Game 1
There's something special going on at the University of Columbus. And everyone's excited. At least, the forty people lucky enough to be going are excited.Doctor Alexander Verge is making a special guest appearance at the univeristy to promote his newest invention - an invention that will revolutionise the way medicine is practiced. He calls it a Medical Diagnosis tool. But, to all the sci-fi and Star Trek fans out there, it's a working model of a tricorder.
Dr Verge, a French engineer, has been doing the University circuit, showing his invention to a select group of people. It's not easy to get an invite, but everyone knows the effort will be worth it.
Allison is lucky. As a high-ranking member of the Western Chapter of Trekkers, she's guaranteed a place. See, the President's uncle is the Dean of UC, so the group has six tickets to share amongst them. And Allison, as Communications officer, is deemed to be one of those lucky enough to merit an invitation.
Anthony has to work hard for his invite. Only four tickets are being awarded to the entire electrical engineering department - or, the students thereof, at any rate. He has to compete with his peers for a chance to go, as well as the fourth-year students. But in the end, his hard work pays off, and he's awarded a ticket.
Lucas wouldn't have even heard about the seminar if he hadn't been trying to hit on Laura Mackenzie. She's the hottest girl on campus, and has just broken up with her long-term boyfriend. When Lucas heard that she was going to be at the seminar (to please her father), he wrangled himself a ticket. A little bribery, calling in a few favours, owing a few others... And, what do you know, he's able to chat to Laura for the whole evening, with only a room full of geeks for competition. What could posisbly go wrong?
The forty people invited gathered outside the auditorium, tickets in hand, waiting to be allowed in to the seminar...
Game Two
Just as Lucas starts chatting up Laura, along comes Allison to say hello. As the conversation rapidly turns from the cool and casual to the downright geeky, Lucas realises that he's got no chance of redeeming this pick-up attempt. So, he chats amiably with the girl from the comic shop.
Before long, the auditorium is opened, and the guests make their way inside. Lucas and Allison sit in the front row, and Anthony (who also knows Allison from the comic shop) sits just behind them. Anthony notices that there are a lot of security guards stationed around the room - ten in all, which seems an awful lot when there's only forty guests.
Soon, Dr Verge is escorted out on to the stage by another two security guards. He begins to talk about his invention.
It doesn't take long for everyone to start to drift off. Although the invention itself is probably cool, Dr Verge is certainly no salesman. He makes the whole concept seem dry and boring, and he has one of those droning voices.As Lucas starts to drift off a little, he notices that the Doctor seems to be made of metal. He's an android. And there's a heap of little spiders crawling all over him, and around the stage. They're building webs that are rapidly getting closer and closer to the seats where he's sitting. He freaks out a little, startling Allison, and then his view returns to normal.
Lucas relaxes again, and the strange vision comes back. The spiders seem to be getting closer, and this time the vision doesn't disappear. He decides that he needs to leave, because the whole thing is kind of scary. So he carefully stands up, and starts walking along the row so he can leave via the back door. (He'd have to cross the spider webs to get to the front door.)
As Lucas starts to move, a security guard near the stage suddenly bursts into flames, as though something he's carrying just exploded into a fireball. A moment later, a second security guard does the same.
There's lots of freaking out, and screaming, as people rush towards exits. Lucas and Anthony both freeze, trying to remember where the fire extinguishers were, while Allison races over to get a fire blanket, throwing it over the first burning man.
A third, and then a fourth guard burst into flames. Allison rolls the first guard around, attempting to douse the flames. Meanwhile, Lucas makes a mad dash for one of the others, in an attempt to knock him over and beat out the flames. Anthony scans the room, finally heading towards the back door. As he's doing so, however, he sees a man with some kind of plastic gun standing a few rows back.
Anthony approaches the man, who points the plastic gun (which he can now see looks like a Buck Rodgers ray gun) towards another guard. There's no sound or light from the gun itself, but the guard bursts into flames. When Anthony approaches him, the man looks shocked for a moment, and then says, "You need to get that tricorder. Go!"
Anthony, overcome by the excitement of the moment, turns and runs back down to the stage. He chases down the doctor, and knocks him over. The tricorder goes flying, landing at the feet of a security guard.
Anthony punches the guard in the groin and grabs the tricorder, just as the guard bursts into flames. Allison, having seen what's happening, goes running after Anthony. They both end up back at the strange man, who tells them that they need to head out back to the Batmobile.
Some arguing ensues, during which Allison decides to call the police. She pulls out her mobile phone, only to find that it says she's currently connected to Starfleet Command. A brief, hesitant conversation later, she's told that she's to 'follow the prime directive'. And that Starfleet will track her via her communicator.
The man incinerates a few more guards as the three argue, before they finally agree to head outside to the Batmobile, where his assistant is waiting.
Meanwhile, at the front of the auditorium, Lucas has realised that the men he's trying to save are also strange androids, and he's decided to flee through the front door.
As Lucas turns to leave, he suddenly finds himself... nowehere. He's in a pool of black, surrounded by nothing. He hyperventilates and faints. When he comes back to consciousness, he discovers there's a cougar watching him. Through trial and error, he discovers that the cougar is talking to him. The cougar tells him that he's finally seeing things the way they really are.
Lucas then finds himself on the prairie, looking over the waving grass towards a herd of buffalo. He can sense the power of the Earth below his feet in a way that he never has before. He can feel the heartbeat of the world. And he knows that he will never be the same again.
When he returns to the "real world", he stumbles out of the door. He's just finished looking around him when he's approached by Allison.
Once Allison and Anthony had followed the man out of the door, they found an ordinary black car waiting for them, along with a well-dressed, efficient-looking young lady. The man ushered them towards the car, and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a par of cardboard 3-D glasses. He slipped the glasses on, and peered at both Allison and Anthony, and then started looking around the area. Eventually, he stopped looking, and pointed out Lucas, who was staggering around near the front of the building.
