Nature's Beckoning (part 1)

  by:

BOBBY LANE [e-mail author]

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July 8, 1997

  It was a normal July day in La Jolla California. The sky was
blue, the grass was a krispy brown and the heat was overwhelming!
  "Geez-us!!" groaned Grunge. "It's going to be 95 degrees
tomorrow!"
  Sarah glanced up from her Times magazine to glare at the loud,
roudy team member who was now complaining about the heat. A wicked little
smile touched her lips right before a small thunder cloud planted itself
right ablve Grnges head. A tiny rumble of thunder and a twinkle of
lightning then there was a delicate tiny rain shower.
  "Hey?!" screamed Grunge as he dodged yet another not so "twinkle-ish"
flash of lightning.
  The entire summer had been kinda slow for the crew so they had
decided to spend the day at the beach. All had been quiet and peaceful
until Grunge had started complaining about how hot it was. It was bad
enough that there was no rain and a daily temp. of 95-100 degree weather.
  Lynch, Caitlin, Sarah, Bobby, and even Qeelocke watched at Grunge
danced around them dodging little lightning bolts. Roxy just glared evily
at Sarah's head.
  Jumping around, dodging the small cloud, Grunge managed to make his
way over to Sarah, and conveniently fall on top of her. Sarah sat
there, soaked, and straining to get him off of her. She seemed to
forget about the small cloud as it planted itself over the two, and
started a gentle rain on their heads. Grunge let out a simple, "Huh
huh."
  Roxy smiled and walked over to the two with a delicate grin. With a
glass of tea in hand, she stopped in front of the two. "So
Grunge...how's the weather?"
  Grunge sat there face down in between Sarah's breasts as she
still struggled to get him off of her. "Pretty good from this angle"
  Roxy played off the sexist remark, keeping her grin about her, she
held up her glass of tea and slowly tipped the side, pouring it all
over Grunge's big head. It dripped off and hit Sarah and she gave a
gasp from the sudden cold. Roxy kept her expression and walked over to
Bobby, who was reading a Rolling Stones mag, and took him by the hand,
trying to get him up off the chair. "Come on Hot Stuff, let's go do
something." She looked back over at Grunge and gave him a wicked
expression, and used a little bit of heavy gravity to help push him
back down on top of Sarah. They walked inside, and Bobby just blankly
followed, magazine still in hand.
  Caitlin was on the other side of the pool, making a point to stay
away from them so she wouldn't get soaked from the occassional drifting
cloud. Seemingly ignorant to everything around her, she drifted into a
deep sleep. Lynch glanced around at the remaining kids around the pool,
almost breaking a smile when his glance came over to Grunge and Sarah.
  "Get OFF ME!!!" Sarah said, managing to get her feet under Grunge's
stomach, catapulting him into the pool.
  "Whuh--whoa!!!!" Crashing into the water, the resulting splash
still managed to soak Caitlin, but she still sat there in a deep sleep.
  Inside, Roxy put her Garbage CD into the stereo, and cranked up
Super-Vixen, and put Tomb Raider into the Playstation. "I love this
game. I bought it last week with my allowance, and I can't get enough
of it."
  "Here's a Coke. I got it out of the fridge since you "lost" your
drink on Grunge." Bobby said handing Rox a can.
  "Thanks Bobby... can I hassle you for One teensy-eensy little
thing?" She said holding up her pinching fingers to her one opened eye
depicting her "little" symbol.
  "Sure...what?" He asked in suspence.
  "Uh... could you get me a diet Coke instead?" She said with her
big bambi eyes.
  "Oh yeah... forgot... weight watcher...Ya know Roxy...one Coke
isn't going to make you balloon or anything. Plus Diet coke tastes like
crap." Bobby said with a slightly lopsided grin.
  "Yeah, well...can't take chances ya know. How many old women do you
see with a figure like this?" She said standing up showing off her
petite figure to her friend.
  Back outside, Grunge was crawling out of the pool with a mouthful of
poolwater. He walked over to Sarah, and smiled. "What? Whaddayou want
Grunge?" Sarah said, looking over her sunglasses.
