Planet of the Titans

Chapter 12

While Darian and Zima were at the bar, Leo was trapped in his jar back in Darian's dorm. His jar was small in comparison to him, a mistake that Darian would later regret; Leo had to stoop over so as not to bang his head on the lid. The air holes had been hastily cut out of the lid with a tool that left holes big enough for Leo to grasp. He began trying to grasp the lid and unscrew it, and sure enough, it began to give way. He struggled harder, and the plastic lid unscrewed and fell to the tabletop below. Logan climbed out and jumped down to the table.

Unsure of how to proceed, the answer came to him like a revelation. He climbed down onto the floor and ran and hid by the door. He would wait for Darian to come home, and make a run for it when the door was open and her back was to him. He had to wait quite some time, but when she eventually came home, he did exactly as he had planned, and made a run for it. His escape attempt was successful. He ran back toward the creek, and about two and a half hours later he was there, back at the spot where they had camped before being re-captured by Darian.

He still had the device that the protester had given him the day Darian had given her speech. He turned it on, and the tutorial informed him that there was a cache of climbing gear hidden at the creek, not far from where he was. Though it was night time and dark out, he was able to track down the location of the secret stash location. There was rope and carabiners, and a pneumatic tube to shoot the rope if he needed to, exactly what he would need to get back into the lab where the Thunderbolt was.

Leo made his way back to the lab, and another two and a half hours later he was there. One thing the tutorial taught him was how to utilize a mind control device in Darian's lab. Once he utilized it, he would have the knowledge to access all the technology in the lab, and he would be able to proceed from there. Once he was outside the lab, he stood below the window they had escaped from, which was now closed. The rope he had was connected to a pneumatic tube, and after aiming for the window and firing it, the grapnel hook at the end of the rope penetrated the window above him and hooked inside the room. Logan pulled on the rope to make sure it was secure, and when he was satisfied, he began his ascent.

Carmen was the first to hear the glass breaking. She woke up startled, and woke her husband Tyler up. Mason, Nolan and Natalie woke up, too.

"What was that?" Carmen asked.

"Is it a giant?" Natalie asked.

From their vantage point, they could see just above the habitation module through the plastic dome, to the window above the space-warp cannon; this was the window they had escaped from when they had escaped from Darian.

"I don't think so," said Mason. "It looks like someone our size is breaking in here!"

"It must be a rescue!" said Nolan.

When Logan reached the window sill, he pulled up the rope he had climbed and threw it through the hole in the window, over the other side and down into the lab. He tied one end of the rope to a handle on the window, so he wouldn't lose the rope. Nolan looked up and spotted Logan.

"It's Logan!" said Nolan.

"It couldn't be Logan," said Carmen, "we saw him get swallowed alive by Darian!"

"Well, he must've gotten puked back up!" said Nolan.

"Nobody shout to him," said Mason, "just let him do whatever he needs to do. He's probably got something figured out!"

Logan climbed down and looked around the lab. The device the tutorial mentioned as the mind control machine was on a shelf in the lab, and Logan located it. He easily climbed up and made his way to the device.

He turned it on according to the instructions given to him by the protester's device, following the tutorial word for word. This mind control device could forge a pattern in the neurons in Logan's brain that would teach him how to operate all the technology in the lab. Logan stuck his head into the emitter and turned on the device to full power. Within less than a minute, he had understanding of all the devices in Darian's lab. He looked around with full knowledge of how everything worked.

"The first thing I need to do is purge myself of the nanobots in my system, or the show's over!" said Logan. He saw another device that was capable of just that on another level of the shelf, and went to it and turned it on. He used a tube to send an electromagnetic pulse through his body. This electromagnetic pulse was strong enough to fry the delicate circuitry of the nanobots in his body so they couldn't send a signal to Darian's equipment. Just to check and see if it worked, he went to another device on the same shelf that could track the nanobots in their systems. He turned it on and saw the signature of the other five captives in their habitation chamber, but his signal wasn't being picked up.


A feeling, something akin to a sixth sense alerted Logan that he should leave immediately. He climbed down from the shelf and made his way to the rope and climbed back up. When he was at the window, he called out to the others in the habitation module.

"Sorry I couldn't help you, but I purged myself of the nanobots so Darian can't track me anymore! When I have a better plan, I promise to come back for the rest of you!"

Logan disappeared through the hole in the window and climbed down the outside.

"Maybe the best we can hope for is to escape from Darian and live out a fugitive existence here on Thanatar!" said Tyler. "Maybe we'll never get back to Earth!"

"Don't say that!" said Mason. "We're going to refuel the Thunderbolt and get back to Earth, somehow! No matter how the odds are stacked against us!"

A few moments later, the door slid open and the lights came on. Darian entered the lab. She had seen that Leo's jar was empty when she got home, and saw the rope dangling outside the lab, coming from the window that concealed the space-warp cannon. She looked around the lab, and saw the equipment that Logan had utilized. She went to the habitation module and took the dome off. The five people from the Thunderbolt were in one compartment, and the dozen or so other captives who had been won when Mason and Leo had played on Arcadia were in another section of the habitation module.

