Chapter Eight: The Plan Becomes Action

Back on Dakadania, the older girl who was going to accompany Caitlin showed up at the door. Audrey let her in.

"I'm Lacey!" said the girl, who looked to be about sixteen or seventeen years old. "Have you read the plans the council computer has come up with for how to persuade the captives to return to Dakadania?"

"I've read most of it," said Caitlin. "But I don't understand why we don't just use mind control on Tony and Phillip and call it a day!"

"We have to acquire them without alerting anyone to our presence!" said Lacey.

"But if we did it my way," said Caitlin, "we could use mind control to erase the memories of any humans we came into contact with!"

"The vehicle we will be traveling in has already journeyed ten years into the future and downloaded the entire Internet of the version of Earth we will be traveling to," said Lacey. "so the computer already knows whether we will succeed or fail. I was told that if we succeed, it will be because we utilized one of the techniques in that booklet you downloaded and printed out."

Caitlin looked at the book. "Can the computer tell us if we will succeed or not?"

"It won't tell us either way," said Lacey, "but look at it this way, would we even be going through all this trouble if it was our destiny to fail?"

Caitlin and Audrey smiled at this, and Lacey smiled back.

"We leave right now!" said Lacey.

"I wish I could go with you!" said Audrey. "Good luck, Caitlin! Restore our reputation by capturing those tiny slaves! And get that lamp back!"

Audrey walked Caitlin and Lacey outside, where there was a vehicle that resembled a motor home back on Earth. Lacey and Caitlin boarded the vehicle.

"Strap yourself in!" said Lacey as she secured her seat belt harness. Caitlin complied, and Lacey activated the control console and the vehicle headed out on a road. "We're heading to a dimensional nexus point that will lead us directly to Earth. We should be there within an hour."

"Can you explain to me what a dimensional nexus point is?" Caitlin asked. "I was never good with physics."

"Sure!" Lacey replied. "A dimensional nexus point is a point of latitude and longitude, and sometimes altitude, where a dimensional gateway exists, linking Dakadania to Earth. There are thousands of analogs of Earth, and on one or more of them, a human might be about to die. Instead, they are brought here, and back on their home world of whatever analog of Earth they're from, they are listed as missing, and they're never seen or heard from again."

"So what happens if one of them get back to Earth, like my captives did?" Caitlin asked.

"We don't know, it's never happened before." Lacey replied. "But part of our mission is to ensure that humans never find out about Dakadania!"

"When will we shrink down to human size?" Caitlin asked.

"As soon as we pass through the dimensional nexus point, this vehicle will reduce itself to human proportions, with us inside, automatically." said Lacey. "The humans will think we're one of them!"

"Can we be sure we'll head to the same version of Earth where my captives ended up?" Caitlin asked.

"Yes!" Lacey replied. "The phase initiators of our vehicle are locked onto the quantum signature of the analog of Earth where Tony and Phillip and the others are. In fact, once we're there, we'll be able to scan for their subcutaneous transponders with our equipment!"

The next morning, Tony got up and took a shower, got dresses and shaved, ate breakfast, and headed out with Bobby in Bobby's car. Tony had Bobby drop him off outside a comic studio, one of the places that was advertising in the classified section offering a job to artists. When Bobby left, Tony went in with a folder that doubled as a portfolio, full of drawings he had done the night before on Bobby's kitchen table. There were some young women about 18 through their early twenties who were waiting outside, hoping to get a glimpse of a famous artist who worked inside. Tony ignored them and went inside.

The receptionist was a woman in her mid-twenties, and not too bad looking. Tony introduced himself.

"I'm here about the penciling job that was advertised in the classified section," said Tony. The young woman smiled and asked for a sample of his work, and Tony showed her the folder with his art samples.

The woman looked the art over, and said, "These look pretty good! I'll inform the director of this studio, his name is Jacob. You can have a seat right over there." Tony sat down and waited. In less than fifteen minutes, Tony met with the director of the comic studio and was hired on the spot. He was seated at a drafting table with all of the supplies he needed, and given a script to work from. Tony got right to work, loving every minute of it.

Meanwhile, in another part of town, Caitlin and Lacey were in a motel room just waking up.

"It's a good thing you had that fake I.D. to get us this motel room!" said Caitlin.

There was a device on the table near the window that was much more technologically advanced than anything on Earth. Lacey motioned to it and said, "With that scanning device, we can pick up the transponder signatures given off by their subcutaneous transponders."

Caitlin got up to go look at the device. There was a digital map of the Los Angeles area, and there were four points of green light at different places on the map. There was also a blinking red light not far from the green lights.

"What is that red light?" Caitlin asked.

"That represents us," said Lacey. "As you can see, they're not very far from where we are. Now the surveillance team did mind scans of all four escaped captives, and analyzed the data. Tony and Phillip are from a world where the laws are radically different than they are here, and the computer says we can use that to our advantage. What plan of action did you decide to implement?"

