TG Race Week 2 End

TG Race Week 2 End
“3M – Magic, Mechanics, Movement”

DEETLE DEETLE DOOT DEE DOO. DEETLE DEETL– A hand reaches out and pops the phone open, silencing the ringer. A husky manly voice exits Tracey’s mouth as she answers, “Hey Troy. How’s my favorite twin?”

His surprised voice asks, “Tracey?”

“Yeah, it’s me. My voice got changed.”

“Ok. I’m calling to let you know that I’m at the Cairo Airport. I’ve got a surprise for you. See you in a few.”

“Ok. See you.” Her reptilian tail circles around her phone and closes it. She smiles at the thought that her airline pilot brother took a week off to spend in Egypt with her. And even now he is bringing supplies from their lab.

BANG! BANG! Something strikes the van in the sand from behind. SQUEEK. SQUEEK. The suspension protests the blows. Tracey slithers outside and immediately regrets it as her two week growth of sheepskin starts itching in the heat.

Instantly she somehow trips over her own tail. Moving her hands and arms in frustration, she declares, “I wish I was NOT CLUMSY!” A tingle spreads across her body. Knowing the feeling, she looks down but sees no change.

There she finds Doc working on the engine or more correctly breaking the engine trying to remove it. “What are you doing,” she asks him.

“Elementary. Since we have no wheels or axels, we no longer need the drive shaft. Therefore we no longer need the engine.”

Before she can argue … HONK! HONK! The winged female doctor and the naga in sheep’s clothing venture toward the sound. There they find an eighteen wheeler with large crates with NASA logos on the side. “Sweet! Tony came through,” her deep voice rumbles.

Carefully they remove the three wooden packages onto the sand and the diesel truck heads away. Then another truck honks. They look that direction and see a rental pickup hauling a covered airplane on a trailer. It pulls to a stop beside them. The strawberry blond twin of Tracey hops out. The three of them unload their supplies from the trailer. Tracey quickly places them in the safety of the van.

Upon returning to her brother and Doc, they do the big reveal. With a flourish, the pilot flips off the tarp to display a single engine, locked wing, pontoon plane. Doc finds his voice first, “Nice plane.”

Troy takes it in stride, “Thanks, but it’s not mine.”

Taken aback, Tracey asks, “Then whose is it?”

“Yours. When you asked me to get you your stuff, you mentioned that you had no wheels, so I decided that what you really needed was wings. So, I found this old thing here and decided to buy it for you to use.”

“Thanks, Twin Bro.”

He rolls up his sleeves, “Now, let’s get this thing race ready.”

Doc joins in, “Indeed. First let’s place the hover pads you brought us.”

Troy adds, “Right! I’ll get the jack out of the …”

“No, I can do it,” Tracey begins waving her arms.

“No, Tracey, you can’t. Your magic has messed up more than it has worked.”

“I don’t care. It will work this time. I know this spell. LEVITATE!” The van lifts up and then tips onto its side and crashes back down into the sand. CLATTER! CLATTER! CLATTER! All the devices and supplies in the van fall with it.

A heated silence follows as the two partners glare at each other. Finally the brother breaks the silence, “Well, I guess I don’t need the jack then. We can just work on the van like this for now.” Doc breaks the stare and agrees. He flies up to the driver’s door and starts retrieving what they need.

Tracey sulks around the giant stone monument. “What is wrong with me? I can do these spells,” she mumbles to herself, “I did them before. I helped us finish the race and now they are all messing up on me.” She sees a small scarab beetle scuttle by. “I know. Maybe I should start small.” She focuses on the bug and makes small gestures.

“FLIP!” The little beetle doesn’t turn over. In fact, it seems to be getting … “Bigger… Crud.” She waves her hands again, “SMALL!” It starts shimmering in the heat.

Its insect legs swell and merge into four limbs. It rears back on its hind legs. “I’ve created a Big, Bad BeetleBorg.” The exoskeleton crumbles off revealing furry cat legs. A tan tail with a brown tuft of fur on the end joins them. Slowly the overgrown beast seems to become a lion. Then the last of the bug comes off to expose a human female head and chest. “A sphinx?”

The lion woman looks to Tracey, “Oh so, you want to play a guessing game. I’ve got a riddle for you. What walks on four legs in the morning, …” Stink. The sphinx’s riddle. “… two at Noon, and …” I don’t know. I don’t want to die. “… Three in the evening?” I need this thing stationary so I can think.

“STONE!”

“Incorrect,” she gets a evil smile on her face, “as punishment for a wrong answer …” Tracey’s head drops quickly as she watches the former anthro get a belly of sand as its four legs shorten. “… I get to …” It’s torso and bust shrink until it is a large head on a tiny four legged teeny three inch body. How does her head not crush her body? “… suffocate you and then eat …” All of its humanity disappears as its head shrinks to become a part of the rest. “Squeek. Squee ek … Squ eek squeek squee?” Hair sprouts from its body.

It looks at Tracey for a second and then begins to scamper away. But a moment is all Tracey needs to scoop up the hamster. “Now what shall I name you?” She thinks a moment, “I know I’ll call you Horatio, Hamlet’s friend.”

