“Okay then,” he went on, “come on down.”
That said, a whirring noise started up and steam started pouring out of the plants and fauna around her. She looked beyond the sign, and to her amazement, watched two massive trees gently slide apart, revealing what could only be Ben’s hut.
“Okay, here goes nothing,” she said to herself, making her way down towards the unassuming hut.
Crinkle stepped up onto the porch that surrounded the hut and discovered that it was certainly no ordinary forest cabin. Hanging from the roof around the hut, were empty bird cages, all that is except for one at the far end, which seemed to contain an animal of some kind, though she was too short to see for sure. There was one window which had been boarded up, and the door to the hut had been replaced with a supra-steel one, with flazer security measures installed. Ben was certainly one who appreciated privacy, and she thought that such a door would be tough to get through, even if she had all the technology aboard the Humdinger to help her. Returning her attention to the one locked cage, she found a crate and moved it to below where the cage hung. Standing atop the crate and teetering on the top of her very tip toes, she could make out a hairy creature, apparently asleep in the cage. She raised her hand carefully toward the cage and gently rapped against the bars. The creature stirred and unfurled itself, so that it was now facing her. She gasped, for the small hairy creature in front of her, had the face of Fendel.
“Crinks! Is that really you?” asked the creature.
“Fendel?! What in Borz’ name happened to you?!”
“Long story Crinks, suffice to say, that the chap who owns this cabin has some kind of advanced pruning device that bends space-time, and he used it on me, quite unreasonably I should add, when he caught me breaking into this hut here.”
“The Shears of Salamaloo!”
“Yeah, something like that,” confirmed the creature with Fendel’s face, “all I remember is that he came at me snipping, I recall watching reality dissolve in front of me, and when I awoke, I found myself trapped in this cage here, with the body of a... a… well, this body anyway!”
“Okay, let’s say I believe you, you’ve gotta help me get those shears, agreed?”
“Agreed,” said the Fendel creature, “now get me outta here!”
She carefully unlocked the door to the cage, which enabled the Fendel creature to climb out onto her shoulder.
“Quickly,” she ordered, “get in my pocket, he’s coming.”
The huge supra-steel door was beginning to open, and as a large robotic hand clawed its way around the door edge, she was relieved to see the Fendel creature finally disappear into her pocket. The door was now fully open, and in it, stood a large, powerful robot. The size of the thing could easily incorporate two grown men, or indeed four Crinkle-sized persons, and she instantly recognized it as a type of bio-cybernetic suit, which was worn by a person, rather than being a fully autonomous robot. She presumed its wearer was most probably Ben, and she did not have too long to wait before he confirmed it.
“Hello, I’m Ben,” said the robot suit.
“Er hello,” she replied, a small crack in voice betraying her concern.
“Don’t be alarmed, the outfit I’m wearing is called a hermetic,” began Ben, “it’s purely a security measure see.”
She watched as the giant robot suit initially stretched out its robot claws, then brought them together in way that reminded her of two solar flares smashing into one another creating exciting new patterns in the night sky.
“You can never be too careful these days,” that said, the visor on the suit dropped, revealing Ben’s wizened old face within.
“No you can’t,” she readily agreed, her eyes still locked on those massive metallic claws.
“Just the other day, I caught a bugler trying to break into my home,” he continued, “was forced to use my shears on him, and now I’ve got him trapped in that cage over there.”
“Goodness,” she replied, “what is the afterlife coming to, when you can’t even leave your own home, without some dastardly fiend attempting to break in and steal your things?!” she finished, shoving her hands quickly into her a pockets, so that one hit the Fendel creature squarely on the nose.
“Yes, yes,” he agreed, “tell me young lady, what should I call you?”
“You can call me Crinkle, that’s my name anyway.”
“Crinkle,” he repeated slowly, “what an interesting name,” he remarked without any convincing emotion, “now, tell me what it is exactly I can do for you.”
“Er,” she paused to consider her blag.
