Picture if you will...
“So… Feel at home at all?” Scott asked as they sat on a bench, watching people pass.
“You kidding? This is old even to me.” Skye said.
The world they were on had suffered some form of delayed development. They’d only recently reached a technological and cultural level somewhere between the 1930s and 1940s.
They were sitting in what on their world would have been MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. Here, it was Washington Park in the city of New Paris, the French and Spanish having swapped roles in the colonization of the Americas, most obvious the billboard across the street advertising “Renard” instead of Zorro.
“Are you getting anything at all?” Scott asked.
Skye pulled out a compact from her purse, opened it and started checking her makeup.
“Scanner’s still only getting a faint signal.” She said, looking at the display hidden in the mirror.
Scott leaned back on the bench.
“With our luck it’s in a cave a mile beneath us…”
“So now what do we do?”
“Keep looking I guess. It’s all we can do.”
The pair got up and Scott offered her his arm.
“Ain’t happening.” She said as she started walking.
“It’s called ‘blending in.” He said, following her.
“Don’t care.” She said as she checked her compact scanner again. “I’m a married woman.”
He sighed, shrugged and followed.
Scott and Skye spent hours wandering around New Paris. The city’s layout was a jumble of streets like it’s namesake, not the straight grid they were used to.
“Rue Roosevelt…?” he asked as he looked up “I think we past this way already.”
“I don’t think so.”
“How would you know, you’ve been staring at the scanner the entire time…”
“My sense of direction isn’t that bad.”
Scott saw a familiar building in the distance.
“We pasted that tower like… twice already.”
“Three times, Master.” Tallus chimed in.
“Thank you…” he said towards his wrist while Skye shot him a look.
“Got anything?” Scott asked the alien computer.
“Unfortunately, Mistress Skye has been leading you in and out of the transceiver range for the Zephyr. I have been unable to complete any large calculations without the plane’s extra processing power.”
“What do you need?” Scott asked.
“Two blocks, north northeast or as close as possible.”
“Roger that.” Scott said.
“That’s to your right, Master.”
“I knew that…” He said as he pulled Skye by the arm.
They eventually found a spot nearby where the signal was strong enough.
“Rue Spielberg?” Scott asked rhetorically.
“Let’s not dwell on that, let’s see what your little servant has.”
“... I heard that, Mistress Skye…” It said
“Will you two knock it off? I’d like to get home to my new baby as SOME point today, even if it means leaving and coming back.”
“Master… I don’t think you’re going to have the time for that.”
“Why not?”
“There’s a storm approaching.”
“You calculated that?”
“No, the Zephyr’s weather radar picked it up. It’s approaching quickly and seems to be quite large by the look of it. You might need to use the 5001.”
“Tell you what, send up a Thunderbird, we’ll figure out what to do from there.”
“Understood, commencing launch procedure.”
Several miles away, atop the same hill, in roughly the same spot as it had been over a year ago on another earth, sat Zephyr Zero under its retro reflective camouflage. The quiet was ended by a mechanical whirling coming from the jet, a hatch on it’s dorsal surface sliding open and a long arm rising vertically, unfolding itself until it was sticking about twenty feet above the top of the plane.
With a loud THUMP a small, bird shaped object was launched off the plane a great force, sending it hundreds of feet into the air. Once out of sight, the small device, an autonomous sensing drone disguised as a bird, fired a small but powerful arc thruster motor, sending it even higher and toward the approaching weather front.
“Master, the drone will take a few minutes to complete it’s scanning. I will return to my calculations for the time being, but you will need to stay within range.”
“Okay then…”
“I’m gonna go around the block and sweep for any more signals.”
“Just don’t get lost.”
Scott stood there for a few minutes before his AI spoke again.
“Master, the data from the drone has been processed. The storm front showing a pressure differential of…”
“shortest answer as you can give, please.”
“It’s big, Master.”
Scott stuck his head around the corner and found Skye walking back.
“We’re going. We can comeback for the plane tomorrow. Tallus, put the old girl on alert status 1A.”
“Yes Master, engaging 24-hour perimeter lock down. We can depart whenever you’re ready.”
Skye put her hands on Scott’s shoulders as he triggered the Stark Device he wore on his wrist to jump them back home.
And nothing happened.
“Crap… Now what?” Skye said as they heard thunder rumble.
“We find a place to wait out the storm till I get this fixed.”