The Reality Project-- Part II
by Ryan Carroll
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Try it now."
The gateway opened. Hurricane force wind blasted through it.
"Turn it off! Shut it down!"
The gateway closed, cutting off the wind.
"Forget it, Ryan; there's no way we can fix this tonight. It's
already 9:30 and I need some sleep." Wes yawned.
"What about the others?" I asked, indicating Sonic and the others.
"What about them?"
"Well, we can't just put them up in a hotel, now can we?!?"
"Well, we can't take them home; my Mom would freak." Jason had a
point.
"Look; I'll take Sonic, Knux and Slasher; my parents are at a
couple's retreat and they won't be back until Saturday. That
gives us all week."
"What about us? Our parents are _home_."
"Pitch a tent in your yard if you have to, but no one else can
know about this!"
"All right, all right; boy, are you getting cranky!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I got Sonic and Slasher to my house without incident. Slasher said
that she would fly, which was fine with me; I could only fit two in
my car anyway, and it would have been interesting to be pulled over
by a state trooper with a winged raptor on my roof. Knux rode on
Slasher's back.
I gave Knux my bed, Sonic took the family room sofa, and I took my
parents' bed. Slasher took up the whole living room, which,
fortunately, had a high ceiling.
I started my nightly Bible reading. I was doing one of those
programs where you read the whole Book through in a year. That
night I happened to be reading Psalm 23 and the third chapter of
the gospel of John. I read aloud when I'm alone; it helps me to
visualize what the author is saying.
"The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down
in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores
my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His
name's sake.
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they
comfort me. Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence
of my enemies; Thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup
overflows."
As I stopped to reflect on these verses, I jumped when I realized
that Slasher had been reciting the passage with me, and she
continued to recite the last verse: "Surely goodness and
lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will
dwell in the house of the LORD forever."
"You know Scripture?"
"Of course. I have studied it for as long as I can remember. It
is the least I can do after all that Jesus has brought me through."
"You're a Christian?" I still don't know what surprised me more,
the fact that she knew Christ, or the fact that she had studied
the Bible, even in a different universe. We talked for a long
time, each teaching the other about doctrine and Scripture.
I got around to reading John, chapter three.
"...For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have
eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to
judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.
He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has
been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of
the only begotten Son of God."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Knuckles slipped back into bed. He had a lot to think about. Ryan
obviously believed the same things that Slasher did; That much was
obvious by the several minutes' worth of conversation he'd
overheard. But this time he'd heard something he'd never heard
before: that passage of Scripture about believing in the Son of
God. He hadn't made a "decision of faith" as Slasher called it;
was he already judged for the wrong things he had done over the
years? And if he was, how could he make things right? What could
he do to make up for the mistakes he'd made? Voices drifted down
the hallway.
"But according to God's Word, there's nothing we can do to make
things right with God. That's why He sent Jesus down to earth to
die for us; He was the perfect sacrifice."
"Exactly. Here's an illustration. Imagine a bottomless chasm."
A bottomless chasm. Knux remembered something like that, but from
where? Then he remembered Sonic's adventure in Nightopia, when
he'd been in a coma. Nights had quoted that passage that Ryan
had been reading about the "valley of the shadow of death".
"Imagine sinful man on one side, and God on the other. Everything
we do to try to cross the chasm falls short, dooming us to eternal
separation from God."
Eternal separation. Not a good thing.
"But God made a perfect way across the chasm: the cross. All we
have to do is accept it. It's a choice. God gave us a free will,
and He wants us to choose Him, but it's still our decision to make.
Do we accept God's gift of eternal life, or do we go our own way
and separate ourselves from Him?"
"A very good illustration," Slasher was saying.
But Knuckles was no longer listening. He just had to know Jesus
in person; to accept this free gift of eternal life. But how?
Only one answer to that. Pray. It's what Slasher always did.
But what do I say? he wondered. A magazine on Ryan's nightstand
caught his eye. The page it was folded back to was titled, "How
to Become a Christian". Coincidence? Not likely. Farther down
the page he read "The ABC's of the 'Sinner's Prayer'". How
_convenient_.
