I glance up at the heavens as I stride toward the launchpad. The usual thick, gray clouds churn in their eternal cauldron.
There’s no reason to be nervous, I tell myself for the hundredth time. Most of the tests have gone perfectly fine.
Our airship has the long, rounded body of a submarine, albeit one with massive engines slung along the back. The resizer agent is built into those hefty engines, so I can adjust our size at will. In theory, anyway.
I hated to see myself.
It happened from time to time. Living in the ruins of an old mall, there were bound to be a few mirrors around. Granted, I didn’t have much use for department stores anymore—I’d already raided most of the men’s departments for practical clothing
I’d given up screaming. I was terrified and sick, but what was the point? No one could save me now. The descent seemed endless, like I was doomed to fall for eternity. The throb of my heartbeat in my ears had faded, and my nausea was subsiding, as though even my body had resigned itself.
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“Do you really think this’ll work?” It hurt to ask the words, but I had to know.
“You designed airplanes. If anyone can pull this off…” My wife Stella patted the side of the hulking drone, the result of a month’s hard work. An arm-length sewing needle rested against her shoulder, the thick steel dwarfing her long, delicate fingers.
“Five minutes, King.”
I let out an irritable sigh at the warning transmitted into my head. “Copy.” I’ve only just arrived, and I’m already running out of time.
Where did he put it?
The serum has to be here. We’ve spent years tracking it across time and space and through the fibers of alternate dimensions.
The spaceship rattled again, the second violent vibration in as many minutes. Leaves fell from the trees above, and water from the large koi pond splashed my spacesuit. Vibrant colors danced and pulsed in the transparent dome of the garden’s ceiling, which offered a view of nearby space.
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The last wild guitar note faded from the hall. I let my leafy green shoulders relax, glad to be done with rehearsal for the day.
“Hey, nice work today, Tommo,” I said to my turnip drummer.
He clicked his drumsticks together and pointed them at me. “You too, buddy.”
“We’ve got this,” my guitarist Johnny Broccoli said. “We’re totally ready!”
Fading sunlight tinged the clouds vivid orange and pink as I settled down upon the rock.
To wait.
However long it took.
The blue moon had come again, and I was determined. This time, I would find her. This time, I wouldn’t let her slip away without me.
Stolen again.
I’d recovered the jeweled pendant three times before, yet somehow the masked bandit always got ahold of it again. I got the call just before sundown and strode into the vault with beams of sunlight shining across the mahogany surfaces of the lobby behind me.
A torrential downpour flooded the grassy clifftop. The octopus turned the key yet again, but all the engine produced was a pathetic cough. The fuel gauge lay well below E, and no amount of glaring on the octopus’s part would make it rise.
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