|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- FOREMAN ITTENER PIER--CUP 3--"LOOP" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Foreman Ittener Pier  ||  -------> (Cup SRfi003, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Looking around, several things came to mind. First, this wasn't Daptin's Land, and second, the Greatcoat was back in Daptin's Land. Damn. I would have liked to have had it right about then. I heard a beep from in front of me and looked down. The controls were similar to Warhome controls--and from the vector display, I saw that the Waver was requesting that I take over on manual. I hit a flashing white button and took the control wheel. "It's all right?" Hilltop asked me. "Uh, yeah. I have control of it. Now let's turn around and see if the Leitmotif is okay." So I turned, and the enormous Stormbolthouse swung into view. It looked fine, as much of it as we could see through the stormcloud. "Looks okay." I said. "But maybe we should circle it. Maybe we'll see something." "Okay." So we made a wide circle around the gigantic vehicle, but we didn't see anything noteworthy. "Okay." I said. "Let me see if I can get this thing to show me a map--maybe there's land nearby. One thing's for sure, though--with a sky like that, you know we're not in Daptin's Land anymore." "Well that's good, isn't it?" she said. "Huh?" "It's good--if we're not there, it must mean something else exists. Some PLACE else." "That's true." I said, fiddling with the controls, which finally gave me a map. "And looky here! A landmass nearby! Whattaya know!" "Well let's go!" Hilltop said. "Gotcha." I responded, and headed the Waver for land. Soon we were hugging the coastline, but something was wrong. While it was nearly featureless, the coast did have a few rocks and shrubs here and there. But what it was, the same pattern of rocks and vegetation kept showing up, repeating every half mile or so. It was as if we were scrolling over the same terrain over and over again. Inland was the same--a flat, dry wasteland with scattered shrubs and rocks. Then as I was watching the map on the vector display, I became aware that the same sequence of shore curvature was repeating. That's when I got a brief flash of panic--at the thought of being caught in an endless loop in such a place. Hilltop was leaning over her console looking down at mine, and then back at the shoreline. "You see what's happening?" I asked. "Yes sir, I do." "Doesn't look good, does it?" "No sir." "Yeah." I said, fiddling with some controls, trying to get some more speed out of the thing. I got it going a lot faster, but then a bell went off, and what looked like a live video picture of the Leitmotif appeared on the screen in front of me. "What the--" I said as I watched the video. The Leitmotif slowly turned, and then started forward, moving away from the camera. "They're leaving!?" Hilltop said, agitated. "Without us!?" "Let's not jump to--" I began, but then, as the Leitmotif got a little farther away, it began shifting colors to a dull orange, and then just began to fade away. It disappeared in rotating sections, getting fainter and fainter till all that was left was a bright, shining point of light. Soon, it too faded. "What was that?" Hilltop asked. "How'd it get that picture?" "I don't know." I said, checking the map--zooming it out for any sign of a flashing dot that would represent the Leitmotif. No luck. "I get a feeling this isn't good." Hilltop said. "Yeah honey, I get that feeling too." I said, kind of regretting using the word 'honey', kind of not. "Poppy told me I was headed for a horrible fate hooking up with you guys." Hilltop said. "Looks like he was right. TOO right." I turned around and faced the girl. "Look--I know things seem bad, but I have a feeling--I don't know--I just have a feeling that things are gonna turn out alright. I don't know--it just feels good to be away from all the others, away from Daptin, away from Injure. I mean--I felt cooped up in Daptin's Land--like we were all prisoners there. Now, for better or for worse, we're on our own. And--I don't know--at some level I think I'd prefer meeting doom on my own terms rather than living under someone else's thumb." Hilltop made a little smile, nodded, and laughed a little. "Well you have a point there boy." she said. "But how much of it is pure and how much of it is your royal high-and-mightiness?" I turned away. She had a point. This was something I often contemplated--whether my need for freedom and independence, power and control, was from my inherent nature, or from my royal upbringing. "Who knows." I said. "But we haven't, in any way, established that we're stuck in some sort of loop yet. We just know that we're stuck now, for the time being. But we'll figure something out." -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----