"What in the hell just happened here?" said Darian.

One of the captives who had been won on Arcadia spoke up. "It was Leo! He came back and purged himself of the nanobots so you can't track him!"

"What are his plans?" Darian asked.

"He plans to come back and rescue the others!" said the captive.

"Then I'll be ready for him!" said Darian.

Nolan asked Darian a question while she stood there towering over them. "Darian, I thought you swallowed Leo. What happened?"

"I guess it won't hurt to tell you now that all of you know," said Darian. "This was all part of a psychological experiment. I was going to surprise all of you at the next speech I gave, and re-introduce Logan to you to see how you react."

"Has Zima mentioned me?" said Nolan. "We had an unforgettable night together."

"She hasn't mentioned you, but you're the first tiny person she has ever enlarged."

"I want to stay here on Thanatar and marry her!" said Nolan. "I'm in love with her!"

"At your size?" Darian asked. "Wouldn't that be difficult?"

"No!" said Nolan. "I want her to enlarge me to her scale, so we can be together forever!"

"I'll talk to her about it tomorrow," said Darian. "I'll tell her how you feel!"

Darian turned off the equipment that Leo had activated, and returned to the habitation module. Before sliding the dome back on, she grabbed a captive at random, one of the captives she had won on Arcadia.

"I need something to relieve my stress!" said Darian, and she lifted the captive over her mouth, and dropped him in. She forced him to the back of her mouth with her tongue, and swallowed him. Darian lifted her blouse and looked at her stomach as she laughed to herself. She replaced the dome on top of the habitation module, and left the lab. Before she left, she grabbed the rope that Leo had left hanging from the window.

Meanwhile, Leo was running as fast as he could across the campus, trying to make his way back to the creek so he could find cover. This world was so massive that a creek that was half a mile away to the giants was over thirty miles away from his perspective. When he got there, he collapsed and caught his breath. He pulled out the little device the protester had given him, which was about the size of a small camera. He didn't know what to do from here, but the device would provide him with any information he needed to assist him. If he could refuel the Thunderbolt, he could man the space-warp cannon and launch the Thunderbolt so the others could get home. Mason would have to pilot the space plane while Leo remained on Thanatar, but that was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

Leo activated the device and an image appeared on the screen. It was the woman who had given him the device. "Have you escaped from your captress?" the woman asked. This was a real-time two-way video call, and the device in Leo's hands was acting like a two-way video cell phone.

"Yes!" said Leo. "I got away!"

"Did you purge yourself of the nanobots so she can't track you?" the woman asked.

"Yes, what do I do now?" Leo asked.

"There are some women who work for the resistance. You need to go to one of them. There are several of them near you, one of them is very trust-worthy, she is about twenty of your miles from you, but then there's Melina, she's new, and we don't know if she can be trusted yet, but she's closer to you."

"How far away is Melina?" Leo asked.

"About five miles from you, on your scale, but you would be better off with our contact who is twenty of your miles from you!"

"I'll just trust Melina!" said Leo. "Give me a map that shows me how to get to her! I've done a lot of walking tonight, and I don't want to walk another twenty miles!"

"I'm transmitting it to you right now!" said the woman. When Logan got the map, he memorized it and set out to find Melina before daybreak.

Meanwhile, Darian went and woke Zima up and brought her back to the lab and showed her the hole in the window, as well as the rope (from Darian and Zima's perspective, the rope seemed like thread). Zima was still in her nightgown.

"They're getting brave!" said Zima. "You should set an example and swallow one of the passengers of the Thunderbolt!"

At that exact moment, the captives inside the lab could hear every word Darian and Zima were speaking. Carmen and Natalie were worried.

"One of us is going to get swallowed!" said Natalie.

"How would it look at your next presentation if you had to tell them that one of your captives escaped, and you didn't even punish any of them for it?" said Zima.

"You're right!" said Darian, and she punched in her combination into the keypad and the door slid open. She entered the lab and took the transparent dome off the habitation module.

"One of you is going to pay for Leo's escape!" said Darian, and she grabbed Nolan Ward and stuffed him into her mouth before he could even say anything in his defense. Darian tilted her head back and forced Nolan to the back of her mouth with her tongue, and swallowed him.

"Wait, which captive was that?" Zima asked.

"That was Nolan Ward!" said Darian. "By the way, he's in love with you and wants to marry you!"

"Drink some Gak!" said Zima, as she tossed a bottle of the purple liquid to Darian. "He belongs to me now, and I'm getting kind of attached to him!"

Darian nodded in assent and swallowed some of the Gak, and threw up in a sink nearby. Nolan was alive, and none the worse for wear. Zima walked over and rinsed him off.

"I'm keeping you at my dorm, with Brody and my other captives, okay Nolan?"

"Okay!" said Nolan. "It's great to see you again!"

"It's great to see you again, too!" said Zima with a smile that was lacking that evil glint in her eye that she usually had when she smiled.