------------------------------------------------------------------
The next morning I got up early to make breakfast. I popped a
Keith Green CD into the stereo and started cooking omelets.
Knuckles came downstairs as the CD came to the song, "Your Love
Broke Through". I thought nothing of it, really, but Knux seemed
mesmerized by the words.
All my life I've been searching
For that crazy missing part
But with one touch You just rolled away
The stone that held my heart
And now I see that the answer was as easy
As just asking You in
And I am so sure I could never doubt
Your gentle touch again
It's like the power of the wind
Like waking up from the longest dream
How real it seemed
Until Your love broke through
I was lost in a fantasy
That blinded me
Until Your love broke through
"Wow!" Knux whispered.
"Huh?" I asked, busy cooking.
"Nothing. Where's Slasher?"
"In the living room; why?"
"I've got something I need to tell her."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Two hours later, Jason showed up with Tails.
"Just the two of you?"
"Serena wanted to be with Sally. Who was I to argue?"
When Wes arrived, Sally and Serena looked tired.
"Where've you two been?"
"Sleeping in Wes's car."
"What?!?"
Wes got defensive. "Look; my parents were home and I couldn't
just bring them inside. I had no other choice."
"I understand, but maybe a hotel room wouldn't be such a bad idea
tonight."
"Can _you_ afford one?" Wes asked pointedly.
"Well, not exactly. Look, on second thought, I'll room everyone
here tonight."
"Hey, look at this!" Tails interjected.
The TV set had been set on a timer while my parents were away, and
the morning news was on. The anchorwoman was reporting on the
previous day's stories.
"A strange jewel found late last night in a construction site near
the commercial district is being placed in a museum pending
auction. The jewel, though a dazzling blue color, is clearly an
emerald, say expert geologists. It appears to glow on its own,
which makes the emerald even more bizarre. An auction will be
held Friday, and the gem is expected to fetch over 100 million
dollars. In other news, the San Antonio Spurs are on their way
to the Final Playoffs after a clean sweep in the Western
Conference Finals--"
I flipped the TV off. "Now what?" I asked to no one in particular.
I was immediately flooded with ideas on how to retrieve the seventh
chaos emerald, ranging from trying to bid on it to stealing it
before it could be auctioned off. None of these sounded good.
Suddenly I had an inspiration. I turned to Slasher. "What's the
best way to get people to see your point of view? Wrong person
to ask." I turned to Jason. "What's the best way to get people
to see your point of view?"
A dawning-of-comprehension type of grin lit his features. "You
advertise!"
"And what do people read in grocery stores that they believe to
be true no matter how phony the evidence may be?"
The grin grew wider. "Tabloids!"
We stopped as we realized that everyone else (Except Wes) was
staring at us trying to figure out what the heck we were talking
about.
Once I had explained the basics, I got into strategy. "We write
to a tabloid and tell them about the gem, adding the idea that
it's cursed. This will at least cut down on the number of people
who will bid on it. As for the rest..." I winked at Slasher--
"I think a sudden dinosaur attack will take care of that."
Slasher looked shocked. "Surely you're not suggesting..."
"What other choice do we have? And don't call me Shirley."
That brought a groan from everyone in the room.
Knuckles interjected, "But if we're going to have all the emeralds,
we need _all_ the emeralds."
"In other words," Wes added, "we need to tell the girls."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Metal Sonic had received the coordinates of the last known
whereabouts of the chaos emeralds. He was now scouting the area,
searching for the gems.
The gateway, blatantly obvious in the middle of the clearing, went
unnoticed.
"Mecha to Dr. Robotnik," the robot called through his comlink.
"Yes? What did you find?"
"Nothing; no emeralds, nothing to suggest what caused them to
disappear, and no sign of... you-know-who." The robot hated
Sonic with a vengeance. He despised even the sound of the name
of his superior-- although he would never admit to being inferior.