  Grunge spit the mouthfull of pool water all over her and took off
running for the beach. "Get Back here, you little PERV!!!" She said,
trying to get out of the lawn chair. Grunge was laughing and running
full speed for the water, when he dove just as the water was rushing
back out, landing face first into the sand.
  Caitlin still sat there, dreaming of some mystical island, when she
saw herself dressed similar to an Indiana Jones character...Diana Jones
rather... She saw native markings on the cave she was following. Two
people were behind her, but she couldn't make it out who it was. She
continued down the passage being careful not to set off any traps. She
came upon a rather large opening into a room lit by surrounding
torches. Just before the wall ahead stood a pedastal with a small
figurine with glowing red eyes. Yet further back, on the wall, were
three people hanging unconscious but alive. One awoke and managed to
spit out, "Help us!!! Please, before he comes back!!!" Then one of
Caitlin's companions hit a switch on the floor, and she could hear a
large blade swinging towards her direction.
  Suddenly she heard someone sream out, "KAT!!! LOOK OUT!!" Then
She woke up suddenly in a cold sweat gasping loudly, and jerking up,
causing her to fall off the side of the chair and into the pool. She
surfaced and gasped again, climbing out abruptly, she ran into the
house still soaking wet. Convinced she had a vision rather than a
dream, she ran to her computer and got on the net.
  Caitlin moved her mouse over and clicked on connect, instantly she began
searching the net for information that could lead her to her revelation. For
hours she searched furiously as the rest of the team did their own thing.
Lynch returned to the study and continued reading a book entitled " How to
Communicate To and Become a Father to Your Grown Son." After a few minutes
of reading he fell asleep in his comfortable chair. Feeling spunky Grunge
headed over to some surf babes and introduced himself and Sarah. The two
gazed upon the surf babes and oggled them as they writhed out of their
wetsuits exposing their tanned flesh covered only by tiny G-string bikinis.
Exitedly Grunge began showing off his martial arts skills to the girls, and
they laughed at how funny his Bruce Lee imitations were. He would mouth some
words out without sound then the sounds came out too late, all of them
laughed and played well into sunset....
  Bobby fell asleep watching Roxy for about the 3rd hour straight,
as drool ran down the unconcious lad's chin and landed on the magazine he
had been reading earlier, leaving a slight stain. Roxy seemed to be
transfixed by the game she was playing and she would occasionally
subconciously levitate herself and not know it. Sometimes when she would
slip off a cliff or something in the game, she'd still be levitated,
then plummet to the beanbags underneath in disgust. Fairchild saw her
strange behavior and simply giggled to her self. Kat suddenly stumbled
onto something on the net. She discovered there had been a rare discovery
of ruins in the Swiss Alps, and a certain doctor had been reported
missing, the last place he had been seen was the base camp at M.Pilato
near Lucerne. The mystery intrigued Caitlin and she decided to wake
the slumbering Mr. Lynch. He became interested and remembered
that he had an old aquaintance in that part of the world and decided
it should be checked out. The next day Lynch and the kids were
headed to Zurich Switzerland to find someone Lynch thought could help
them...
  (A map appears before you, and familiar music enters your ears as a
red dot appears and a line slowly extends from it across the country,
and over the ocean to Switzerland)
  While on board the plane, Grunge had ended up sitting by hisself
after disgusting everyone in a 5 seat radius with a sudden gasious
outburst. Roxanne Spaulding, the resident clueless kid could be heard
in the bathroom losing her lunch the "not-so-old-fashion-way". Bobby
knocked on the door saying, "Everything OK in there Roxy?"
  "Sure," she muttered then caughed up again. "Peachy." Everything was
quiet for a few seconds, and then Roxy whimpered, "Bobby? could you
please come in here?" Bobby opened the door squeezed in there with
Roxy, rubbing her back and holding her hair back when she started
coughing up again.
  Back in the cabin, Caitlin had been reading in a scrapbook of pieces
of a journal that had been recently, as in the past 20 years, discovered
from an archeologist named Samual Goldstein. The journal depicted his
days and nights in Africa. He had been the sole survivor of a downed plane.
