Serialization of "Quedly Dake and His Quest to Conquer the Globe" — Final (25th) Chapter
From Book 3 of the “Taterskin & The Eco Defenders” Trilogy
Both pilots entered 2525 as the date (keeping the same month and day of the month as it was currently, May 29th) and Zenia, California as the destination.
Not wanting to dawdle, the pilots went full-throttle and made it home to Zenia in less than an hour.
After landing the aircraft and storing them in the workshop, we all gathered outside in the meadow. The sun was shining, the breeze was light and refreshing, and a feeling of deep contentment was palpable among the whole group of us, the polar opposite of what we had felt during that awful day that precipitated this entire story.
It was hard to imagine that we had so recently—in our experience, that is, although not on the calendar, being again almost 500 years in the future from when we had left Quedly Dake behind in the Wet Tortugas—been in such different circumstances.
Yes, the gloomy atmosphere and mood had completely vanished from when we were last here at home. That had been caused as a result of the nuclear winter that had engulfed the earth after Dake had bombed a dozen of the world’s nations. By again going back in time and re-writing history, we had prevented that destruction and the catastrophic effects of it.
The contrast between the feel of that time, as we struggled to stop Dake, and now, where an egalitarian society of complete peace reigns, was so deep and profound that some of us could barely acknowledge that what we had experienced had really happened. Marmalade expressed it this way: “Everything’s just as it was before that dark day; I was so afraid that we would never be happy again.”
“It was a dark day—both figuratively and literally,” I said. “Do you all remember how it went dark and gloomy all of a sudden , and a chill ran through our bones?”
“How could we forget? But now it’s sunny and warm and bright and airy and carefree, just as it used to be and should be,” Chapawee said. “Who could ever have foreseen that two eras, two epochs, so completely different from each other, could take place on the earth—how things could change so radically so quickly.”
“Well, to be precise, it wasn’t that quickly; don’t forget that was actually almost 500 years ago, in the year 2029, when we exiled Dake,” Alexis reminded Chapawee.
“Technically yes,” Ravelle X said, “But it feels like just yesterday.”
“Yes, it certainly does,” Stripes agreed.
“It is indeed hard to believe, in a way, that those things really occurred,” Albert said. “But they did.”
“How do you know it did?” Yukyuk challenged. “Maybe we were all hypnotized or something, or we had a collective dream. Perhaps we ate some bad Lima beans or something that caused a raging fever and made us all delusional.”
“How would we all have the same dream, Yukyuk?” Albert said. “That makes no sense.”
“I know how we can prove to ourselves whether those things really happened or not,” Alexis said.
We all looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to finish her thought and explain how it could be proven.
“OmniMagister,” Alexis said, “What happened to Quedly Dake in the year 2029?”
Dake, after becoming President of the United States through trickeration and bribes and threats, maneuvered matters so that he also became Secretary General of the U.N., and set about giving that world organization teeth, as he put it, making it a real power, in fact the only world power, with him as the head of it. Through his dirty tricks, he was able to get all the nations of the world (except twelve) to side with him, including those who had permanent veto power on that body, namely the Anglo-American World Power (Britain and America), China, France, and Russia.When he threatened to nuke the twelve holdout countries, the Eco Defenders traveled back in time and prevented him from doing so. They infiltrated the U.N. and kidnapped him, according to his two bodyguards, Kenworth Bumney and Reed Reid, who were with him until he was spirited away by those Eco Defenders, a group who were led by Albert Spartacus Joad, his right-shoulder bird Alexis (an African Gray Parrot), and Taterskin, a Labrador Retriever who later wrote three memoirs about the Eco Defenders and their exploits.It has been rumored that the Eco Defenders exiled Dake to a very remote and isolated island named The Wet Tortugas, but that can’t be corroborated, because the existence of such a place has not been proven to this very day. The Wet Tortugas seem to exist, if at all, in another dimension and are thus undiscoverable. It is assumed that Dake spent the rest of his life on that island, as he was never heard from again.The world in general and in particular the twelve nations Dake planned to nuke were very grateful to the Eco Defenders.“So there you have it, Yukyuk,” Alexis said. “The events we all remember are not figments of our imagination or a shared delusion, but are a matter of historical record.”
Yukyuk chuckled. “I knew it all along,” she said. “I was just pulling your paws and legs,” she added, and chuckled again, as usual quite pleased with herself.
Marmalade miaowed. Stripes and Rory purred in their deep, rumbling way. The pups yipped, and Rovette and I looked at them, and each other, lovingly. The Elephants, Tubthumper and Chumbawumba, trumpeted raucously, letting loose with a vale-shaking series of brassy notes. Ooga grunted happily. Chapawee and Ravelle X hugged. Drako did several push-ups, flicking her tongue here and there, just in case there might be a cricket nearby. Jowls Behemoth and Ocero Puddleby bellowed. Yookie took out a eucalyptus leaf she had stashed away somewhere and began chewing away contentedly on it. Terri flew over to the mirror hanging over the sink and began admiring herself in it, as she was wont to do. Rinky day-dreamed about using his poison toe on Dake’s bodyguard, and smiled (to the extent that someone with a duck’s bill for lips can smile). Albert looked around at all of us, and simply grinned. Falcona, full of pent-up energy, suddenly flapped her wings and quickly gained altitude, exuberantly testing her airspeed, making a circuit of the meadow; she was always trying to improve on her best time. Falcona was no match for the Arodnap and Androcles at full throttle, but she was unquestionably and indisputedly the fastest bird alive.
We all looked up into the sky to watch Falcona’s impressive and graceful flight.
It was a good time to be alive.
That’s how I remember us, the Eco Defenders, at the end of our last great adventure together.
GLOSSARY
Androcles — The second eVTOL time-traveling aircraft
Arodnap — The first eVTOL time-traveling aircraft, designed and constructed by Albert Spartacus Joad
CM — “Charismatic Megafauna” – the larger and more ‘iconic’ of the Eco Defenders. Specifically, the Elephants, Rhino, Hippo, Gorilla, and the Big Cats (Lion, Tiger), namely: Tubthumper and Chumbawumba, Ocero Puddleby, Jowls Behemoth, Ooga, Stripes, and Rory
Compressor/Decompressor — Also known as the “Shrinker/Deshrinker.” This device, which each eVTOL is equipped with, allows large passengers (such as Elephants, Rhinos, and Hippos) to be shrunk before traveling so that they can fit in their seat and don’t weigh down the vehicle, and then be “decompressed” or enlarged back to their natural size after disembarking.
eVTOL — This stands for “electric Vertical TakeOff and Landing,” which is the type of vehicle the Arodnap and Androcles are.
GPS/CPS — (“Global Positioning System / Chronological Positioning System.”) The GPS/CPS are the devices the eVTOLs are outfitted with, which allow the pilot to select the time and destination to which the pilot and any passengers will travel.
The previous (penultimate) chapter can be found here.
Book 1 of Taterskin & The Eco Defenders, “Wonders Never Cease,” can be found here.
Book 2 of Taterskin & The Eco Defenders, “Tell It To Future Generations,” can be found here.
Book 3 of Taterskin & The Eco Defenders, “Quedly Dake and His Quest to Conquer the Globe,” can be found here.
