!" We're trapped here. You're trapped here. Get used to it! HA! What's it like now, Perkins?!? How do you like it NOW, you overblown, pathetic excuse for a protagonist, you.
MIKE: Servo, Servo, whoa!
TOM: <breaks down sobbing> I just want it to end, is that so much to ask? I don't know how many more pratfalls I can take, Mike.
>>He tensed for a moment and cocked his ears,
CROW: He then bulled his eyes, rammed his nose, and tommed his mouth, just to be sure.
>>listening for evidence of human traffic in that dark, dank hallway.
CROW: <static> Ah, this is Chopper 5, overlooking Danky Passage 101. We have light traffic headed in the southward direction, with a possible pileup in front of the elevator off-ramp. We suggest that drivers keep a look out for a vaguely nerdish man stumbling over loose change. If you see him, press on the accelerator and go for it. Back to you, John.
>>But there was nothing.
TOM: No difference from the rest of this chapter then.
>>And the layers of dust that covered the old fluorescent lamps indicated
>>that this place may not have had human traffic in years.
MIKE: The massive trails of slime and blood suggested that other forms of traffic might be quite active.
TOM: The "CthuLHu RUlZ" graffiti was another subtle hint.
>>"Then again, this elevator might just be a trick to trap trespassers," he
>>said, this time out loud.
CROW: The neon pink fairy on his shoulder agreed, though the large unicorn chewing on the Ompha bush had to be convinced further.
>>Oh, what the hell!
MIKE: Who the hell!
CROW: Where the hell!
TOM: How the hell!
MIKE: Why the hell!
CROW: Was this story ever written?
>>Those security guards are probably too stupid to think of something so
>>smart!
MIKE: I hate to say it, but for once our Urkle-en friend here is right.
CROW: God help us all.
>>His optimism astonished him.
TOM: Even he couldn't believe what a smug, self-righteous prick he became in the span of three sentences.
CROW: And mild-mannered Ray Perkins steps into the phone-booth to become...
TOM: <da-da-DA>
CROW: B*ll P*lmer? Who would've thunk it?
MIKE: Makes sense in a dark and twisted sort of way. ... Wait. What did you just say?
CROW: What? B*ll P*lmer?
TOM: I always thought it was B&ll P&lmer. Or was that %?
MIKE: I hate working with bots.
BOTS: <he he he>
>>With that, he marched almost like an army soldier,
TOM: Which of course was very strange behavior for him as he had never had anything to do whatsoever with the armed services. He should see someone about this.
CROW: Bring it up after you're done talking about the alien chick with her amazing exploding spaceships of death.
MIKE: As a Dave Berry-esc side note, wouldn't "Amazing Exploding Spaceships of Death" be a great name for a band?
TOM: Never be able to fit the name on a tour t-shirt though.
>>right up to the elevator where he pressed a large red button. The door
>>opened, and he stepped inside.
MIKE: Well, at least he's bothering to actually enter this one with his feet.
CROW: And so the amazing Rockoid Man's powers fade once again, leaving only a sickly dweebish husk behind.
>>"Hope this thing goes down to Level S4," he said.
TOM: Insert yet another 'speaking to the alien fairies' joke here.
>>Then he began looking.
TOM: Up to this point in the story, he had been keeping his eyes firmly shut in case the Ravenous Beast of Kolbite XII was around.
MIKE: Well, that explains why he's tripping over pebbles at least.
>>About a dozen levels were listed, each with a red button at the right of
>>the engraved label, and at the bottom he found it--Level S4!
TOM: Right next to S4., S4-, S4/, S4#, S4$, and S4@#$%!@@$##%^#@
MIKE: The last, housing one Eric Cartman, alien abductie.
CROW: <Stan> Dude, this is pretty @#$%ed up right here.
>>Strange that it should be labeled so clearly.
MIKE: You'd almost think that they would want people to be able to know which button to push to go to it.
TOM: Unless they'd do something clever like hide it under a secret panel, or require voice activation, or DNA scan, or...
CROW: Are you kidding? Given the awe-inspiring level of security they have so far, I doubt they even bother with combination locks.