She heads back to the van. Her euphoria of using magic and making a friend evaporates at the sight of the van on its side. Her frustrations over magic badly done including the three she just cast vex her more. “I’ve got to get better at this magic stuff. It can’t be that hard. But … But … I just can’t seem to get the hang of it. This. Stinks. So. Bad.”

Doc and Troy peek their heads around the side. Troy speaks for the both of them, “Tracey, we think we got it. Could you set the van upright for us?”

Her seething and bubbling anger focuses on Doc, the one who doesn’t want her to do magic. She gives him an evil eye while addressing both of them, “You’re a GUY,” she says pointing, “You lift it.”

Doc’s eyes go wide as he steps out from behind his shield. He cups his chest as they flatten. He then looks down at his lower region as it swells a little. “Tracey, you did it. I’m of the masculine persuasion again.”

That’s it. She can take no more. “Aaaarrggggg! This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Why did I have to have this magic body? I wish I had YOUR BODY!” Her body begins to tingle, but she hardly notices. Her voice gets higher as she continues, “or if not that then I wish I at least had ACCURATE MAGIC!” With her steam blown, she calms down.

That’s when she sees Troy covering his mouth and pointing. She rolls her eyes and walks over to her brother. “I don’t want to look. What happened to me this time,” she asks in her regular voice.

“You went back to normal, I think.” She takes a quick look down to see it’s true. She hustles to the van and slides the sun roof open and climbs in. She places Horatio in the cage with Hamlet and finds a pair of pants to cover her tailless legs.

She exits the van and, with a better mind set, she gets into position and casts the only spell she knows she can do. “LEVITATE!” Nothing happens. “LEVITATE!” Still nothing. “LEVITATE!” Nada. She tries several more times to the same result. In fact she keeps trying it until Doc and her brother stop her. “I can do it. I know I can,” she says as they turn her around.

“I think your magic is gone. We’ll have to get the van upright a different way.” They sit her on the sand and head back to the van. The two men consult. Troy looks to Doc, “We could turn on the hover pads and do it the old fashioned way with a fulcrum and lever.”

“That might work. Maybe if we open the wings at the same time. It will right itself.” They get to work. Troy takes a lid off a crate, revealing two rockets, and uses another crate to put under the lid. Doc slides into the seat and buckles himself in. “Go!”

The van lift slightly and then the lever slips and the van falls. Tracey takes a deep breath and wanders over. “Hey guys,” she smiles weakly, “I think I have an idea. Doc, I’ll need your help.”

“Are you sure,” they ask concerned.

“Yeah, the race was getting to me. I’ll be fine.” Doc unbuckles and drops to the passenger door. He crawls out the sun roof and Tracey gets in. She aims one of the grappling plunger guns at no one and fires. When it lands at full length, she calls to her partner, “Grab that and fly it up and around the sphinx’s head. I’m going to shoot the other gun at you. Try to connect the two magnets.” Doc does as she says, and the plan goes without a hitch. She hits the recall button. The ropes tighten and pull the van toward the stone structure. The side of the van starts to climb the giant feet.

Seeing what she’s doing, the men climb the monument. They push against the van and Tracey activates the release. The plungers quickly return and the pushers right the van on the hover pads. They cheer.

The rest of the upgrades go without a hitch. The four used rockets are removed. The wings from the airplane are removed and attached to the welded shut former wings. They attach the controls to the steering wheel. The ailerons now work. “Ok, you have no friction, forward thrust, and slow banking turns,” details the brother.

“Well, we have 2 rockets still and more to place on the van. And we only have movement when the hamsters are mobile. Even with two of them, we will be stopped a lot of the time.”

“Indeed. We need a constant source of propulsion.”

“Well, you already have that engine back there,” Troy mentions, “If we attach the propeller to the back and to that engine you should be good to go.” Both partners cringe.

“Indubitably. You work on that while we work on the rockets.”

Quickly the parts are attached and they regroup. The twin brother reports, “I got done quickly so, I added a rudder. You should be able to turn tighter with the two new pedals. The gas should make the propeller spin faster or slower depending on how hard it is pressed. The brake and the next one turn the rudder to the right or left depending on which pedal you step on. Brake turns right.”

They check out the handiwork. The back of the van has a hole in the back. From the hole, the shaft emerges and attaches to the propeller. Beyond that is the giant tail to the plane. It extends above the van and below the propulsion.

Satisfied with that part, they check the rockets. The two by the engine are still there. Four are mounted to the new wings. One giant one is attached to the roof.

Tracey eyes the pontoons, “Rugburn did say we were crossing water. Maybe we should attach them.”

“They would work well on snow or ice, as well, should you need to land on those.” They are added.

They take inventory, “The back propeller will provide constant forward momentum as needed.”

“We can turn as tight as we want to,” Tracey adds.

“You hover over the ground,” continues Troy, “And can fly up into the air.”

“Then that means we can race.”

“Troy, can you get us to Iceland?”

“I don’t think so. I’m on vacation. And if I weren’t, there’s no way your van is suitcase sized.”

“I guess I’ll have to call Tiny then.” She wanders off dialing.