The Juggernaut:: Prologue

The Juggernaut
Prologue

When my mind comes to grips with what’s happening to me, it seizes up. I can actually feel it painfully clenching in terror, and tautening with it every muscle in my body as I start plummeting downwards. My eyes start watering from the air rushing past me, but I can’t stop looking down because it’s registering that sooner or later I’m going to stop falling. I don’t think I could close them if I wanted to, because my body is so rigid I could pass for a plank. All I can think of suddenly is Wile E. Coyote, and how he always leaves a spread-eagled shaped hole as he smashes powerfully into ground from insane heights in some stupid, hare-brained scheme to catch the roadrunner.

Then I remember that unlike my friend the coyote, my life won’t cut to the next scene where I’m either in a full body cast or miraculously intact in my next complicated ploy, because ... I’m not going to leave a Dane-shaped hole somewhere in the concrete jungle that is quickly zooming at me from below. I’m going to splat like a bug in a windshield, and that’s it. I’m going to die. I’m ... going ... to die.

It is this disturbing thought that jars me out of my stupor and into the only reaction my brain can come up with.

“Aaaaaaah! Aaaaaah, aaaaaah, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OHMYGODOHMYGOD –“

“DANE!”

“ - OHMYGOD, AAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

“DANE!”

A hand takes a hold of my left shoulder, and I instinctively clasp on to it and start pulling myself on the person, not taking my eyes off the ground for a second, screaming all the while.

“DANE, DANE, WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU – GET OFF ME!” I’m given a sharp prod in the stomach and I lose my grip of the person, wheeling around in a barrel roll now, all the colors around swirling into a bluish-green shade that’s quickly making me nauseous.

“AAAaaaAAAaaaAAAaaaAAAaaaAAAH!”

“DANE! DANE!” the person yells my name again, but I can hardly hear it over the rushing wind and the shrill sounds of my own bellows. “DANE, WILL YOU SHUT THE HELL UP FOR A SECOND!”

The hands suddenly grab a hold of my legs, bringing my spinning to an abrupt stop. Too bad that's all it's stopping. I’ve got a view of the sky now, a periwinkle blue with a smattering clouds. A nice day, except for the whole, you know, freefalling from unfathomable heights without a parachute thing.

“NOW, WILL YOU JUST CALM DOWN AND LISTEN TO ME?”

I turn to face the person who’s falling above me, and my heart leaps when I see the freckled face that’s squinting back at me, his red hair seemingly standing straight up from the force of the wind. I’m saved!

“CLIFF, OH CLIFF, GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

Cliff yells something at me that I don’t quite get.
“WHAT?”

“NO CAN DO!” He reiterates, shaking his head for emphasis.

“CLIFF, GET US OUT OF HERE!”

“WHAT?”

I grab on to Cliff’s hand and pull myself up to him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt.

“CLIFF, I DON’T KNOW IF YOU’VE NOTICED,” I yell in his ear, my voice already hoarsening, “BUT WE ARE HURTLING TOWARDS THE CITY FROM SEVERAL HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF FEET ABOVE IT, AND I’D REALLY APPRECIATE IT IF YOU GOT US OUT OF HERE BEFORE WE BECOME BLOODSTAINS ON INDEPENDENCE AVENUE!”

Cliff turns me around forcefully, and I can again see Belmopan sinisterly looming in the distance, growing slowly and steadily like dough with too much yeast. If only that were the case.

“SEE THAT BUILDING?”

While the place was beginning to take form, it was still too high up to distinguish any identifiable shapes. I gave Cliff a forceful look that told him exactly that.

“OK, MAYBE YOU CAN’T SEE IT NOW. BUT THERE’S A CIRCULAR BUILDING WITH A BLACK GLASS-LOOKING CEILING COMING UP BENEATH US.”

“WHAT, THE HOTEL?”

“YEAH.”

“SO, WHAT, I’M GOING TO SPLATTER MY INNARDS ON THE TOURISTS IN THERE?”

“THAT’S WHERE THEY’RE KEEPING CAMILLA.”

I turned to squint back at Cliff, trying to follow what Cliff was telling me. Normally I’d be asking, “Why are they keeping her there?” “What are they planning to do with her?” and some other common sense questions like that. But as you could imagine, at that moment I’d much rather be safely tied up in some broom closet of the hotel like Camilla probably was than speeding towards it at insane speeds like I was now.

“I’M NOT FOLLOWING THE TRAIN OF THOUGHT HERE.”

“THE PERIMETER OF THE HOTEL IS HEAVILY GUARDED, AND THERE’S SOME KIND OF BARRIER AROUND IT THAT’S KEEPING ME FROM GETTING IN. THERE'S TOO MUCH MANPOWER IN IT TO TRY A COUNTER-TAG.” Cliff was gesticulating wildly at that point to emphasize what he was saying. Unlike me, as I was doing it reflexively to try and ... take off and fly away or something. Crazy, yes, but you try being rational when you know in a couple of seconds you would be squeegeed off the roof of the Circle A Hotel. “THAT GLASS LOOKING MATERIAL, IN THE MIDDLE THERE, TURNS OUT ITS SOME KIND OF MAGICALLY FORTIFIED CRYSTALLINE STUFF, ABOUT TEN TIMES AS HARD AS DIAMONDS. WE'RE STILL TEN TIMES AS LIKELY TO GET THROUGH THAT THAN THROUGH THE FRONT THOUGH.”

