Ominous Foreshadowings and Startling Events

"So whaddaya call... No, wait a minute..."

"So this guy walks... No, I got it now:"

"So there's an android, a clone and an extra-terrestrial trapped at the bottom of a reactor pit and they've only got one decon pack..."

"You're messing it up, the one guy's wearing an ion suit."

"Shut up. I was getting to that."

"Wait! How many extra-terrestrials does it take to recalibrate the magnetic drive of a CNC olive lathe?"

"That's not how that goes!"

Garthar Agmodniak listened disinterestedly to the three Machine Techs (MT) attempting to tell an entire joke as he affected a look of utter shock for the DR45 Unit's benefit. Behind him in the reflection, he could see them pulling on a breaker bar, attempting to loosen a giant valve.

Garthar then furrowed his brow into a look of concern or consternation, with a hint of vague disappointment. The giant valve broke loose all at once, the breaker bar fell to the floor with a clang, and the (MT)s collapsed in a heap of coveralls and hard hats.

At this point, the room filled up to about ankle level with a green briny tepid fluid, seeping unctiuosly from the opened valve. Garthar took this opportunity to don a look of disgust, or perhaps mortification. Despite an enormous amount of practice, Garthar was still not an expert at wearing his heart on his sleeve, facially speaking.

"So the android turns to the clone and says, 'Hang on, open that drain valve, we've got spewage'"

"That's not what he says! He puts his arm across the clone's shoulder and whispers, 'I think that circuit is gonna blow'"

"No, I mean open that drain valve before we all drown in this stuff."

"Wait, was that the android or the extra-terrestrial?"

This is the point at which the circuit blew and the lights went out and the room filled up to about knee level with slightly warmer olive bath runoff. Garthar bumped the E-Stop Button (E-SB) with his elbow and waded towards the floundering Machine Techs.

"Nine! One to hold the drive in gravity stasis and the other eight to..."

The emergency lights came on in that soft orange glow you often see in submarine movies starring actors who do a much better job of facially expressing emotions like worry, rebellion and power-madness than Garthar could ever hope to do. That was a pretty long sentence, wasn't it? Sorry about that.

Anyway, the lights came up and the alarm sounded bonging. Bong. Bong. Very soothing, really. More like an old department store intercom bong than anything heavy like your standard industrial alarm. By this pont, the hot liquid had reached about waist level.

Machine Tech Abel swam towards the drain valve as Machine Techs Baker and Cantalope climbed an access ladder to open the circuit breaker, inexplicably installed seven feet high on the wall. At some point, the electrician had decided to install the ladder, rather than moving the breaker box down a few feet. But that's not important now. What's important now is that our hero is up to his neck in blazing hot olive soup and the comic relief is performing some form of water ballet in the briny, oily colloid.

"So the clone tells the android that he can stand on his shoulders and try to signal the site boss, but then the reactor starts to whine and the android can't hear the rest of what the clone's sayin'..."

"Wait, whose shoulders? Who's gonna signal the site boss? That's the part I can never remember."

"Shut up you. I'm telling this story."

With a groan and a crack, the drain valve busted loose just as violently as the intake valve, and before long three clones and an extra-terrestrial were swirling around the room. Clockwise, of course.

Mr. Agmodniak carefully timed his grab and reached the DR45 Unit, hoisting himself to safety. "You know, operations is gonna be down here in a minute asking me why I hit the E-Stop button," he informed the swirling techs.

"No sweat, Garthar" said Machine Tech Flotsam as he grabbed onto the access ladder and started climbing.

"We'll take care of it" said Machine Tech Jetsam as he twisted the drain valve to slow the vortex of Olive Suspension Fluid (OSF).

Machine Tech Elroy caught one final wave and added, "Yeah. Central Scrutiny sent us down here to fish the body out of the Primary Suspension Vat (PSV). Ok, you can reset the heater core."

Garthar Admodniak waited until the techs had flipped all the appropriate breakers and picked up some mops before he turned to the pipe sticking out of the wall and flipped up the cover and spoke into the tube, "Clear."

You heard me. Next to the multi-million dollar, high tech DR45 Unit was a pipe sticking out of the wall which was the only means of communication between engineering and production. It stuck through the concrete wall right next to the telephone which could be used to contact Moscow, West Memphis Arkansas, Vinnie's Pizza and just about every other location on the planet except the one just directly on the opposite side of this wall.

Garthar heard a series of bangs coming out of his Two-Way Tube of Communication (T-WToC) and poised his thumb over the restart button.

Wait a minute...

There was a body in the PSV?

The Two-Way Tube of Communication spoke to him. "Clear", it said as he jabbed the green button and turned to the MTs. "A body, you say?" he said.

"Yeah. A body. Dead as clevis pin. Funny thing, too..."

"No wait, it was two to hold the drive in g-statis. The other seven are positioned in the form of a 'W'"

"Yep. I noticed it too. Spittin' image."

"You're insane. That's not funny at all. It's three to hold the drive in stasis and the other six..."

"It's true, Garthar. Funniest thing..."

"Whoever he is, he looks exactly like you."