iCarly: iMeet the Relatives, Chapter 24: Intrusions

….

I don't own iCarly. Wishes, wishes….

..

Chapter 24: Intrusions

….

Back at Carly's apartment:

Carly was gathering some items, stuffing them into a backpack she had. She was alone in her room.

"Carls?" Sam appeared in the door. "What are you doing?"

Carly hesitated for a long moment. Then, "Sam….I don't know how to explain it, but I've got the weirdest…feeling, hunch, intuition, what have you….you know that parking garage where Brittney's apartment complex was supposed to be?"

Sam looked at her sideways. "Y….yeah. I do." Carly, what are you up to?

"I can't shake the notion that there's something there, some…I don't know, some clue, something, that, that needs to be found. There's gotta be a reason why Brittney was drawn into the Darkness to begin with. She was nowhere near either the convention center or Mt. Adams. That's the only connection."

"Carly…please tell me you're not about to go make like Nancy Drew all over that garage."

"I'm just gonna go look, that's all. Just a look. It's one place we haven't examined; I just think it needs to be. I think it corresponds to a, a point of entry into our world, or maybe the Darkness. There's probably something there. I can't explain it, but I'm almost sure I'll find something."

"More than likely something will find you! Carl-EE! You can't possibly be thinking of just rampaging over that whole garage! If Grif were here, he'd nix that idea in a heartbeat!"

"Then it's a good thing he isn't here, isn't it? Don't try to stop me, Sam. I don't know why, I just know I've got to go look."

Sam looked at her friend. There was a certain set to Carly's face that she'd never seen before, a look of…of determination. Carly had often been somewhat unsure of herself in many situations; evidently that had changed. "Carls. Before you go charging off, there's something you should know. About yourself."

"Huh? What?"

"Come over here." And Sam led her to a full-length mirror over on her bathroom door. "Now. Just stand there a moment, okay? And watch yourself." Obediently, Carly stood there, watching her reflection in the mirror.

Sam moved closer, until she was at Carly's shoulder. She placed a hand over Carly's opposite shoulder, and looked with her into the mirror. "Now, listen: Devlin is from Hell, right?"

Carly was puzzled. "Yeah, that's right. The Hell dimension, or universe. So?"

Sam moved up closer to Carly's ear. "Damn it to hell," she whispered.

Carly flinched.

"There! Carly, did you see that?"

"See what?"

"You jumped when I cussed. You didn't when I said about where Devlin was from, but when I used it as a cuss word, you flinched."

"I did not! I just…."

"Watch yourself, Carls. Shit." Carly jumped, noticeably. "See that? You didn't used to do that."

Carly was nonplussed. "Er, well, okay, I, I guess so. But, but what's that got to do with anything?"

"Carly, don't you see? You don't jump when it thunders anymore. That's the old you. But now, when you hear bad language, you jump. And this started just about the time you started seeing Grif hot and heavy."

Carly didn't know what to say. It was true; she no longer feared thunderstorms…and she'd just seen herself flinch when Sam had sworn. "I, I don't understand…."

Sam turned her friend around and looked her straight in the eye. "Carls. You're changing. You're taking on characteristics like him. Yeah, the cuss word thing, he's stronger, more used to it, so it doesn't show on him like it does on you, but ever since you've been hanging around him, you're becoming like him."

Carly could only stare at Sam, mouth agape, completely stunned.

"Try to lie to me, Carly. Just try. What color is your hair? Say 'blond.'"

"B-blo-*" A spasm of, not exactly pain, but discomfort shot through Carly. She couldn't finish the word. "S-Sam?" She sounded weak and unsure.

Sam put her arms around her. "I've noticed this for some time now. I'd kinda hoped I was wrong. But it's true, Carls. You're changing. I don't say you're changing for the worse, no, not that, not necessarily. But…things about you are different. This feeling you have, about going to that garage….that's from the new you. The old Carly wouldn't have had such an intuition. And, even if you had, would you have been so willing to rush off right into the lion's jaws, so to speak? Alone?"

"So…so now what?" Carly was reluctant to leave Sam's embrace; it was comforting, and…yes, a piece from her old life, her old, familiar life. She rested her chin on Sam's shoulder. If what Sam said was true, she herself didn't know what she'd do next. "Sam? What if that's….I mean, I guess it is true, isn't it? What does it mean?"

"It means," said Sam, as seriously as Carly had ever heard her, "that you're becoming like him.

"You could be turning into an angel."

Lake Superior: the angelic airship flew onward. Weston and Phillips watched the horizon, and presently were rewarded with the sight of what appeared to be a tornado, a strangely stationary tornado, one of utter darkness, connecting the water to the upper atmosphere. Normally, atmospheric phenomena such as tornadoes waver from one side to the other, being, essentially, drains from one more energetic level of air to a less energetic level. But this one seemed to be perfectly stationary. Of course, they all knew it was no tornado at all.

It was something far, far worse.

"How close can we approach?" Weston asked the angel in charge, who'd been introduced as Remiel. The angel wasn't standing at any control panel or anything, but the ship seemed to respond to his thoughts alone. That made sense to Phillips, even if Weston was still having trouble with such. Any technology, sufficiently advanced, will be indistinguishable from magic. And what might exceed even magic? He was fairly certain the angels were operating on that level.

