Tremors in the Rough

VAl quickly discarded several idea for a framework for their Walk. Stalking hunters would too easily lead to situations where her companions must guess her vision else pull them all off course. A race course was too likely to wrap back to its beginning instead of continuing to their goal. Then she had it.

TADPOLE became a golf cart, the world a brightly lit green. Their first ball had carried them to the third hole but a little into the rough.

“The monitor is the ball?” Honorr asked, tipping back his cap.

“Don’t try to understand it. just play along and watch for NDMs.”

“Fore!” Fisian called and without leaving the cart or even stopping its easy motion, swung at the ball left-handed with her club. The ball flew out across the fairway and continued rolling until it was precariously close to the bunker.

“Your turn,” Fisian said to Honorr.

He stepped out of the cart as it slowed , positioned his feet carefully, and swung. The ball didn’t go far, but it was back to the center of the fairway and Val was certain he was starting to pick up readings from the sensors..

Honorr was just getting back into the cart when a hand grabbed his elbow. Two more golfers were ont he course, tall and stiff with cream pants and matching green golf shirts but Val couldn’t quite focus on their faces.

“Our turn,” one of them said, smiling. He yanked Honorr away from the cart and both swung their clubs.

“That’s now how the game goes!” Val shouted, ducking a swing toward her head. Fisian blocked the other with her club and reved the cart straight at the nearest, who seemed to step boredly out of its way. Fisian circeld around, putting the cart between Honorr and the green shirts. Val grabbed onto him as he grabbed onto the cart and Fisian charged down the fairway. Despite Fisians wild manueverings, the green shirts were repeatedly able to step diretly in front of the cart, forcing Fisian to swerve until she was almost tipping the cart.

For a moment they continued unimpeded, but there ahead appeared a second golf ball, this one acid orange.

“Get their ball!” Val shouted though she didn’t know how it could help.

Honorr and Val swung bent and dented clubs as the green shirts came at them again, never running but somehow moving faster than the cart.. This time Fizian aimed the cart between them and the garish ball, appeared likely to hit one of them, and he was gone. Non longer fitting quite into the scene, the NDM golfers began to appear and disappear randomly, in front of them, on the side, near the ball and not, but more often a little off, tempting them away from the ball.

“Five iron!” Fizain called, and Honorr handed her another club. For a moment the cart charged toward another green shirt, then With a deft turn, she headed for the ball, scooped it with the iron, and sent it flying away from the hole it had nearly reached. it bounced toward the lake.

The cart and the NDM golfers charged after it. Val scooped up the orange ball as Frisian drove past, and two of the green shirts jumped toward her, nearly knocked her from the cart, and the ball from from her hands, landed near the edge and continued rolling. The green shirted NDMs dove after it. Ball and N-Dimensional Monoliths landed in the water.

As if a meteor had crashed, the water of the lake, its lilies and cat tails and frogs all surged upward and crashed over the cart and its occupants.

#

Val, cold and wet, looked out over a vast gray sea. Honorr walked a little distance from her, studying sea shells while Fisian worked on the TADPOLE.

“I take it you know we won,” Horr said, looking up at her.

“What?”

“You’re grinning.”

“A tsunami isn’t what I, at least, envisioned as a success story.”

“Japan can handle another one. The NDM will just be more rocks on their shore. Better than the world blowing up.”

“They could just try again. Im sure those were just the guard force,” Val said, her smile softening.

“If they understand why the test failed,” Fisian said, joining them almost as mysteriously as the NDMs had. “Three test: one premature, the third a failure. They’ll be back to the drawing board and try again... in another eon or two.”

END

For the curious, TADPOLE is Temporal Anomoly Displacement Projected Onto Limited Exterior