Renegade T.M.

by Langley, Bernard

  “But you’ve got guns,” observed Pete.

  “Yes we do, but then we’re not suicidal, and we don’t have to queue.”

  “Don’t have to queue, then where are you?”

  “Why heaven of course.”

  “So you’re like some angelic swat team?” asked Pete “Something like that.”

  “So that’s where we’re heading then?”

  “Maybe, depends on how you lived. Maybe you’re going to hell, meant to be hot there this time of year,” joked the officer, who then curled up with laughter.

  “Yeah hilarious,” put in Fendel without any evident enthusiasm, “so where to you go if you die, when you’re already dead?”

  “Hupa Hool some say,” answered the smaller officer, before the larger one swiftly elbowed him in the stomach.

  “Don’t listen to him, he’s had his brain removed, purgatory police policy you know,” stated the larger, probably dumber one.

  “Right, okie doke,” said Pete rolling his eyes.

  “Hupa Hool, as in the eternal party Hupa Hool?” asked Fendel his eyes lighting up.

  “Just a myth,” assured the police officer.

  “But you’ve got no brain, right?”

  “Nope, they left me a bit, I’m a captain!” he stated proudly pumping out his chest.

  “Well, it’s indeed an honour sir,” lied Fendel, a plan having formed quite completely in his head already.

  “Yes, yes, it probably is.”

  “Your gun, that’s a pan-dimensional fuzelshnap right?” he asked suddenly changing the subject.

  “Yep.”

  “With self replicating ammo, and wormhole targeting?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mind if I hold it?”

  “No of course not, be my guest,” said the captain handing over the weapon.

  Fendel took the fuzelshnap and pointed it immediately at Pete.

  “To Hupa Hool?”

  “To Hupa Hool,” agreed Pete, before Fendel blew a quite sizable chunk out of his chest, killing him quite instantly.

  “Erm! “ put in the captain, before Fendel winked at him, and lifting the gun to his own head, pulled the trigger.

  19.

  “Yashcoo y’all, it’s the Renegadeers here pumping words and tunes deep from that beloved blast, the past! That’s right folks, we are bringing you Renegade TM today, from yesterday, we are taking it back to the man, and intend to confront the original Co-leen creep, Mr Mormid himself. So we are taking calls right now, and if you have a question that you want to ask the ruler of everything, why not drop as a thought wave and let us know what you think.”

  “Yeah Slip, we have Parshnee from Toosh on line nine.”

  “Hey buddy, lay it on me baby.”

  “Hey Slip, so let me get this straight, you guys have got a time machine and are blasting back in time to meet the young Mormid using the power of all the suns around Krassis to broadcast big and prevent the present Co-leen from getting a time lock on you?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, and what do you plan to do when you meet the guy? Encourage him not to become a megalomaniac, power-hungry, insane, root of all evil, ruler of the Co-leen?!”

  “Yep, got it in one.”

  “Oh right, cool, well good luck with that!”

  “Ta Parsh, okay Crinks who’s next?”

  “We’ve got Clum from Pat-Nak on line two.”

  “Yeah hey dudes, my question is this, if you guys have a time machine right, why don’t you go back in time and just kill the lot of them, destroy them before they destroy us sorta thing?”

  “Good question Clum, erm, Crinks, why don’t we do that?”

  “It’s immoral Slip.”

  “Oh yeah, right on baby cakes. Yeah Clum if we did that then we’d be no better than they are, and let’s face it my beautiful Renegaders if there’s one thing that we’re not, it’s immortal.”

  “Immoral Slip.”

  “Yeah, yeah, that too. That answer your question Clum?”

  “Erm well no, not… “

  “Gravy! So Crinkle, who else has a question for the McGroovinator?”

  “We have Pete from, well, right in front of you.”

  “Lay it on me Pete cheeks.”

  “Yeah hi Slip, you know that time machine we just set off, oh you know, the one we are currently powering through the Humdinger using all the fourteen suns of Krassis?”

  “Yeah sure thing, what do you take me for?”