All that was there was a lot of talk about an entrance to a palace
resembling Miyan architecture. Caitlin instinctively knew that all the
answers she was looking for rested in Africa, not Switzerland. Trusting
Lynch, she knew he must have a plan on how to proceed, but if things
didn't go fast enough for her, her impatience and pride may seperate
her from her friends.
  Sarah blankly stared out a window with a pair of headphones on her
ears. Roxy had regained a halfway decent composure and was trying to
sit in her seat again. Bobby followed and sat next to her saying, "Ya
know Rox, it's funny how someone who can control gravity with the
slightest effort gets air sick."
  Roxy looked at him with a green hue on her face and said
disgustustingly, "With this altitude, and Grunge messin' on himself,
it's no wonder I didn't throw up a lung! Shah..."
  Bobby just smiled at her and looked over at Grunge who had a huge
grin on his face and had sprawled himself out over 3 seats.
  John Lynch was in the cockpit of the small plane alongside the
pilot. Either he had been point blank when grunge "hit" or he just
preferred feeling a sense of command from his Team 7 days.
  Grunge looked to be in deep thought when Roxy got up enough stomach
to get up and sit back next to him. "Whatcha thinkin' bout Grungie?"
  Eddy Chang smiled a half smile and confided to her, "Ya know...we
might actually get to meet Xena!"
  Suddenly everyone stopped their activities and stared at the two.
Bobby popped his head over the seat and said in a playful tone,
"Uh...Grunge...I think that's like a country or two over."
  "DAMN IT!" Grunge shouted out, struggling out of his seat belt and
going to the back of the plane.
  "Hmm... maybe we should take a detour on the way back to go see
them filming Xena... I mean, ya know Grunge has had a crush on her for
a LONG time now ya know..." Bobby said to Rox.
  "I don't know... next thing ya know, he'll be asking me to put on
leather and metal clothes and carry around a sword...you know how he
is, right?" She said still wrapping her arms around her stomach.
  Caitlin looked up only briefly to hear Grunge's outburst. A slight
smile came over her as she looked back the scrapbook. She came across
several photos of the entrance to the temple, and tried to record all
the details to memory. She came to the last one and noticed something
slightly off. Something didn't look right... But she couldn't quite get
it... Then it hit her like a bomb! She cross examined all the photos
and noticed that there was something like a sundial on the top of the
entrance. In some pictures it was there, and others it wasn't. But the
ones it was on there, the clock read approximatly 2:00PM. Caitlin
pulled out a small notepad and recorded this. shortly after looking at
these photos, she turned the page, and came across the obituary of Sam
Goldstein. She was shocked. All this time, she had thought of how
wonderful it would be to talk to this man...and now that was shattered.
She started to look through the book again, when she noticed that
inside the cover of the thick bound book, the paper looked as though it
had been pulled back and reglued. She ran her fingers along the rough
fix job, and felt something like a crevice. She pulled back the paper,
and found a small medalion. It looked to be centuries old...at least
from first glance. She quickly removed it and put it in her pocket. She
felt guilty upon doing this...but something tugged at her soul to do it
and somehow she felt it would pay off.
  When they landed, they were forced to stay in tents for lack of
civilization. Then were to meet this mystery man Lynch talked about
sometime today, but John Lynch barely said a word. Roxy and Grunge were
playing "pick a hand win a prize", and Bobby and Sarah were sitting
together talking. Caitlin kept her hand in her pocket running her
fingers over the medallion.
  Nearly two hours later, Lynch stood up, saying, "Ok people, pack up
your gear, and clean up your trash." The freezing kids did as they were
told feeling a little stupid for pitching up tent, and then closing it
down in a few hours. They didn't have enough time to make trash, and
quickly complied to they're mentor's wishes. He said, follow me kids.
Lynch walked about 20 feet into a large clearing, and looked at his
watch. A helicopter dropped down and picked up the kids and took them
on a no questions asked 30 minute ride. They set back down in another
clearing, and dropped the team off, and dissappeared again. A man came
out from behind the bushes and walked over to Lynch shaking his hand.
