ROCK 13: Road to Nowhere

"'Well we know where we're going, but we don't know where we've been.' -Road To Nowhere, by Talking Heads"

Road to Nowhere is the thirteenth episode of Eidolon ROCK and the twenty-eighth episode of Eidolon Playtest Season 1. It covers the Alta Drive Jawbreakers defeating a sugar-sapping fly and a face in the sky that teleports them around.

Summary
The Alta Drive Jawbreakers are in a cornfield near the border of Colorado and Kansas. The cornfield is on fire with police on the other side. Virginia Valentine deals in as the Beast, returning to her cat form from ROCK #9. Fortune Teller says "LOVE THIS CORN".

After Ironspy magnetizes a pen into a compass, the Jawbreakers escape from the north edge of the corn field and encounter a barn and nearby house. Chris Masters rips the lock off the barn with Ironspy, and inside is a small Cessna plane. Everyone climbs inside, with Chris and Harvey D. Godlove as the pilot and co-pilot. Chili the Fox drags a canister of gasoline on board.

As Chris moves the plane down the runway, a jeep drives at them from the nearby farmhouse. Harvey sends it tipping over with Here It Goes Again, but the farmers inside grab shotguns and try to shoot the plane. They miss, and Chris takes off successfully. The plane has enough fuel to take them from one edge of Kansas to the other, and they aim for just south of Kansas City. As they enter into Kansas (the Wax State) at around 2pm, everyone is nervous.

Eidolon Battle (The Fly)
Chili feels tired and takes a nap. Harvey notices her breathing is labored, and realizes she's seemed sick ever since they got on the plane. Thinking she ate something poisoned, Chris sticks his fingers down Chili's throat and induces vomiting. Chili vomits the hot dog she ate in ROCK #10, but not the fly. The Jawbreakers all remember that the Eidolon drug is made of blood, so it may be possible for Chili's blood to also grant Eidolon powers.

Slipping out of consciousness, Chili hears the fly demand sugar and manages to pass this on. Harvey scrambles to find sugar, and Chris realizes the fuel canister contains ethanol, a form of sugar, inside it. Harvey offers this to the fly, who flies from Chili's mouth inside the canister. Harvey seals up the canister and after a few moments starts shaking it to try and drown the fly. The fly bursts out of the canister, now grown to the size of a cockroach with visible damage from Chili's digestive system.

The fly lands on Harvey and he immediately feels weak to his stomach. Chris tries to grab the fly with Ironspy and feels the same. As Chris loses his strength, he pieces together that the fly is absorbing sugar and incidentally inducing diabetic shock in those it touches. The fly dives towards Virginia, who bites it in half, killing it. The Jawbreakers discuss ways to heal Chili, but Cecilia notes they all seem to heal from very potent injuries over time.

Eidolon Battle (Road to Nowhere)
Chris Masters looks out the window of the airplane, and notices to their left a crashed airplane and firefighters dousing a burning cornfield. Harvey D. Godlove checks his GPS, and sees they've returned to just east of the Colorado/Kansas border. As they determine this is the work of another Eidolon, Cecilia Citadel checks Fortune Teller again - it says "SOMETIMES TO GET WHERE YOU WANT TO GO, YOU HAVE TO GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM".

Lady Luck appears, and Virginia Valentine asks her what it means to be an Angel. Lady Luck offers largely vague answers, but mentions that Angels are born from The Estate, which confuses Virginia further. Chris roughly lands the plane back at the farm, forgetting to put the landing gear down. This wakes up Chili and the Alta Drive Jawbreakers exit the plane to try and locate the Eidolon user.

Everyone cuts through the field of corn to try and reach the farmhouse, but they can't find the exit no matter how long they walk. Chili looks up and notices the faint outline of a giant human face in the sky. Harvey immediately throws Here It Goes Again at the face. It strikes the face successfully, but does not return to Harvey's hand. Another giant face joins the first. Chris uses Ironspy to summon storm clouds to obscure the faces' view. Virginia Valentine deals in as the Inhuman, turning back into a shadow and being able to shoot beams of light.

Virginia shoots a beam of light right in one of the faces' eye. Chris angles Ironspy and calls down a bolt of lightning from the storm clouds at an angle that also strikes one of the faces. One of the faces brings in a giant hand that slaps something at the horizon, sliding both faces out of view. Harvey attempts to recall Here It Goes Again. He can feel it flying towards him, but its a long long way to the east, somehow having returned to Las Vegas.

The Jawbreakers use the disappearance of the face to exit the cornfield and return to the farmhouse. Chris fixes up the jeep they damaged earlier, suggesting they drive instead. One of the faces returns. Fortune Teller updates to "HONESTLY, I PREFER AIR TRAVEL". Everyone takes this as direction to get back in the airplane, and this time Chris flies it as straight up as he can right into the face in the sky. As they seem to get closer and yet not closer at all, suddenly they crash land into an office complex.

Harvey checks his GPS again, and this time they're in Las Vegas. Underneath the plane is a twitching body, and nearby is a cloth map of The United States of America titled "Road to Nowhere". Chris rips the map in half and it begins to slowly dissolve. Here It Goes Again flies through the wall where it seemed to have exited moments ago and lands in Harvey's hand.

In a desperate attempt to regain their lost distance, Chris grabs a marker to use the dissolving map himself. Their destination, New Jersey, has vanished. Virginia sees this and feels an unexplainable urge to direct Chris to mark Memphis, Tennessee. Chris manages to do so, and suddenly Ruby Wednesday bursts in through the door. Everyone, including her, only has a split second to express surprise at this before the Jawbreakers suddenly find themselves on the ground on the outskirts of Memphis. Cecilia stares off in shock at learning that Ruby is alive.

After-Credits Scene
Minutes earlier, in Las Vegas, Frasier Lilith is in the bathroom recovering from being shot at by lightning. He overhears the Alta Drive Jawbreakers and Ruby Wednesday spotting each other, and rushes back to the room to find the plane crash. The Jawbreakers are gone, and he shatters Ruby into shards of glass. Martin Niles calls him and orders him to the Luxor Casino immediately. Before Frasier leaves, he instructs someone there named Sophie to clean up the crash and sweep up Ruby into a box and put it in his office.

Appearances

 * Cecilia Citadel // Fortune Teller
 * Chili the Fox // Little Lies
 * Chris Masters // Ironspy
 * David Bryne // Road to Nowhere (First and Last Appearance)
 * Frasier Lilith // Shattered
 * Harvey D. Godlove // Here It Goes Again
 * Martin Niles (Original)
 * Ruby Wednesday
 * the fly // The Fly (Last Appearance)
 * Virginia Valentine // Only The Good Die Young

Trivia

 * According to Chris Masters, President Henry Dracula tried to pass a bill for High Speed Rail that was blocked by Congress.
 * Cecilia Citadel later pieces together that Fortune Teller's prediction of "LOVE THIS CORN" was in reference to the fly's desire for sugar.
 * The mid-show ad read is done by Iris Christianson in-character as Chris Masters apologizing for not uploading to his YouTube channel recently.