  “You know the one which comes with this one page instruction manual which reads in large red letters “NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE OPERATE THIS MACHINE WITH MORE POWER THAN 2 X DOUBLE A BATTERIES”.”

  “Yeah what about it?”

  “The same time machine that, I have been telling you now for the last five hours, has been flashing “WARNING – EXPLOSION IMMINENT!”?”

  “Yes!”

  “Okay good, just checking.”

  “Erm Slip you’re not gonna believe this.”

  “What Crinks?”

  “We’ve got Mormid on line five.”

  “What, as in Mormid, ruler of the Co-leen, the rulers of everything and anything they have missed in the course of ruling everything?!”

  “No, Mormid the monkey you idiot!”

  “Great I love monkeys, put him though, and less with the idiot if you please.”

  “Slip, of course it’s Mormid the ruler of the Co-leen!”

  “Oh okay, he’s alright I suppose, let’s hear what he’s got to say.”

  “Slip McGroovy I presume?”

  “Yes and you must be Mormid… I’m sorry I don’t know your full name.”

  “Just Mormid, or you can call me Lord, Master or God if you prefer?”

  “Erm, I’ll call you moron.”

  “Mormid.”

  “Yeah, yeah, got you.”

  “You and your friends are causing me a lot of trouble, it really is very unconventional my talking to you like this, but drastic events call for drastic measures.”

  “Charmless I’m sure.”

  “Now why don’t you stop all this nonsense and we can settle this all like adults?”

  “More like crazy psycho killer computer adults!”

  “My corporality is not the issue in question here and my sanity is well, none of your concern. All I ask is that you stop all this tomfoolery at once. Stop broadcasting and let me get a time lock on you, it will be better that way for everyone.”

  “Oh yeah sure thing mac daddy, and then what’s to stop you capturing us and then executing us in very imaginative and thoroughly outdrawn manners?”

  “Execute you?! But why would I do such a think? I love you guys, Lemonade PM is my favourite show!”

  “Yeah whatever Trevor!”

  “Okay look, how about I cut you guys a deal? I know you are going back in time to try and dissuade my younger self from becoming the decent upstanding chap I am today, but let me assure you that he won’t listen. That day was the best day of my life, from there on everything changed, the sky was the limit.”

  “What day?”

  “Oh nothing. If you drop power now and let my fatherships get a tractor beam on you, I promise no ill consequences will befall you. We’ll just put this all behind us and perhaps you would accept the invitation to dine with me this evening?”

  “What? Dine on our souls you evil robot bastard?!”

  “Now look McGrimey, if you don’t cut your engines now I will be forced to…”

  “Forced to what, email us, perhaps you’re gonna create a shortcut, oh please mister computer don’t save us to your hard disc!”

  “Erm guys hate to interrupt but that thing I mentioned earlier, it’s gonna…”

  “Drop power now and prepared to be…”

  “Crinks enter these coordinates and prepare to…”

  20.

  The famed afterlife of Hupa Hool has but a few references alluded to it in the history of the universe. Probably most famously of all, was this
reference made by Geoff the Bee in stellar unit 49PK: “I arrived at Hupa Hool completely unaware of how I had got there. Checking myself over it appeared I was now wearing a rainbow coloured thong and a silk smoking jacket. In one hand I held a plasma manhattan, and in the other smoked a vortex cigar. Before I had a chance to say anything, a seven breasted nymph hovered into view and explained it was my turn up next on the volleyball court. After winning at volleyball my prize was all the gold and jewels in the universe ever, so I gave my winnings to charity and was just in time for my Jacuzzi session with the cheerleading troupe Anything Goes.” Annoyingly it reads on and on like this, and for these reasons, Hupa Hool is a very sought after afterlife indeed. Okay it’s not for everyone and there are those who remain content to go to heaven when they die, what with its harps and goodness and whatever. Yours truly on the other hand is not ashamed to say that, when Pete and Fendel awoke to find themselves in the famed afterlife of Hupa Hool, I felt somewhat irked.

  “Fendel wake up!”

