(Disclaimer: Not mine)

What's Up Doc?

Gimli quickly glanced back at his door as he continued spinning the grinding stone, much faster now than he had earlier that day. His axe was almost completely sharpened, and he'd drunk his last beer about an hour ago, leaving the angry dwarf with nothing to do with his extra strength than spin the wheel harder.

"Come on, you stupid piece of metal!" he growled at his axe. "Sharpen yourself already! I've been doing this forever!"

He stopped spinning for a second and anxiously looked at his wristwatch. He jumped in shock, dropping his axe, and his eyes grew to almost twice their regular size. The three digital numbers on his watch read 5:26.

"Sweet mother of meat!" he exclaimed, and sprang out of his seat. No more time to waste. His axe was sharp enough for now.

Wormtongue smiled ear-to-ear as he opened the metal, frost-covered cabinet and looked inside. There, hanging in front of him with a handful of other tools, was a crowbar. Eagerly, he snatched it off its hook and hurried over to the storage freezer door.

Gritting his teeth, he jammed the curved end of the metal device into the door crack and pushed sideways, trying to pry it open. The door didn't budge. Grima scowled, and pushed harder on the crowbar, squeezing his eyes shut and leaning his weight on it. Again, the door refused to move.

"Piece of garbage," he grunted. He leaned down so far over the crowbar that he was almost bent in half. "Work!"

But just then, his feet slipped on the increasingly icy floor, and his legs shot backwards, out from under him. Grima went down, landing flat on his face.

Unfortunately, the crowbar remained wedged in the door for a split second after he let go, then finally came loose and came down on his head with a loud 'clank!'

All nine passengers and the conductor were leaned in over the subway map and trolley schematic on the floor, talking amongst themselves and constantly turning the giant papers back and forth so each person could read them. Knowing it had been hours since Brody had gone to the bathroom, the blind man was careful to keep his guide dog a safe distance away from the papers.

"We're right about here," the conductor said, pointing to a spot on the subway map. "Tunnel 831-B-52. If the cable's broken right above us—which it obviously is—then we're not far enough ahead to just jump onto the next one."

"So how do we get the trolley moving again?" the dark-haired elf asked.

"Well, the trolleys all run on electric currents, and the currents run through the cables. Now, the cable's broken, so the current can't go anywhere, but it's still inside. That's why there's sparks coming out the end. All we have to do is close off the open end and the current'll bounce back and the trolley will start moving in the same direction as it."

"In English?" Ugluk asked impatiently.

"If we put something metal on the end of the cable," the conductor translated, "the trolley will go backwards."

"So we'll end up back at the station where we started?" the Gondorian woman asked.

"Yeah. Does that sit with everyone?" The conductor looked around at all the passengers.

A chorus of 'yeses' immediately sounded out from the mismatched crew.

The brown-bearded dwarf turned the schematic of the trolley towards him. "How're we gonna reach the cables, though? They're over top of the cars."

"That's where we're gonna need a little teamwork. We need two or three people to go up on the roof and tape the thing to the end of the cable. Now, it'd really only take one person to do that, but this is a dangerous situation. One: you'd probably get shocked touching the cables and holding the tools against it. Two: once the cable's blocked off, the trolley's gonna start moving, so there's a chance the person'll get knocked off the top."

He pointed at the space between the trolley roof and tunnel ceiling on the drawing. "Three: there's only sixty-one centimeters of space on top of the trolley. Not much elbow room."

"Well who're the smallest ones here?" the elf asked, looking around.

Almost immediately, everyone's heads turned to look at two people: the goblin, who was already clamoring up to the ceiling on one of the silver poles… and Merry.

"…But we don't even have gloves or anything," Merry protested as Grishnakh boosted him up through the now empty frame of one of the roof panels. "What if something happens like the guy in charge said?"

"If you fall, the green grease ball up there'll catch ya," Grishnakh said encouragingly, referring to the goblin. "They've got amazing grip, those guys. I saw one of them tear a baby troll's arm off once! Right off, without even a—"

"No," Merry cut in. "I meant with the cables. What if we get electrocuted or something?"

Grishnakh laughed crazily and shook his head, like the hobbit was overreacting to the possibility of getting three thousands volts of electricity shot through him.

"Ahhhh. There's no need to worry about that. I've been hit by lightning before, you know—too much fur on my overcoat, I think was what did it—and it didn't hurt a bit!"

"Really?" Merry suddenly looked hopeful.

Grishnakh put a crooked finger on his chin in thought. "…Actually, no. I think it did. Kinda' felt like that time Shagrat set my foot on fire for having it too close to his bag…no wait, it was worse than that. It was more like something in my head exploded, and then a bunch of maces started jumpin' around inside me, and I was shaking around like this—"

The orc demonstrated by wildly jolting his head and arms back and forth.

