Dale scratched at his chest, sniffing the softly rising breeze that brought promises of walnuts growing in the grove outside of town. A bit of a trek to get there from the treehouse, but still manageable. Even more so if they went in the Ranger Plane, and they could pack away a much better haul than if they took the Ranger Wing.
A small bit of a problem, however. with as awesome of a detective as he was, his strengths didn't quite lie in the realm of... 'birdy-ing'. 'Flyifying'. The act of defying gravity through mechanized planes, and whatnot. The one time he
had been involved in the descent of an air bound contraption, all the others had been right alongside him doing their best to bring the bird safely back to the ground as well.
Quite a weighty bird, that NASA sponsored spaceship. And all the work they did to help it safely land didn't really equate to any real flying experience.
It would have to be a valiant quest! A foray down into the depths of the treehouses innards, to converse and parlay with its mightiest of keepers, the beautious and magnanimous...
"Hey, Gadget!" Dale called out, walking into the garage. A vision of beauty could be seen gracing the workspace- wait no, Dale couldn't really see her. She was almost fully underneath an unknown machine, the tips of her feet waving back and forth in time to an unheard beat.
"Oh, good morning Dale," came the muffled reply as the grease streaked mechanic rolled her way out from under the unfinished contraption. "Say, could you stand over there real quick?" she asked as she emerged, pointing to a section of the floor marked with a red painted X.
"Anything for you, Gadget," Dale gushed in response as he quickly made his way over to the X. "So, what's this here things about supposed to do?"
Gadget had since disappeared halfway into the guts of the machine, her feet kicking freely in the air as she tweaked something inside and out of sight. "Well, originally it was supposed to an automatic sandwich maker," she replied, emerging with a spurt of oil that splashed upon the ground. With a careful wipe to get the gunk off her face, she turned to a bulky control unit housing a medley of different buttons.
"That didn't really work like how I thought it would, though. Turns out that assembling a non-solid structure like a sandwich has a ludicrous degree of irregular variance. Tomato chunks,
everywhere," she shuddered. "So I reworked the internal mechanism to a sub modulating wavelength," she continued, shifting an antenna on the machine so it was pointing at Dale. "Now, hold out your hands."
Dale stifled a harsh gulp, holding his hands out in supplication. Gadget wouldn't
really hurt him. The worst that could come from her little experiments would him being banged around from it exploding-
A visible ray of electricity shot forth from the antenna, landing on his brow. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't accompanied by a shock of- well,
shock, or otherwise any force of any kind.
"Uh, so you said you changed it?" He stated uncertainly. "What's it supposed to do
now?"
Gadget stalked forward, grabbing Dales hands and turning them over several times in her own in confusion.
"It was supposed to bring the sandwich to you," she grumbled, seeing no apparent reaction. "But it looks like the Ray had no perceivable effect at all-"
With a lurch that found Dale covered in surprised mouse, the entire tree resounded with a titanic crash. Machinery and parts spilled across the floor, creating a metallic halo around them.
"Huh, well if this is what happens feel free to shoot me with that thingamabob more often!" Dale glibly joked, gaining him a short glare as Gadget scrambled to her feet.
"That didn't come from the machine," she stated assuredly, "A tremor of that magnitude, inflicted on the entirety of the room... It must have been an impact on the tree from the outside!"
A short jaunt from the workshop to the nearest exit outside showed the truth of her words. Laying sprawled around the impressive girth of the trunk of their home lay the scattered remains of a human vehicle. The front half of the engine block was nothing more than scrap at this point, the driver dazedly prying himself from the miraculously untouched cab of the truck.
Dale restrained a full body shudder as heput the mental puzzle pieces together. "On second thought, I'm good with missing the next couple zappy sessions, Gadge."
Gadget peered down at the milling humans, the large bipeds berating the driver as he fussed over his quickly warming cargo. 'Saviches Sandwiches' stood stark on the crumpled sidepanels. Hmm.
"Golly."
Authors Notes:
Thanks to @Eliar ,
@Lerticus and @t-dugong for giving me ideas for writing. Infinite sandwich machine, as well as Isekai machine.