  “What is it?” Fendel replied groggily.

  “Look,” said Pete handing him a fantastically rare and beautiful gemstone, “I found this up my nose!”

  “Oh right, what’s that sound?”

  “It’s coming from over there,” said Pete pointing to a perfect sun drenched meadow with golden skies above.

  “Come on, let’s find out.”

  Pete and Fendel made their collective way over to where the noise was coming from. It seemed to be coming from below a ridge just out of eyesight, so they only discovered what was creating the noise when they were immediately on top of it.

  “Oh my, nice, very nice!” either one of them might have said.

  Fendel and Pete emerged in a party, a party of a quite colossal magnitude. In fact to say it was massive quite understates the very scale of the thing, which was Big, capital BIG! The size was perhaps the first thing to strike you of a party of this type, the next was the very nature of it. Alcohol was everywhere, alcobots floated in every available square meter dispensing everything from light beerlt to blackhole cider to the more deadly and quite incapacitating, quasar shorts. Folk smoked from giant x dimension gravity turbines, inhaling the very nature of physics, and blowing out quant smoke rings and higs bosen plumes. Everyone was smashed, from the naked and trampolining, to the introverted, sitting and grating cheese, from the wild and whooping, to those who fell around screaming about their blue kangaroo. Music thumped through everything, making even those without the sense of hearing, flail around to its beat. Pete looked at Fendel as if to say that they were home, but before any words were spoken, they found themselves surrounded by a horde of angry, naked, beautiful women.

  “Er hello,” ventured Pete, earnestly trying his best to maintain eye contact.

  “Er yes, what he said, “ agreed Fendel, wishing he had a cushion.

  “How dare you!” said a stunning brunette, pushing out her quite considerable chest as she spoke, and flicking back her hair as though emerging from a very lucky sea indeed.

  “Excuse me,” coughed Pete.

  “How very, very dare you!” she continued advancing upon the twosome as a black widow might a potential mate.

  “Have we… Do I… Perhaps I can be of assistance?” squeaked Fendel, wishing he was a couple of inches taller.

  “You pathetic worms, we really are going to have to teach you both a lesson you will not be in any hurry to forget!”

  “A lesson, oh please not that, anything but knowledge, anything!” cried Pete, who no longer held any clear concept of what was actually happening.

  “Surely there’s been some elementary misunderstanding, I’m sure this can all be sorted out amicably,” whimpered Fendel.

  “Misunderstanding, oh I’ll say there’s been a misunderstanding alright, now you’re gonna get it!” declared the woman, motioning for her army of naked vixens to advance on them.

  “What are you going to do to us?” yelped Pete, “are you going to hurt us?”

  “Hurt you?! Why no sweetie,” laughed the lead vixen, “we’re going to make love to you, forever.”

  “What?!”

  “I said that my friends and I just want to take you to the heights of ecstasy and beyond, that is unless you don’t like us, don’t you like us?”

  “No, no, it’s not that we don’t like you, it’s just I think we thought that you wanted to eat us or something,” explained Fendel, wishing he had a cushion again.

  “Whatever you want darling.”

  “No the making love bit forever will do just fine,” said Pete realizing that all his Christmases and Birthdays had just come at once.

  “Now come on, you can’t be serious, why would you want to do that? I mean I can’t say I’m not flattered and everything, but look at us, what’s in it for you?” asked Fendel.

  “Your happiness is our happiness,” chorused the girls advancing ever closer.

  “Yeah Fendel,” agreed Pete swiftly elbowing Fendel in the ribs, “if they want to take us to the heights of ecstasy and beyond, then who are we to stop them?!”

  “All I’m saying is,” wheezed Fendel recovering his breath, “they’re a group of quite terrifically beautiful women, and you and I are, well, we’re us right. So what I want to know is, what in this sensual exchange do they expect to get, what are they after?”

  “Your happiness is our happiness,” chorused the girls, now almost on top of them.

  “Fendel, if you don’t shut up right now, you might find yourself dead again very soon!”

  “I’m just asking a perfectly valid question.”

