Dr. George was in the bathroom. His newspaper was spread across his lap as he read the sports section. "Finally, some quality time. I needed a break from those nuts. The Phillies are winning, good, good, I hate those Dallas Cowboys." Mole was exploring the vents. He had a good reason for roaming the vents. There was someone in the vents, he knew that, but the vent system was their best bet when it all came down. He wanted to know those vents top to bottom. He heard the grinding sound of metal far overhead and knew that it had begun.
Igor was outside reestablishing what she already knew. There was some space in the compound that was unaccounted for. Not just a broom closet either but a vast amount of space. This was not good. She looked around at the bare landscape outside. They were isolated. Sure, it was good for research purposes, but in an emergency, it would be the worst possible situation. She looked at the stormy sky. She saw a bright red flash in the sky coming from the cloud. The cloud dissipated to reveal a huge ship, then the cloud thickened over it again, hiding all traces of the ship.
A high-pitched whine that only she heard caused the radio signals on Sketch's computer to start recording all incoming data from the cloud. The wind picked up and Igor clasped her hands to her ears and fell to her knees. Penn turned in time to see Lurch back against the computer panel in surprise, the blue flash of light and the disappearance of Lurch. He dropped his apple. He suddenly let out an ear-piercing, girlish scream. The apple rolled across the floor and hit the wall.
Sketch and Teller were the first to respond to the screams. Sketch bolted in the direction of the sound and Teller ran in the opposite direction. After a few steps he turned, mustered his courage, drew himself up tall and followed Sketch. When they got there, Mole was just climbing out of the vent. Sketch and Teller drew up behind Penn just in time to catch him as he collapsed in fear, trying to avoid stepping on the spider that had just slipped through another vent. They tried to calm Penn down long enough for him to tell them what happened.
Dr. George was in the bathroom when he heard the scream. He finished his business, pulled up his pants and flushed the toilet. He ran out of the bathroom without even bothering to wash his hands. He nearly collided with Igor, who was also running towards the shrieks of horror. They entered the room from one side as Ben entered from the other. He had a dozen wires in his hand and a screwdriver in the other.
"What happened?" Ben asked.
"We're waiting for Fester to tell us."
"What happened Fester? Where's Lurch?" Dr. George asked, shaking Penn roughly.
"He-he's g-gone," Penn stammered.
"What do you mean...gone?" Igor said, while getting close to Penn's face to look at his eyes. He was still focusing. Igor breathed a sigh of relief.
"I-I'll try to explain what happened, but you won't like this." Penn cleared his throat.
"I'm not a goddamned scientist, I'm a magician, so when someone disappears for no apparent reason, I'd have to say that it was an alien abduction," Penn said in a calm, yet sarcastic tone. His statement was directed more at Dr. George than Igor. A fraction of a second passed before Igor, Sketch, Ben and Dr. George ran out of the room and headed for the main room where the central computer, equipment and telescope were located. Without any question the others also followed. Penn and Teller were running right behind Mole.
"Fuck! This wasn't supposed to happen until later on, tonight!" Igor said as she lined up the telescope with the sky-view window. Sketch was soon behind her monitors and Ben, with Dr. George, were typing on their keyboards as fast as they could. Penn, Teller and Mole sat at the table nearby, looking exhausted. "Most planets rotate in a prograde motion, so we're going to target its linear movement at a 6.0 range that should cover the mean distance." Igor said as she gave Sketch a thumbs up.
"I'm tracking at a 90 degree angle. If we overload the radiation level in that thing, we'll be reading only about twelve feet into the air. Giving plenty of room for error in determining the distance," Sketch said as she handed Igor a clipboard with graphs attached.
"Dr. G, you'd best give me what kind of radio signals we're getting from this thing," Igor cued the doctor as she adjusted her lenses.
"We're only getting two right now, 3000 megahertz and 130 gigahertz."
"Shit! We're not staying invisible for long if NASA's getting this!" Sketch pointed out.
"I can reset the previous radians, we should get at least 40-45 degrees," Ben said.
"No, you'd still have to go outside the compound," Igor answered as she got the ship within range. "There she is...come on, baby, you can do it, we're not here, good, calm, unsuspecting pilot...yes..."
