Chapter 6 Returning Home

After witnessing the King get overthrown, Aaron and Sam ran back to the car where they finally spoke. As they made their way back to the car, Aaron picked several leaves from various trees that he saw and put them in a small plastic bag when they made it to the car.
"Aaron… what just happened? Who was that fat man? Was that the King we were going to see?" Sam asked as soon as they got the doors closed. Aaron had parked the car about half a mile from the Kingdom where the King had been. Once they were sure the car was safe, they made their way to the castle, which was clearly visible through the forest. On arriving at the castle, they had hidden behind one of the pillars that lined the palace gardens. After seeing and hearing the conversation between the King and the two children, they were both shocked when the fat man walked up and took over the city.
"I think we just saw a King get overthrown… that was the King I wanted to see. The fat man, I think I know who it was, but I want to get back to Earth and check a couple things first. What you say to heading back right away?" Aaron asked, as he got ready to start the car. Sam nodded and then yawned.
"Yeah… let's head back and when we get home, I'm gonna sleep for a week!" Sam yawned. Aaron started up the car as quietly as he could and sped towards the road President Monroe had told him about. Once on the highway, Aaron pressed the gas pedal as far as it would go and held it until the car jumped through the portal that it made. Once the car made it to the other side, Aaron brought the car to a stop. Sam looked over at Aaron.
"What's wrong, Aaron? Leave something behind?" She asked. Aaron flipped through the events list on the display facing him.
"Nothing's wrong… just strange. We didn't have to get going as fast we did earlier to get back to this road… coming from Earth, we had to get up to almost fifteen hundred miles per hour and just now, we only had to hit nine hundred. Just something worth noting, I guess. If you want, go ahead and nap… it'll be about two hours before we get back to Earth." Aaron said as he pressed the accelerator down again and sped down the road in front of them. In less than three hours, they came out of the portal on Earth. Once they came out of it, Aaron pulled the car over and woke Sam up. She woke with a start.
"Sam, we're back. The road-thingy let us out almost in a store parking lot. Might as well get something while we're close to it. Anything you want from inside?" Aaron asked as he pulled up into the store's parking lot.
"Umm… not really. Just something to eat and I'll be fine. But, I gotta go in… stretch my legs for a little bit. Shouldn't the car change back or somethin'?" Sam asked. Aaron was not sure; it had not changed back to normal while on Mobius. Once he pulled the car up in front of the store in the fire lane, he borrowed the display from Sam's side of the car and flipped through the various pages that it displayed. Eventually, Aaron found the main controls for the computer and, after trying various commands; he eventually initiated the morphing sequence.
The locks holding the extensions in place let go and the electric motors pulled the extensions out of their places and back into the car, the cone that extended from the front of the car pulled back into the front-end of it. The final stage of the morphing sequence was the one that got everyone's attention; Aaron heard the electric motors power down and then disengage. After a pause of a couple seconds, the gasoline engine re-engaged and started back up. Aaron continued flipping through the digital controls until he found the command he was looking for. He disconnected the monitor and took it with him as he got out of the car.
"Okay… it's done. Let's go in and find something to eat." Aaron said to Samantha as they got out of the car. Once they were out, the doors closed. Before walking into the store, Aaron punched in the commands to activate the door locks and security system. Once he was sure the security system was going, they walked into the store. They went and picked out a TV dinner and a couple other things, paid for them and then went back outside. They had only been in the store for a few minutes, but the car had already attracted quite a crowd. Ignoring all the questions being slung at him from every possible direction, he simply deactivated the security system and unlocked the doors. Once he and Sam were inside it, Aaron shifted into 'Drive' and sped off towards home.
Once they made it back to Aaron's house, they made a quick dinner and sat around watching TV until they started to get tired. On the way to his room, Aaron suddenly remembered about the leaves he had picked up while they had been on Mobius. Aaron wanted to take them to a biologist friend of his and have his friend take a look at the leaves and try to determine if they were of any known species. He stopped in mid-stride down the hallway to his room and turned around and headed towards Sam's room.
"Sam… I got something I gotta do." Aaron said through the door. Sam came and opened the door.
"What's wrong? What'd you forget?" She asked. She had not changed to get ready for bed yet.
"I almost forgot why I gathered a handful of leaves from Mobius the other day. I have a friend in biology and I was gonna have him take a look at them. I can just run them over to his office… he works at night. If you want, you can stay here and try to get some sleep." Aaron said as he checked to make sure he had the keys for the car.