"Hmmm... Return to base, Mecha," ordered Robotnik. "We need to
consider possibilities.
"Affirmative. Mecha out."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
We had all settled down to a game of Risk (playing in teams)
when the doorbell rang. I signaled with my head for everyone to
go upstairs. They did.
I went to the door and, with Jason and Wes behind me, opened it.
"Uh, hi, Cliff," I said, surprised. "Come on in."
Cliff Schlattmann was another guy in my class; he was much better
in English and history than in the scientific classes. He never
was that interested in science, so I had never really considered
letting him in on the Reality Project. Involuntarily, for some
odd reason, I glanced down at his hand.
His class ring was glowing a bright blue color.
His voice tore my gaze away from the ring; whether he had noticed
his ring, or the fact that I had been staring at it, I couldn't
tell. "The girls sent me with a message. They're kinda
concerned about something."
"Uh, oh." That usually meant that they wanted to know what was
going on with us; why we'd been to busy for them, or something.
Just then, the TV set came on. _Great_ timing! Just when I was
about to find out what the girls wanted. But then the news flash
caught my eye.
"An expensive gem was stolen from the city museum earlier today.
Police have no clues yet, as it seems as if the emerald just
disappeared from its high-security display case. The glowing-blue
emerald was to be auctioned off on Friday. In other news..."
Cliff glanced down at his ring, over to the TV, and back at me.
I showed him my ring, as did Jason and Wes. "We need to talk," I
said.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Cliff simply could not be convinced of the facts. He thought
the whole thing was a big joke. Finally I had an inspiration.
"Hey, Jason, go fix some chili dogs. I'm getting hungry."
Jason was about to object when he met my gaze. I glanced upstairs
and back at him. He nodded to signal that he got the message.
Five minutes later, the smell of chili permeated the entire house.
Then came the cry of "Lunch is served!"
Just as Cliff stood up, a blue streak flew past him from upstairs,
knocking him back into his seat. "What the heck was that?!?!?"
I smiled. "Come into the kitchen and see."
Sure enough, the sight of the one and only Sonic the Hedgehog was
enough to convince Cliff. The fact that everyone else piled into
the kitchen for some lunch didn't hurt, either. He explained that
he had been walking through the museum that morning. When he had
seen the emerald, he somehow just knew that he _had_ to look at
it. When he got within three feet of the display case, the
emerald had disappeared and his ring had started to glow.
"Quick change of subject. What did the girls want?"
"They wanted to know about that weird magnetic field in the
warehouse you guys are working in. They said that their rings
have been glowing ever since yesterday when they dropped off your
lunch."
"It's time they knew. Come on, guys. You too, Sonic."
Sonic was lounging on the easy chair watching TV. He was
obviously enjoying the luxuries of life here a little _too_ much.
"Whaddya need me for?"
"As proof that I'm telling the truth."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Metal Sonic was connected to Robotnik's primary computer, uploading
his visual memory for Robotnik to view.
"Wait a second," he interrupted. "Rewind a little bit."
Mecha did so.
"What is that?"
"What is what?"
"That gateway there. It must be there for some reason."
"My sensors did not detect any gateway, and they still do not."
"Are you malfunctioning?!?!? It's there, as plain as the
moustache on my face!"
"Perhaps it is out of range of my optical color spectrum... Allow
me to adjust my visual scanners... There, I see it now. I cannot
ascertain its purpose, however."
"I want you to find out."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
If Cliff was hard to convince, the girls were impossible. Lisa
thought it was a joke, Vicki thought it was an excuse, and Christy
thought it was just plain baloney.
However, the sight of a certain blue hedgehog was enough to break
the barrier of disbelief.
We all agreed to meet the next day at the warehouse. It was time
to do some experimenting with the chaos emeralds.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The gateway stood like a sentry in the middle of the clearing. A
lone silhouette hid among the shadows of the trees, making sure no
one was watching. It hovered over to the gateway and pushed the
green button. It was caught up in the sudden rush of air and
sucked into the portal.
The portal closed behind Metal Sonic.