"Unknown. But we are scanning for physical effects. So far, we've noted a vacuum effect in the atmosphere that does not appear to be reflected in the water."

"Huh? You mean it's not drawing in the water?"

"The lake level has dropped somewhat, it is true. But there doesn't appear to be quite the suction effect that is evident in the atmosphere. Why, is unknown."

"Could it," hypothesized Phillips, "have something to do with the greater abundance of life in the water, as opposed to the air?"

Remiel considered this. "That is a distinct possibility. I am even now sharing it with High Command." He paused, cocking his head to one side. "However, from what we know of the Darkness, it would seem to work the other way."

…..

The parking garage on Linwood: in spite of Sam's revelation to her, Carly still felt the need to investigate, to do something. Needless to say, Sam had accompanied her.

"Let's see….Brittney said her apartment number was, what? 2113? Okay, second level, slot 113…" They looked about the darkened garage, their flashlights pointing the way. "Sam…what's that?"

Sam looked in the direction Carly's flashlight was shining, towards the parking slot. There was a large sedan sitting there, blue with dark trim. "Uh, a car? Carls, it is a parking garage."

"If it's a car, how do you get in? Look at the doors." Sam did, and saw what Carly was talking about. Where the doors should be, there were no seams; the sides of the vehicle were smooth and unbroken.

"Dunno. Maybe it's one of those with the gull wing doors?"

"Wouldn't they also have to have some sort of separation, something to show where they were? And look: do you see the tires?"

"Y-yes…."

"I don't know much about cars, but aren't tires round with an upper surface? Those merge directly into the body of the car." She moved a little closer, flashing her penlight at the strange object.

"Carly! Don't! You're right, there's something weird about that thing! Don't get too-*"

At that point, a rumbling sound began to pervade the garage. Both girls looked around; to veteran West Coast dwellers, earthquake reflexes are part of the package. But this was no earthquake.

Before either of them could react, the thing in slot 113 seemed to partially melt, then grew upwards, morphing into a more-or-less anthropomorphic form, its glass, steel, and fiberglass body changing into a semi-humanoid form.

Sam and Carly moved back, but it was too late. The thing's "arms" reached out and snared them. They found themselves firmly caught within an unbreakable net of metal and fiberglass.

….

"So…in your world, there's twelve planets? That's awesome! Is Pluto one of them? Here they downgraded it…."

"Yes, it's still considered a planet." Brittney was learning the ropes of Freddie's computer. She was a remarkably fast study, even if she did keenly feel the loss of the "neural scanner" she'd asked about. Freddie would have given a year's pay to get his hands on a computer with that. "That, and Aster, Yuggoth and Shaggai make twelve. Uh, that is, in my world." She spoke distractedly, fingers clicking away on the keys. "But those last two are really way, way out. They weren't even suspected until they launched the new Hawking quantum orbital 'scope. Even then, a lot of people argued they weren't really in orbit around our sun, so they couldn't technically be called planets, at least not ours, but it turned out they do, so the textbooks got re-written. Again."

"You still use books over there?"

"Sure. Yeah, it's all online, same as here, but, yeah, books." She squinted her sky-blue eyes at the screen, scrunching up her face. He found her expression almost irresistibly cute. "What's 'Wookiepedia' anyway?"

…..

"Carls?"

"Yeah, Sam?"

"I don't suppose you had a backup plan for this, did you?"

Carly grimaced. "Well, actually….." The two were currently firmly ensconced in the metal "fists" of what looked like a refugee from a Michael Bay movie. Nor was it done transforming. As they watched, parts of it flowed like quicksilver, reshaping itself into something….something even more terrifying than it already was.

"Miss Carly?" Carly would have jumped, had she not been so firmly held. The tiny voice had come from within her pocket. She twisted around, unable to actually move, but enough to glance down at her left jeans pocket.

A small, bewhiskered face was poking out of the pocket. "Miss Carly? It's me, Stuffins."

"Stuffins? What are you doing here?"

"Carly, who are you talking to?"

"It's Stuffins, Sam. He's in my pocket."

Sam's eyes widened. "Carly, there's a mouse in your pocket!"

Carly could feel Stuffins putting his paws on his hips. "I beg your pardon?! I am NOT a mouse! I am a RAT!"

"She didn't mean it in any bad way, Stuffins. How'd you get there?"

"I followed you. Something told me to. I looked for the other girl—the lonely one, the one who lives in the same building as Mr. Grif—to get her to come with me, but I couldn't find her."

"Well, thank goodness you found us! Can you do anything?"

"Carly, who are you talking to?" Sam sounded as though she was doubting her friend's sanity. Which she probably was.

"I told you. It's Stuffins, Sam. He's a rat, and he lives in Grif's apartment. He followed us. In my pocket, I guess. I never even noticed." To Stuffins: "Stuffins, go get help! Find Grif or Devlin, or Jillian!"

"Okay." The small rat squirmed out of her pocket, and, unnoticed by the giant mechanism / being / thing holding the two girls, scampered down to the floor of the garage, and disappeared into a crack by the elevator. Sam's gaze followed the small creature.

Then she turned to Carly. "So. Carly. How long you been talkin' to rats?"

To be continued….