“CLIFF, ARE YOU HEARING YOURSELF? WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, MAGIC GLASS?”

“DANE, YOU’RE FALLING AT IT FROM THE SKY WITH NO OTHER PLAUSIBLE METHOD OF GETTING UP HERE AND YOU STILL DON’T BELIEVE?” I opened my mouth to counter, but Cliff held out both his hands in a shut-up gesture. It was just as well, because I don’t know what I could have possibly said to that anyway. “IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU BELIEVE IT OR NOT, OK? THAT STUFF IS JUST TOO STRONG FOR ME TO BREAK THROUGH IT ON MY OWN, AND I NEED YOUR HELP.”

“AGAIN, NOT FOLLOWING.”

“IT’S TOUGH, BUT IT SEEMS LIKE OUR BEST SHOT. WE BREAK THROUGH SO I HAVE AN OPENING TO GET IN, WE FIND HER, AND JUST POP OUT. ”

“THIS IS OUR BEST SHOT, CLIFF? US TRYING TO CRASH THROUGH AN ‘IMPENETRABLE’ CEILIING SEEMS LIKE A GOOD IDEA TO YOU?”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘US’?”

I couldn’t stop my eyes from bulging involuntarily at that. A ready stream of tears flittered across my temples, some seeping their way into my ears. “WHAT?”

“I SAID, WHAT DO YOU –“

“I HEARD THAT, BUT – WHAT, ARE YOU GONNA DISTRICT THESE ALLEGED GUARDS WITH MY DEAD BODY OR SOMETHING, BECAUSE I’M NOT GETTING THE POINT HERE.”

“LOOK DANE,” Cliff takes both my shoulders and turns me to face him at this point, in some kind of strange heart to heart. At the time, it sort of freaked my out, ‘cause it seemed like a final goodbye the way he looked so earnestly at me. “CAMILLA THINKS THAT YOU’RE THE JUGGERNAUT. IF SHE’S RIGHT, THEN YOU CAN DO THIS. YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN; YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS ENOUGH POWER. YOU’LL CRASH THROUGH THAT CRYSTAL AND LAND IN THAT HOTEL WITHOUT A SCRATCH ON YOU. AS FOR ME, WELL, I'M NOT SO LUCKY. IT’S GONNA BE A PIECE OF CAKE, OK?”

“CLIFF, I’M NOT THIS ... THING THAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT. I’M – I’M NOT INVULNERABLE, OK? I – I – THE ROOF OF MY MOUTH GETS CUT EATING CAPTAIN CRUNCH, ALRIGHT? AND I CRY WHEN IT HAPPENS TOO.”

“LOOK, THERE IT IS,” Cliff points again, and I turn and I see it quite clearly. The large cream structure is directly beneath us, and the glass material is sort of glittering softly in the afternoon sunlight. “ARE YOU READY?”

“NO!”

“CAMILLA SAYS YOU’RE THE JUGGERNAUT, DANE. WHICH MEANS YOU CAN DO THIS. YOU’LL KNOW WHAT TO DO WHEN THE TIME COMES. IT’LL BE INSTINCTIVE. YOU’LL SEE, EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE. TRUST US.”

“AND WHAT IF SHE’S WRONG? YOU DIDN’T THINK I WAS THIS THING, REMEMBER?”

“BUT CAMILLA DOES.”

“BUT WHAT IF SHE’S WRONG?!?”

At this, a beat passes, and Dane pats me firmly on my left shoulder. “THEN IT WAS MY HONOR TO KNOW YOU.”

“CLIFF!”

He gives me a little mock salute then, and I know what he’s going to do next.

“CLIFF, CLIFF, DON’T LEAVE ME HERE, I’M BEGGING YOU!“ Again, I reflexively try to catch a hold of him. And for an instant, I do, and I’m pulling him in and trying to grip him in a bear hug. But one moment I’ve frantically dug my fingernails into his arms, and the next it’s just me plummeting downwards with fistfuls of air. Cliff has done his thing. He’s gone.

“OH MY GOD, OHMYGODOHMYGOD!” I scream at no one, taking another look at the hotel again. The circular crystal in the center seemed like an enlarged pupil, that was glaring at me so wholly, so menacingly, so ... amusedly. And who could blame it? It was going to kill me. It was going to freaking kill me! I kept trying to think of some kind of way to get out of all this, but this was it. I was going to slap down on that thing like a sledgehammer on a watermelon. As the last few meters zipped by me, I curled myself up in the fetal position, praying to every deity I could think up to save me now as I whammed into diamond-esque ceiling of Belmopan’s premier hotel and said my last word.

“AAAAAAAAAAH!”

Let me stop you here. Before I give you the fascinating details of how just how my entrails exploded, and very likely sizzled like a barbeque on the heated structure before the proper authorities could get there to my remains into a plastic container for proper study, let’s really delve in to my story from the beginning, or you won’t really get what’s going on here until we do that. Heck, I’ve been in it from the beginning and I still don’t get it, but ... that’s just me. So, here we go.