Chapter 29 – Vykkers Labs 25
*NOTE – Hello, everybody. This is TheManFromMudos, and it is with a heavy heart that I bring you this: the second to last chapter of 'Oddworld: Al's Oddysee'. The story has finally, after over a year, drawn to its inevitable close. Read on, and of course, enjoy. It's 'Oddworld: Al's Oddysee'. THANK YOU!*
*EXTRA NOTE – This chapter contains just the slightest hint of another fictional universe, but not enough to make it a crossover. Well, you'll see for yourself. THANK YOU!*
The immense fortress must have been about ten miles away. And, although it at first appeared to be stationary, closer inspection revealed that it was indeed moving. Fast. Luckily, it was coming towards me, which would shorten the journey. I'd still have a lot of walking ahead of me, though. I took one last look back at the burning remains of the building behind me. "Don't worry, Dave." I whispered as I looked on. "I'll save you." With that, I turned and walked away.
The journey was long and uncomfortable at best. I was further upriver than ever before. Ma' Spa, the source of the Mongo River, was up in the mountains. I walked along in the foothills, along small cliffs and crags in the tough rock. A dusty track ran beneath my feet, but it was thinning every step of the way. I glanced up at the sky and saw that the enormous laboratory was still grinding slowly towards me, gliding over the mountains in the distance. It looked to be about eight miles away now, and I'd been walking for half an hour already. It seemed that I was making good time.
As I walked on, now beginning to hit the slightly steeper slopes, the rain began to clear and the sky turned blue. I watched as the sun emerged from the clouds behind which it had previously been sheltered. I realised then, that my time on Oddworld had not been all bad. Some of the time, it had actually seemed a beautiful place indeed. A friendly place, even, in some parts. Yet my time here was finally near its end.
I continued to plod along, but as I did, I took the opportunity to look back. Look back at where I had begun, and where I'd traveled since then. This time, the memories came back, stronger than I had ever thought possible. Three weeks ago, I had stood with Abe's lifeless body in my arms. Then, I'd been surrounded by Sligs, applauding me for what I'd done. I was even promoted for it. But I knew then that I had to fix what I'd done. I remembered meeting a mysterious Vykker in the Feeco Depot, who had told me about Vykkers Labs 25. Then there was my short journey across Mudos by train.
The sun continued to shine down on me. I was now less than five miles away. Still, I thought back. I'd met Fope, who betrayed me, trying to kill me for the sake of her collection of Oddworldian creatures. Stranger, who saved me from her clutches. Dave, who I met after my short stint as a bounty hunter. That ended in failure, too. Then we walked. About a week of non-stop walking, running into all kinds of trouble. I even found myself (not spiritually, literally.) Then, finally, we were on board Vykkers Labs 13. The site of the infamous Gabbiar Auction. That was my last adventure with Dave.
A tear rolled down my face as I came back to reality. I'd now been walking, in complete silence, for just over two hours. Vykkers Labs 25 was now right above my head. I craned my neck upwards to get a better look at the monstrous aircraft. This was my chance to change everything. To save Abe, and by extension, Dave and all the other Mudokons. The number '25' was etched onto the ship's side, and written underneath it, much smaller, was a sign which read:
"VYKKERS PHARMACEUTICALS: AIRBORNE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FACILITY (LABORATORIES 25,000 TO 25,999)"
There was no time to waste. I climbed a tall, naturally formed rock spire and dived onto the underside of the ship, gripping a long, metal rod hanging from it just beside the Poop Chute doors. The doors swung open as if on cue, and I hoisted myself into the dull waste disposal room. Looking around, I found a door and swung it wide open. I was shocked to discover that the laboratory I walked into was completely bare. What's more, it looked like it had been abandoned for quite some time. Panels hung from the ceiling, cracks covered the ceramic floor. The walls were coated in some kind of vines , and every light source in the room was dysfunctional. "Well, this is it." I thought aloud as I stepped into the vast lab.
I took a moment or two to look around the room in more detail. However, it seemed there was nothing here for me. I soon located the exit to the lab, and stepped out into an equally desolate looking corridor. It was long and very narrow, curving away in the distance. It must have been a circular corridor built around the curvature of the ship. I followed it until I reached the next lab, then the next, and the next, but each was just as barren as the one before it. It seemed the entire facility was abandoned. Until, that is, I saw a faint light flickering from further along the corridor. Surely that was a sign that someone was here.
I headed towards the light in question, and found a door into another laboratory. This one had been torn from its hinges. In the room were a number of strange-looking contraptions. At the far side was a rocking chair, with someone sat in it. I approached the chair cautiously, and realised that it was a Vykker sat in it. I cleared my throat to gain the Vykker's attention. He stood up, pushed the chair aside, and turned to face me, speaking in an old, raspy voice.
"Who are you?" The Vykker said. "What are you doing here, this is a private facility!"
"I-I'm here for help…" I replied, "I was sent here by another Vykker. He didn't tell me his name or anything like that. But he said I'd get what I was looking for here."
The elderly Vykker appeared annoyed, but eventually spoke again.
"OK, Slig." He said. "So what do you need?"
"What?" I asked him. "You're just going to help me like that? No questions asked?"
