as olaf lindberg fell feet first/he pushed a stud on the side of the cylinder/and a nine-foot luminescent rod, pale blue/telescoped instantly/from the bottom end of the cylinder

and as the rod touched the water it bloomed/into an inverse trumpet shape/with notches that the man’s shod toes fit into

the man gripped the rod and leaned slightly forward/and as the trumpet shape clove the water/bubbles and then a wake came up beyond the lip of the trumpet/behind the man

he looked into the camera eye of his faithful drone/and raised his voice above the churning water noise to say

“With nano and jet-ski tech and beamed energy–” a slight jolt from the turbid chop/interrupted him. “…something weighing only eight pounds–” and another jolt tipped him a bit–“saved my life.”

then another chop of water/tipped the man more harshly/and a bit of the river/flowed into the trumpet/and it submerged/and the man’s feet and ankles went underwater…

cheerfully and loudly he exclaimed/”It was a hell of a fun ride while it lasted!/I shall have to abandon ship!”

chest-deep in water/and as he and the river/approached the next downstream bridge/the man brandished his now rodless cylinder/and shouted joyfully “Plan B! Monofilament tech! Batman tech!”

he thumbed the stud again/and monofilament wire shot out of the top end of the cylinder/and its adhesive end/stuck to the far-side underside/of the downstream bridge…

and just like batman and vicky vale/the wire pulled him upward/but he was so heavy with water and overcoat and gadgets/that the wire disadhered from the bridge…

and as he fell he pulled out his drone controller and yelled “Plan C! Dronefish!”

(end of part three)

…

…

epilog

to make a long story short, because we all need to get on with our lives, a fleet of little drones dropped out of the sky above him, fell into the water, and formed a sort of magic carpet raft for him. they quickly conked out but he had time to go to plan d, which was a friend of his in a nearby helicopter. but just as he reached the third to top rung of the rope ladder the friend turned rogue and hit a button, quick-releasing the ladder, and so the man switched to plan e, which was really plan a all along, and his real and ground-breaking invention, which was a giant disembodied hand that sparkled as it scooped him out of the water and lifted him slowly and gently into the sky. the man had his drone stop following him after his last recorded words, which were “Don”t you DARE call this the Hand of God! It’s just tech! Seems like magic, though, doesn’t it? And WAIT till you see the mischief it and I are going to make, Kids!” And then he was lifted away from the drone, which stopped recording and uploaded the video it had made to various social media, and the billions of views it got were a harbinger of history-changing things to come.

The End