"Recall" - Part Four

 

Part Four

            “Snake Plissken?! In Total Recall?! Make that make sense, Al!”

            Norah walked side-by-side with Al, as they – along with Cara, Gumball, and Darwin – were forced down into a labyrinth of narrow corridors, honeycombed with open tombs. Plissken kept up the rear, holding the group at gunpoint with an assault rifle. Al glimpsed at him over his shoulder for a fleeting second before turning to Norah to address her concerns. “Out of everything happening right now, that’s what you’re worried about?!” he criticized.

            “Yes!” Norah asserted.

            Al groaned a little. “The Infinite DC is wrought with rifts – some small enough to transport Captain Ron back there, and others big enough to transport titans like Godzilla and King Kong.”

            Norah’s eyes swelled in astonishment. “Godzilla and Kong?! You’re kiddin’ me!”

            “Just ask Cara. Oh, wait. On second thought, don’t ask her. That adventure hasn’t happened for her yet.”

            “Enough of the chit-chat,” Snake ordered from behind.

            Al and Norah kept their mouths shut the rest of way through the creepy catacombs, which made Gumball and Darwin huddle close to each other, due to the mummified corpses in the tombs. When they were brought to what they presumed was a dead end, Snake repositioned himself to the front of the line and slammed his fist against the rock wall three times; the wall itself sounded hollow. Suddenly, it opened like a door, revealing a hidden room from beyond. Snake gestured for Cara, Al, Norah, and the Watterson boys to enter.

            The room was occupied by a large force of armed soldiers, assembled in platoons.

            The mood of the room was bleak, very dark.

            Snake brought Cara and her companions up to a table where the commanding officer and several other officers were gathered around a videophone that displayed the live image of a disfigured man who seemed have trouble breathing. “Cohaagen depressurized the tunnels,” the man informed the CO.

            “Then drill through to Section M,” the CO advised.

            “We can’t,” the man wheezed. “We’re running out of air.”

            “George,” Snake addressed the CO. He nodded over Cara and her group and said, “Where you want ‘em?”

            Dealing with two issues at the same time, George was understandably frustrated. “How should I know, Plissken?! She’s the one who wanted them here!”

            “And where is she?” Snake asked.

            “In the chamber,” George nodded to a fortified door on the other side of the room.

            Snake led Cara and the others through it. Inside was a partially lit chamber with lavish red and pink décor along one side, outfitted as a throne room with an actual throne fashioned from Martian rocks; the other side was austere and standard, outfitted as an office with a desk and chairs.

            On the royal side of the chamber sat a small, pink anthropomorphic rabbit girl with a white-colored tail. A small silver tiara twinkled underneath her long ears, which curved in opposite directions. Her demeanor was very conceited, regarding her new visitors with disdain. “What filth have you brought to me this time, Plissken?”

            “ANAIS?!?!” Gumball and Darwin recognized the so-called ‘Queen of Mars’.

            “Huh…I guess that was her on the posters,” Gumball recalled.

            Anais stood up from her throne, pointing angrily at Gumball and Darwin. “You will address me as ‘Your Majesty’ or ‘Your Highness’!”

            “Yeeeaaaah, no,” Gumball refused. “What’re you even doing on Mars, Anais?”

            “You’re supposed to be home,” Darwin added.

            “I am home, peasant!” Anais refuted. “And I told you to address me proper, or else I’ll have my executioner do what he does best.” She motioned to Snake, who tightened his grip on the assault rifle.

            Sweating and chuckling nervously, Gumball consulted with Cara. “Uh, a little help here? Why’s our little sister acting like this?”

            “It’s gotta be Rekall’s doing,” Cara surmised.

            “SILENCE!” Anais stormed. “Tell me what connection you have with Douglas Quaid! Tell us what Cohaagen found in the Pyramid Mine!”

            “We don’t know!” Gumball griped. “We just met Quaid today.”