The man didn't say a word to the kids, but donned the jacket, whip and
fedora Caitlin had seen in her dream. Something is not right here...
she thought to herself, but dismissed it just as quickly.
  After hiking two miles, Fairchild still kept running the thoughts
of the African temple through her mind. She pulled out a rough sketch of
it she had drawn on the plane and glanced at it briefly and placed it back
in her breast pocket. The the myserty man appeared behind her and whispered,
"It's not in Africa child. It's right here."
  Caitlin looked up suddenly as a shiver ran down her spine, "You're a
  telepath?"
  "Hardly. It doesn't take a genious to know what's going through your
head. For example, lets take a look at that fancy picture you have." he
pointed to her pocket. Caitlin reluctantly pulled it out and listened
to the man explain that the marking definatly are from African descendents
because of the particular shapes and interpretation of the markings, but
were from a certain group that were banned from Ancient Africa for crimes
against the continent. Still Kat was unconvinced.
  "I know what you are thinking, but you are blocking out the obvious.
Take a look around." he pointed out.
  Caitlin looked up and instead of seeing mountains of snow and ice,
she saw that she was in the middle of a huge jungle, and before her sat
the opening to the huge temple she had seen before. It was larger than
she had ever expected, and she looked up until she saw the tip of the
entrance catching theedge of the sun above. Even the temperature had
risen nearly 60 degrees, and tropical birds could be heard overhead.
  Bobby looked at the temple with a smile of disbelief."Whoa...this
isn't supposed to be here...is it?"
  Lynch said his familiar words again, "Set up camp. We're staying
here for the night."
  After nearly an hour of setting up camp, everyone had relaxed for
the evening, and Caitlin sat over next to Sarah and handed her something
to drink. "Ya know," pondered Sarah. "This is some adventure you're
getting us into here Kat." Caitlin looked caustiously over at Sarah
ready for another one of her lectures on how she should leave well enough
alone. To everone surprise, instead of a lecture Sarah threw her arms around
Kat. "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you,..." she cried. Unprepared for it,
Caitlin tumbled back with Sarah on top of her with her arms wrapped around
her. Everyone just stared at the two and exchange wary glances.
  Kat, who was now turning a delightful shade of crimson with
embarassment, laughed the whole thing off.
  "Gosh Sarah, were you that bored. I mean, I thought you and Grunge were
having a ball together." she teased. Sarah glared in the general direction
of the source of her misery. Grunge was happily glancing threw a 'Playboy'
magazine he had brought along for the journey.
  "Hardly." she muttered. Kat just laughed and shook her head. After a
while, Caitlin wandered into her tent and dozed off.
  Bobby sat over next to Sarah and remarked to her, "Ya know, after
all that's gone on between the two of us...we kinda lost that closeness
we used to have. I mean...I love you, you know that, and I want us to
be close again...I know we might not be able to but..." Before he could finish, she moved and sat right next to him and
rested her head on his shoulder.
  "Bobby, I know how you feel...but I just don't want something like
that in my life right now. You're my friend, right? Please try to
understand. I think of you more as a brother than anything else...but
sometimes you just get under my skin. I know sometimes I can be a
bitch...", she began, "but I have dealt with guys hitting on me all my life,
and they are all alike. I know we have shared some times, but that is in
the past. Live with is." She giggled.
  "Without even a response. Bobby got up on his feet, and silently
stampered off into his tent, and zipped it up behind him.
  "Hold on a minute..." Roxy stopped Grunge. She walked over to Sarah and
stared at her with a cold glare. "What did you say to him, Sarah?"
  "I just told him not to fall for me. It's not gonna happen, and he just
took it personal I guess." She said matter-of-factly.
  "Sarah... do you ever think of anyone but yourself?" Roxy snapped back.
  "Listen here, little girl. I have a right to live my own life however
I wanna live it, and if I choose to be lesbian, that's my own decision. Who
knows...maybe you are lesbian too, and don't even know it yet." Sarah said
with seductive eyes, just to piss off her younger housemate.
  Roxanne just stood there with her mouth open for a minute, trying to
come up with a comeback, but felt too hurt to say anything anywhere close
to a comeback. She simply growled lightly to her self and went over to
Bobby's tent and asked if she could come in.
