Our story begins at the docks of a big city, with many ports and bays, ships and boats, people and supplies. This is a busy, bustling area. Men and machines move crates and boxes from here to there and everywhere in between. Ships of all sizes are unloading cargo they brought to this place and then reloading with new crates and boxes to go back across the sea.
In the corner of the docks is a submarine with its top loading door open. You would miss it in the whirlwind of activity going on all around. It is the only submarine here. This submarine has a name painted on its side, Jolly Roger.
An orange crane is slowly lowering an interesting object into the submarine. It is a big red bag with a white neck. It is soft and velvety to the touch. The bag is huge, big enough to fit a whole car inside, but is empty.
The captain of the Jolly Roger is a serious fellow who watches everything with no smile. He is making sure that nothing harms the Jolly Roger’s important red cargo. He yells an order and carefully the crane and men on top of the submarine guide the bag into a safe spot inside.
Quickly, the captain and sailors follow, and soon all openings on the sub are closed and sealed tight. The orange crane turns away and the submarine begins to move away from the dock. It floats out to sea going faster and faster, sinking beneath the waves until you cannot see it anymore.
The Jolly Roger has begun its voyage.
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In a thick wooded forest, in cold and snowy wind blasts, 4 figures are slowly crunching their way through the pine trees. Their snowshoes are packing down the snow with each step taken.
They are each carrying large backpacks outside their snowsuits. Each one is holding a rifle to keep the wolves that live and hunt in these woods away. The pack of large, hungry animals is stalking the 4 figures, never far off.
When it starts to get dark, the group of 4 quickly choose trees close to each other and each person climbs up a tree using spikes on their gloves and boots. They hook into the trunks and open little sleeping tents that fasten tight to the tree.
They lie down in these tents, spending all night listening to the wolves pacing and howling on the ground below.They do not sleep much tonight, but they do rest.
The next morning they pack up their bags and unhook themselves, carefully climbing back to the ground. To scare the wolves away they fire a few shots into the snow. The crack of the rifles and the sizzle of the hot bullets hitting the snow make the predators back off. They continue their journey.
After a few hours they arrive at a clearing in the woods. In the middle of the clearing is a small cement building. At the front door, they gather close together and press a button.
A hole in the door opens up and a little screen pops out on a metal arm. The leader of the group pulls his mask up and looks into the screen, which scans his eye and pops back inside. The front door slowly slides open and the 4 figures enter.
Inside, 2 people are waiting for them.
Deep in the center of Africa, a woman in a jeep is racing through the desert and the brush towards a tiny village. She has come from a big city, and has been driving for an hour. The village is made of a circle of grass huts and there are many small children running around.
The jeep stops at the edge of the village and is greeted by several people who had been waiting for her. She gets out of the jeep and is taken to a small hut in the very center of the village with smoke coming from a hole in the roof. There is excitement among the people of the village as the woman is taken inside.
An old wise man is sitting crisscross applesauce in front of a long table full of small wooden animals. He is focused only on the animal figures. His eyes are closed and he is chanting very softly. The woman from the city cannot hear what the man is saying. She is captivated by the animals; mini wooden cheetahs, giraffes, antelopes, jaguars, elephants, rhinoceroses and even lions.
The wise man stops chanting, and stretches his hand out towards the table. Tiny specks of white light appear over the table and begin to slowly float down onto the wooden animals. The mysterious lights rest for a moment, and then soak into the figurines. In a moment, the lights are gone, and the animals are carefully packed into small, colorful pouches made of rope and string.
After each animal is packed in its own little pouch, they are stacked carefully into a large box marked with a bright green circle. The top is tightly sealed and placed snugly into the jeep. The woman begins to drive quickly back to the big city.
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The submarine carrying the big red bag with the white top has been silently swimming under the ocean for a few days now. They have been moving very quickly and are halfway through their voyage. None of the sailors on the Jolly Roger know why they are making a special trip for the soft red bag. The crew is used to hunting other submarines and ships with big missiles and torpedoes.
This whole adventure is very curious to them, so a couple sailors go to find the serious captain. They find him looking closely at the radar screens in the control room. Screens that tell the Jolly Roger where it is in the ocean and what other objects under the sea are around it. The sailors nervously ask to speak with him. Silently, he turns around to stare at them.