"I lost the desire to ask questions along time ago, son." He wheezed. "In other words, I can't be bothered. So just tell me what it is you need and I'll see if I can help." I could tell by the look in his eye that he was serious. So I began to explain my situation.
A short while later, I'd filled in the Vykker on every last detail of what had happened to me on the first day that I'd arrived on Oddworld. He nodded his head occasionally, and said 'OK' a couple of times, to show that he understood what I was saying. When I'd finished, he sighed a deep sigh, then turned and walked over to a filing cabinet. He rummaged around in the drawers, then came back to me.
"So, you need me to bring this Abe guy back?" He said, clutching a piece of paper in two hands. He had his other pair of arms folded, and read through the writing on the paper before he continued. "I can certainly help you with that."
"What can you do?" I asked him. He simply jabbed a claw in the direction of the long line of contraptions in the lab. I looked, and was tempted to ask what every single one did, but there wasn't time to waste, here. The Vykker had already gone over to the first machine. It was a gun of some kind. "What'll this do?" I asked
"This will bring your friend back to life with a single shot." He beamed. Of course, that wouldn't work, as Abe's body had probably been destroyed by now. I explained this, and the Vykker moved on to the next machine.
This one was a robot, with an open hatch in its head.
"Stick his brain in this. It'll exactly replicate his behavioral patterns." Again, this wouldn't work, for the same reason. So we moved on once again. And again. And again.
"Clone his entire body with just one cell?"
"No."
"Write a computer program that can fulfill his purpose?"
"No."
"Morph yourself into a Mudokon and do it for him?"
"No."
Every machine was as bizarre as the last. And they all seemed like complete failures. Finally, we had reached the last machine in the laboratory. From the outside, it was small and tattered. It appeared to be a filing cabinet with two large doors instead of a stack of drawers.
"What's this?" I asked the Vykker, puzzled. "It just looks like a filing cabinet."
"Ah, of course!" The Vykker replied. "Of course it looks like a filing cabinet. But this machine can blend in to its surroundings. If you parked it in a changing room, it'd look like a locker. If you parked it in an amusement park, it'd look like a ticket booth."
"Parked?" I said. "You mean it can travel?"
"Well, yes." Said the Vykker. "But not in the conventional sense. You see, this machine doesn't travel through space. Well, it does actually. But it also travels… through time."
It all made sense now. This machine was the reason that Dave and I had met my future self last week. It would be the key to saving Abe. But I had to find out more about it first.
"We recovered it a few decades back." The Vykker continued. "It was just floating around in space, disguised for some bizarre reason as a blue box. It looks like nothing we've ever seen before. We took it in, and fixed it up so that it could correctly disguise itself wherever it went. But the rest of the technology is far beyond ours. Whichever race created this device, they truly were the lords of time." As he continued to describe the machine, it began to seem vaguely familiar. "It can travel forwards. It can travel backwards. It can take you anywhere in the universe and bring you back again with not a second passing." The Vykker explained. "And what's more, it's transcendental."
"It's what?" I asked.
"It's bigger on the inside." He said. To prove this, he swung open the door and pulled me inside. And he wasn't wrong.
Inside the machine was a vast atrium, with some kind of control panel centered around a glowing column in the middle. The Vykker handed me a long piece of paper. Hundreds of notes and illustrations were scribbled on it.
"What's this?" I asked the Vykker.
"That, my friend, is the TASM's unofficial instruction manual."
"TASM?" I inquired.
"Time And Space Machine." The Vykker replied. "It took us years of testing to figure out how to operate it. But, at my age, I'd prefer not to travel, through time or otherwise. So I'll stay here, if you don't mind." With that, the Vykker turned to leave. How could he do this to me? He couldn't just leave me in this… this TASM. I didn't know how to fly this thing! As the Vykker reached the doors of the machine, he turned back around and said one last thing: "Good luck, Slig." Then he was gone.
I glanced down at the paper the Vykker had given me and found my way around the console to a panel of levers, buttons, switches and knobs. It all seemed pretty complicated, but I followed the instructions precisely. Soon, the mechanism whirred into action. It made a scraping and groaning sound, something which I had heard before, although I won't say where. Then, it felt as if the machine had left the ground. Of course, in reality, it had disappeared from time and space, and would soon reappear somewhere else. Suddenly, it jolted to one side, then the room seemed to spin uncontrollably. The ship seemed to be crash-landing. Alarms began to blare, then a red light flashed. Finally, it all ended with a thud.
It seemed the TASM had crashed. I quickly located the gyroscopic controller, and the machine rectified itself on the ground once more. I then found a remote connection to the machine, so that I could teleport myself back into it if there was trouble outside. Then, I swung open the door, and stepped out to reveal that I was not in fact back at Rupture Farms. I was by the Mongo River once again. It seemed I'd gone back about a week. Turning around, I saw that the TASM had disguised itself as a bush. Then, I glanced over at the river's bank. And do you know who I saw? Myself.
*NOTE – So, what do you think? It seems Alan now has the means to finish this whole sorry affair, with the help of his trusty TASM. I wonder what planet the Vykkers recovered that from, eh? Anyway, that's been all for this chapter, folks. See you in the next one. THANK YOU!*