            “Unlikely story,” Anais scoffed. “Either you all are part of the resistance or you work for Cohaagen himself – and I’m starting to think it’s the second thing!” She sharply looked to Snake and ordered, “Shoot them all down!”

            “As you wish, Your Majesty,” Snake complied, cocking his rifle and taking aim on Cara and her group, who all proceeded to protest with overlapping cries.

            All except for Norah, whose eyes glowed with literal smoke coming out of them.

            This oddity went undetected by those around her, as they were too occupied with protesting to Snake and Anais. That was until a scimitar was produced from a puff of smoke in Norah’s right hand, and she aimed it straight at Snake. “Just try and pull the trigger, Cyclops, and I’ll cut out the one eye you got left and feed it to your queen!”

            Looking up and down at the changed Norah, Gumball shouted, “What the what is going on?!”

            “Not now!” Al groaned, almost in embarrassment.

            “Yes, now,” Norah countered, her voice echoing a strong, sultry tone with a more noticeable accent. “Or do you want to be turned into Swiss cheese by the Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes?”

            “O.K., first off, there’s no ‘who’ in that title – it’s just The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes,” Al corrected. “And second…”

            “ARE YOU TWO SERIOUSLY DOING A BIT RIGHT NOW?!?!” Cara yelled. “Al, whatever’s goin’ on with your girl, get it under control now before she gets us all killed!”

            “That won’t be necessary,” someone with a cooler head prevailed.

            That cooler head was George, who entered the chamber amid all the insanity. “Stand down, Plissken,” he ordered Snake, who immediately obeyed. George was followed in by Quaid and an athletic brunette, both surveying the bizarre scene that unfolded prior to their entrance.

            “What did we miss?” the baffled Quaid asked.

            “Don’t ask,” Cara answered. “Who’s this?” She glimpsed at the brunette.

            “Her name’s Melina,” Quaid said. “She’s on our side.”

            “And what about you?” Cara gestured to his disheveled appearance. “You look as if your day had gotten worse.”

            “Don’t ask,” Quaid deflected.

            “Melina, would you give us the space?” George requested, and Melina obliged by stepping out of the chamber and shutting the door behind her. As soon as she was out, George addressed the entire group. “Kuato will fix all of your problems…” He looked on Snake and Anais. “…even yours.”

            “Us?!” Anais and Snake reacted in confusion.

            “I am Queen of Mars,” Anais proclaimed. “I have no problems that need fixing.”

            “Keep tellin’ yourself that,” Gumball muttered with a snicker.

            All of the sudden, George started to convulse slightly. Everyone, save for Anais and Snake, presumed that he was suffering some sort of seizure. He unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a small second head growing from his chest. Its sleeping face was ancient yet infantile, no bigger than a grapefruit.

            “I think I’m gonna throw up,” Gumball retched. He was put off from his reflux as soon as Anais slugged him across the arm. “Ow! What did I do now?!”

            “Show some respect for the wise and all-powerful Kuato!” Anais told him.

            Cara regarded George’s parasitic twin with interest. “Ah! So that’s Kuato!”

            As Kuato’s misshapen eyes opened, George’s closed and fell into a trance. Kuato’s toothless mouth spoke for the first time, addressing the group. “Yes, I am Kuato, and I can help all of you to reclaim what has been stolen from you.”

            “You can help get our memories back?” Darwin said with hope.

            “Yes, my little friend,” Kuato said. “But people are defined by their actions, not their memories. Now please…two of you take my hands.” Kuato reached out with his small arms and four-fingered hands.

            Gumball cringed, being the one closest to the left hand. “Do we have to?”

            “GUMBALL!” Cara scolded.

            “Alright, fine.” Reluctantly, Gumball gripped Kuato’s left hand. There was a quick jolt between him and the parasitic mutant, as if they were blasted by a bolt of electricity.

            Quaid gripped Kuato’s other hand, resulting in the same occurrence.

            “Now, the rest of you,” Kuato instructed. “Hold hands…and open your minds.”