The sailors ask him, “What is the bag? What is it for? Why are we making a special voyage?”
The captain pauses and sighs before he answers by explaining "The bag is TOP SECRET, you are not allowed to know anything about it. At all.” The sailors know not to question him, so they turn to go.
Before they leave the control room though, one brave sailor asks where the bag came from. The captain is silent for a few moments. Then, he smiles, and to the surprise of the sailors says that he will tell them ONE thing about the bag. He whispers, “Each of one you has seen it before. Every one of you men and women on this submarine has seen this bag at least once in their lifetime a long time ago.”
The sailors don't understand this at all, as they are sure nobody has ever seen the bag before. The brave sailor asks when they would have seen it, because they don’t remember. But, the captain has turned back around to his radar screens. His conversation with them is over. The sailors return to their positions and stations wondering what the captain meant, and the Jolly Roger continues its voyage deep underneath the sea.
3.)
In the barn of concrete in the middle of the cold and snowy woods, the 4 travellers have gone inside and were met by 2 people in shielded suits with glass masks. They all nod to each other and agree to meet in a secret room in the very back of the building in a few minutes. The 4 travelers are tired and cold so they grab some coffee and a bite to eat. They change into their own big shielded suits with glass masks and they hurry to the back of the building. All 6 meet in front of the secret room guarded by a huge sliding metal door. In a couple seconds the door slowly slides open. Inside this secret room is a massive circle on the floor. It is bigger than your living room and there is a bright green circle marked on it. The circle begins to slide open to show a huge hole in the ground. The massive circle is really a lid that leads to a wide concrete hole going down, down, down. There are 6 ladders on the sides of the hole so our team begins to crawl down. It is a LONG way down; they crawl and crawl until they reach the bottom of the ladder. They jump to the floor and are now standing in an underground pipe that is big enough for a train. It is a tunnel with train tracks made of iron and steel. The pipe goes as far as the eye can see in both directions. Bright lights along the ceiling light up the tracks the whole way. At the bottom of the concrete hole are 2 bullet train engines. The huge black engines are covered in armor with a bright blue light up front. Each one is facing in opposite directions on the tracks. Three people climb into each locomotive and turn it on. The blue lights of the engines beam brightly down the pipe like a laser and soon they are speeding off in opposite directions. They have important cargo to pick up and deliver.
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In a city neighborhood somewhere near Seattle, a dad and his little girl are sitting in a baseball field with blankets and hot chocolate looking up and enjoying a clear night sky full of stars. They see the Big Dipper constellation and Orion, too. As they gaze upward searching for new stars, they notice 2 dark shapes in the right side of the sky. The shapes hover way up there until 4 other dark shapes come close and float with them. They are not big shapes, like an airplane, but the father and daughter definitely see them. All of a sudden they watch the shapes zoom from one end of the sky to the other side. When they reach the other corner of the sky, right when they would be out of sight, they stop, and begin to hover. Suddenly, 2 more dark shapes join the first 6 and now there are a total of 8 shapes in the sky. They quickly zoom back to where they started. This time they turn around again instantly and begin flying super fast from one end of the sky to the other and back again. The little girl excitedly asks her dad for his phone and they begin video recording the shapes flying so fast. Back and forth in paths across the sky, each time flying faster and faster. All of a sudden, the shapes stop all together in the middle of the sky. Then, without warning they start floating higher and higher in the sky until they disappear. They simply vanish. The little girl and her dad quickly look at their phone video to see what they captured. However, when playing it back, they see nothing but a single bright red light, zipping back and forth across the dark night sky. All the phone could record was the red dot, zooming from one end of the sky to the other, back and forth many times, and then slowly disappearing.
4.)