The man instructed Allison to fetch Lucas, and bring him back to the car. Some more conversation ensued, before Lucas joined the group. Then the three of them climbed into the car.
From the inside, it seemed much bigger than the outside. And, indeed, it looked just like the Batmobile. Lovingly created, it would seem. The man started the car, and they were off.
Game Three
The group drove in the Batmobile for quite some time, talking amongst themselves. Allison called Starfleet Command on several occasions, giving them updates on her present position. Anthony asked questions. Lucas zoned a lot.They discovered the man's name is Doctor Jeremy Rastus - Doc to his friends. He explained that he'd stolen the tricorder because the inventors weren't going to use it for the common good, so he'd be releasing it to the public. Allison wasn't impressed with his reasoning.
The assistant's name was Valerie. She was fairly quiet throughout the trip.
Everything was going well, until the car suddenly died. Doc didn't seem too upset by that, but he hurried everyone out, and said they'd have to walk. Apparently, they were just around the corner from the house. The group began heading in that direction (some more willingly than others), as clouds began backing up in the sky.
By the time the group rounded the corner and approached the appropriate house, dark clouds had gathered, and thunder was rumbling ominously. They reached the front gate, and Valerie put in the code. Doc warned everyone to keep electrical devices away from him, because they would more than likely break if they were in proximity. No one paid him much attention.
Just as the gate started to open, a bolt of lightning shot down from the sky, striking Doc squarely. He was flung back, and began convulsing on the ground. Valerie didn't miss a beat, grabbing her phone and making a quick call. Allison tried to make a call as well, but her phone didn't seem to be working. She wasn't connected to Starfleet any longer, either.
From the direction of the mansion, they heard the scream of tyres, and a white truck that looked somewhat like an ambulance screamed out of a garage and down the driveway. in reverse. It pulled to a halt near the downed Doc, and a young man (looking somewhat like Yahoo Serious) leapt from the cabin, and took control of the situation. Before long, Doc was in the back of the ambulance with Anthony, and the man was driving back up to the house.
All of this happened within minutes. By this time, however, the storm clouds had completely cleared.
Valerie escorted the other two up to the house, and told them to make themselves at home. The house itself was a combination of extremely high-tech gadgets (stereo system), and old-fashioned stuff 1960's black and white TV). Valerie gave them directions to the medical wing, and left them to it, saying she was going to prepare guest rooms "just in case".
Lucas wandered off towards the medical wing, while Allison started checking out the rooms. She discovered an old typewriter on the table. It looked like someone had been typing. The piece of paper read:
Two new Scientists and a new Shaman at seminar.Meanwhile, Anthony had been helping the young man, who introduced himself as Gray, with Doc. They got Doc to the medical wing, which was again a conglomeration of high-tech equipment and ancient medical gear.Prepare guest rooms.
Prepare medical wing.
As soon as Doc was on a stretcher in the room, Gray handed Anthony a dustbuster with a few extra LEDs. Anthony looked at it questioningly, and Gray explained that it was a 'de-lighticon' - an instrument specifically designed to remove the effects of lightning.
Anthony asked if Doc was often hit by lightning, and Gray replied, "This is the sixth time this year." It's July.
At Gray's urging, Anthony turned on the dustbuster, and began running it over Doc's body. As he did so, the red blisters and burns began to fade, and his breathing grew easier. In time, he started to look healthy once more. Once that was done, Gray started rubbing an aloe vera gel into his boss, and Anthony began examining the de-lighticon.
It was about this time that Lucas walked into the room. Not wanting to disturb whatever strange scene was taking place, he turned and left.
Game Four
Once he'd finished with the gel, Gray told Anthony that all Doc needed was a little sleep, and they went out to join the others in the main room. There, Lucas explained that he's a Shaman, and that he has a totem pole. A brief conversation ensued, during which Lucas suggested that his totem should be nailed to a pole.Everyone else was quite shocked when Lucas suddenly stumbled, clutching at his leg, and crying in pain. He could feel the teeth of the Cougar biting into the back of his calf. The pressure continued until he cried that he was sorry. Then the biting ceased.
During that time, Allison and Anthony had started trying to "stretch out" his "cramp". Lucas tried to explain further, getting into a discussion about whether everything could be explained by physics.
Gray insisted that he was just the "beautiful assistant", and couldn't tell them much. Allison decided to call the police, despite Gray urging her to wait until Doc woke up.
When Allison picked up the old-fashion analog phone, she was again connected to Starfleet Command. They urged her to find out everything she could about what was going on, and report back in an hour.She agreed to do so, and walked out, demanding to know what was going on.
At about this time, Valerie rejoined them. She worked out which of them was the 'Shaman' (ie, Lucas), and asked the others if they'd rather be Superman or Batman. A huge comic-geek discussion commenced.
By the end of it, she offered to show them Doc's Lab. Lucas said he wasn't really interested, and asked if he could go outside. Valerie suggested he check out the gazebo, and then took the others down the hall towards the basement door.
In the basement, Allison and Anthony found a huge are full of workbenches. On every bench were half-finished projects, bits of wire, broken appliances and toys, and a multitude of other "stuff". Anthony began wandering around, investigatin everything as much as he could.
Out in the garden, Lucas found the gazebo easily. It was more a copse of trees with shadecloth arranged over the circle. When he entered it, he felt at peace. However, his mind started bubbling over with thoughts and ideas.
He sat down in the centre of the circle, and closed his eyes. After a time, he opened them to find that he was sitting in front of an unlit campfire, the cougar watching him from nearby, surrounded by dozens of small creatures. He closed his eyes again, and remained where he was.