            Darwin, Anais, and Snake joined in the circle, holding each other’s hands.

            Cara was the last to join, but she stopped for a brief moment to look back at Al and Norah – the former tending to the latter, who seemed to have returned to her senses after her unusual episode. The scimitar in her hand had disappeared. Detecting Cara’s concern, Al simply gave a reassuring nod.

            On that, Cara locked grips with Darwin’s tiny flipper and Snake’s meaty hand.

            Instantaneously, Cara was mentally transported back in time – on the same planet in the same dimension – to when she, Snake, and the Watterson children had all arrived in her TARDIS. By this memory, one thing was clear: they did know each other, and they did travel together, hence how Snake and the kids were so far from their home worlds.

            “Where are we now?” Gumball asked in the memory. “It looks like a factory.”

            “Smells like one,” Anais indicated.

            “The TARDIS computer says we’re on Mars, in the year 2084,” Cara said. “So, if this is a factory, it’s a Martian factory.”

            Snake, in the meanwhile, lit himself up a cigarette. “Is this what it’s like all the time for you people?” He sounded very bored as he puffed. “Snoopin’ ‘round places ya don’t belong in.”

            “You’re welcome to stay in the ship, Mr. Plissken,” Cara invited.

            “Call me…”

            “Snake. Yeah, I got it.” Cara moaned. “Might as well get used to that.”

            The memory shifted to another time in another part of what the five travelers presumed to be a factory. By then, Cara had identified it as an alien reactor. “A 500,000-year-old reactor, to be exact!”

            “Whoa!” Gumball exclaimed with glee. “And the Martians built it?!”

            “I think they did,” Cara verified.

            They crossed a flimsy, steel bridge that ran between the avenues of square metal towers, hanging over a dark, bottomless abyss.

            Another shift in time.

            Now they were being pursued by Cohaagen. “Stop them!” He ordered Richter and his men. “I don’t want those rebels and those little mutant freaks to get away with what they’ve seen here!”

            The TARDIS team split up to trick Richter and his squad.

            Another shift.

            Cara found herself inside the reactor core’s control room. There, she discovered five identical pillbox structures, arranged in a circle like an alien Stonehenge. At the center of the control room was a round stone altar. On closer inspection, she found that the altar had been sculpted with the imprint of a hand…a four-fingered hand.

            “Interesting, isn’t it?” A man stood there in the room with Cara.

            As Cara looked right at him, the memory of his face began to flux between two people: Hauser and another man with white hair and red eyes.

            BOOM!!!

            Cara, Snake, Quaid, and the Watterson children were snapped awake by the sudden explosion that rocked the base. A massive mining mole drilled through the stone wall on Kuato’s side of the chamber. “They’ve found us!” Snake cried.

            Kuato/George stood motionless, still in a trance.

            Quaid shook George’s shoulders and screamed, “WAKE UP! SNAP OUT OF IT!”

            George awoke to see the advancing mole. “We need to get out of here!”

            He went for the fortified door, just as Melina emerged from it. “The entire base’s been breached by Cohaagen’s goons,” she alerted. “There’s no getting out.”

            That much was clear when Richter and his troops appeared from the hole made in the wall. Richter opened fire on George’s exposed abdomen, firing one shot into Kuato’s malformed body and three into the upper (normal) half of George’s chest. George dropped to the floor, dead.

            Norah witnessed the familiar scene, shocked and puzzled. “I don’t get it. Benny isn’t here. How did they find us?!”

            “Quaid…Quaid…” Kuato, barely alive, gagged. As Quaid knelt to him, Kuato grabbed him by the collar, pulling him nearer. “Start the reactor…free Mars.”

            One shot to Kuato’s head from Richter, and the rebel leader was dead.

            Richter kept the gun trained on Quaid, wanting so badly to shoot. Instead, he lowered the weapon and told him, “Mr. Cohaagen would like to talk to you.” His threatening gaze switched over to Cara and the others. “All of you.”