The woman in the jeep in Africa is racing back to the big city. The box with the bright green circle marked on it is safely tied down in the back. Her jeep enters the city and begins driving down the busy streets hurrying on its way. When she arrives downtown, she turns into a big, big building. It is a factory big enough to hold 1 thousand jeeps and it is full of machines that make other machines. The factory is full of workers running around, doing one job or another. The woman in the jeep drives slowly through the craziness to the very back of the factory. When she arrives, she comes to a stop outside a secret room. The secret room has a huge sliding metal door. In a couple seconds the door slowly slides open. Inside this secret room is a massive circle on the floor. It is bigger than your living room and there is a bright green circle marked on it. All of a sudden the circle begins to slide open to a huge concrete hole in the ground. There is a crane in this room waiting above the hole. The crane gently lifts the box with the bright green circle marked on it from the jeep and begins to lower it slowly down the concrete hole. When the box gets to the bottom, there is an underground pipe that is big enough for a train to travel through. It is an underground tunnel with train tracks made of iron and steel. The pipe goes as far as the eye can see in both directions ahead of and behind the box. The crane keeps the box in the air for a moment while a bright blue light begins shining far down the tunnel. It looks like a growing laser beam as it comes closer. The blue light belongs to a gleaming black bullet train speeding under the tunnel lights. Behind it are 3 large black armored trailer cars. The train comes to a stop right underneath the concrete hole. The box with the bright green circle marked on it is carefully placed in one of the cars beside other boxes with bright green circles on them. The top closes tight. The shiny black train begins to move again, and in no time at all its laser blue light is racing down the pipe.
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Up north on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean there is a small dock on a frozen shore in the middle of rocks and cliffs. It is a tiny dock with only 1 loading bay and 1 lonely crane. There is only a small old building that looks abandoned. There is nothing else as far as you can see, except wilderness, woods and snow for miles and miles. The wind is always howling and the waves from the ocean crash onto the rocks. It is a lonely place. Without warning the building opens its doors and out crawls something that kind of looks like a tank, but without guns. It has tracks instead of wheels. They are designed to be unstoppable in snowy wilderness and can carry people, or cargo anywhere. Sometimes these machines are called Snowcats. This one sits by the loading bay for a moment and waits by the crane. The only sound is the wind and the waves. A submarine surfaces way out in the water and slowly moves into the loading bay. There is a name painted on the side, Jolly Roger. Once it is in the bay, the submarine’s loading doors open and the crane reaches in and gently pulls out the big red bag with the white neck. The crane moves slowly and carefully as it places the velvety bag safely into the back of the waiting Snowcat. The Snowcat shifts into high gear and begins driving out into the cold and snowy wilderness, dodging tall trees. After a while, it comes to a tall and rocky mountain, the first on its journey. Without stopping, the Snowcat balances on the path up the mountain and begins the long climb to go up and over. This is not the only dangerous mountain the Snowcat will climb to take the special cargo where it needs to go. The big red bag with the white top is empty and waiting.
5.)
In a quiet soccer field in the middle of a small town, the sun is shining brightly in a cloudless sky, a warm and gentle breeze is blowing across the grass. Interrupting the silence a buzzing and whirring noise bursts from one side of the field. Hundreds of remote control helicopters appear and begin racing the length of the field. The little machines zoom to the opposite edge of the field and stop to hover in midair. They quickly turn around and zip back to the side they appeared from. Once more they stop in midair and turn around. Rushing from one side to the other, they go high and low and back and forth. There are so many that you wonder how they do not crash into each other. They glide in-between and around each other without one accident. While they are flying quickly, back and forth and back and forth, a jeep arrives pulling a trailer. On the trailer is a large box with a bright green circle marked on it. Workers hastily climb out of the jeep and open it up. Inside the box are hundreds of smaller boxes with open lids. Each package is big enough to fit just one little helicopter. The workers line the small boxes along the edge of the field and then move to stand beside the jeep. One of the workers whistles and the helicopters stop in the air, hovering. Suddenly, the hundreds of toys rush to the edge of the field, one by one each helicopter finds a little package and floats down inside. Inside the box the blades stop spinning and the toy turns off. Once again there is silence on the soccer field. The workers carefully close each package and stack them in the large box with the bright green circle marked on it. When gigantic box is full, it is closed up tight. The workers get back in the jeep, pull away from the field, and dart onto the highway. They drive on the highway for some time, before getting off an exit to pull up close to a big building. This place is a warehouse built for storing packages. The jeep drives slowly into the warehouse and past rows and rows of packages to the very back. It comes to a stop at a secret room. The secret room has a huge sliding metal door. In a couple seconds the door slowly slides open. Inside this secret room is a massive circle on the floor. It is bigger than your living room and there is a bright green circle marked on it. All of a sudden the circle begins to slide open to a huge concrete hole in the ground. The massive circle is really a lid that leads to a wide hole going down, down, down. There is a crane in this room waiting above the hole. The crane gently lifts the box with the bright green circle marked on it from the truck and begins to lower it slowly down the concrete hole.
