All April in a Day (OOC)

[Evelond Formos]

All April in a Day
Continuing the Story All Summer in a day by Ray Bradbury
Evelond Formos

Thump. Thump. Thump. On Venus, Margot looked through the glass windows at school. It was raining as hard as ever. She looked down at Earth. Very peaceful . . . too bad the moving plans had been canceled.
It had been three years since the raining had stopped. Margot felt she desperately needed the sun . . .

Earth, 23.42EST - NASA

“Preparing for launch. Ten seconds ‘til liftoff.”
“Are all the colonists on-board?”
“Affirmative.”

This was happening ten years ago.

VRHOOM! Fri-fri-fri-frrrr! The rocket was launching . . . Would it be successful? Where was it going?

…

Ten years later- Mercury

Drip. Drip. Drip. White noise. Drip. Drip . . .

Abe ignored the skipping electronic record player, looking out the small temperature-resistant windows of the classroom. He was soaked with tiny, silver liquid beads, yet it hadn’t rained for five years.
Earth and Venus were magnified to the fullest extent, using technology kept within the knowledge of the American Government.

Earth was painted with black, heavy clouds on one side, and was fogged with white, carefree light clouds on the other. It was like a little ball of blessed water, yet tainted by human hands. Venus was fluffy with enormous yellow clouds, lightning constantly playing across them.

How Abe longed for rain. He hadn’t performed any recent physical activity, yet already sweat was beading down his face.

All through his classes Abe played mental hooky; walking through a land of frozen rain. Beads paused in midair, solid as a rock. Yet the blue sun above him glowed with the intensity of a branch of lightning, turning everything in its path to ashes, and disintegrating the remains. It rang like a bell. Then again. And once more . . .

“ABE!” a voice commanded. “You have to go home now!”

The frozen blue world he was in vanished, revealing the empty classroom Abe was in.

…

Abe got in his freeze-pod. It would freeze his insides, preserving him for the night.
…

Abe blinked, looking around. Yawning, he realized he was lying down in a Space Shuttle. He appeared to be on a cot.
On the left side of the shuttle was a girl, about his age. Her hair was faded, as well as her eyes, skin, and mouth, as if she had been bleached. She was still asleep . . .
Abe felt something sharp jab into his chest. He fell fast asleep.

…

I’m in my school, Abe thought. A mental voice echoed him.

I’m in my school, Margot thought. A mental voice echoed her.

“ATTENTION STUDENTS!” a voice beat through the speakerphone. “Rain and sun seem to have become an issue, so we have moved you to PLUTO, where there is neither.”

Life went on the same, only without rain or sun, for three years.

Pluto, 13.07- October 5, 2016

Just getting out of school, Margot saw something very strange. A metal orb, completely unscratched or bumped, seemed to be slowly going straight down to the ground. It glowed like a falling moon against the black sky, with a hint of silver, making it shine with the stars. On its horizontal axis was a raised, black circle running across the side with giant screws on it. It landed, and out came . . .


. . . Nothing . . . ?!




She made her way towards it. She dared not get closer to it than 20 feet.

. . .

“Boo.”
“Gah!” Margot looked behind her. Abe was standing there, bored. His black, grizzly hair was combed oddly like President Lincoln’s.

“Look at this,” she insisted.

Daring more than Margot, Abe stepped into the orb. Suddenly, a light was on Margot, and then she was in the orb.

It was just the inside of an orb inside. No complicated buttons or switches, just an orb.

Then she walked out. And for the first time in ten years . . .

…

The door shut. Abe was trapped. Trapped with all these complicated buttons and switches . . . that’s odd. Now it is the inside of a cube.

Abe flipped one of the switches foolishly. Fire burst out in a glass tank, then subsided. Abe was oblivious to what he should do.

I think I’ve misconstrue how this . . . this Unidentified Flying Object works. Finally, after searching the “UFO”, he found a switch labeled with Tyrolzan Symbols. They translated to:

Neop Rodo

Abe hadn’t studied the second part of translating Tyrolzan symbols, so he hit the switch. The door opened. And for the first time in ten years . . .

No. It couldn’t be. Abe put his hand out. RIIIP. It wasn’t.

There, standing on the other side of the ripped sheet, was Margot. She had a withered face. Abe didn’t know it, but so did he.
He ran back to the UFO. He rubbed the “Neop Rodo” label, and it ripped to reveal “Fastfoward, 80 yrs”. Abe and Margot were ninety-two years old.

…

He walked out of the UFO. Margot’s mouth was moving, but he couldn’t hear her. It was like all her voice was a ghost.

Margot saw something Tyrolzan in the ship. She knew the second part of translating Tyrolzan, but not the first. She wrote this in her notebook, and showed it to Abe: Follow me.

He followed her. Translate these symbols, she wrote. He read them, and tried to speak. All his voice was a ghost, too. So he wrote: One switch says “Emti Enihcma” and the other says “Efli Tefel”.
Time Machine and Life left! She pulled the switch labeled “Life left” first. A holographic screen appeared. It read: Abe Lynnco: 3mins left. Margot Eli’on’I: 3 1/6 minutes left.

Noticing they had less than five minutes to live, she started at the time machine switch. She caught a piece of Abe’s hair accidentally, and put it in her pocket. She flipped the switch. A computerized voice said calmly, “Select year.”
“Two thousand sixteen!” Margot demanded, removing the ghost from her voice. Abe had ten seconds. Margot had twenty.
“Please step into Travel Chamber.”

A door opened in a glass tube. Abe: 3 seconds. Margot’s seconds to live suddenly dropped to 4. 2-3. 1-2.
Abe pushed Margot in. Abe disintegrated before her eyes . . .

Earth, 15.17EST – October 5, 2016

Margot had used part of the technology she stole from the UFO (how she did this has never been recorded) to transfer all on Pluto to Earth safely. Except Abe . . .

But… where was William?

Area 52, Earth- Connecticut, 15.27EST – October 5, 2016

The HubbleDouble7000 was screaming with the intense sound of star-hot plasma readying for launch, with steam shrouding the glass of the Nuclear Telescope. Silver beads that had fallen from the steam soaked the machine, as if it were a living creature returning from a major physical activity.
An ion beam shot out the end glass, as if cutting the jet-black skin of the night sky; painting all in its path blood red. It shadowed the full moon’s side scarlet, stretching out even farther than that. Then, all at once, the light shot back at the Telescope, the light getting dimmer, until at last it reached only a mere five-feet distance. The dome-of-a-room the HubbleDouble7000 was in produced a life-like, first person image of what the Telescope focused on, eliminating the silver wall.

“T’works!” cried the old man in a lab coat at the center of the room.

2 hours earlier

Stumbling, William made his way to the two Silver UFOs outside the school. He foolishly walked into one of them. There was a ripped Tyrolzan label next to a switch, “Emti Enihcma”. A voiced, computerized, said, “ERROR! MUST MANUALLY SELECT YEAR! MACHINE ALREADY IN USE.”

Not knowing what to do, William frantically pushed buttons. He flipped the switch.
“FUNCTION SET TO REPLACE CURRENT SUBJECT WITH SUBJECT 30 YEARS AHEAD. COMMENCING FUNCTION.” A red light filled the UFO.

William vanished.

To be continued in sequel, which will answer questions reader may have.

-----------------------------------------

So, how do you like it? I had to make it for school.