Expected And Unexpected Arrivals
The few sources of energy they could get in Hell's Basin were a massive set of tanks, tapped underground pressure for temperature control. For the small electrical grid they secretly ran off the main power sources from the lone airport. The airport was a good cover, since no one in the power company knew that it had been empty for over five years and it never used the lights anymore. It hadn't used enough power to be a priority for check-ups of where the power was actually going. It was re-routed in a way that the outsourced power seemed to fall off into a black hole. They even used the airport's radar equipment whenever the mood struck them. The tanks needed new valves and checked overall but it was all functioning very nicely.
The sun was setting and the clouded skies shaded the base in the shadow of dusk. Dr. George's niece had arrived. She wasn't quite alone. Her entourage included her friend, Ben, her pet tarantula, her distant cousin who was referred to as Mole, and a rather impressive computer system that was being hauled in a 1977 Chevrolet van.
"Where do we set up?" Sketch asked casually as she hopped out of the van looking for her uncle to come out to greet her.
"Oh my god! We have visitors!" Dr. George gasped. He quickly gathered everyone together to give instructions.
"On your best behavior, be kind, and nice, and no funny shit!" as he pointed directly at Lurch.
"Aye, aye sir, captain, your royal flippin' highness." Lurch retorted and muttered as Dr. George went out to greet his new guests.
Ben smiled as he hauled out of the back of the van a small satellite dish with all the numbers scraped off of it and a barely distinguishable IBM logo on the side.
The van had been properly unloaded and hidden out of sight in another built-in burrow nearby. Ben helped Sketch set up all their equipment as they talked quietly to one another.
"There's a storm on the way," Isotophes told them as she walked by with a supply of dry-meals for the mess hall.
Ben paused. He started speaking in a dry tone. "We'll be stuck out here, have to survive on mere instinct, someone could end up backed into a corner and have to fight their way out, or even worse."
"That is the plan," Isotophes said with the same tone.
A few moments later Isotophes walked by them again carrying the same crate.
"There's a storm on the way," she said absently, going into the same room she had just emerged from only moments ago.
"Deja vu?" Ben asked Sketch.
"Is this bad, or inconvenient?" Sketch asked Ben.
"Wouldn't either be both?" Ben asked back.
The expected team made contact with Dr. George and to everyone's surprise he announced that the team that would be meeting them will have two other people with them. As Dr. George explained that they had to allow themselves to be followed by a NASA bus with two guys on board as they were critically out of gas and needed to hunker down somewhere for the night. They weren't sure how this happened but from the sounds of it, Penn and Teller were on the same road and needed to get gas. They waved to them to pull over, and in a move of sheer bravery despite their paranoia, they did, so they might ask about the bus and if they were from NASA. When it was explained that they were not from the government and that it was just some old tour bus from NASA, they figured it was better to allow them to come along with them rather than risk them talking to anyone on their travels about any strangers that were driving an unmarked van.
Upon first sight of Hell's Basin and the secret base, it looked like a structure of fiber-glass and rusted steel before it was apparent that the materials used were of actual rock and desert.
Monday's van was hidden with the other party's van and the bus would have to be parked somewhere else later on. There were now eleven people at the base in Hell's Basin and a very large pet spider which half of the people there knew nothing about.
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