XL Story

> XL Story

XL Story Chapter Menu

Chapter 17 continued...

"I want to keep playing, dad" said XL. "It's not often that I get all my best friends online at once. I will see your safety features some other time."

"Don't you think it would be better to do it now?" said Max. "It may be a long time before you have another chance."

"Look dad, I really don't care about your new search thing-a-ma-jigs right now. Oh darn, an alien blasted me. Now I'm down three points in energy. You see what happens when you interrupt!"

"Well, O.K.," said Max, as he walked away.

XL could tell that his dad was disappointed, but he so busy that he didn't think much about it. He was aiming his submarine at an underground cave.

"Quick, come this way," he said into his microphone to his friends. All of their submarines followed him. Meanwhile the alien sea serpents were shooting at them with lasers. The laser beams shot out of the sea serpents' eyes.

Fortunately the submarines were faster than the sea serpents. XL's submarine shot through the small cave opening. It was a wild ride that he watched through his virtual reality goggles. He leaned to the right and left to guide his submarine through the curves of the tunnel.

After a couple of minutes, he and his friends' submarines all arrived in an underwater lake. They were safe for a while now, because the sea serpents were too fat to get through the tunnel.

"Whew," exclaimed XL. "That was close."

Beeba was one of the players, and his submarine was right next to XL's. "Beeba, do you still have the golden moon cheese that we discovered earlier."

"Yes," said Beeba. It's worth 100 points if we can get it back to the spaceship on the surface of the moon, and then take it to earth."

"Great," said XL. Let's explore the lake area and see if we can find an opening above us in this cavern. "O.K., everybody," said XL through his microphone, "let's each head in a different direction."

XL and his friends continued searching the virtual world. Beeba had to leave, because he had chores to do, but XL continued for a few hours. One of XL's other friends finally found an opening to the surface, so XL drove his virtual submarine there. But he couldn't figure out how to go up through it. However, that would have to wait for another time, because it was late in the evening and time for him to go to bed.

By the time XL got into bed, the sun had set. XL lay in bed and thought about visiting Waskesiu, in the Northern part of Saskatchewan. Soon he had fallen asleep.

XL didn't have to wait many more days for his 3-day vacation to begin. Soon Saturday morning arrived, and Beeba met him at his front door to join him on his trip.

Larissa had packed food the night before, and XL and Anna had already put all the supplies into Saucer1, so they were ready to go. Beeba brought a suitcase with his extra clothing, and a big box containing a screen tent. "This is for our picnic," he said, "in case it rains, and to keep out mosquitoes."

"I don't think there will be mosquitoes this early in the season," said XL.

"I'm not taking any chances," replied Beeba. "I heard that there are huge mosquitoes up north, in the bush, unlike bugs in any other country. That's how the northern mosquito got to be Canada's national bird."

"It is not!" exclaimed XL. "They are so tiny you can hardly see them."

"It isn't seeing them that I'm worried about," said Beeba.

"Fine, we'll take the tent," said XL, as he lifted it into the elevator of Saucer1.

Soon Beeba, XL, Anna, and Larissa were in Saucer1, flying north. At first they were flying over the prairie, which wasn't very interesting because they saw it all the time. XL and Beeba sat in the front, watching a movie on the airship's main view screen. Two other view screens showed the altimeter, airspeed, and other flight information, but they only looked at those occasionally because the computer took care of the flying.

Meanwhile, Anna and Larissa were on the sides of the airship. Larissa was reading a book, while Anna sat wearing her virtual reality googles. She was chatting with her friends in a virtual world.

They continued over the prairie until the movie was done, and now they were coming over the northern forest. Suddenly a search-and-rescue alert flashed on the main view screen. Evidently Max had programmed the computer to scan for alerts and to display them.

The alert said that a small child named Wendy had been lost in the forest the previous night. Searchers had been looking for her since then, including some small aircraft that were sent over the area. Just a few minutes ago, an airplane had spotted a girl in a clearing at the top of a hill, but there was no place nearby for the plane to land. The display showed the location on a map. A helicopter was being sent out, which would get there in an hour.

"Hey, that's not far from here!" exclaimed Beeba, looking at the screen. "We just have to turn west, and we would be there in 20 minutes."

"Search and rescue is not our duty," replied XL. "There are professionals hired for that. Besides, we would be 20 minutes off course, plus 20 minutes to get back, and maybe longer if we find the child and have to deliver her to her home. It would mess up all our plans for today."

"Another hour is a long time for a little child lost in the forest," said Beeba. "We can help her."

"What if she sees Saucer1 and runs away, back into the forest," said XL. "Remember that it looks like a flying saucer from a movie."

"Weren't the aliens the good guys in that movie?" replied Beeba. "More likely she would be overjoyed, and run to see it."

Reader, please help XL to decide what to do. Recommend one of these choices:

Choice A	Continue to Waskesiu as previously planned. Search and rescue professionals have already evaluated Saucer1 and it isn't the best equipment for the job.
Choice B	Go to the location were the girl was spotted and try to find her.

Return to Universal Ethics Home Page