“Guys, I think I screwed up.” Bob looked morose.
“What could you possibly have done to screw up?” Jill asked. “It’s not like you popped into Dean Simon’s office and waved a red flag saying ‘come and get us.'”
“Well, actually…”
“Oh man,” Alec said, “now that they know Anna’s still around, and what she’s capable of, it’s not going to take them long to figure out where we are.”
“Not really long at all,” Gene said, looking out the window. “In fact, it looks like they’ve just arrived.”
There was a pounding on the door. “Open up, in the name of the United States Government!”
“I’m so sorry guys,” Bob said, “I can make this up to you.” He sat down in front of the laptop and started to type.
“What are you trying to do?” Jill asked.
“Force field.”
“Wait,” Gene said, “that’s not supposed to be physically possible.”
Alec grinned, “Doesn’t matter. It’s metaphysically possible, and that’s all that counts here. Very clever Bob.”
Just then the door burst open, and government goons began to charge in. The first goon got about two feet into the room when suddenly he seemed to run into something. An aurora of blue energy swept over his body, and he collapsed to the floor.
“Is he…?” Jill asked.
“Sleeping?” Bob said. “Yes indeed. I put a number of little semantic imperatives into the request to Anna, to keep things non-lethal. We don’t want her to do anything illegal or truly harmful if we can avoid it.”
About then a shot rang out. They all watched in fascination as the bullet appeared to slow in its path and come to a stop. Then with a loud squawk the projectile seemed to turn into a tiny turkey, complete with wings and feathers and a highly indignant look.
There was another shot, and then another and another. Each bullet slowed to a halt and then metamorphosed into a little turkey, perfectly normal in appearance except for its small size.
“Clearly,” Gene said, ” the program is experiencing a glitch.”
“But why turkeys?” Jill asked. “Oh my gosh, of course — today is Thanksgiving! But’s that’s crazy.”
“Not necessarily,” Alec said. “I think I see what’s going on. Anna associates this day with lots of turkeys. So in a crisis she draws on that image.”
There now seemed to be a huge number of little turkeys running around, making indignant high pitched gobbling noises as they wove in and out between the ankles of the government men. One of the men tripped over a tiny turkey and was sent sprawling to the ground.
“Hey,” Alec shouted, “be careful where you step. You might hurt one.”
Gene looked puzzled. “Why so worried about magical turkeys?”
Jill explained “Alec is a vegan. He cares deeply about animals. Although sometimes I wonder whether he cares at all about the human kind.”
Just then the blue telephone booth flew open, and assorted mythical creatures started pouring out. Running, flying, crawling and wriggling, they ran out through the force field, and headed to the street, bowling over the startled government men in their path. A surprised looking Dean Simon stepped out of his car, only to be knocked over by a charging pink unicorn.
“I don’t know,” Alec said, shaking his head, “reality itself seems to be screwing up. I’m starting to question our underlying premises.”