Just likebeef stew or waffles, the story begins to get good:
During the next three hours, we seemed to be driving aimlessly, taking random turns. I decided not to tell Jackson that we had made 15 left turns in a row. Marci began to daydream, and then fell asleep. Finally, as night began to fall, I cracked.
“Can you please tell us where we are going?” I snapped. Jackson didn’t say anything for a minute, then pulled into the exact same warehouse we started out in, and pulled the car in park
“I guess I should” Jackson said.
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“Eighteen years ago, I boarded a flight to visit my dad. The flight didn’t make it to its destination; The plane landed up in a parallel universe, Zone 1836 if you want to go there.
“To free our friend, we needed a way to get all three of us home. We discovered this bus in Titus’s lair, which he gave to us, and showed us how to work it.
“Ian was the original Driver, but he’s gotten too old to continue…I haven’t been in touch with him in about five years.
“Exactly how old the bus is is unknown, but we know the bus is old. It’s rusting in a variety of places, and the Magno-Gyrascope needs repairs badly. I estimate it will break if we travel to any more than seven different points in time or in any other dimension. We can drive to places okay as long as we don’t go through a wormhole to get there.
“I know we need seven things of great power to fix the bus”
“Powerful things are found in the most powerful city of each different dimension, and the most powerful of the powerful are in the dimensions where each element takes precedence.
“Lastly, I know that each powerful object is guarded by something related to the object itself. That’s why I was looking for candidates all those years ago”.
After his monologue, I once again found myself doubting Jackson’s sanity. Yet, we were still in a city that I both have never seen before and that I definitely wasn’t in five hours ago.
Jackson had started the bus again, and was pulling out of the warehouse again. Again, we made all sorts of turns without any rhyme or reason, with no definite pattern.
“If Washington, D.C., is where this ‘object of power’ is, then where is it?” I asked Jackson.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. The compass isn’t as reliable as it used to be. It used to be able to show us the route, like a GPS, but the receiver is jammed. I can only determine a route from fluctuations in power. We pick up plenty of false readings; cell phones can mess with the reading, which is the reason it’s taking so long.”
Nothing else was said, so I took to staring outside. It began to rain. Marci continued to sleep
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Heavy rain pounded the windshield.
Every turn became more and more straightforward, and we were definitely going in a set direction
Right after the sun set, we began to leave the city of Washington, D.C. We began to drive down a secluded road. There were no streetlights; the only illumination came from one flickering headlight on the bus.
Eventually, we stopped in front of a metal building. The building was a large arch, like an old airplane hangar. It seemed abandoned, and I wouldn’t have stopped for it for any reason
“This is the place” Jackson said.