  “I’ll give you perfectly valid in a moment, now be quiet and prepare yourself for the ecstasy!”

  “What do you desire masters?” asked the girls.

  “Well,” began Pete, “perhaps a nice foot massage just to get things going.”

  “Of course, and for you master Fendel?”

  “I want to find Slip McGroovy,” he replied without a moments thought.

  “The Slip McGroovy?”

  “Yes that’s right, have you heard of him?”

  “Heard of him, why he’s just over there!” chorused the girls motioning towards a nearby wood.

  “He’s just over there, well what are we waiting for?! Come on Pete, it’s time to get the gang back together!” he said, pushing aside a naked beauty and striding off toward the woods.

  “Now hang on, what about all the ecstasy, I was really looking forward to all the ecstasy!”

  “Plenty of time for that later, now catch up, there’s a big hairy disc jockey I’d like you to meet.”

  21.

  The Humdinger dropped out of the time stream and onboard things seemed tense.

  “What?!”

  “Slip?!”

  “What the?!”

  “SLIP!”

  “Now everyone be cool,” said Slip picking himself up and dusting himself down, after he had been thrown quite dramatically across the room having caused the Humdinger to decelerate so quickly.

  “Now look Slip,” began Crinkle, “we go back a long way together and I’ve seen you make some pretty dumb decisions during that time, in fact I’d say I’ve seen you make some of the dumbest decisions ever made.”

  “Yeah sure whatever,” he replied flippantly, taking a sip from what he thought was a milk carton , but in actuality was a box of Frapideeze, a rapid freezing liquid.

  “Yeah Slip, what on earth was that, I mean, do you actually have any idea what you’re doing?” put in Pete for good measure.

  “Come on, tell us then, what is your grand plan?” asked Crinkle, accentuating the word grand and bowing down in mock salute.

  “Moof fwoose,” he said unintelligibly, his mouth full of Frapideeze.

  “What?”

  “Moof Fwoosen!”

  “Here drink this,” said Crinkle handing him a hot beverage.

  “Menku,” he replied drinking it down and unfreezing himself.

  “Erm guys, hate to be the bearer o
f bad news, but aren’t we forgetting something?” said Pete.

  “Like what?” asked Slip checking his trouser fly.

  “Like the whole explosion imminent thing!”

  “Oh yeah,” he remembered all of a sudden, “what’s the Humdinger’s power containment rate at Crinks?”

  “Four million kafka’s and rising!”

  “It’s no use, we’re going to have to dump the core.”

  “But that will strand us here Slip!” argued Crinkle.

  “Better being stuck here, than blown across an entire galactic sector!”

  “Where is here exactly?” put in Pete.

  “Ah, now that’s the good bit, got a bit of help with that one. You remember what Mormid said?”

  “Yeah he called you McGrimey!”

  “No before that.”

  “Erm, hello I’m Mormid?”

  “No not quite, he said that from that day on everything changed.”

  “Yeah but what day Slip?” asked Pete.

  “Oh yeah monkey man, I forgot you’re not really up to speed with the whole history thing are you.”

  “I got a B in it, I’ll have you know.”

  “Man that’s gotta hurt! Okay Bumble, it’s like this, everyone is taught at school the history of the Co-leen, and the first thing that we learn is about the Apotheosis of Mormid. There was a time way back in history when he was just your average Co-leen, he had a regular job, regular girlfriend, regular life all round. Then came his day of dawning and subsequent apotheosis, or what we know as Mormidmas, when once a year, it is custom to steal the most treasured possessions from your closest friends and family. Anyway, to answer your question, that’s where we are, right back where it all first happened, Mormid’s day of dawning.”

  “Oh right, and you intend to stop this day of dawning and prevent him from ever becoming the evil galactic ruler he is today, or at least will be tomorrow?”

  “Got it in one ape boy!”

  “Erm guys, imminent explosion remember?!” interrupted Crinkle.

  “Sure things Crinks, dump the core, do it!”

  “Done,” she said, pushing a large red button.