"I'll come with… I might get kinda lonely here. You gonna call him first or just show up there?" She asked as she slipped her shoes on and grabbed her coat. They both walked down to the garage, all the time talking about all the things they had seen on Mobius in the three hours they were there. They got to the car and drove to Professor Leif's office and lab. Once there, they walked up to the main office and walked in. Running around the lab tending to his various experiments was Aaron's friend, Professor Jacob Leif.
"Hey Professor!"
"Hey Aaron! What're you doing up so late? It's past eleven." Jacob said as he came around from behind a stack of biology journals.
"I found something for you to look at… found some leaves that I don't know what they're from." Aaron said as he handed the baggie with the leaves in it to Jacob.
"These look like regular, plain, old oak leaves… what's so special 'bout 'em?" Jacob asked as he set down his magnifying glass.
"I know they're not oak leaves… take a closer look at 'em and tell me what you see." Aaron answered. Jacob dug out a sharp knife and cut a tiny section from one of the leaves and placed it on a slide and placed the prepared slide under the microscope.
"If you already know it's not an oak leaf, what'd you bring them to me for?"
"All I know is they aren't oak leaves… I have no clue what species or anything they are, I just know they aren't oak. All I'm asking is if you've ever seen anything like these." Aaron clarified. Professor Leif shook his head and then went back to the microscope. After a few seconds, he pulled his head away from the scope, switched lenses and started taking notes. After about a minute of writing and making notes, he finally looked back up at Aaron and Sam.
"Where'd you get these from?" Jacob asked, looking totally confused.
"That we can't say… though I can say that we didn't get'm from anyplace around here. But, they aren't from any known genus or anything?" Sam asked, finally speaking up.
"Well, where ever you got these from, I'd love to see it sometime… they appear to be just like regular oak leaves, but the cell structure is all wrong; the cells resemble animal more than plant, though they do contain chlorophyll. Most peculiar… mind if I hang onto these samples and run some more tests?"
"No, go right ahead." Sam answered. Jacob walked over and put the other leaves in deep freeze.
"Would you be able to get a hold of more leaves like these? Or… even better, a live tree or bush or whatever these came from would be a huge help."
"Umm… I can't guarantee anything, but I can try. How would we keep it alive long enough to get it back here if we did get the tree these came from?" Aaron asked. Jacob thought for a moment, and then answered.
"About the best thing to do would be get a sapling if you can. All you'd have to do is keep the roots damp until you got back here. Before you leave to where ever you found these, call me and let me know. You know my cell number, so just call it day or night or whatever, and let me know. If there's nothing else, I'll run some more tests and see what I come up with. And, of course, a huge thanks to both of you guys for bringing me these! I was getting tired of investigating Dutch Elm disease." He said with a laugh. Once they shook the Professor's hand, they left his lab and headed home. Once they made it back to Aaron's house, they both crawled back into their beds and fell asleep almost immediately.
The following morning, Aaron and Sam were up early; it was a Monday and they had school. After rushing through breakfast and throwing on something clean to wear, they ran out the door and missed the bus. Walking back to the house, they decided to drive to school that morning. After running inside to get the car keys, Aaron and Samantha went out to the garage and got in the car and headed for school. After hassling with the parking monitor and having to buy a parking permit for the Lamborghini, they parked the car and hurried off to their classes. The school day passed by uneventfully and as they were leaving the school to go back to Aaron's house, Aaron ran into a couple friends of his.
"Dude! Long time no see! What's up, Aaron?" Aaron's long-time friend Neile Pederson called as he ran to catch-up with Aaron and Sam. Aaron turned around and was surprised to see Neile was walking hand-in-hand with another old friend of his, Liz Spoden.
"Hey Neile… what's up, dude? When'd you get back into town? Last time we talked, you were heading out off to Germany with your family." Neile laughed a little.
"No… our passports didn't go through and we didn't have time to get new ones made. Where you two off to? I thought you took the bus home like the rest of us who can't afford parking permits." Neile said as he glanced out the window to see if his and Liz' bus was there yet.
"My fellow car nut, you'd try to steal my wheels if you knew what I was driving. So I'll just show it to you and drive you two home." Liz and Neile were surprised; Aaron usually was not that generous as Liz and Neile lived about three miles further away from school than Aaron did. They all walked out to the parking lot and Neile just about jumped for joy at seeing Aaron's car.
