|
With notepad in hand, and a little bit of anxiety yet with great hope, I spoke with a firm, clear voice to the muck. "Muck? Could you create a room for me, please?" The muck responded. "Muck," I spoke as I proceeded to step two, but while I was in the process, I felt the presence of someone as they stepped into the room with me. "Why are you even wasting your time, Basil?"
I felt a sudden wave of frustration, mixed with a pang of guilt. "How else do you expect me to learn this stuff," I responded, as I spoke to the individual, without looking up from my notes. "If I don't practice..."
"Practice?" A female voice repeated the word to me with unrestrained sarcasm. "That is what you needed when you created me, and /still/ need, you idiot!" She seathed deeply, with hands held into fists.
I set my pencil down into the crevice between the notepad and the rolled over pages that I held over the top and to the cardboard back with my left hand. "Holly, I am really sorry--"
"Shut up," she yelled, interrupting me sharply. "That's only the half of it, and you know it! Why can't you just leave me alone, and stop," shouted out the female puppet, who then placed her hand on my right shoulder and whipped me around to more fully gain my attention. "Using me as your... your... /guinea pig/!"
I took a long look at Holly, as her eyes stared at me with a fiery, penetrating look. I tried again to explain that what happened before was not personal. "Everything that's happened was by accident, and I've never meant you any har--"
"Forget it!" Her gaze left me for a random object in the room. "You never listen, anyway." Holly folded her arms and watched me as I continued to work.
I warily continued. "Muck? Could you take me to that room, please?" Suddenly the imagery around me instantaneously changed, and I found myself in the newly created room. "Thank you, muck." I made a quick inspection of the room, found it satisfactory, and applied a description to it. "Muck?" I spoke out again. "Could you create another room for me?" Again the muck granted my request. "Thanks."
It was at this point I became a bit more anxious. I held out the little notebook, and with arm extended, I made the necessary arrangements and an exit quickly appeared. "Dang," I muttered I inspected the exit, only to find that it went nowhere. Twice more I made an attempt with the exact same results. My heart began to pound a little more firmly, and my palms became a little damp with perspiration, leaving a few wet marks on the yellow pages of the note pad.
The fourth time I was successful in my attempt, only to find that the exit didn't go to where I wanted it. "Shoot," I muttered again, and decided to make one last attempt; again, without success.
It also didn't help that Holly came in through one of the last two entrances, took one look at what I'd done, and began to laugh out loud hysterically.
"Basil," she gasped for breath as she looked from the exits, then to me, and back again. "You never learn, do you?" The female ant puppet shook her head and before I could get a word in edgewise, she departed.
I shook my head and searched through my notes. Okay. This time I was able to figure out why the three exits went nowhere, and wrote down a quick note to avoid that problem from reoccurring. "But why didn't the last two work," I thought out in my mind. "I've did everything I was supposed--"
Suddenly a loud crack echoed around me, and a near blinding flash of brilliant light appeared behind me. "Oh great," I exclaimed, as I felt totally crestfallen. I didn't even have to look behind me to know who was there; I'd heard and felt that particular entrance too many times to mistaken who /that/ was.
It was Wizard Northtunnels.
I didn't say a word as I turned and looked at her with a rather sheepish look. She didn't say anything either, as she looked at me with a very staunch, rigid expression. It was very clear to me that she was not in a particularly happy mood. After a slight eye roll, she walked over to the five entryways I had just created, and without giving them more than an idle glance, turned and looked directly at me. "So..." She folded her arms in a very abrupt manner. " Care to explain why this room has five entrances, /three/ that lead to no place at all, /one/ that opens into a clover patch, and /one/ that opens to TILLY'S CHAMBER!!!"
I winced as her loud, penetrating voice reached my antenna. "I'm sor--"
"Silence," she yelled out to me, and shot a nasty looking glare directly at me. "Look. I am /sick/ and /tired/ of all your excuses! And I have /no/ desire to go to the trouble of taking your builder bit from you. Again!"
Almost as if on cue, Holly returned with a really triumphant smile, and stood next to the black cape and cloak donned wizard.
'So,' I though, as I looked at my first puppet creation, '/That/ is how Ms Northtunnles found out about this so quickly.' I forced myself to not roll my eyes as the Role Play wizard placed Her hand up to her forehead and massaged her temples gingerly.
"I want you to go to Professor Silver's laboratory, so he can explain to you how to get this right. But first..." She held out her right hand and with a barely perceptible motion, the five doors became one, and that particular exit was linked to the other room I had previously created. After making no effort to hide her frustration, nor an obvious eye roll, she lifted her right arm and pointed her index finger toward me. "Now.... go!"
With a very powerful blast of air and a flash of light, she had departed. But not without sending me a message over the 'brainwave' channel. "And don't jump. The jump function is for wizard staff and help staff, only!"
Holly simply stood there, arms folded, and gazed at me with a really deep smirk. "Nope, you never /do/ learn."
Approximately twenty minutes later, I arrived at the laboratory of Professor Silver. I didn't even half to knock as he quickly came to the door and opened it. "Basil!" A lightly condescending look was passed from him to me as he shook his head a little. "I just spoke with Wizard Northtunnels. Tisk, tisk, tisk. I've told you she'd be upset if you didn't get such a simple mpi programming code done correctly. Well, was rather busy, but I do have time to help you figure this out." A very bright smile then crossed his face. "But, she said you'd be willing to help be my assistant for a few hours," he said brightly. I wished I could have held his same enthusiasm.
Four hours later, I departed with blackened face, and wisps of smoke trailing from the tips of my antenna. Not to mention that slight trembling in my left hand.
"I must say, you are a pretty good learner," The purple ant in the white lab coat and glasses smiled. "Hopefully you can apply that skill to your learning of the mpi code."
