Too Huge To Be True
Written by the Midnight Man, 2006
Preface
What happens in Gadget Hackwrench's nightly dreams? What does she dream of? And most of all: What kind of dreams is that high-performance brain of hers capable of generating?
Many a Gadgephile may have asked himself—or, in some rare cases, herself—these or similar questions.
This story tries to give some answers to them—and to the question if Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers can be crossed over with TaleSpin. The latter is a famous and highly credited cartoon not only in Real Life, but also in the Rangerverse. And an eight-hour marathon of Baloo's adventures in the skies of the past leaves its traces in Gadget's mind the night after. Not even she is immune against such influences.
The really interesting aspect about Gadget's dreams is that she sometimes creates her own little universes while dreaming. In these universes, there is more happening than she could ever observe from her point of view since she herself is never more than just a character like everyone else. These dreams of Gadget's are like a web made of separate plot lines which sooner or later start to interact. And this is what makes them so realistic. Nevertheless, it is the nature of a dream that it will hardly ever be absolutely realistic, so weird things keep occurring. Weird things such as the Rangers finding themselves in TaleSpin's seaside metropolis Cape Suzette. And although Gadget will do her best to cope with this situation, she will never have the whole plot being spun in her head under control. Especially because she sees only a fraction of it.
But to you, the reader, the following story reveals much more.
Chapter 1: I Dream Of The Cape
The TaleSpin marathon had ended just some minutes ago. Gadget was in her room, in her nightgown, and ready to go to sleep. Though she had needed some audio-visual entertainment as a distraction, and though she rarely was in such a happy mood at that time of the day, she felt like eight hours of TaleSpin had been a bit too much. That day's only case had been solved before noon, so the Rangers had taken off the afternoon and evening and spent it watching the adventures of Baloo and his famous seaplane. Plunder And Lightning had started right after lunch, and as For Whom The Bells Klang had been over, only a short timespan had separated the day from this attribute. And now Gadget caught herself gently dancing to the theme song which was still stuck in her head. Immediately, she stopped and shook her head to try and turn the music loose.
She moved over to the window and took a look outside at the park lying there in the darkness. Spring had just started to fight the old winter out of the city, but it had a hard time. She sighed and wished the Big Apple had the same wonderful climate as Cape Suzette. And again, she had to remind herself that there was no such place in reality as Cape Suzette.
'Golly,' she thought, 'I should really try to sleep and above all get this stuff off my mind now.'
Hoping that sleep will free her from Baloo and his friends, she laid down on her bed, turned to the portrait of her father on her nightstand and caressed it.
"Good night, Daddy."
It often raised sad memories in her which sometimes even made her cry and hold the picture tight as if it was Geegaw himself. But tonight she wanted it to distract her from today's distraction. She went on looking at it.
All of a sudden, Baloo appeared in the picture. He shook hands with Geegaw, put his right hand on his shoulder and raised his left thumb as if to say, "Look here, Gadget, your father was one of the greatest pilots ever."
Gadget shook her head again, took another look—Baloo had disappeared even more quickly than he had appeared—and turned around towards the wall so she couldn't see the picture anymore. But her mind went on mixing her thoughts and memories with the flying bear's world in short dream sequences. In one of them she found herself on the co-pilot's seat of an aircraft with Geegaw as the pilot. She enjoyed the flight and helped her father until she recognized that it wasn't the Screamin' Eagle. Somehow, the cockpit had grown. Instead of a canopy, it had a real roof, and instead of the back seats, it had a rear wall with a door in it. There was no propeller on the nose of the plane. And the Screamin' Eagle shouldn't emit this roaring piston engine sound. She looked to the sides and saw radial engines mounted in shoulder wings. And she recognized that she and her father were in fact on board of the Sea Duck before she woke up from her slumber.
'Now, this is gonna be a tough night. I hope it's not.'
For a while, she lay there and stared at the blank wooden wall beneath her bed. But she couldn't keep her eyelids up forever, and after a time, a deep sleep came over her.
As she opened her eyes again, her surroundings had undergone some radical changes. She was sitting in a seat in some vintage passenger airplane, and with her were her friends, the Rescue Rangers. Monterey Jack was sitting on the aisle seat next to her holding Zipper, and Chip and Dale were on the seats in front of them. The seat belts were fastened, so the plane was obviously about to touch down. The rising sun shone through Gadget's window making it hard to recognize what was outside. Nevertheless she saw that there was no sign of any city architecture. She wondered where she was.
"Crikey! Now look who's finally awake!"
Monty smiled at her and went on, "G'morning, Gadget luv!"
"Oh, good morning, Monty, good morning, Zipper!"
The two chipmunks lifted their heads over the seats, smiled and said in unison, "Good morning, Gadget!"
"Good morning, guys. Say, this question may sound stupid, but where are we?"
"Ha-haaa," Monty laughed, "we're almost there! Look, the plane's touchin' down now!"
Gadget's second glance out of her window revealed that there was nothing but water beneath the aircraft. For a moment, she held her breath. The touchdown sounded like on water, it felt like on water, but the plane did not start to sink. It was obviously constructed to float, this fact relieved her.
"Golly, this is a seaplane?"
"Fer sure! Seaplanes an' ships are the only ways ta get 'ere."
A place that can only be reached by seaplane? Before Gadget could start to think about it, the plane landed at a wooden pier, and for the first time she could see the city with its impressive skyline.
'Where have I seen this city before? And how can it be that hard to get here?'
After the engines were shut down, the doors were opened, and the Rangers got out of the plane. It was the very morning of a warm summer day, the fresh air was filled with slight smells of the sea and burnt high-octane fuel partly being blown out by the passenger seaplane whenever they were leaving town again. Gadget took a look around. Before her was a metropolis, partly built onto a steep slope which rose up to a mountain range. Behind her was a large bay surrounded by high cliffs. Could that be? Was she really in that city? Had she really been wrong when she thought this place was but a piece of fiction? It was Monty again who answered her questions.
"So, everybody—welcome ta Cape Suzette!"
