SUNGLASESS AND ROCKETS Part 2: The Machine

THERE IS NO GOOD BYE FOREVER

I breathed deeply. I turned toward the most wonderful woman I had ever known and made a brave decision.

"You go!" I told her. I freed myself from the useless gadget and took the blonde in my arms. "I'll walk through the duct!"

She shook her head and pointed to the back. I turned around. Black figures were emerging from the duct.

"On second thought..."

"We'll both go!" the blonde finished the sentence.

She took my hands. Frenziedly, I clung to the tubular extensions of the controls.

"Too much weight!" I objected.

"Hold on!"

She pushed the red buttons. I held on tight.

My arms went up, pulling my body impetuously. We lifted up, gladly proving that the jet-pack was able to carry more than one person.

Then we started to oscillate violently.

My legs were swinging from one side to the other, like two rags. We were spinning out of control. A sudden tickling in my paunch warned me that we were falling. You could see the outline of a building in one of the spins; then, some rubble disproportionately drawn by the smoke...

We should be reaching the platform.

My feet bumped against something that gave us steadiness. We stopped spinning.

"Don't let go!" I heard Vanessa exclaim.

A new tickling took over my gut. My stiffened fingers tried to tense even more. The noise increased overwhelmingly.

"Left or right?" I thought I heard. I raised my eyes. "Left or right!" Vanessa repeated dazedly.

The hatches appeared at the bottom, that is, in the upper part; they slid open. Powerful light beams emerged from open space illuminating downwards.

"The reflectors!" I warned. "Move away!"

"I'm flying backwards! Backwards!"

I stretched my neck to look sideways. The imposing black fuselage of the spaceship was a few feet away. All of a sudden, Felix went by. He was climbing up the cable, placing his boots against the rocket...

"Left or right!" Vanessa insisted. "Where to?"

I looked up. The hatchway of the rocket was getting closer.

"To the right!"

We were led off to the left with one stroke. The rocket was leaving.

"No! No!" I corrected myself. "To your left! To your left!"

A new jerk pulled us to my right and lined us up to the hatchway. Darwin showed up. No, he disappeared.

"Watch out!"

We got in. The blonde fell on her back, and in spite of everything, lucky me; I fell right on top of her.

"Thank Heavens!" the doctor's sonorous voice was heard, coming from above. "Prepare to take off!"

Everything vibrated intensely.

"Take your seats! Hurry!"

We got up at one once. I helped Vanessa to get rid of the jet-pack. Then, I lied down, half turned and extended my legs up—we had fallen over the back of the seats. I looked for the seat belts.

"Felix is missing!" Darwin's voice was heard.

Darwin!

I turned round. My friend was sticking himself out through an orifice on a hatchway flank.

"Get Felix inside!" the doctor replied instantly. "Do it now!"

"I'll go!" the blonde said.

I saw out of the corner of my eye that she was going back to the jet-pack that she had just taken off.

"I'll go!" Darwin said, laying aside in the corner.

"Get him in now!" the doctor insisted. "Come on!"

I looked toward the hatch.

"I'll get Felix!"

I pivoted over my back, grabbed the edge of my seat and pushed myself forward. I got up. I was swaying over the seatbacks toward the hatch.

"The countdown begins," the doctor announced without waiting any further. "10...9..."

I stuck half my body out of the hatch. Some pointy boots bounced over me. I fell on my back onto the back of the seats. Felix hurled himself in, and landed right on top of me, bent his knees, and, helped by my belly—which he used as a trampoline—he jumped up and grasped the back of the copilot's seat. He controlled his movements in one stroke like an acrobat and got to the top.

He accommodated himself in the seat and turned around.

"Don't forget to close!"

Oh boy!

I was lying exhausted. Without oxygen. But I managed to straighten up and threw myself to the hatchway. Aided by a pair of arms, I pulled hard. The small door shut.

"4...3..."

"Gordo!" Vanessa called me.

I tried to get back to my seat. However, I fell on my back right over the back of it.

"2...1...Go!"

I managed to grab and fasten a seatbelt. Even more, I had a chance to squeeze Vanessa's soft hand.

But she took it away at once!