Small Invasions
Teller hid under the table crying, Penn fainted and everyone else was nowhere to be found. Sketch took off after the spider. The spider cut a corner and disappeared. Shortly after a crash could be heard coming from the direction Sketch had gone. Teller crawled out from under the table, knocking one of the cold water pitchers onto Penn, and went towards the scream.
Two-thirds of the way down the corridor, Sketch appeared to be in shock. Her eyes were unfocused, staring blindly at an open vent on the other side of the room. A large robotic apparatus had fallen and was crumpled in a pile on the floor.
There was a note laying on the metallic heap. Penn picked it up. "All your base belong to us." Penn muttered. "Nah, just kidding. It says 'Tag, you're it!'" Penn rolled his eyes. "Now, does this mean I'm it or what?"
Sketch figured it was another prank played by Lurch. Later that night, Sketch awoke. She looked up to see a face hovering inches above hers. The face turned into an expression of surprise. Sketch moved away from the face and tumbled out of bed. Nuzz climbed onto the bed and looked down at Sketch. He seemed apologetic as he reached down and pulled her up from the floor. "Don't do that. You almost gave me a heart attack." Sketch held her chest and waited for her pulse to slow. Ben was there waiting for her to tell what happened.
Sketch looked innocently at Ben. "Well, first, before I tell you anything, give me back my spider that you're wearing in your hair." At this Ben freaked out, running out of the room screaming. He came back in, rather annoyed. "You were saying?"
Sketch took a breath. "Well, I was chasing my spider and it ran into the empty storage room. I followed it in and just as I got my hands around it, the vent banged open. I turned to see who it was and. . ." Suddenly, there was a clap of thunder and the lights went out. Lightning briefly illuminated the room and revealed looks of near terror on everyone's faces.
". . .and then, I had the spider, right?" Sketch continues. "But when I turned to see no one standing anywhere near the place, the spider ran off again and that pile of metal had crashed down from the vent and scared me to death, missing my poor baby by a few inches!"
Isotophes glared at Lurch. "You're such a spider abuser!"
Breaker searched and secured the compound. If there had been anyone else there, he would have found them. Chocking it up to a prank played by Lurch and Lurch neither admitted or denied it.
As the night was getting on, there was an unnerving dead silence outside. The storm clouds hung overhead like a heavy blanket, shielding the unknown. Penn and Teller were given quarters to sleep in and two camping cots. They didn't want to sleep out in their tour bus, but they weren't too crazy about falling asleep with a deranged spider on the loose, either. Penn spoke quietly to Teller.
"We run out of gas, end up in Hell's Basin, get our weapons confiscated, aliens are hovering overhead, mad scientists are probably going to offer us up as some sacrificial abducted experiment, that spider's had time to make a million more spiders and there's probably someone else here, who obviously has no security clearance and why do those other three guys hang out in the downstairs area, building whatever they got down there and not letting anyone play with it." Penn said while listing off all the things that ran through his mind.
Teller looked up through the skylights and softly spoke. "So? What's the problem?"
"I just want to know what we're up against. Don't you just love show business?" Penn answered back. Teller smiled in agreement.
"Next time you don't need to pour a whole pitcher of ice cold water on me, if I faint again," Penn whispered over. "Lukewarm water or no water at all would be much better, if you wanna live through this," Penn stated, then fell asleep.
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