  Sarah caught herself on her conscience, and almost went to apologize,
but stopped just short of it, and put her headphones on instead.
  "Hey John...There's something I want you to take a look at. It's
something I think you could really appreciate." John Lynch got up from his
place by the fire and followed his old friend into the woods.
  Nearly a half an hour later, most of the team was asleep, and their
mentor wasn't back yet. Caitlin was awakened by Roxanne's sudden yelling,
"Hey!!! let go of me!!!" When she looked around, everyone was gone except
Grunge who was still asleep. She woke up Grunge, shaking him hard to get
him out of his trance.
  "Grunge!!! Get up!!! Everyone's gone!!!" Grunge managed to get up,
suddenly being pulled by Caitlin to God knows where. They made their way
through the jungle towards the general direction where they had heard the
Roxy's cries for help. Coming to a fast moving steam, they decided to
cross it, thinking their they might find some kind of clue as to where
their team mates had been dragged off to. Wading out into the stream,
the current was almost too much for them to handle. Coming three feet
up their bodies, they struggled to get accross, but suddenly Grunge was
swept away. Kat Jumped head first into the freezing water after him.
Both of their heads surfaced, and the water was moving faster and was
getting louder.
  Suddenly it all began to subconsciously click inside her head.
Fast water...rapids...getting louder... WATERFALL!!! "Grunge!!! Grab
on to something!!!!" He was underwater when she said it, but it seems
he must have heard her. He did everything he could to grab hold of
something but couldn't do anything. Next thing Kat saw was Grunge's
Grunge's head surface just as he went over the edge. He started to scream
but it was cut off by the sound of the falls.
"Grunge,...no." She stared disbeliveingly at the cruel falls. A sob
racked her body causing her to involuntarly grip the rock tighter than
necessary. The rock began to crumble beneath her grip. "Ho sh--!" Suddenly
she lost her footing as well. She was the instantly taken up by the
current and swept over the waterfalls as well.
  Frozen in fear, Caitlin tried to scream, but it only came
out as a yelp. She tried to control her descent, and possibly land
halfway decently into the water, but fear gripped her, and she
splashed down right on her butt. Surfacing, she gasped for air,
choking on the water she inhaled. She managed to swim to shore and
curled up into a tiny ball and began crying her eyes out. She started
rocking forward and back clenching her knees together close to her
body completely shattered in tears. All she could think about was
how she had some stupid idea about a "lost world" and she has
managed to get all of her friends killed. She looked at the water,
wondering if Grunge's body had already been swept out to sea, or if he
sunk to the bottom.
  Just as she was about to give up and go back to the camp,
she looked instinctivly out to the water one last time, and saw a
column of water rising up out of the lake. Reminding her of the TLC
video "waterfalls", she looked in amazement as it started to take
human shape. Suddenly, it started getting darker, and Caitlin
realized it was Grunge. He solidified, and immediatly screamed out,
"WHOAH!!!" And came crashing back into the water. He swam to shore
and Caitlin ran up to him hugging him and crying on his shoulder.
Not being much of a gentleman, Grunge took advantage of this little
sympathetic scene, and started rubbing his hands all over her back,
occassionally rubbing lower to her butt, and copping a nice cheek.
  Kat stopped crying immediatly and growled in a straight voice,
"Grunge...if you don't get your hand off my butt, I swear I am going
to make you sorry you dragged your sorry behind out of there." Almost
simultaniously to her last syllable, his hands lifted off her, and
he stepped back. "What happened to you Grunge?" Kat asked in almost
disbelief.
  "Well...when I slipped and fell... or whatever you wanna call
it... I managed to fall into the waterfall, and instinctivly bonded
with the falls. Bitchin' huh?" He let out with a straight out Thumbs
up.
  "Yeah...I thought I had lost you for a second there..."
  "Don't fret babeness...let's go get the guys!" Grunge said
with a huge smile.
  After an hour, easy, they managed to get to the top of the ledge
from that waterfall drop off. They eventually made it back to the camp
and sat down exhausted. They huddled around the fire when Caitlin thought
out loud, "Uh... who made the fire?"
