Down the Rabbit Hole

The footsteps of the approaching pirate attack forces grow louder, snapping Doc out of his near trance-like state.

"Thunderhorse!" He shouts. "Get the teacup out of your pack, and take Steve through! I'll cover you" He turns to Mark, who is on the other side of the open entrance to the FastTrack station. "Mark! Get over here! Cover Thunderhorse"
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More armored transports carrying even more heavily armed pirate troops arrive and begin to unload.

Thunderhorse quickly retrieves the teacup from their hotel room out of his backpack and places it on the ground. He takes over for Doc, putting pressure on Steve's bleeding wound. He hefts the dying scientist onto his shoulder. Then, in a sight more ridiculous than can be easily described, the giant viking carrying a mad scientist hops into a teacup and disappears.

Mark waits for a break in the enemy fire to dash across the open entrance. He opens automatic fire on the approaching pirate troops as he runs. Most of them duck out of the way of the eye scorching, ear ringing rain of violence, but one of them catches a bolt of death right between the ears, leaving nothing but a cauterized hole where his face used to be.

The pirates regroup and raise their guns to return fire, but Mark dives into the teacup before the bullets start flying.

Meanwhile, Doc is fiddling with a timed detonator he grabbed from Steve's pocket. The bullets from the pirate's assault rifles start pelting his armor. It stiffens up, but the ionized led pounds against his arm and back hard. He can feel the bruises forming.

It's almost more than he can take. At last Doc gets the timer set for ten seconds. He slaps it to the side of the cup and jumps in head first.

The noise of gunfire and the rioters of the train station on the IDS Marseilles Marriott shrinks away and the world around him fades to black, if only for a moment. Soon a new reality grows into view. It is a reality filled with teacups.

At first it seems that Doc has somehow slipped into a dimension made entirely of teacups and red light. As he slides out of the wormhole, a new noise grows into his ears. It's an alarm. The world of teacups grows larger and becomes reality. Suddenly, Doc is amongst all the teacups, surrounded by them. It's very, very hot in here. The alarm is joined by the wild claning and smashing of teacups as they give way to his sudden presense.

A new sound, the rushing of air, instantly and mercifully coincide with a lowering of temperature and a the light turning from red to black. Doc finds himself in a confined space on some strange kind of surface, proving that there is more to this bizzarro dimenstion than teacups. It is cold rough, and hard. It feels like some kind of metal mesh.

The darkness he how finds himself in reveals a light at one end of this tight tunnel. He uses the walls and ceiling of this cave to push himself along the rough surface, which seems to move with him with a grinding whir. He arrives into the light, where the buzzing alarm is blaring loudly.

Three people in hardhats are standing around him, staring incredulously. He's on a conveyor belt. Suddenly he feels a blunt impact on his groin and feels a muffled cry from between his legs. It's Mark's head.

Doc finishes climbing out of the tunnel. Mark is right behind him, cursing and spitting.

"God Damnit! Where the fuck are we?"

There's a loud bang and wailing as Thunderhorse get's jammed in the tight space of the tunnel. Mark and Doc grab the foot they can reach and pull. Thuderehorse emerges, holding Steve by the legs.

Doc rushes to Steve and pulls him further along the conveyor. He flips him over and puts pressure back on the bleeding gunshot wound.

"Where is this cursed place?" asks Thunderhorse, as he gathers his bearings.

Doc looks around a bit. It's a large, enclosed space filled with machinery and gawking workers. There are thousands of identical teacups lining the conveyor belt before them. "I think we're in the cup factory."

"I thought we'd end up back in the hotel room," says Mark.

"So did I," Doc replies. He checks his sunglasses for their position in space and time. They're in Mexico City. It's 1:13 pm on June 16th, 2194. Five years before the battle on the Marriott.

Someone cancels the alarm. A foreman marches angrily towards them. "What the hell is going on over here?!" He yells in a thick Indian accent. "What are you doing in my curing oven?!" He notices Steve. "What happened to him? Why is he bleeding all over my production line?!"