Glitched

31 - Experiment

Cracks zigged, zagged, ducked and wound throughout the towns and small cities at the northern end of the Backbone Mountain. Hertz watched the Marowak silently as he paced back and forth, muttering things to Mirror who repeated them back as he jotted them down on his computer tablet. Bootstrap was particularly interested in the cracks – where they came from and what exactly they did. Hertz couldn't say he was interested. His feelings on the matter were deeply rooted in fear. Those things contaminated whatever they touched. That much was proven by every pebble, wood or other solid object the marowak tossed at them. They glided through, coming out the other end shrouded by that strange jibberish that rose into the air like steam.

But the gallade's mind was elsewhere. Focused on locating that meowstic. He was beginning to wonder if he was clutching at straws. If hunting him down was no more fruitful than tossing rocks at those anomalies. Regardless, he'd sent Sample and Mono on the hunt. How they travelled towards the rogue drifting continent was up to them. He'd tried all he could think of, even going so far as to ask a mental health patient to help him.

He mentally face-palmed at that one. That poor girl was in no state to help him. Not to mention her pokemon form was about as good at flying as he was swimming, and that was to say not very. Sure, he could swim a little, but then his body would complain and his paws would go numb, and more often than not he'd have to be rescued by a life guard.

Bootstrap's cry of surprise drew him violently out of his thoughts and he brought the marrowak and wobbuffet into focus. The pair of them seemed to be cheering.

They'd found one.

One of the black cracks that makes whatever touches it disappear.

Bootstrap rushed to his van and dragged a heavy piece of machinery back out with him. Hertz knew exactly what it was. It was a computer. The monitor was attached to one end, mounted on a detachable frame and connected to the contraption by a cable. A long, winding camera protruded from the other end on a flexible neck which was controlled by the touch screen computer.

Bootstrap wanted to see what was on the other side of those cracks, and whether or not this would work remained to be seen. They'd already seen what damage these cracks could do to their world. They either shattered things or distorted them.

The marowak removed the tablet and controlled the machine to move towards the anomaly. The camera flexed up and down until it was level with it, then inched forwards carefully. Hertz wound his paws together as he watched it with anxious eyes.

Surely, just like everything else, the machine would suffer.

The long camera reached the crack, and sure enough the neck distorted and twisted. Bootstrap swore under his breath but then his eyes widened and he grabbed the gallade by the wrist.

"Hertz! Mirror! Look at this!"

The two pokemon peered over his shoulder at the monitor. There, on the screen, was the camera's footage. Distorted, and virtually unreadable.

"It's damaged, Bootstrap," said Hertz.

"Maybe so, but it's got footage of... of... is it a world?"

"Is it our world?" Mirror asked. "It could just be what it was sending back before it entered."

Hertz was about to agree, but there was one thing missing.

"There's no cracks," he said. "It can't be our world."

Buildings stretched out as far as he could see on the monitor, and beyond that what looked like a mountain structure. It was hard to see since the whole scenery was marred by that strange code. @ signs and ampersands, exclamation and question marks, amongst other things filled the screen in neat rows, changing before their eyes so fast it was almost headache inducing.