Chapter Six: Escape Attempt!

Not long after Caitlin and the other giants had left, the captives were able to get the lid of their container off just enough to climb out. Tony, Phillip, as well as Bobby and Peter had taken off their shirts and tied them together to form a rope, which Tony was using to try to retrieve the piece of gum. The gum was massive, about the size of three basketballs. The shirt on the end was tied into a lasso, and Tony was trying to hook it onto the piece of gum.

After about twenty attempts, the improvised lasso hooked onto the gum. Tony pulled on the shirts that were tied together, and the end tightened around the gum. Tony pulled with great force, and the gum came undone and shot over to where they were on the table. Tony began breaking off large chunks and lining them up on the top of the table they were standing on. After getting about twenty pieces the size of softballs, he began sticking them to the wall like rungs on a ladder. Audrey had left the lamp on the next shelf above them, so it wouldn't be too difficult to make the ascension.

Tony reached the shelf where the lamp was, and hopped up onto his feet. He approached the lamp, and picked it up. "For my second wish, I want a working flying saucer from the Prelude to Planet of the Titans comic I made before I made the Planet of the Titans graphic novel!" Instantly, there was a flying saucer on the shelf where Tony stood. It was huge by a human perspective, but to a Dakadanian girl it would have seemed like a toy.

Tony activated the gull-wing door and entered, with the lamp in his hand. The control console was shining with multi-colored blinking lights, and there were several read-out monitors and digital gauges.

"It's just like I drew it in the comic!" said Tony. It took about half an hour for Tony to figure out how to work the control console. He shut the gull-wing door, and piloted the craft up and off the shelf, then landed it on the table, and opened the gull-wing door. The other men entered the flying saucer.

"What should we do now?" Tony asked.

"We should make our escape!" said Phillip. "Use the lamp to wish for the front door of this dorm to disintegrate!"

"That won't work," said Tony.

"Why not?" Phillip asked.

"This society is extremely technologically advanced," Tony explained. "If you wished for the front door to disintegrate, it would be replaced a millisecond later by a new door identical to the first one! Don't forget, I created this world!"

"If we don't figure out how to escape from this dorm, you might die on this world, too!" said Phillip. "Do you have a plan of action?"

"I say we wait for the girls to return, then we gun the engines of this saucer and escape through the front door as they are entering!"

"Are you sure there's no other way?" Phillip asked.

"There's no other way without wasting another wish!" Tony replied.

Meanwhile, back at the arcade, Caitlin was busy winning her second captive with the disk throwing game. She was on her last disk, she had made her first two into the basket, and she twisted back and followed through, releasing the disk. It sailed cleanly into the basket, and the lights went on and the machine made noises like it had done the first time. The android came over and unlocked the cage holding the captives, and Caitlin made her choice.

"That one! He's not as cute as the first one I won, but he's cuter than the others in that cage!"

Caitlin retrieved her captive and held him up to Audrey. "Didn't we have a deal? I don't have to pay you back for the tokens if I gave you the second captive I won?"

"Yeah!" said Audrey, holding out her hand, and Caitlin gave her the second captive. Audrey went to the registration desk.

"Aunt Cindy," said Caitlin, "why don't you try to win a captive?"

"I'm not as skilled as you!" said Cindy. "It might seem easy to you, but that's because you've spent years practicing disk golf. I've only been here for a couple of months, and I'm not as good as you are."

"Uncle Phillip?" Caitlin asked, "What about you?"

"Same here," Phillip replied. "By the time I get good at disk golf, it'll be time for me to return to Thanatar!"

"Then I guess we're done here for today," said Caitlin. "when Audrey finishes registering her captive, we can leave. I'd like to come back when I have tokens of my own to spare, I had fun!"

A few minutes later, Audrey, Caitlin, Cindy, and Richard left the arcade and headed back toward Audrey and Caitlin's dormicile.

Back at the dorm, Tony had his hands above the control console. ready for takeoff as soon as the girls arrived home. When they finally did arrive, the door slid open, and Tony gunned the engines and sent the flying saucer straight out through the open doorway. The saucer headed out and up at a steep angle, then Tony straightened out the flight pattern so it was horizontal when it got some altitude.

"We did it!" said Phillip. "We're home free!"

"Not so fast!" said Tony. "As soon as they realize we've escaped, they're going to call the air patrol on us! We have to get to a nexus point that will take us back to Earth!"

"How fast can you find a nexus point?" Phillip asked.

"On the back of the Dakadania graphic novel, I created a map that showed most of the nexus point gateways that link Earth and Dakadania! I just hope we can reach the nearest nexus point before the air patrol uses a tractor beam on us! We've been implanted with subcutaneous transponders that they can track us with, no matter where we are on Dakadania!"

Back in Audrey and Caitlin's dorm, Audrey was frantically punching information into her computer. "I've given the air patrol the transponder frequencies for Tony and Phillip! Can you see now why it was so important to get them registered?"

"Yes!" Caitlin replied. "How often do escapes like this happen?"