TOM: Oh sure they do. In fact, at great expense and loss of life and limb, I managed to obtain the secret password to access Area 51's Flying Saucer room.
CROW: (...) It's one, two, three, four, five; isn't it?
TOM: Hey! You peeked!
MIKE: <Mel Brooks> Amazing! That's the same combination I have on my luggage!
>>After all he'd been through that night, it seemed almost a sick joke.
TOM: No, that's just one more example of how lazy the author is in his attempts to detail a break-in into the most secure facilities on the planet.
CROW: This story on the other hand...
>>He braced himself for the worst, pushed the button that said Level S4,
>>and closed his eyes.
TOM: Pathological terror of red buttons. We'll just add that to the rest of the list, shall we?
MIKE: Some day, this guy is going to make a shrink very very very happy.
>>He heard a grating sound as the elevator's door slid shut, and then a deep
>>whirring sound as it picked up momentum and went lower and lower.
MIKE: <Professor Voice> Down down down down down down down down-
CROW: MIKE! What have we told you about doing that?
MIKE: Sorry...
>>It had sped up considerably, and it soon seemed to be moving as fast as
>>an elevator in a large skyscraper.
TOM: <deadpan> Ah, the shear terror of plummeting at a heart-wrenching .5 mph. Oh the fear that grips your very being, your life passing through your eyes as you fall to your impending doom. Oh the unimaginable horror.
>>He held on for dear life now, expecting it to stop with a start!
CROW: Because, as we've all figured out by this point, all it takes is a slight movement to send Our Brave Hero sprawling on the floor and possibly into another pointless dream sequence.
TOM: I will not mention exclamation point. I will not mention exclamation point. I will not...
>>But he was at least pleased that the pungent odor had lessened, and soon
>>it was practically gone.
TOM: Ah, in and out of the story, doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, and meaning nothing.
CROW: Just like everything else.
MIKE: Hey, I liked the snake part. I think that character had promise. A real trooper and go-getter, you know?
>>He had no idea how long he had traveled.
CROW: <Spock> Hours would seem like days. Days would seem as weeks. Weeks would seem as years. Paragraphs would seem as an eternity in hell with acid dripping into your eyes.
>>It seemed as if that elevator had dropped for several miles at the least.
MIKE: <Author> Or possibly it didn't. I'm really not sure. I don't suppose you guys could give me a hint?
TOM: How far has the elevator dropped? Call our toll free number and give us your vote now!
CROW: Operators are standing by.
>>He wondered just how much government money had been spent on this
>>thing. The cost of digging so far into the ground would be tremendous!
TOM: Unless, of course, the government decided to use one of the many natural cavern systems that exist throughout the southern parts of the United States. Just, maybe, possibly, you know?
CROW: Whatever it cost, I'm sure it's much less then the budget of James Cameron's latest epic blockbuster: Area 51.
MIKE: Hmm. Immigrating aliens, huge crashing ships, a chance for lots of special effects....
>>No wonder the government spent $700 or so for a hammer; they had to
>>get the money from somewhere.
TOM: Oh come one, you're ripping off one of the few good lines from ID4, that's just cheating!
CROW: I swear, if I am forced to listen to this guy's version of the President's ID4 speech, I will ritualistically kill myself.
MIKE: <President> We will not go quietly into the night! Filled as it is with giant, warm-blooded snakes of stalking-death!
>>For one fleeting moment, Perkins thought that maybe there was
>>something wrong with the elevator, and that it would soon come crashing
>>down into a deep, hidden chamber, and he'd be dead.
TOM: Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease!
>>He found the urge to close his eyes hard to resist.
TOM: But... Wait... He already did close his eyes. Right after he pushed the button. Remember? How can he close them again without opening them? Does he have another set we weren't told about? It's physically impossible!
MIKE: Must be that darned mutating oil again.
>>But after a period that seemed almost interminable,
CROW: <Inigo> You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
>>he felt a sharp jolt as the elevator stopped.
TOM: Wait! Was he properly braced? Did he stumble? Did he trip? Did he knock his head against the wall and suffer a minor concussion? What happened story? Don't hold back on us now!
>>He heard a sliding sound and opened his eyes as he emerged into a large
>>room.
