Tesseract

[tonym5]

After several days in Williamsburg both Al and Joe had managed to blend in with the citizens of the town and were just getting settled down in a rented room and jobs to help pay for it and food. "It looks like our traveling has slowed down some, Joe. How long do you think our time here will last or are we doomed to live here forever? If our travels have stopped, why? Is there a reason why we are here?" "Maybe, but what could it be?" Later, as they close up the printing shop where they work at, Joe turns around and nearly bumps into a tall red haired man. Joe apologizes and allows the man to continue on. "Do you know who that was, Joe?" asks Al. .'No, should I?" "That was Thomas Jefferson!" "Ohh, shoot!" But at that moment Al spies a man with a gun ambling towards Thomas Jefferson. Al takes off running and tackles the man just as he fired the gun causing the bullet to hit a sign hanging from a post. A lot of people nearby race to the scene and everyone starts questioning Al, Joe and Thomas Jefferson. Finally the sheriff arrives and Al and Joe are treated like heroes and it is at that moment they feel the tingling sensation returning them to the blinding whirl of lights again. They arrive on the airship Hindenburg as it approaches the American shore. Joe and Al are stunned when they ask a fellow passsenger the name of the airship. Before they could think of anything else they heard a man running towards them and is being pursued by three other men. The running man plows into Joe nearly sending him to the floor. Al jumps on the man being pursued. The three pursuers arrive and grab the man from Al's hands. "Now what is going on here?!?" asks Al. "None of your business, mate" replies one of the pursuers. Al sizes up the six foot man with sandy brown hair, grey eyes and a handlebar mustache and demands to know why the man being pursued is so important, knowing that time is running out. "Listen, we want this bloke to answer some questions about a shipwreck named the S.S. Minerva" replies handlebar mustache. Al and Joe look at each other quickly and wondering the same thing. A fat greaser of a man in a German suit strolls up to the knot of men and demands everyone to take their seats before the landing. The man being held breaks free and runs towards the back of the airship with nearly everyone in pursuit. Joe and Al catch the man first but don't have the time to ask questions when the others arrive. With time running out before the impending tragedy, Al whispers to Joe that it was important that they get off the airship fast when the ship blows up. As the prisoner is led back to the seats and the German watching over everyone, it was very tense. With less than an hour away from the tragedy, the energy of all the men involved was static.

[tonym5]

After the explosion of the airship and it's descent from the sky Al and Joe grabbed the man wanted for questioning and took off at a run with the three men pursuing them. When they came to the broken windows they jumped out of the airship as the ball of fire was racing towards them from the rear of the airship. The three men in pursuit were consumed along with the rest of those who had not jumped or slid down the ropes. When Al landed on the ground he tucked himself into a roll and was able to stand up. Joe Zavala did the same thing. They began running as fast as possible as the rest of the airship fell to the ground behind them. When they stopped, Al asked Joe where the mystery man was. "I saw him tuck and roll too before he started running but I could not say in which direction he ran." The tingling feeling overcame them as they hurtled through the whirling lights again. When they came out of it they found themselves in a parking lot and heard a loud popping sound and then they spotted a man running out of the brush and trees at the end of the parking lot as a car was heard speeding towards an overpass. Al and Joe saw the face of the assasin as he ran towards the train tracks. Al and Joe realized where they were and looked towards the building next to the parking lot and realized they were looking at the Texas School Book Depository. They heard a commotion behind them where the assasin had disappeared and saw three hoboes had gotten themselves in the way of several men wearing suits who were pursuing the assasin. That tingling sensation overcame them again as they disappeared into the whirling lights again. When they came through the other end they were on a sidewalk facing a construction site on the otherside of the hillside road. A crane with a large Iron crushing ball slammed into the side of a building being demolished. Al turned around to see what was behind him and spotted a newspaper stand. He walked over to it and spotted the date, it was July of 2007. The front page of a Pittsburgh newspaper with the local news stared back at him as a strange noise behind him piqued his attention and he whirled around to see the Iron ball come loose and start rolling down the hillside road with Joe running after it and Al started running too. The Iron ball zigged and zagged its way down like a pinball in a pinball machine bouncing off the bumpers. The Iron ball hit many parked cars on its way down the hillside road. An intersection was ahead and Al poured on the steam and barely beat the Iron ball to the intersection and not knowing what to do, looked around frantically and spotted a cement trash can and with every ounce of strength he could muster knocked it over and sent it in the path of the Iron ball. A horrific shockwave concussed the area as the two objects collided. The trash can broke into many pieces and the Iron ball slowed considerably but still its path was only diverted. The Iron ball still managed to hit three more cars before it slowed down and finally came to rest next to the sidewalk. The tingling sensation overcame Al and Joe again.