  "I did." Their mentor made his way out of the bushes with a few
scratches, and twin pistols in hands. "After all of you kids dissappeared,
I went lookin for ya. What about Roxy, Sarah and Robert? They aren't
with you two?"
  "Nuh" said Grunge with a blank look on his face. He composed
himself and asked Lynch, "What'dya fight?"
  Lynch looked down at the scratches all over his arms and said
with a VERY slight grin, "Wrestled a bear."
  Grunges eyes got as big as saucers as he stared in awe of their
sensei. "Cool." he breathed.
  We should wait for first light to try to do anything. I suggest
we all sleep in one tent tonight. I'm not losin' another one of you
tonight. Maybe tommorrow... but not tonight." He said as his final words
and headed into the tent.
  "I'm hungry." Grunge blurted out, not giving any regard to his
missing friends.
  Caitlin simply sighed and headed into the tent behind Lynch.
Much to her surprised, she slept like a rock. Plagued by dreams of her
friends, she had the same dream again... she was dressed like Indiana
Jones, and was avoiding traps in a cave before coming to a huge room.
Three people tied to the wall, with a pedastel holding some artifact.
Someone trips a switch... "LOOKOUT CAITLIN!!!!!" And she awoke in a
cold sweat again...
  "Oh good, you're awake. It's 6:00. We need to get going." Lynch
said to the groggy teen girl. Grunge was still sprawled out, snoring
loudly as Lynch walked over to him and started to empty his canteen out
over the boys face.
  "AggBrag!!" He yelped out waking up suddenly.
  "Ya see Caitlin. That's how ya wake up someone."
  They took an hour getting completely ready. They talked like friends,
Even with Lynch. They had breakfast, and tried not to think too much about
what could have happened to their friends. Caitlin confided into her leader
that they need to find a way to get into the temple, and that there is the
only place that they are going to find their friends.
  Caitlin rememberred the sundial that read two o'clock from the scrap-
book and began looking around the face of the entrance for something that
might help them. She came to an indentation with markings pressed inward
rather than outward like on the other side. She remembered the markings,
and reached into her pocket and pulled out the medallion she had swiped
from the book and pressed it into the marking. It easily sank in and dust
started to pour off the roof of the large opening. A small sundial opened
up and caught the sun in a jewel on top of the circle. "We need to wait
until two o'clock before we can go in there...
  "I know." replied Lynch. I'm glad you found the medallion... I had
forgotten where I put it.
  "YOU put it?!" she blurted out.
  "You have a lot to learn about this old man." He half smiled to her.
  They all sat around until abour 1:50 when the sun started to catch a
certain angle in the jewel. A sudden beam of light shot out of one of the
huge eyes above the jaw like entrance. The beam shot deep into the jungle,
and almost immediatly, a second beam shot out of the jungle and struck the
other eye. The huge jaw opened up, and dust smoked out of the gate. They
proceded in, and didn't come 5 feet when they came upon the body of Lynch's
friend. "My God...He was showing me a backdoor into the temple, but I left
him to get it open when I heard Roxanne's scream."
  "Hhhuch...John....I....couldn't.....They're....in trouble....I'm
sorry..." He reached out his hand to Caitlin, and she came over to him and
took his hand. "I want you to have these...you're....you're more an
adventurer than me...", Caitlin stared at the dying mans last
gift...probably his only possessions.
  "But,..I don't,.." she started.
  "Its in your heart..." he interupted "Always follow it...And you'll
never go wrong." He held up his folded jacket with whip and hat lying
on top to Caitlin, and she reached for them. He smiled at her with
loving eyes, and tears streamed down both sides of his face as he died.
His eyes still open and staring.
  Caitlin smiled at him, and reached up and closed his eyes. a tear fell
down her cheek as she stood up, put on the jacket, placed the hat on her
head, and attached the whip to her belt. "Let's go find out Friends."


End Part 1.

Writers:
Uki
Burnout
Forecast
Bliss

(c)opyright 1997 Do not make any changes without the express written consent
of the Gen13 Mailing List.

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