I then nearly shook my head from utter frustration. 'Or keep me from ever building again,' I thought to myself. I was just about to make the turn of the corner when he called out to me, "Oh, by the way. I forgot to mention that I've made special arrangements with Wizard Northtunnels. Until you master MPI, you'll be my assistant for four hours each day as repay for helping you to learn the program."
I looked back and he passed a genuine smile. "See you tomorrow, at seven a.m. sharp."
He then closed the door to his lab, but it quickly opened again. "I almost forgot this," he stated quickly as he handed me a fairly thick book with gold embossed letters. 'Learning MPI. Written and composed by Professor Silver'. While I looked at the book, the purple ant returned to his lab and closed the door again.
I didn't get more than about dozen or so steps away when I came across another member of the wizard staff. Ampillion. "Basil..." He chuckled to himself mildly. "How's that assistant's job coming?" He coughed a couple times as the smoke floated upwards to him, then whipped his tail about idly and suddenly remembered something I had hoped he'd forgotten. "Aha!" A snap of Ampillion's finger's produced a very large toothpick about the length of a yardstick. You still owe me that little favor, remember?"
I sighed heavily and after setting the textbook aside, I held out my hands and take a hold of the giant toothpick. I tried to explain it was a simple situation of forgetting to head home before disconnecting, but it was a major offense, and his once again brushing me off didn't help. The very large dragon then placed a very large marshmallow onto the toothpick, and with a great fireball roasted the marshmallow as I held my head down. Ampillion took a hold of the toothpick and quickly devoured the toasted, marshmallowy lump.
Upon looking upward, I noticed even more smoke trailing from my antenna, but luckily no permanent damage occurred. "Oh, relax," he chuckled mildly. "Only 29 more to go!" He then sauntered off, waggling his tail behind him.
Both Professor Silver's laboratory, and the room Ampillion had his little marshmallow roast was located in the 'Out of Character Complex'. Just as I reached the 'rec room' I heard a very loud and emotionally upset voice.
"Basil," the voice screamed loudly. "I heard about your dissing 'shrooms!"
I looked back to see our resident cricket stare at me with arms akimbo. "Sky!" My voice began to tremble exceedingly. "How did you hear-- I mean-- I never..." I swallowed hard. "Just because I don't like portabella mush--" Bam! I was suddenly whapped with a giant portabella mushroom. Then several others followed. I tried to turn and run, but stepped onto one of them, causing me to stumble and fall to the floor. At this point I was ransacked and quickly covered with the spongy wet fungi until I could hardly move.
Sky walked over and stood above me with a decisive look of triumph. "You'll learn to like 'shrooms' even if you have to lie there all day long!" She then walked down the hallway proudly and went back into the rec room to play some music.
After several minutes of wrenching and wiggling my way out of the mushrooms, I decided to head over to Ant Island to try to get away from it all. Since the forbidden tunnels were rarely, if ever used, it seemed the best place to escape. A good place also to do a little reading on mpi, so I found a comfortable place to sit, and rested the heavy textbook on a rock before I sat down. Unfortunately...
"Basil! What are you doing down here?!?" I looked back with awe. How did anyone know... never mind. It was Tilly who was speaking to me. Before I could answer, she stopped and stood there with her arms folded. "What's the matter with you? Can't you read? I presume you can, since if you couldn't, you wouldn't be on this muck in the first place."
She gave me a penetrating stare.
"Look. I just needed to..." She quickly cut me off. It was at this point I remember thinking that all of this seemed really familiar. She wore a white jump suit, reminiscent of a 'NewsRadio' 'future based' episode. It had an embroidered name badge. It said 'Tilly - help staff'.
"What?" She looked down at me with considerable irritation. "I couldn't /hear/ you," she called out sarcastically as she quickly placed her hand next to her antenna. "Can't you speak? Are you messed up or something? Answer me!"
I wanted to tell her I came here to study, but before I could comment she cut me off. "What part of 'forbidden' do you not understand? She then walked up to me, and firmly whapped my left antenna. I winced from the discomfort.
"You men are all larvae. All of you." She then turned around and noticed the book on the rock. She picked it up and tossed it at me. "Are you crazy?!? Don't /ever/ leave this lying around! You'll be deleted for sure!"
I managed to catch the book in time. "To be honest, it /was/ a little heavy and..."
"Oh and I suppose you think it's a /woman's/ job to carry this book around with you where ever you go, huh?" Tilly sighted softly. "Typical male. Typical /heartless/ male, every one of you. Well, your lucky I'm in a good mood, or else I'd report you to Willy-- Er, I mean Willow, and she'd delete you without batting an eye!" She was just about to depart when she turned her head and looked back at me once more.
"Well, are you coming?" She then turned and left, muttering something about people never listening the first time.
My last hope for a bit of seclusion on the muck was Bug City. Not exactly a bastion of peace for a little ant as myself, but I was getting pretty desperate. However, I barely got off Ant Island before my hope ended. "Basil," the large blue tinted hopper called out as he quickly approached me. "This is your golden opportunity! You! You get to be the main attraction in my gladiator arena!"
"What exactly does /that/ mean?" I stood already wary of his offer. Locus wasn't exactly the most trustworthy bug, even on the occasional time he felt the need to be honest, which wasn't often. "If you new, you'd go running and screaming toward the horizon." The expression was all I need to tell he was sincere. So... I did so.
Upon looking back, he extended his wings, and took to the air in pursuit. "Come on!" He smiled evily. "It'll only hurt... a lot!"
I then violated muck policy by jumping to my chamber, and upon arriving home I locked the door. I barely stuck my head out for the next month. Oh, well. Hopefully the second year would be better.
|
