So you opened the tarnished old doorknob,but the door
wouldn't open.
That should have set the alarm bells going in your head
but you merely slammed your shoulders against the stuck door and rushed through the doorway,to find yourself on a rusty
platform with creaky stairs leading down
into what looked like a darkened huge Zeppelin hangar ,so cavernous was it.
The once tight door slammed closed behind you,and though you tried to reopen it,it
wouldn't budge.
So you carefully went down the creaking iron stairs and as your eyes adjusted to the few ancient lamps in the ceiling
still burning,your eyes discerned a huge pressure capule 200 feet long and 50 feet in diameter
sited in the center of the hangar.
You also noted a B-17 bomber with flattened tyres parked off to one side,but
you'd come for a TF,not a inspection tour,so you headed to the TF chamber.
Around this time the modern computer on the other side had finally translated your input to the ancient
ENIAC vacuum tube computer that had sat idle all these decades,and when the antique computer whirred and hummed to life,the dust was blown into the air by its
cooling fans.
The TF chambers lights went on and there was the stiff whirrr of gear wheels as
the porthatch cover slid open to admit you.
You nriefly stared at the clanking ENIAC,but assumed it was up to the ljob
and entered the TF chamber.The gear wheels turned a little more freely as the porthatch sealed
shut again.
There was a bank of seats arranged around a projection screen and as you sat down
the ENIAC fired up the ancient silent projector and you looked on the
screen as Doctor Phineas Phogg contratulated you on
volunteering to become a test subject in Teddy Roosevelts "New Army.
"Teddy Roosevelt?" you said"Now wait just a minute here"
Phineas explained that though the Brass had shut down his TF project codenamed
Laidley Worm,he'd
relocated to a secret location and he and a select group,including you,were about to
inhale the sealed vapours found in a long lost cavern
where the skeleton of a huge lizard with bats wings,a long tail,a long neck,short
legs and the crocadilian-horse head had been discovered by Sir Anton Mallory in a Welsh coal mine in 1852.
Phineas thanked you for your contribution to science,hoped you
well,and the last image before the projector whirred to a stop was
the black and white image of Phineas and twenty crew cut army types in 1930s
dress walk into the opened inner porthatch which
now becomes apparent as
the projector goes dark,the projection screen
jerkily rises into the ceiling and the openning inner porthatch to the Beyond is
revealled.
The other side is pitch black,unlike theis well lit
"TF Reception Area"...