"Dude! That's a Lamborghini Diablo! How'd you get this beauty?" Neile asked as he gazed through the tinted windows at the interior. Everything looked like the Lamborghini that he had seen in all the car magazines except for the boxes in what looked like a back seat and the extra gauges in the dashboard. There also appeared to be some kind of input socket in the passenger side dashboard.
"Dude, this thing isn't stock, is it? It looks like you made some changes to it! What'd you do to it?" Neile asked. Liz came over and looked inside with Neile.
"Let me unlock it before you drool all over the windows." Aaron said as he dug the display panel out of his backpack. After entering the commands to deactivate the security system and unlock it, the doors still did not open. Neile felt around the edges of the doorframe for the usual door handle, but did not find anything. Aaron walked over, and once he was within five feet of the door, both doors opened. Neile poked his head inside to look around before he sat down.
"Neile… would you like to do the honors of firing it up? Oh, and if you want to keep the doors open, just keep something in the way of the doors." Aaron said to Neile. He tossed his friend the keys and came over to the driver's side. Neile reached over and set his backpack in the way of the door. The door, sensing that both its primary passengers were all the way inside the car, started to close but stopped when they sensed something was in the way, and opened back up all the way. Neile, curiosity peaked about the car, proceeded to start it up. Like it did when Aaron started it up the first time, it took three tries before it fired up and roared to life. A grin spread on Neile's face as he revved the engine up to near full power. He climbed out of the car and went over to Aaron and Sam.
"That things kicks some serious tail! What's it got under the hood?" Neile asked.
"That's the second best part… come with me." Aaron answered as he led Neile back to the car. All the time, Liz sat in the passenger side looking at all the gauges. Turning around, she finally saw what was in the boxes; two enormous green emeralds. Reaching back, she touched the smaller of the two boxes. It was cold, colder than the inside of the freezer back home. She got out and went over to Sam, who was standing alone after Aaron took Neile over to look at the engine.
"Sam, what're those green emeralds for?" Liz asked as she walked up to Sam.
"Oh, they're some kind of power source. Come with me… I'm sure Aaron's going to show those off too… once he gets done showing off the engine." Sam answered as she led Liz back to the car where Aaron and Neile stood. Aaron climbed into the car and pushed the button to open the engine compartment. Getting out, he walked to the back of the car as the engine shut down.
"Neile and Liz, I give you the heart of the beast!" Aaron said as the hood opened. Neile had to stand on his toes to look fully into the engine bay.
"This thing definitely ain't stock… twenty-eight cylinders, fuel injection and carburetor fuel system, there's stuff in here that I don't even know what it does… where'd you get this engine, dude?" Neile asked as he brushed his now dirty hands on his jeans.
"That engine is only half of the powerhouse this thing has… check this out!" Aaron said as he punched in a command on his display panel. The hood shut and the car morphed as it had done before. Neile just gaped wide-eyed at it as the car grew in length. Climbing back into the driver's seat, he was surprised to find that two more rows of seats had appeared behind the front seats.
"And this thing still does more than that… remember that Sonic comic I talked you into getting? Remember the planet it all takes place on?" Aaron asked, walking over to the passenger side and getting in. Once he was inside the car, he placed the display panel back in its cradle in the dashboard.
"Kinda… think the place was called Mobius or something." Neile answered.
"Well… believe it or not, this car can travel there and just about anyplace else you could think of. Sometime I'll take you and Liz, if she wants, there with me and Sam… we're planning on going back there sometime soon." Aaron explained. Liz and Sam had gotten tired of just standing around and came over to the car and got in the seats right behind Neile and Aaron. "What d'ya say to a quick cruise around town? Nothing too spectacular, but it'll give you an idea of what this thing can do." Neile did not hesitate to answer.
"Heck, yeah! Liz… you don't mind, do ya?" Liz shrugged.
"I dunno… I don't have anything big to do tonight. Yeah… let's go!" At that, Aaron had Neile get in the back with Liz so Sam could sit up front while Aaron drove. Aaron headed back out to the same highway the two of them had taken when they first traveled to Mobius. After taking the car near the speed they had reached before ending up on the space highway, Aaron drove them back into town. After dropping Neile and Liz off at their houses, Aaron and Sam went back to their houses and, after having an easy dinner and doing what little homework they had, went to bed early.

(End of Chapter 6)