Jeff - Reconfigures alien portal device

	It looked like a very thin door – but only the frame.
	“Maybe it's like...a multi-dimensional gate, or something.” Jeff began investigating it immediately. Towards the bottom of the frame, there was a metal panel. He removed the screws with a power drill, revealing a strange, transparent lump of something like crystal or plastic, several planks of wood, and something like tangled blades of grass.
	“What is it?”
	“Does it make any sense to you?”
	“Yeah......maybe......it's surprisingly simple.” Jeff quickly checked the wiring. “Ugh, the hard wiring is done terribly, and the screws are all stripped. What a clumsy job......whoever put this together was an amateur. It feels like this was a store-bought unit they put together with one hand while holding the manual in the other.”
	“That's amazing.” Poo looked at him with an unusually surprised expression. “You can really understand everything about a machine like this one?”
	“Totally.” Jeff shrugged his shoulders, and he smiled gently. “I think this crystal here is an integrated circuit. This stuff here, that looks like dried up string, that must be the wiring. Of course, I don't know anything about the components, or the principles behind them. …...But the laws of physics are the same all across the universe, so all intelligent life must behave similarly......I think so, at least......”

(...)

	“Hmmm......Well. I guess it's all or nothing!” Jeff pulled out a box cutter, and hacked away at all that strange wiring. He flipped that crystal-like object over, and put it back in upside down. He twisted some of the tangled grass into place. “Oh, damn, I have nothing to solder it with......heey, well, what about this?!” Jeff cried, with the strange intonation of a lady working at a bargain-bin electric supply shop, as he rooted through his backpack to find a piece of chewing gum and tossed it into his mouth, and began chewing on it with a terrible urgency.

(...)

	“Heey, you guys, I think everything's ready. Come back over here!” Jeff cried. He connected the wiring to where it should have been screwed down with his thoroughly chewed and gooey gum, and hastily replaced the panel. He clasped his hands together and knelt down, and prayed to that sky which wasn't quite a sky. “Oh, God, Bohr, Einstein, Hawking, Maxwell...and of course, my own father! Please, oh please let it work out properly......!”
	The other three ran back over and joined Jeff, as he got into position on the other side of the gate.

(...)

	<Damn youuuu!>
	<Wh...why you cheeky little mammals......you're gonna regret making fun of meeee!>
	Thud-thud-thud! Stomp-stomp, STOMP! The wetnosaur dashed, and the chomposaur followed right after it. Kicking off the ground and throwing dust into the air as they went, the two ridiculously large dinosaurs rushed at them full of rage, their footfalls heavy and deafening!
	“......W-w-w-w-w-will we r-r-r-r-r-r-r-really be okay, J-J-J-J-J-Jeff?”
	“Y-y-y-y-yeah......p-p-p-p-p-p-probably......I t-t-t-t-t-t-think we should be okay, b-b-b-b-but...”
	For a moment, they all shot nervous glances at one another. Then, the four of them ran so intensely they almost hit their own chins with their knees. And that ground was difficult to run on, as it shook and quivered under their feet.
	<Waaait!>
	<You won't get awaaaay!>
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM............Poof.
	“Waah!”
	“Yaaaaaaah!”
	All that rumbling silenced at once. And because all the vibrations stopped so suddenly, the three of them were thrown weightlessly through the air, and landed on top of one another like a heap of dumplings. That's the law of inertia at work.
	“Ouch! Ouuch, whose foot is this?”
	“Eek, don't touch me in such a weird spot!”
	“Which spot on you is 'weird'?”
	“Ugh......what did you say?”
	“......They...disappeared......?” From within the pile, Jeff looked behind them. There was nothing – no dinosaurs, no gate, just that plateau of lava. He fixed his glasses, which had slipped down his nose, and squinted his eyes to see for sure. “They really did disappear......they disappeared......So then...I had it right, after all......yaaahoooo!”
	Squiiish! As Jeff released his pent-up happy energy, the other three, who had been arguing, became even more squashed.
	“I did iiiiittt! I successfully reconfigured an alien deviiiiice!”

***

Mother 2, Chapter 8