Part 4

The computer was a flicker of flashing images as Joel frantically scanned through his counterpart's files for some evidence of an attempt towards the rescue of the SoL. He had reasoned, quite logically, that if Mike had been prepared for the collapse of the Satellite, then so must his counterpart in this dimension. The only trick was finding what his plans were and how they were to be carried out.

At length, he stumbled what sounded promising -- a file marked SOL PLOT. Trouble was, it was blocked by a password.

'Wow, kinda paranoid. Maybe he was worried about Dr. F?' he thought. 'I wonder if he even realized what happened to him.' For an odd, inexplicable moment, he felt kind of sorry for the Doctor, then remembered what he'd done to his other incarnation and quickly shook those thoughts out of his head.

'Hate to say this, but he got what he deserved,' he thought, unusually mean-spiritedly.

Upon that little digression, he quickly set about searching for the password. 'Now lessee... what would I use for a password?" He decided to try the bots names first, since at the moment that was the one thing he could think of. After several variations of "Tom Servo," "Crow T. Robot," "Gypsy," "Cambot" and combinations of the quartet, he decided that probably wasn't it.

'Okay, so it's something else. I know my counterpart wouldn't be stupid enough to just use the name of the satellite or the project as the password. Of course, it couldn't hurt to try...'

He did. Nothing.

'Then it's something I would know, something almost exclusively belonging to me . . . except I don't KNOW what belongs to me, since I'm not this person!' He slumped. 'Now what?'

Hang on. Perhaps it wasn't as bad as he thought. Even if he didn't have the memories of the past five years, he still had the memories of the five before. He scanned through his memories. Timmy, killer shrews, sound effect workshops, invention exchanges, Manos (*shiver*), Beeper . . .

Nah, couldn't be, could it?

Beeper was one of his first experiments, a variation of Tom Servo which had not gone as planned -- the poor thing could only communicate in beeps. It also, as it turned out, proved to have slightly defective circuits; it had eventually made a miscalculation during movement and fallen to the ground from a distance, smashing beyond repair. He'd mourned for a while, but vowed afterwards to improve the AI of his next bot to prevent future accidents. Thus Tom Servo had been created.

But still, would it really be that simple?

Dr. Forrester never DID get a chance to meet the little guy . . .

Swallowing, he entered "Beeper" into the system. A message flashed across the screen. PASSWORD ACCEPTED.

'Guess my counterpart has a sentimental side too,' he thought wryly.

The file soon provided him with the info he needed -- the diagnostics of the transport, plus the location he intended to blast off from. Joel grabbed his coat and was about to head out when he realized he'd need a jumpsuit for the cleaning job. He remembered the condition of the fuel filter and doubted that this dimension's Mike took much better care of it.

He dashed into his bedroom (which, thankfully wasn't too hard to locate) and searched through his clothing, but found that the only jumpsuit he had was his dusty old Gizmonics janitor's jumpsuit.

'Dusty?' He frowned. 'Maybe I oughta bring 'my' diary along and figure out what was supposed to have happened to me.' He zipped up in the all-too-familiar piece of clothing and, after searching through "his" belongings, found a beat-up journal with a red cover. 'This is probably it, I guess.'

He pocketed the journal and dashed out the door. According to the notes, the craft was being kept in a rental garage somewhere on the outskirts of town, and was going to be launched from a nearby field sometime tonight. He had to make sure he was there for it.

*****

He stared at the craft, and couldn't help but feel a bit of egotistical pride at the sight of it.

It was a sci-fi lover's dream car; a rocket ship straight out of the movies, or an old television show. It even, according to the diagnostics, had a proper tractor beam attached to it. And his counterpart had built it all by himself.

It stood now in the field, removed from the garage the other Joel had stored it in. There'd been a slight bit of hassle over moving it; Joel had found himself forced to remember details that he wasn't really supposed to know in the first place. Thankfully, the man in charge of the garage had essentially led him on, and Joel was able to fake a lot of it. The ship looked strangely out of place surrounded by the tall grasses of the surrounding plain.