[tonym5]

The whirling lights receded as they found themselves inside a long metal pipe that seemed to never end. An onrushing sound scared them into running. Al looked back and did not see anything but sensed something was coming. Then he realized the wiring alongside the tunnel wall and something clicked inside his mind but the thought was too terrifying. Joe looked sidelong at Al as they ran and grinned. Soon they saw what looked like the end of the large tunnel and by the time they were 15 meters from the end of the tunnel the whirling lights swallowed them into the vortex again. When they came out they found themselves on the flight deck near the gunners station on the U.S.S. Enterprise as Japanese Zeroes fired their deadly bullets at the large Aircraft Carrier. The large weapon with the men firing back at the oncoming Zero exploded sending the men sprawling like rag dolls. Al and Joe hunkered down and felt the heat of the exploding weapon. "Were we in the Large Hadron Collider or Fermilab before we came here" asked Joe. "You have a question like that at this time? And yes I believe we were at one of those labs just before arriving here."

[tonym5]

Stepping beyond the whirling lights they found themselves somewhere in a desert. Before them was a huge stone Mesa. "Where are we?" muttered Al. "I think we are in Monument Valley, Utah" replied Joe. "Holy..... Al left the thought unfinished as he turned 360 degrees taking in the view of the two famous buttes, Ear of the Wind Arch and the Totem Pole. "Joe, are you sure?" "I'm pretty sure, Al. You don't watch a lot of John Wayne movies and not recognize some of the scenic vistas they filmed the movies in. After all of the places we have been this is without a doubt the best one and only leaves us with the quandary of finding Water before...." Al just looked at his friend with a jaundiced view. "Either we leap again or we start walking...." Al could not bring himself to think in all of the tight situations he and Dirk had been through together that they had always managed to get out of. And now with all of the different places he had been with Joe recently that each situation had some exit for them. "Let's head south and we should hit U.S. 163 soon and from there we will be in the Four Corners area. They began walking. After awaiting for several hours alongside U.S. 163 an RV pulled up and they were hailed by the female driver. "My name is Minerva Mandasy, you fellas need a ride? "We sure do, ma'am" Joe replied. The door of the RV opened and they stepped in. They were nearly knocked over by a friendly but strong Bull Mastiff. "Fievel, get down, boy!" and the men shook hands with one of the biggest women they had ever met. Minerva stood 6'4" and built like a Truck Driver with huge arms and legs and a well fed stomach. They were soon moving along the road laughing and talking.

[tonym5]

Arriving in Washington, D.C. on a Greyhound bus they hailed a taxicab outside the doors of the Bus station. Reaching NUMA Headquarters they walked through the front doors where Aarti, the Indian receptionist recognizes them and gasps. "Al!! Joe!!!" she screams. Tearing off her headset she runs into Al's arms crying. "Oh my god!! We had a memorial for the two you and now you're standing here as if nothing happened. Oh my!! I have to tell everyone!!" Racing back to her desk, Aarti presses several buttons so that everyone in the building would hear her announcement and then putting on the headset again, Aarti began. "Admiral Sandecker, Dirk and everyone else please listen to me seriously. Al Giordino and Joe Zavala are alive and standing here right in front of me living and breathing as if nothing has happened. This is not my imagination my friends they are here in the flesh and alive and I urge everyone to get their butts away from their desks and greet our friends back. Pronto!"

[tonym5]

After all the hugging and many voices talking at the same time it was decided to have a meeting to learn what had happened. "It has been 10 weeks since we last saw the two of you. Since the two of you disappeared we sent down the Titus to see what had happened but there was no Fievel or the two of you to be found. We were stumped as to what had happened. Recalling the bluish light emanating from the huge gem that had been in that metallic crate, Dirk replied, "we had to cover the gem with the secondary DSV, Titus, by closing the metallic crate and had it hauled up to the ship". "After a long meeting we had to conclude that the two of you were killed and we had a memorial to honor the two of you. Also, after a week had passed Hiram's computer, Max, concluded that the object in the crate was a Tesseract. Max explained what the possibilities of a Tesseract could do and we were astonished and had to conclude if that was true then the possibility of the two of you surviving were nil" stated Admiral Sandecker. "You could not have imagined what we went throught as we journeyed from situation to situatiion" stated Joe Zavala. Joe then listed each situation that he and Al found themselves in. "Whew!! What a journey the two of you had!!" said Dirk Pitt. Admiral Sandecker cut in with a serious tone"We did some research on the S.S. Minerva and found that the ship had been commissioned by Dame Edna Knightsbridge for her travel to America and had been named after the cat she had as a child. Apparently the ship was on a trip to Europe with a Mr. Andre Cristiano, an employee of Mrs. Knightsbridge as the sole passenger. With some research by Max, Hiram's computer it was discovered that Andre Cristiano's family was originally the Montini-Cristi family of Italy, a well known underworld family whose power was and is formidable in the financial, criminal and political world. This family has been involved with many corrupt and dictatorial governments over the centuries".