Penn and Teller were now standing with Igor and Sketch at the telescope. They wanted to see. "You'll only see something like an infra-red image," Igor said. They saw the ship as it just sat there, as if mocking them.
Penn took a second look, and then looked back to the others. "Ah...you got a little more than one ship out there."
"There's a mother ship out there, but don't worry we're not tracking it," Igor said. "Just the little one." Outside, a gust of wind jarred a solar panel loose, making it fall from its stand. "You two still armed?" Sketch asked the boys. Penn and Teller opened their jackets slightly to reveal that they were indeed packing. Sketch smiled in amusement.
Igor muttered to herself, “What? No flame throwers?” They continued to track and record the phenomena. Sketch’s spider ran across the telescope lens, startling Igor. Sketch looked at it and let it proceed to scare Penn and Teller away. Teller looked at Igor, who pretended not to notice, but was freaking out.
Igor turns and gives Teller her full, undivided attention. "Alright," she sighs. "Don't panic, here's how it goes, this place is designed to be invisible, even to satellites, unless you know what you're looking for. We're tracking these sometimes reoccurring phenomena known as the Reversing Magnetic Spiral Storms, and the only theory NASA could come up with was some weak, age-old myth about pink elephants, rouge moon dust or some bullshit like that. This ship is one of the smaller craft; we’ve got the situation under control. It took me awhile, (she turns to Sketch) but I know what that extra, unaccounted space is for...we're stealing a goddamned spaceship." With that Igor goes about her work.
"Fucking A." Sketch smiled.
"Might I add that, this may be a re-designed one from area 51, so don't get your hopes up," Dr. George stated. Penn and Teller sat back down and tried to calm their nerves. Just then, SpewHari climbed out of an air vent and jumped to the floor.
"Yeah, from area 51. I don't think they'll have aliens," she said casually. Ben, Sketch, Igor, and Mole were staring in mingled intrigue. Teller waved in a small ‘hi’ gesture. Penn looked at Teller with a slightly confused twitch. The spider crawled up the wall and into the vent that SpewHari had just exited from.
Just as the obvious questions were about to be asked, Lurch walked in, looking like he had been for a twelve mile run. He was out of breath and seemed as if he'd seen a ghost. The others helped him into a chair as Sketch gave him a glass of water. "What happened to you?" she asked.
"I got stuck out on the roof. It's a bitch to get down off of, but you all can just relax. I wasn't abducted. I was never on some UFO and there were no green slimy things," Lurch said dryly.
Ben came up to Lurch and looked him over, as if making a silent judgment. "You may have been abducted and had your brain washed, causing memory loss and particles causing delusion. Please go to the lab so we can test you for radiation," Ben said in a very soft, yet informative, tone. Lurch advanced to hurt Ben but the others stopped him. Ben and Lurch began to laugh. "Hey, glad to have you back, buddy!" Ben said, laughing.
The crew went back to their posts while Lurch stayed with Penn, Teller, and SpewHari. "So you aren't cloned or anything, are you?" Penn asked Lurch.
"I don't know what happened, I don't fully understand, BUT I wasn’t abducted."
"Well, I actually saw you disappear."
"And if you're really a magician, you'd know that light can be bent to make something disappear."
"Yeah, we're magicians, NOT advanced alien life that has the technology to bend freakin' light!" Penn remarked sharply.
"Alright, we've lost the target; I think it's gone further up into the atmosphere," Igor informed the group.
"Alright cut off the beam," Dr. George instructed.
"Why cut off the beam? We could lose it; it's not maintaining as it is," Sketch said.
"Why are we cutting off the beam? What is the reason?" Igor demanded.
Dr. George walked over to Igor so he wouldn’t have to yell across the room. "Igor, sweetheart, look you know what happened last time, when the radiation beam was pointed at the dead center of the spacecraft. It caused intense, reflecting factors that killed the others in our team."
"It was their idea; they threw on the panic button and they killed themselves! I warned them about using the beam as a weapon!"
Everyone filed towards the table and sat down. Penn and Teller were straining to hear the conversation as they spoke of the radiation beam. "So the last crew panicked and pointed a radiation beam at a UFO and blew everyone up?" Penn asked in a “just wondering” kind of way.
"Basically," Dr. George answered.