End Part 2
by Ryan Carroll
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Try it now."
The gateway opened. Hurricane force wind blasted through it.
"Turn it off! Shut it down!"
The gateway closed, cutting off the wind.
"Forget it, Ryan; there's no way we can fix this tonight. It's
already 9:30 and I need some sleep." Wes yawned.
"What about the others?" I asked, indicating Sonic and the others.
"What about them?"
"Well, we can't just put them up in a hotel, now can we?!?"
"Well, we can't take them home; my Mom would freak." Jason had a
point.
"Look; I'll take Sonic, Knux and Slasher; my parents are at a
couple's retreat and they won't be back until Saturday. That
gives us all week."
"What about us? Our parents are _home_."
"Pitch a tent in your yard if you have to, but no one else can
know about this!"
"All right, all right; boy, are you getting cranky!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I got Sonic and Slasher to my house without incident. Slasher said
that she would fly, which was fine with me; I could only fit two in
my car anyway, and it would have been interesting to be pulled over
by a state trooper with a winged raptor on my roof. Knux rode on
Slasher's back.
I gave Knux my bed, Sonic took the family room sofa, and I took my
parents' bed. Slasher took up the whole living room, which,
fortunately, had a high ceiling.
I started my nightly Bible reading. I was doing one of those
programs where you read the whole Book through in a year. That
night I happened to be reading Psalm 23 and the third chapter of
the gospel of John. I read aloud when I'm alone; it helps me to
visualize what the author is saying.
"The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down
in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores
my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His
name's sake.
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they
comfort me. Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence
of my enemies; Thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup
overflows."
As I stopped to reflect on these verses, I jumped when I realized
that Slasher had been reciting the passage with me, and she
continued to recite the last verse: "Surely goodness and
lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will
dwell in the house of the LORD forever."
"You know Scripture?"
"Of course. I have studied it for as long as I can remember. It
is the least I can do after all that Jesus has brought me through."
"You're a Christian?" I still don't know what surprised me more,
the fact that she knew Christ, or the fact that she had studied
the Bible, even in a different universe. We talked for a long
time, each teaching the other about doctrine and Scripture.
I got around to reading John, chapter three.
"...For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have
eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to
judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.
He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has
been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of
the only begotten Son of God."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Knuckles slipped back into bed. He had a lot to think about. Ryan
obviously believed the same things that Slasher did; That much was
obvious by the several minutes' worth of conversation he'd
overheard. But this time he'd heard something he'd never heard
before: that passage of Scripture about believing in the Son of
God. He hadn't made a "decision of faith" as Slasher called it;
was he already judged for the wrong things he had done over the
years? And if he was, how could he make things right? What could
he do to make up for the mistakes he'd made? Voices drifted down
the hallway.
"But according to God's Word, there's nothing we can do to make
things right with God. That's why He sent Jesus down to earth to
die for us; He was the perfect sacrifice."
"Exactly. Here's an illustration. Imagine a bottomless chasm."
A bottomless chasm. Knux remembered something like that, but from
where? Then he remembered Sonic's adventure in Nightopia, when
he'd been in a coma. Nights had quoted that passage that Ryan
had been reading about the "valley of the shadow of death".
"Imagine sinful man on one side, and God on the other. Everything
we do to try to cross the chasm falls short, dooming us to eternal
separation from God."
Eternal separation. Not a good thing.
"But God made a perfect way across the chasm: the cross. All we
have to do is accept it. It's a choice. God gave us a free will,
and He wants us to choose Him, but it's still our decision to make.
Do we accept God's gift of eternal life, or do we go our own way
and separate ourselves from Him?"
"A very good illustration," Slasher was saying.
But Knuckles was no longer listening. He just had to know Jesus
in person; to accept this free gift of eternal life. But how?
Only one answer to that. Pray. It's what Slasher always did.
But what do I say? he wondered. A magazine on Ryan's nightstand
caught his eye. The page it was folded back to was titled, "How
to Become a Christian". Coincidence? Not likely. Farther down
the page he read "The ABC's of the 'Sinner's Prayer'". How
_convenient_.
