Once on land, the last surviving members of the crew, including my own, all gathered together as Dr. Sweet lit up a candle, placed it on a helmet, and let it drift away into the water while Rourke said a prayer.
"Seven hours ago, we started this expedition with two hundred of the finest men and women I've ever known. We're all that's left. I won't sugar-coat it, ladies and gentlemen. We have a crisis in our hands. But we've been up this particular creek before and we've always come through, paddle or no paddle. I see no reason to change that policy now. From here on in, everyone pulls double duty. Everyone drives, everyone works."
Then he turned to Milo. "Looks like all our chances for survival rest with you, Mr. Thatch. You and that little book."
He then turned to us. "Okay, people. Saddle up."
We all hurried to our respective vehicles while Milo toyed around with a bicycle horn that was attached to one of the trucks until Rourke ripped it away with his bare hand.
"Are you sure you're checked out on this class of vehicle?" he asked.
Milo looked at him, confused. "Uhh..."
"Can you drive a truck?" Rourke said, being more specific.
Milo let out a small chuckle. "Of course I can drive a truck. I mean, sure, you got your steering and your gas and your brake and, of course, this metal, uh, looking...thing."
Rourke raised his eyebrows.
"OK, so it was a bumper car at Coney Island," said Milo. "But it's the same basic principle."
Rourke sighed as Milo tried to drive the truck. Unfortunately, he was causing a traffic jam. So he had to ride with my group on the WABAC as we continued our search to Atlantis, unaware of what lies in front of us.
We ventured through the Atlantean highway for quite some time until we came to a fork in the road.
Milo looked through the Shepard's Journal and then pointed left.
Unfortunately, that way lead to the home of a monstrous bug.
Upon reading the journal some more, Milo realized his error and pointed to the right way, much to the crew's annoyance.
We stopped by a nearby river to gather the water we need for our journey.
As Milo jugged his water down, Vinny walked up to him.
"You didn't just drink that, did you?" he asked.
Milo nodded his head yes.
"That's not good. That's nitroglycerin." said Vinny. "Don't move. Eh, don't breathe. Don't do anything, except pray, maybe."
Just then, a loud voice shouted out, "BOOM!"
Milo realized that Moliere and Vinny were only playing a trick on him.
We resumed our journey until one day, we found ourselves in front of a humongous pillar.
"Good night! Will you look at the size of this!" said Milo. "It's gotta be half a mile high at least! It must have taken hundred...no, pfft, thousands of years to carve this thing."
Having ringed the pillar with dynamite, Vinny dragged Milo out the way and pushed down the plunger. The impact from the explosion caused the pillar to collapse.
"Hey, look, I made a bridge." he said. "It only took me, like, what...ten seconds, eleven tops."
So we rolled along, unaware that we were being watched.
After we went past a frozen tundra of a tunnel, we then found ourselves in front of a huge wall.
"Looks like we have another roadblock." I said.
"Vinny, what do you think?" asked Rourke.
"I could unroadblock that if I had about two hundred of these," said Vinny, holding up his stick of dynamite. "Problem is I only got about...ten. Plus, you know, five of my own...and a couple of cherry bombs...a road flare. Hey, too bad we don't have some nitroglycerin, eh, Milo?"
Again, Sherman laughed and then said, "I don't get it."
I, on the other hand, felt jealous around Vinny's jokes.
"Looks like we're gonna have to dig." said Rourke.
That was all Moliere wanted to hear.
"It will be my pleasure!" he said, giving Rourke a thumbs up.
Moliere started up the Digger and prepared to drill his way through the wall, but just then, the Digger went haywire and stopped working.
Audrey was called to look over the situation.
"I don't understand it. I just tuned this thing up this morning." she said as she looked inside the back of the engine before concluding, "It looks like the rotor's shot! I'm gonna have to pull a spare from one of the trucks."
"Can l..." Milo began before Audrey interuppted him, saying. "No toques nada! I'll be right back."
"Was that English?" asked Penny.
"Si, señorita Peterson." I said. "No toques nada means..."
Before I could finish, however, the Digger unexpectedly roared back to life. Apparently, Milo must've fixed it.
"Don't touch." I concluded.
"Hey, what'd you do?" asked Audrey.
"Well, you know, the boiler in this baby is a Humac model P54/813. Now we got the 814 back at the museum." explained Milo, trying to act suave towards Audrey. "The heating cores on the whole Humac line have always been a little, you know, temperamental. So sometimes you gotta...boom! Persuade 'em a little."
"Yeah, yeah, thank you very much." said an unimpressed Audrey as she closed the back engine door, then turned to Milo, for she realized that he was toying around in there, even though she specifically told him not to. "Two for flinching."
She punched Milo in the arm twice as she walked off.
With that taken care of, I turned to my group. "Shall we...keep digging?"
By the end of the day, we came across a glowing rock formation in the celing that resembles of chandelier.
"Is this it?" asked Penny.
Milo looked at the Shepard's Journal some more and concluded. "It's gotta be."
That meant we were close to finding Atlantis.
"All right, we'll make camp here." Rourke said to the crew.
"Why is it glowing?" asked Audrey.
"Pah! It is a natural phosphorescene." explained Moliere.
"At least, we have a night light for when it's time for bed, right?" said Sherman
Penny raised up one eyebrow. "Really, Sherman?"
"That thing is going to keep me up all night. I know it." said Vinny.