"Absolutely, without a doubt, no freaking way!!" the fat cabbie screamed.
"But, I have to get to Kitt Peak before sunset!", sobbed Courtney, the blonde astrophysicist. Cool and calculating, that was Courtney, and she cursed at the cabbie as she realized she only had ten minutes to get there. "Don't ANY of you understand!! I'm not crazy! It DID happen!!", she screamed at Tim - Courtney had about as much tact as an avalanche. Energetically she hoisted her bags from the trunk of the taxi and with a glare at Tim, began marching up the road.
Frantically thinking, Courtney swung onto the back of a passing Metro bus, and with Franklin yapping in her purse, was at her destination in 4 minutes.
Gazing at the sun sinking past Kitt Peak, she straightened her shoulders, stepped off the bus, and began the steady ascent to the huge,shining-steel building standing coldly on the hill. "Hellfire," thought Courtney, as she struggled up the hill, "I wish I hadn't worn these stupid heels today!"
In the setting sun the observatory looked like a jewel, it's facets bending and breaking the light into a spectral assault on Courtney's eyes but with only moments remaining she had no time to admire the beauty. Jerking her shoes off with one hand, Courtney opened her shoulder bag and asked politely: "So, Franklin, you crazy little alien...do you think you could move your six legs out of the way so I can fit these damn shoes in there? Keeping your existence from Tim is necessary until I find out what he has in those files." Courtney whispered into her bag as she opened the observatory door, "But first we have to see the lunar eclipse, perhaps all will be revealed then."
Laughingly, Courtney closed her bag and proceeded through the observatory door, looking ever so cautiously at the people gathered inside. Making her way down the aisle, Courtney didnt see the solitary man in the corner, watching her every move.
"Nice toenail polish, Courtney," thought the nefarious lurker, following the barefoot astrophysicist to the telescope room: "Not even with your nasty pet alien's powers of teleportation will you escape me now!"
"Oh, for crying out loud, Randall, I can smell the cheese-dust on your fingers, stop menacing me from the shadows and give me some help here.", Courtney whispered fiercely as Randall lumbered from behind her, mumbling "Damn you, Cheetos, damn your betraying cheesy goodness."
Patiently, the nubile Courtney waited for Randall, sitting nude atop the copying machine in the lab.
"Quit dreaming Randell!" Courtney snapped.
Randell, embarrassed at having been caught daydreaming, rushed to catch up with Courtney
Slinking silently through the observatory, Courtney was suprised to see the solitary man step out ahead of her.
Teleporting Courtney out of there, Franklin saved her, by phasing her atoms to a different dimension. Unnerved, Courtney finds herself suddenly in Texas, "Good grief, Franklin! Do you think we're far enough away?!", she cried sarcasticly.
Vibrations from the observatory floor meanwhile betrayed the combat between the naked Courtney simulacra and Randal to the other astronomers who watched the jumping of the eclipse image on their monitors. Whirling angriliy around, one of the astronomers reached for the phone and called Security to quell the uproar.
Xus droppped from Randall's pocket as he and one of the Courtneys (he cant really remember anymore, they have been jumping from one point of the torus to another, but this one sure smells revolting) struggled furiously to just please consummate this union already.
Yet, even as this happened, millions of miles away, the sun lined-up, as the Earth swung into the perfect position for the eclipse; and, as the Earth watched, as people were born, as people died, in the same instant, as everything else happened; the Moon disappeared, it was gone; but not for just a minute; the Moon was gone for good...or bad.
"Zabaglione," Xus muttered absently as he looked at the voided night-sky, "was never made without breaking a few egs, though."
"And just what the hell are we supposed to do now, Franklin?" Courtney number one demanded.
"Begin again." he replied calmly, and waved his oversized left paw over his head, instantly transporting Courtney to Kitt Peak Road, outside the observatory, the sun sinking slowly behind her, just her, the ONLY Courtney in this dimension at the moment.
Courtney had only moments to gather her wits before IT happened, the rift began, and all that had existed before left meaningless in the wake of "the change".
Desperate to maintain her grip on reality, Courtney made a wild dash to the door, trying to escape the mind numbing intensity of the riff.
Entering the observatory, Courtney frantically turned to seal The Door, grieving as she knew she would never pass into her own reality through that portal again.
Finding her courage, Courtney clasped the blue crystal around her neck; invoked it, changing her form to a beautiful winged alien.
Gracefully, Courtney fluttered away into the roiling mists, Franklin close behind her: caught up in the transforming power of Courtney's crystal, her formerly six-legged friend now appeared as a gangly young giraffe.
Homesickness suddenly sprang forth on Franklin's now spotted animalian face as Courtney's form became one familiar to the alien turned giraffe, and a single tear slid from his eye.
Insidious and resolute, the Black Formless materializes under Courtney's left armpit, holding a wad of soggy tissue paper that flapped furiously in the wind and forcied her to land shmack in the middle of the restricted area in the Fermi Lab compound.Jolting to a halt on the Lab's pavement floor, Courtney glanced upward only to be frozen in time by the sight the mesmerizing Dave Letterman (who was throwing bowling balls from 7 storys up, into a tub full of chocolate pudding,) becoming distracted and fumbling one of those balls on top of Randall, killing him on the spot.
Knowing it was useless to attempt CPR on such an obviously expired individual, Courtney retrieved a bag of kitty litter and sprinkled it over Randall's body; rushing a bit as she knew she had only a few moments before the security alarm would begin sounding.
Laughing hesterically, "Mwahahahahaha",Courtney ran about yanking out her hair, "I've got wings, I don't have wings, I'm in the Obervatory, I'm NOT, hahahah, and giraffs...ARGH!!!! Mentally unstable following the recent passing of her longtime friend, Randall, and the relocation of Fermi labs to New York (and boy, was Illinois ticked off about that!), Courtney began to question her own ability to control the inherently evil power of the glowing crystal nestled unceremoniously in the cleft of her more than ample bosom.
"Noy is the way, all else is Noysense," said the rabid giraffe, before it was disentegrated by the fat cabbie, screaming, "Where is the moon, where is the moon?"
Ornery and more than half-crazed, Courtney jerked the fragile crystal, snapping the chain, and flung it as far as her lithe (yet athletic) arm could throw, realizing as it spun in the air away from her that it had begun to pulse with an eye-blistering light.
Parking his cab over the ashes of the giraffe and Courtney's newly expired hair, out stepped a big fat cabbie-guy who continued to scream until he looked up and saw the moon, (which then released a relaxed sensation over his whole body) urging him to eat that 3 month grey poupon which he kept neatly stored in a bucket in his cab trunk.
Letter Assignments Round One
Letter assignments Round Two