------------------------------------------------------------------
The next morning I got up early to make breakfast. I popped a
Keith Green CD into the stereo and started cooking omelets.
Knuckles came downstairs as the CD came to the song, "Your Love
Broke Through". I thought nothing of it, really, but Knux seemed
mesmerized by the words.
All my life I've been searching
For that crazy missing part
But with one touch You just rolled away
The stone that held my heart
And now I see that the answer was as easy
As just asking You in
And I am so sure I could never doubt
Your gentle touch again
It's like the power of the wind
Like waking up from the longest dream
How real it seemed
Until Your love broke through
I was lost in a fantasy
That blinded me
Until Your love broke through
"Wow!" Knux whispered.
"Huh?" I asked, busy cooking.
"Nothing. Where's Slasher?"
"In the living room; why?"
"I've got something I need to tell her."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Two hours later, Jason showed up with Tails.
"Just the two of you?"
"Serena wanted to be with Sally. Who was I to argue?"
When Wes arrived, Sally and Serena looked tired.
"Where've you two been?"
"Sleeping in Wes's car."
"What?!?"
Wes got defensive. "Look; my parents were home and I couldn't
just bring them inside. I had no other choice."
"I understand, but maybe a hotel room wouldn't be such a bad idea
tonight."
"Can _you_ afford one?" Wes asked pointedly.
"Well, not exactly. Look, on second thought, I'll room everyone
here tonight."
"Hey, look at this!" Tails interjected.
The TV set had been set on a timer while my parents were away, and
the morning news was on. The anchorwoman was reporting on the
previous day's stories.
"A strange jewel found late last night in a construction site near
the commercial district is being placed in a museum pending
auction. The jewel, though a dazzling blue color, is clearly an
emerald, say expert geologists. It appears to glow on its own,
which makes the emerald even more bizarre. An auction will be
held Friday, and the gem is expected to fetch over 100 million
dollars. In other news, the San Antonio Spurs are on their way
to the Final Playoffs after a clean sweep in the Western
Conference Finals--"
I flipped the TV off. "Now what?" I asked to no one in particular.
I was immediately flooded with ideas on how to retrieve the seventh
chaos emerald, ranging from trying to bid on it to stealing it
before it could be auctioned off. None of these sounded good.
Suddenly I had an inspiration. I turned to Slasher. "What's the
best way to get people to see your point of view? Wrong person
to ask." I turned to Jason. "What's the best way to get people
to see your point of view?"
A dawning-of-comprehension type of grin lit his features. "You
advertise!"
"And what do people read in grocery stores that they believe to
be true no matter how phony the evidence may be?"
The grin grew wider. "Tabloids!"
We stopped as we realized that everyone else (Except Wes) was
staring at us trying to figure out what the heck we were talking
about.
Once I had explained the basics, I got into strategy. "We write
to a tabloid and tell them about the gem, adding the idea that
it's cursed. This will at least cut down on the number of people
who will bid on it. As for the rest..." I winked at Slasher--
"I think a sudden dinosaur attack will take care of that."
Slasher looked shocked. "Surely you're not suggesting..."
"What other choice do we have? And don't call me Shirley."
That brought a groan from everyone in the room.
Knuckles interjected, "But if we're going to have all the emeralds,
we need _all_ the emeralds."
"In other words," Wes added, "we need to tell the girls."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Metal Sonic had received the coordinates of the last known
whereabouts of the chaos emeralds. He was now scouting the area,
searching for the gems.
The gateway, blatantly obvious in the middle of the clearing, went
unnoticed.
"Mecha to Dr. Robotnik," the robot called through his comlink.
"Yes? What did you find?"
"Nothing; no emeralds, nothing to suggest what caused them to
disappear, and no sign of... you-know-who." The robot hated
Sonic with a vengeance. He despised even the sound of the name
of his superior-- although he would never admit to being inferior.