Joel had made it a point to looked over the craft thoroughly to make sure it actually worked properly. There was, after all, no point in even attempting a rescue if the craft was going to blow up on take-off, or lose an engine about half-way to the Satellite, or start producing Pop Tarts in the replicator rather than normal, well balanced food. (Of course, the presence of a replicator in the first place only further served to boost Joel's pride, although he was well aware he was not the one who'd actually built it.) But it seemed there was no need; everything was working and accounted for, the calculations all correct, the seals tighter than Cave Dweller's budget.

Now he prepared himself for take-off. He was a mixture of emotions; part excitement at the idea of playing astronaut, part dread at the thought of reliving his launch into space from ten years ago. He put these thoughts aside, however; they weren't important. People were depending on him.

He flipped the switches and turned the dials in the way the instructions had dictated. The ship, on its built-in launcher, tipped upwards towards a direction which would take him directly to the Satellite.

There was a flutter in his stomach and a pounding in his chest. Somehow, regardless of all that'd happened to him, the child in him was reawakening. Now was the time to play the hero he'd always admired in all his favorite movies. And all it required was one push of the button.

He cackled slightly madly to himself. "Push the button, Joel," he muttered under his breath, and with a dramatic gesture, he did so.

Nothing.

He panicked. Frantically, he pushed the button several more times. Why wasn't it working?! He'd checked everything twice, no, thrice!

Then he noticed the keyhole.

He slapped himself and chuckled. He'd forgotten to turn on the ignition.

'I'll bet Flash Gordon never forgot his car keys,' he thought wryly as he took a bundle of keys from his pocket. 'Heck, Flash Gordon probably didn't even NEED an ignition key.'

He found an odd, dog-bone shaped key on the ring. He put it into the slot, turned it, crossed his fingers, and pressed the button again.

The surge of pressure was enormous. As the ship blasted off into the night sky, Joel felt like he was being sucked into the material of his chair. He'd known, of course, that this would be the case, but he still found himself unprepared for the immense force which the take-off would muster. If he hadn't had a little experience with the sensation before, he might've passed out altogether before breaking the earth's atmosphere. As it were, black spots were dancing across his vision just as the pressure ceased and the ship began to move into the proper orbit necessary to meet the Satellite, and it took him a few minutes to reorient himself.

The Earth was large, blue, and beautiful. It would've been even more beautiful if Joel hadn't seen the same sight from the SOL for the past ten years of his life. It didn't seem to impress him as much these days. A disappointment, considering the build-up.

Joel sighed, and lamented the lost magic of that childhood dream. He turned instead to something a little more interesting -- the journal of his counterpart.

The story, in its own little way, was pretty bizarre, although nothing compared to the last reality he'd been present in. It appeared that five years ago, he'd been granted an unexpected parole when he was launched suddenly during a letter-reading into an escape pod hidden inside a box of hamdingers. The Joel of this reality didn't seem to know the circumstances behind this, but as to be expected didn't bother to question them. All that mattered was that he'd apparently crashed somewhere in Australia, where he'd been picked up by some archtypal old man and his dog. From there, he bummed around for awhile till picking up a job with the band Man or Astroman doing special effects. ('Whoooa, cool,' Joel thought.) Eventually he'd made it back to the States, where he'd started work in the hot fish shop he'd found himself in when he woke up. He'd apparently made an impression, since he was promoted to manager within a short time.

Yet. . .

It didn't happen too much at first, but as Joel progressed further into the small tome he began to notice an increasing amountn of nostalgia for the Satellite of Love -- almost as if his counterpart actually MISSED being stuck in space. Joel would've understood if it had just been a matter of missing the bots, but his counterpart seemed to miss EVERYTHING about it -- the Mads, the movies and all.

Why?

Joel would've loved to have been in his double's shoes. What made him miss the place so much?

It didn't matter now, at any rate -- the Satellite of Love was looming in the distance, and it seemed like the break-down was already beginning to occur.

****************

Author's Notes:

Sorry for keeping everybody waiting! It took a LONG time to break through my terminal writer's block, but I think I may have something going here. Now if I can just manage to get the computer for more than a few minutes at a time. . .

Looks like the Old Man and his Dog got to appear again after all. The right people will get this reference.

Thanks again to Steph for beta and all the folks who transcribed Soultaker. Now let's see if I can get anywhere with all this. . .