"Why are you leaving it up to me?" Caitlin asked. "You're the one who's older, what plan do you think might work the best?"

"The computer that compiled the data said that the plan that will work, if in fact it does work, was the one you decided on. Since there are three plans, I'll rip up six pieces of paper, with plan A written on two of them, plan B on still another two, and plan C on the last two. Each of us will get once copy of each piece of paper, and we will make our choice and toss them into this hat," Lacey held a hat out. "Whichever plan you think will work the best is the one we will use."

Lacey got to work writing down the information, and ripped off six pieces of paper and gave three to Caitlin. Caitlin read briefly through the booklet that had the plans listed in it, and made her choice. She picked one of the pieces of paper and folded it, and tossed it into the hat. Lacey made her choice, and did the same. Lacey grabbed both pieces of paper and unfolded them.

"I picked choice A," said Lacey, "and it looks like you picked choice B. Do you see? If we did it my way, our plan would've failed. Hey, do you want to go get some breakfast before we start our day? There's a restaurant a walking distance from here."

"Sure!" said Caitlin, and the two of them got up to leave.

At the restaurant, the girls placed their orders and the waitress took the menus. Caitlin was puzzled.

"It's been about a minute since they took our order, and we still don't have our fiood!"

Lacey smiled. "You don't know much about Earth, do you? It's very primitive here, and they have to prepare everything by hand. It takes a lot longer."

"By hand?" Caitlin asked, with a scowl on her face. "That's disgusting! Germs could get into our food!"

"Calm down," Lacey whispered. "don't draw attention to us! We need to try to fit in!"

"Sorry!" said Caitlin. "So what's the plan for today?"

"I'm going over to the comic studio to keep an eye on Tony Oldman, your former captive."

"What will I do while you're gone?" Caitlin asked.

"When we get back to the motel, we can print out any police reports from ten years in the future that show if any criminals went missing today. If we find out about any, you can track them down and shrink them. It'll be like a fun game for you!"

"Cool!" said Caitlin.

Meanwhile, in a different part of town, Phillip was at a doctor's office trying to get his transponder removed. The doctor took an x-ray and examined it, and brought it in to Phillip as he waited with his shirt off on an examining table.

"It looks like you have arthritis in your spine," said the doctor as he pointed to some deposits on the upper spinal area, "but other than that, I can't find any evidence of a transponder."

"Well it's there!" said Phillip. "Maybe you're not looking in the right area!"

"Hey partner," said the doctor, "you haven't been seen for any psychological condition, have you?"

"No!" said Phillip. "I"m not crazy, this isn't some delusion! Somewhere on my body is a subcutaneous transponder that gives off a signal so these chicks from another world can monitor me,"

The doctor looked at Phillip in disbelief.

"I guess that does sound crazy," said Phillip. "Let's just say some James Bond shit went down, and I know I have the implant somewhere on my body, I just don't know where!"

"If it'll make you feel any better," said the doctor, "I can make an appointment for a CT scan at a better equipped facility only about ten miles from here. They can scan your entire body, and if they find this transponder you speak of, they can surgically remove it!"

"Yeah, that sounds great!" said Phillip.

Back at the restaurant, the food was served to the girls by their waitress. Lacey dug in, but Caitlin was apprehensive.

"I don't want to eat this primitive food!" said Caitlin. "These people are savages!"

"Oh, come on!" said Lacey between bites. "It'll be like camping out, it doesn't hurt to get primitive once in a while! Take a bite!"

Caitlin took a bite, swallowed, then got up and ran to the bathroom. Lacey followed her in, and patted her on the back as Caitlin vomited into a toilet.

"I guess Earth food just isn't your thing," said Lacey. "From now on you can eat food straight from the replicator in the RV!"

A short time later, Lacey and Caitlin were in the RV. Caitlin was eating a breakfast identical to that in the restaurant, but it was replicated.

"Tony won't recognize me because he has never met me before," said Lacey, "but while I'm gone, I have a list of criminals who turned up missing within the next 24 hours. Here's a shrink ray-gun, just try to intercept some of them and shrink them down to size."

Caitlin took the shrink ray-gun and set it beside her at the table. "Can I swallow any of them?"

"You can do whatever you want to them because as far as humanity is concerned, they became missing some time today. According to Dakadanian law, they're fair game!" Lacey took a device out of a container and handed it to Caitlin. "This will help you track them down."

"Were they fitted with transponders?" Caitlin asked. "How can we track them?"

"The equipment we brought with us analyzed their DNA samples after they were booked one of the many times they were arrested. The scanner sends out a dimensional link to their bodies and inputs their position on this digital map." Lacey pointed at the ma on the scanning device. "You see these red dots?"

"Yes!" Caitlin replied.

"If you follow the map on this device to these dots, you will find one of the criminals."

Caitlin took the device like a kid on Christmas morning who got their favorite toy. "Cool!" said Caitlin, licking her lips.