CROW: To discover himself looking down the barrel of Agent K's BFG. Unfortunately, K mistook the four-eyed teleporting mousy-looking thing to be the escaped xenomorph and promptly turned it into sautéed meat-chunks in Hero sauce.
MIKE: Crow, after this story is over, we're going to have a long talk.
CROW: Is this a bad time to talk about wanting to paint my room black?
MIKE: Yes.
>>At one end were two large tanks, almost like huge fish tanks.
TOM: <Author> But not quite. I could describe them to you further, but then that would be destroying the wondrous ability that writing has for making the readers use their imagination to paint the scenery. Just try not to put gravel and fake palm trees in with the alien bodies and I'll be happy.
>>They were lit with an orange-white glow.
MIKE: Actually, it looks more like a sort of neon-greenish-purple to me, but who am I to say?
>>For a minute, Perkins just stared at what lay inside the tanks. His mouth
>>opened wide in astonishment, and he just stood there, oblivious to
>>anything else but what he saw in those tanks.
CROW: This following segment has been brought to you by the Redundancy Department for Redundancy. We thank you, the supporters of our agency, for supporting us, the agency, with your support. Thank you.
>>The things--they were humanoid, all right,
CROW: That's funny. I thought they were burned into little ET-crispers after their saucer crashed.
MIKE: <Monty Python> I'm getting better.
>>with greenish gray skin, delicately formed heads, perfect features, and
>>huge, almost hypnotic eyes with large violet pupils.
TOM: They were Greys. We know what they look like. Everyone knows what they look like. Natives of small rainforest tribes whose only contact with the modern world is the thick haze of smoke on the western horizon know what they look like. Enough already!
CROW: Of course it would be expecting too much to hope for an original species.
MIKE: Oh, I don't know. Does that warm-blooded, heat-sensing, death stalking snake count?
>>Their lips were pencil thin, and their noses were gently sculpted as if an
>>expert plastic surgeon had done his work.
CROW: Any moment now, Jonathan Franks is going to come in with the camera crew and surgeons.
MIKE: <Franks> Work carefully now. And try not to show the zipper on TV this time for crying out loud.
>>The arms and legs were thin and athletic at the same time, seemingly
>>capable of tremendous strength. They were almost human, yet something
>>more!
MIKE: They were smaller, weaker, wimpier...
TOM: I think I'm starting to see why Perkins has such a strong mental connection to them.
>>But it was all so very clear to Perkins now who these creatures were!
TOM: If he needed any more hints at this point, we'd kill him just to put him out of his misery.
CROW: Screw that! Kill him and put us out of our misery!
>>These were the same beings that he had seen in his dreams, creatures
>>that were called--the name rang like a bell, just as when it had first come
>>to his mind in a dream: Rockoids!
<long pause>
TOM: <starts banging head against the wall repeatedly and whimpering>
CROW: ... <snort> ... <snicker> ... <bursts out into gales of laughter, clutching his sides as he rolls out of the chair and onto the floor>
MIKE: Looks like somebody still thinks Doc Savage represents the cutting edge of fiction writing.
>>Perkins just couldn't believe his eyes. The Rockoids were exactly as the
>>dreams had depicted, down to the very last detail.
TOM: And just how every single alien conspiracy show for the past twenty years has depicted them. How every book and magazine and half-rate internet-drivil vanity-publishing has depicted them in living memory. Your point?
CROW: <continues to laugh hysterically, pausing only for a moment to catch his breath before starting off again>
MIKE: Though he had to admit that his dreams had never included the bright neon orange hair and clown make-up job.
TOM: The horrifying truth of Meanie's past revealed on this week's "The Drew Carey Show"
>>He tried to slow down his rapid breathing and calm himself down, but
>>now sweat was dripping down to the floor in torrents from all parts of his
>>body.
MIKE: Before you comment, Servo, I refuse to accept that our Amazing Mutating Oil would be able to expand his sweat-glands to the point where he'd be able to drench his entire body in only ten seconds by just standing still. Find some other explanation.
TOM: Awwww.
<Crow manages to recover and climbs back onto his seat>
CROW: Something tells me that nasty smell is going to be making a come-back real quick here.