"And then my eyeballs got really hot and started spinning around real fast like this—" he crossed his eyes and started rolling them around just as wildly.

"And then I woke up an hour later and someone told me all my hair was gone. Guess it caught fire when I was hit." He shrugged indifferently. "Oh well. But aside from that, it didn't hurt a bit!"

Merry's face was chalk white as he pulled himself the rest of the way up onto the trolley roof.

The goblin was already up there, tilting his head side to side and eyeing the sparking cable like a deranged cat.

"Here's the tape," the brown-bearded dwarf said, standing on his black-bearded friend's shoulders to see out over the roof. He handed Merry a roll of yellow electric tape. "And a wrench. You lads can stick that onto the cable." He sat the tool down and disappeared back into the trolley car.

Merry took the wrench as well, then turned to stare oddly at the goblin. Cautiously, he reached over and snapped his fingers in front of the creature's face.

"Hey," the hobbit said, trying to get his attention. "Wake up. We've got work to do."

The goblin grinned widely and snatched the roll of tape from Merry's hands. "E-he-he-he-he! Work do! Work work!"

"Right," Merry nodded uncomfortably, then looked down into the trolley. "What do we do first?" he called down to the conductor.

"Tear off two pieces of the tape and stick them on the wrench handle!" the man shouted back up. "Have 'em crossing like an 'x.' You know?"

"Okay!"

Merry took the wrench and motioned towards the roll of tape, which the goblin was still clutching tightly in his green hands. "Tear off two pieces," he said.

To his surprise, the goblin suddenly hissed and shrank back. "No!" he snarled. "Is mine!"

Merry blinked. "What? Come on. Tear off two pieces of tape!"

"No!" the green monster snarled again. "Is my tape! Find own, yours!"

"Look, just two pieces, alright? Then you can marry the stupid tape for all I care!" Merry impatiently held out his hand. "Just two."

The goblin glowered at him for several seconds, then finally tore off a strip of tape that might have been long enough to wrap around a pencil once. He then tore this piece neatly in two and held it out to the hobbit.

Merry stared down at the nearly-microscopic pieces of yellow tape, and his blood temperature suddenly boiled to a level that many doctors would consider unhealthy. All day. He'd been stuck in a crowded trolley all day, surrounded eight people who were just dying to kill each other, and all the while he'd been dragging a kitchen devise half his weight and height through the subway, and now—when there was finally a chance of getting out of this nightmare and getting home—this smelly little artichoke with legs didn't want to give him any tape.

"Why you slimy—" Merry dove at the goblin, his wrench in hand.

He swung the metal tool at the goblin, who shrieked and leapt to the side. Then, with a hard swing of his own arm, the creature clocked Merry on the head with his roll of tape. The hobbit let out a painful yelp, then spun around and tried to grab the yellow adhesive device.

He was successful.

"Let go!" the goblin shouted, tugging at the roll.

"No! You let go!" Merry shouted back, and tried once again to hit his adversary with the wrench in his free hand. He missed, and the goblin only clutched his prize tighter.

"Wow," said the brown-bearded dwarf to his friend as he caught a glimpse of the two struggling above their heads. "I didn't think the wires would give 'em that much trouble."

"Garbla nach yen!" the black-bearded dwarf agreed.

Merry made another effort to yank the tape from the goblin's hands, but the creature's grip held fast. The hobbit looked around frantically. If he could just distract his opponent long enough to…

He pointed over the goblin's shoulder suddenly. "Look!" he yelled. "Something shiny!"

"Where!" The goblin spun his head around to look. Merry threw his wrench hand back, preparing to knock him out of his senses.

…And unintentionally jammed the metal tool straight into the end of the broken cable.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZTTT!

A long blue spark shot from the cable, zapping the two and sending up an explosion of black smoke. With a startling lurch, the trolley jerked backwards and began sailing down the tracks, back the way it had come hours ago. The force sent Merry and the goblin flying forward, and together they tumbled through the open ceiling panel.

The other passengers screamed in unison as the two hit the trolley floor with a heavy thud! The goblin immediately sprang to his feet—tape still in hand—and leapt onto the nearest silver pole. Unfortunately, he received another, equally nasty shock on contact with it, and fell to the floor with a shriek. He huddled in the middle of the isle with dinner plate-sized eyes.

Grishnakh leaned curiously over Merry, who still lay motionless on the floor.

"Hey," he called down to him. "You alright?"

Merry's face was black with soot, and his hair was sticking straight out, but he was grinning ear-to-ear.

"You're right," he said. "It didn't hurt a bit."

……………………………………………………………………………..

Sorry this update took so long; my English teacher's really been piling the homework on this year.