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The Snowcat carrying the red bag with the white neck through the cold wilderness is still moving. Driving up and down and always forward for many days, it did not get stuck once in the snow. The daylight is fading into evening. As it gets dark, the trees in the forest all around seem to become bigger and thicker. The driver watches with relief as the woods end and they drive into a flat snowy valley between 2 mountains. It is a windy place surrounded by nothing but drifting snow. Looking through the white wind, a building emerges. You can barely see the building at first, but as the Snowcat crawls closer, you can tell it is an aircraft hanger big enough to fit a whole airplane inside. It is gigantic. When the snowcat has driven up to the front of the building, it waits in front of the massive doors patiently. For a moment nothing happens. The doors slowly begin to slide open. Instantly and immediately the Snowcat is flooded with a bright light. The light from inside the aircraft hanger is so bright that you cannot see inside. The doors stop opening with just enough room for the Snowcat with its important load to drive inside. Quickly, the light swallows it. The doors slide shut and the lights disappear. All you can see now outside the building is darkness. The wind is whipping the snow everywhere all around. The Snowcat with the big red bag is inside the hanger.
6.)
The black bullet train is racing through the underground tunnel, pulling its load of armored trailer cars behind it. It is moving very fast. The ceiling lights are almost a blur as they flash quickly across the engine speeding through the pipe. The driver keeps watch. Inside the steel trailers the boxes with the bright green circles marked on them are safe and secure. Each trailer car is holding many of these boxes, all from different places all over the world. The train begins to slow down. The driver up front can see the destination up ahead. The train moves forward, ever slower until it reaches the end of the pipe. Here, the pipe has an opening leading into a large underground room. The room is huge, and is shaped like a round dome with sides that curve in and meet above at a large hole. When the black train drives through the opening into the room, you can see that all around the dome are many other pipe openings, with other black trains pulling trailer cars. Inside the room are conveyor belts that carry large items up the curved walls, all the way to the top of the dome. Right in the middle of the ceiling, a large hole has bright light shining through it. You cannot even see what is on the other side of this hole at the top, but all the conveyor belts go right through, every single one. At the bottom of the dome, the black trains begin unloading hundreds of boxes with bright green circles marked onto them from all over the world. Slowly the boxes ride the belts up to the top of the dome and through the shining opening.
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The aircraft hanger in the frozen woods that the big red bag was delivered to is hopping with energy. The lights in the hanger are shining so bright that you have to take a minute to adjust your eyes so you can see what is going on. The big red velvet bag with the white neck has been taken to the very center of the large space, and has been opened wide up. Right beside the open red bag with the white top is a large hole in the ground. There are many conveyor belts that come up out of the hole and lead straight to the bag. One by one, the boxes roll off the belts, and fall gently into the bag. The bag just takes them all, even with hundreds of boxes coming into it from all sides. It gets bigger and bigger, but never overflows. After some time, the belts are empty, and the very last box falls into the bag. The bag is now full. A velvet rope is tied around the white neck to close it tightly. The roof of the aircraft hanger now slides open, to the starry night sky above. 8 dark shapes with 1 bright red light in the middle of them are hovering in the air above the hanger. They slowly begin floating down into the building. They land softly on the floor in front of the bag. They are animals. Animals with antlers on their heads. As soon as their hooves touch the floor, all movement in the hanger stops. A large figure steps out from the shadows. He calls out, and the lights begin to dim. He merrily walks to the bag and the 8 animals waiting there. He smiles, and throws his head back to laugh. And when he does, it sounds very familiar. Every one of us has heard this laugh once or twice in our lifetime a long time ago. His laugh bounces off the walls of the hanger and echoes in the night.
Ho. Ho. Ho.