"Almost never!" Audrey replied. "And remember, this isn't an escape, it's an escape attempt! The air patrol won't let them get away!"

"How long will it take for the air patrol to get dispatched?" Caitlin asked.

"Almost immediately!" Audrey answered.

Back in the saucer, Tony shouted to Phillip: "Do you know how to work the scanners like I taught you?"

"Yes!" Phillip replied. "We've got an air vehicle, very massive, approaching from behind! How far 'till we reach the nexus point?"

"We're not far from suicide point! People who jump off that cliff on Earth end up on Dakadania, but if we fly in the opposite direction, upwards, then we should end up back on Earth!"

"Don't they have some kind of tractor beams at the bottom of the cliff to capture the people who jump off?" Phillip asked.

"Yes!" said Tony. "That's why I'm going to have to fly super fast and then shoot up at a steep angle to go up and through the dimensional vortex!"

"Well, you'd better hurry!" said Phillip. "The vehicle on our tail is gaining on us!"

Back in Audrey and Caitlin's dorm, Cindy and Richard watched in anticipation as the air patrol vehicle closed in on Tony's flying saucer.

"I feel partially responsible!" said Audrey. "If I would've just taken that stupid lamp with us, they never would've been able to wish for that flying vehicle that allowed them to escape!"

"It's my fault too!" said Caitlin. "I left my gum on the wall and they used it to scale the wall to reach the next level of the shelf!"

The four of them watched in unison as the air patrol vehicle got closer to the flying saucer.

"They're almost close enough to engage the tractor beam!" said Audrey.

"Where are they steering to?" said Cindy. "They're flying low to the ground, and they're heading straight toward that cliff!"

The saucer banked vertically at a high rate of speed, and some tractor beams kicked in, but the saucer disappeared through the dimensional vortex before they could engage the saucer. The air patrol vehicle arced away, to avoid penetrating the vortex. Audrey, Caitlin, Cindy and Richard watched the event unfold live on Audrey's computer monitor.

"They've escaped to Earth!" said Audrey, and words confirming this appeared on the screen.

"But we can still track them, can't we?" Caitlin asked.

"Only if they return to Dakadania!" said Audrey.

"Do you think they'll ever return?" Caitlin asked.

"If they do, they'll be captured and brought back to us!" said Audrey. "If they try to have those subcutaneous transponders surgically removed, microscopic nanobots with the transponder signature will be released into their bloodstream, and if they ever end up back here, it will be like the transponders were never removed!"

The group erupted in laughter at this assurance of their victory, if and when Tony and Phillip ever returned to Dakadania.

Meanwhile, the saucer shot into the sky above Earth!

"We made it!" said Tony, as he leveled the saucer and flew horizontally. "I know of some sand dunes near Bullet Bay where we can hide the flying saucer!"

Tony flew along the coast until he arrived above the sand dunes on the outskirts of Bullet Bay, and he landed the saucer. The gull-wing door opened, and the men stepped out.

"This is where me and Phillip are from, our place is a walking distance from here." said Tony. "After all we've been through, maybe we should exchange phone numbers or something, so we can reconnect and reminisce about our experience on Dakadania!"

The men all exchanged phone numbers, but Phillip had a question. "If history remembers us as missing, wouldn't it be dangerous to try to go back to our old houses?"

"Phillip's right!" said Tony. "We can't reconnect with our wives or family at any cost! Could we stay with one of you guys?"

"You could stay with me," said Bobby. "My family owns a spread of land outside L.A. where you could land the saucer and keep it concealed."

"Then let's go there!" said Tony, and they entered the saucer again. Bobby told Tony how to get to his place, and within an hour, they landed there. The men got out and went into Bobby's house, where Bobby's wife greeted him.

"I thought you were dead!" said Bobby's wife.

"We were stranded on a world of giants!" said Bobby. "from what I know, we were the first people ever to escape from that horrible place!"

After eating dinner, the men crashed out and fell asleep. The next morning, Bobby informed Phillip and Tony that the local library was located nearby if they wanted to get out and o something.

"I even have a library card you can use!" said Bobby, handing the card to Phillip. Bobby also gave Phillip the number to his land line in case something happened. Phillip took off after breakfast and found the library where Bobby had said it was. he first thing that drew Phillip's attention was a huge map of the United States.

"The state of Remington?" Phillip asked out loud. "This has got to be some kind of a joke!" Phillip approached a librarian and asked her about the map. "Is that map some kind of a hoax?"

"No, that is an accurate map!" said the old librarian, as if she thought there was something wrong with Phillip's mind.

"If that's different, then there might be other things that are different, too!" said Phillip, to himself. Then he addressed the librarian: "Can you direct me to a book that lists all of the U.S. Presidents?"

The old woman went to a shelf and got a book, and handed it politely to Phillip. he opened it and looked through it, and when he came to where President Obama should be, there was a photo of a man who looked like Denzel Washington.

"I've got to show this to Tony!" said Phillip to himself. "We're not on our Earth, we're on some kind of alternate version of Earth from his graphic novels!"