From: geiger@niktow.canisius.edu (Tucson Al) Newsgroups: alt.ql.creative Subject: QL/MST3K "A Not Too Distant Future : Part I" Keywords: story Message-Id: <2745@niktow.canisius.edu> Date: 22 Jun 93 12:19:32 GMT Organization: Canisius College, Buffalo NY. 14208 Here's a story I started about an hour ago. I'm not sure that I want to finish it, but I'll await your approval/utter rejection of the idea before I decide. "A Not Too Distant Future : Part I" The blue flashes faded away as his vision cleared. The roaring sensation left his ears. Opening his eyes, he looked around. Blackness. It was a strange kind of blackness, though. It grew lighter near the bottom of his vision. Raising his hand to his face, it came into contact with feathers and some kind of stiff material. He lifted the hat from over his eyes, and let out a panicked gasp. Three strange creatures confronted him. One resembled a gold dog with spindly arms and legs. Instead of ears it seemed to have some kind of athletic face-mask on top of its head. The red thing had a gumball machine for a head and appeared to be constructed primarily of tupper-ware. The third creature, much larger than the other two, seemed to be two hinged baby car seats surmounted by a miner's lamp. Taking in his surroundings, he saw that he was in a room covered in hexagonal panels. The floor was strewn with confetti, streamers, and all manner of unusual hats. Behind him was a large door with a huge letter "G" on it. In front of him was a flat counter-top. The only thing on the counter besides a pile of strange hats was a large control unit. It had three buttons on top, colored red, green, and yellow. Currently the red one was flashing. Not sure what he was supposed to do or what the red light meant, Sam looked around for help. The three creatures just kind of looked at him expectantly. This went on for a few minutes, the red light flashing more insistently with each passing second. Finally, the gold dog-thing spoke up. "Uh, Joel? The evil overlords are calling. Aren't you going to answer them?" When neither of the other creatures answered, Sam realized that his name on this leap was Joel. "Ok, sure. How am I supposed to do that?" "You could press the button, Joel," answered the red creature. Behind Sam's back, the red one whispered to the gold one, "We're going to have to tone down our hat parties. Joel can't quite handle them any more." Both the gold creature and the purple one nodded sadly. "Yeah," said the gold one. "If we get old and worn out, all we have to do is get new parts, or build new bodies and transfer our ram chips into them." "Hey," said the purple thing. It's voice was high-pitched and raspy, sounding like a suprano with laryngitis. "Let's do that for our invention, this week." "Ok," agreed the other two. "Joel, tell the scientists that we have to wait until the end of the experiment to do the invention exchange." Sam was still trying to decide if he should press the button or not. He had also been trying to decide exactly what types of creatures his companions were. Finally deciding they were robots, if unusually constructed, he guessed he should trust them. For now, at least. He pressed the button. A view screen lit up, showing the inside of an underground cavern. Scientific equipment was strewn all over the place, as if tossed down at random. Several creatures resembling humanoid moles scurried about, performing unknowable tasks. There were only two humans in this underground complex. One, a tall man with disheveled hair dressed all in green. He wore glasses and an evil leer. His hair was in a ragged ponytail. The other man was even more unusual. He was dressed all in black with nearly white hair. A lock of hair curled boyishly across his forehead, adding to his child-like appearance. "Hi," was all that Sam could think to say. "Hi, yourself, Joely-poely-pudding-and-pie. What kept you?" asked the man in green. He looked to Sam like the archetypal mad scientist. Well, except for the ponytail. "I, uh, I overslept," he answered lamely. He looked to the robots for help, but they had left. Vague sounds of tinkering came from off to his left. "I guess I hit the snooze button and went back to sleep." "Well, maybe you should put your alarm clock on the other side of you sleep cubicle. That way, you have to get out of bed to turn it off. By then, you'd be awake," supplied the man in black helpfully. "Thank you, Frank," said the man in green. "Well, it would work," whined Frank. "I never said that it wouldn't. Now be quiet!" roared the other man. "Okay. You don't have to yell. I was just trying to help," muttered Frank, on the verge of tears. "I warned you, Frank. Do I have to get my melon-baller out again," asked the man in green. Reflexively, Frank covered his eyes. "I'll be good, Dr. F. I'll be good!" "Fine, see that you don't," shot back Dr. F. Turning back to the view screen, Dr. F said, "Are you ready with your invention, pink-boy?" "Well, Dr. F, the robots needed time to work on it, so they asked me if I'd ask you if we could do the invention exchange after the experiment," replied Sam. Dr. F looked vexed. "But I wanted to show you ours, now! No matter. I'll just have to give you a truly vile experiment this week. Let's see." Dr. F paused, lost in thought. Frank tapped him on the shoulder. "What about 'Ice, Ice, Baby' starring that musical legend Vanilla Ice?" "No, Frank. That would be too cruel, even for evil mad scientists like us. I know. We'll send him that cinematic ''classic'' 'One Million Years B.C.' It stars Raquel Welsh in a tour-de-force as a prehistoric damsel. Rejoice, Joel. Every actor in this film has a non-speaking roll. Enjoy." The view screen abruptly went blank. Now the yellow button was flashing, a klaxon was going off, and the room was shaking. The two smaller robots came running in, yelling "Movie sign! We've got movie sign!" Sam pressed the flashing button. This time, an airlock opened. He slid into the airlock and was deposited in a darkened movie theater. He wasn't sure whether or not he had leaped until he saw the two robots, the gold one carrying the red one. The movie screen lit up with the words "One Million Years B.C." "Oh boy," said Sam. In the next exciting episode of "Quantum Science Theater 3000" Al the Observer says: "Sam, you're in your own future. Back at the project, it's August 12, 2002. It's Monday. Today's date for you is August 18, 2002. Sam, it's next Sunday." Let me know what you think... -Doug geiger@niktow.cs.canisius.edu