"Hmmm... Return to base, Mecha," ordered Robotnik. "We need to
consider possibilities.
"Affirmative. Mecha out."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
We had all settled down to a game of Risk (playing in teams)
when the doorbell rang. I signaled with my head for everyone to
go upstairs. They did.
I went to the door and, with Jason and Wes behind me, opened it.
"Uh, hi, Cliff," I said, surprised. "Come on in."
Cliff Schlattmann was another guy in my class; he was much better
in English and history than in the scientific classes. He never
was that interested in science, so I had never really considered
letting him in on the Reality Project. Involuntarily, for some
odd reason, I glanced down at his hand.
His class ring was glowing a bright blue color.
His voice tore my gaze away from the ring; whether he had noticed
his ring, or the fact that I had been staring at it, I couldn't
tell. "The girls sent me with a message. They're kinda
concerned about something."
"Uh, oh." That usually meant that they wanted to know what was
going on with us; why we'd been to busy for them, or something.
Just then, the TV set came on. _Great_ timing! Just when I was
about to find out what the girls wanted. But then the news flash
caught my eye.
"An expensive gem was stolen from the city museum earlier today.
Police have no clues yet, as it seems as if the emerald just
disappeared from its high-security display case. The glowing-blue
emerald was to be auctioned off on Friday. In other news..."
Cliff glanced down at his ring, over to the TV, and back at me.
I showed him my ring, as did Jason and Wes. "We need to talk," I
said.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Cliff simply could not be convinced of the facts. He thought
the whole thing was a big joke. Finally I had an inspiration.
"Hey, Jason, go fix some chili dogs. I'm getting hungry."
Jason was about to object when he met my gaze. I glanced upstairs
and back at him. He nodded to signal that he got the message.
Five minutes later, the smell of chili permeated the entire house.
Then came the cry of "Lunch is served!"
Just as Cliff stood up, a blue streak flew past him from upstairs,
knocking him back into his seat. "What the heck was that?!?!?"
I smiled. "Come into the kitchen and see."
Sure enough, the sight of the one and only Sonic the Hedgehog was
enough to convince Cliff. The fact that everyone else piled into
the kitchen for some lunch didn't hurt, either. He explained that
he had been walking through the museum that morning. When he had
seen the emerald, he somehow just knew that he _had_ to look at
it. When he got within three feet of the display case, the
emerald had disappeared and his ring had started to glow.
"Quick change of subject. What did the girls want?"
"They wanted to know about that weird magnetic field in the
warehouse you guys are working in. They said that their rings
have been glowing ever since yesterday when they dropped off your
lunch."
"It's time they knew. Come on, guys. You too, Sonic."
Sonic was lounging on the easy chair watching TV. He was
obviously enjoying the luxuries of life here a little _too_ much.
"Whaddya need me for?"
"As proof that I'm telling the truth."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Metal Sonic was connected to Robotnik's primary computer, uploading
his visual memory for Robotnik to view.
"Wait a second," he interrupted. "Rewind a little bit."
Mecha did so.
"What is that?"
"What is what?"
"That gateway there. It must be there for some reason."
"My sensors did not detect any gateway, and they still do not."
"Are you malfunctioning?!?!? It's there, as plain as the
moustache on my face!"
"Perhaps it is out of range of my optical color spectrum... Allow
me to adjust my visual scanners... There, I see it now. I cannot
ascertain its purpose, however."
"I want you to find out."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
If Cliff was hard to convince, the girls were impossible. Lisa
thought it was a joke, Vicki thought it was an excuse, and Christy
thought it was just plain baloney.
However, the sight of a certain blue hedgehog was enough to break
the barrier of disbelief.
We all agreed to meet the next day at the warehouse. It was time
to do some experimenting with the chaos emeralds.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The gateway stood like a sentry in the middle of the clearing. A
lone silhouette hid among the shadows of the trees, making sure no
one was watching. It hovered over to the gateway and pushed the
green button. It was caught up in the sudden rush of air and
sucked into the portal.
The portal closed behind Metal Sonic.
End Part 2