In a strange twist of fate, the adventure begins with myself, in my office, battling obnoxious EOL software and two pettily antagonistic computers refusing to synchronize. It's mission impossible, my version of Hercules and the Hydra - each error I fix sprouting ten more, driving me to the brink of madness.
An interruption is not only welcome; it's yearned for, like a dying man craves water in the Sahara. And boy does that interruption arrive with a bang.
Instead of a jingling coffee cart entering the office or a coworker armed with an extra-strong cup of Starbucks, imagine my surprise when Indiana Jones, Marion, and an older version of Nick Fury's MI6 agent arrive, all hanging their hats on the coat hook near the entrance. They're summoned out of retirement for one more mysterious mission, their eyes wide with the thrill of another world-saving escapade. Indy even has caused a few paper mountain avalanches just by swinging his whip.
Their mission - rid the world of a new menace - is composed of three separate objectives, necessitating them each taking a different route. Here's the less expected part: I’m the rookie on the run, chosen as Indy's bodyguard/successor, their personal John McClane, minus the radio and the foul language.
Our journey throughout the next couple of days resembles nothing more than a terrifying rollercoaster ride. We're caught in a tornado of running through hallways, bouncing off staircases, and most importantly – dodging bullets while hopping on and off different types of monorail cars. At first, you can literally hear the creak in Indy’s bones each time we have to make a run for it.
However, as hours turn into days and our flight-or-fight instincts marry with survival needs, we participants find our positions reversed. With each passing nutty, adrenaline-induced moment, Indy finds himself rejuvenated, turning into a veritable speed demon, while I experience a regression into a pitiful slowpoke.
This déjà vu moment reminds me of a childhood dream, one where I was running from Morpheus himself but am trapped in a nightmarish timescale where even a snail could beat me to the finish line. Over the course of our monorail hopping marathon trek, we have an unexpected encounter - Elsa!
Remember her? The one who fell into an abyss after failing to clutch the holy grail? Yup. She’s alive somehow and standing in front of us, a specter from the past back with a punch but with manners of a rollercoaster in a storm. She keeps swinging between attacking and hesitating, showing the stability of a three-legged chair.
Amid all this chaos, we stumble upon Marion, and together with Indy, they form a crack team to outwit Elsa, tricking her into an impromptu pool party of sorts, hoping that a deep enough pool would neutralize her somehow. That's our best plan. Don't judge. Everything’s improvisational at this point.
Finally, the endgame approaches, and we embark back to the meeting hall - the very start point of our haphazard adventure. Waiting for us is the MI6 agent, holding the reins to this ugly carousel after all. She’s not alone, consulting with two accomplices - one is her apparently estranged and ticked off husband, and the other a compliant personal assistant or lackey.
As we watch with shock-etched faces, her husband, visibly under a trance, pulls out an ornate ring and slides it onto his finger, his face twisting in fury and pain. Lo and behold, he starts to morph into a monstrous dragon.
This rollercoaster ride of an adventure, filled with geriatric speedsters, bipedal foxes, returning specters, and now shape-shifting dragons, has me half expecting Dumbledore himself to make an appearance. At this point, I wonder if I should have preferred the torment of the unsynced computers. Let's just hope that, tomorrow, the biggest interruption is a stubborn paper jam in the copier.