“No not that!” bellowed the Fendel creature as though it was perched on her shoulder again, just inches from her inner ear.
“Shut up you,” she said reaching down inside her pocket and finding the creature there where it belonged.
“I beg your pardon?!” said Ben, obviously offended.
“I’m speaking to you telepathically,” said the Fendel creature inside Crinkle’s mind, “only you can hear me. Tell him you said shattered ewe, and then do an impression.”
“Er, shattered ewe,” she repeated without thinking, “meeerhp, zzzzz,” she then did an impression of a tired sheep.
“Oh I see,” said Ben looking entirely perplexed, before adding politely “that’s really very good.”
“Oh thank you,” she replied, “something of a party trick I do.”
“Now don’t speak to me using your mouth,” said the Fendel creature telepathically, “use your mind instead.”
“Seriously?” she asked aloud.
“Why yes of course, certainly worthy of a repeat performance, encore!” encouraged Ben.
“Meeerhp zzzzz,” she said telepathically.
“Out loud Crinks, that one’s for Ben.”
“Meeerhp zzzzz,” she repeated out loud.
“Bravo, bravo, a rare talent you are!” praised Ben.
Crinkle smiled awkwardly.
“How are you doing this Fends?” she asked, telepathically this time.
“Can’t be sure, but I think it’s a by-product of having been turned into the weird, hairy creature that is currently in your pocket. Doesn’t matter now anyway, we need to get those shears!”
“Agreed,” she said.
“Somewhat lacking in modesty though,” said Ben under his breath.
“Sorry?” she responded, not quite catching what was said.
“Oh nothing,” he replied, “cup of tea?”
“Yes, that’s our in,” said the Fendel creature excitedly in her mind.
“Yes please.”
“Well follow me then, do excuse the mess, I was not expecting guests,” he said, turning to go back inside.
“This is our chance Crinks, I know exactly where he keeps the shears, you go on a charm offensive, and when his guard is down, I’ll grab them!”
“Okay Fendel, just remember, he’s got those massive claws, I really don’t want to get on the wrong side of this fellow,” she answered nervously.
“Chill Crinks, what’s the worse that could happen?!”
Crinkle followed Ben in his massive robot suit into the nondescript, security conscious hut. Checking in her pocket that it still contained the Fendel creature, she was convinced she would have the Shears of Salamaloo shortly in her possession, he was just an old man after all, the Fendel creature was right, what was the worst that could happen?
32.
“Dinkle Mormid?” asked the medi-computer.
“Er yes, hello,” he answered.
“New hand insertion due to habitual misplacing?”
“Er yes, I keep losing them.”
“Hand now ready for implant, please insert stump into grafting-tube four.”
“Okay,” he agreed, moving his handless arm toward the tube.
“Warning, make sure area is clean before proceeding, only insert graft area into tube.”
“Oh right,” he said rolling up his sleeve and removing his fission watch, “tha
t could have been dangerous.”
“Come on, this is our chance,” said Pete excitedly, “follow me peeps, it’s time to fix the future!”
Pete, Slip and Crinkle then all piled into the implantation room, and confronted the one-day Co-leen Commander in Chief.
“Hey buddy!” Pete greeted Dink, holding out his hand to shake.
“You can’t be in here!” replied a startled Dinkle Mormid, “this is a very delicate operation!”
“Delicate, smellycat,” put in Slip, “man, I’ve seen this done thousands of times, it’s as easy as tying your shoelaces!”
“Your shoes are Velcro Slip,” Crinkle pointed out.
“Life style choice Crinks, life style choice,” he replied, reaching down to reattach one of the straps that had become loose.
“Who are you people, what do you want?!” demanded Dink, who had already committed himself to the grafting tube, and was not going to be going anyway soon.
“Allow me to introduce ourselves,” began Pete, with what he imagined to be a statesmanlike manner, “my name is Pete, the big beardy one is called Slip, and the shor…” he checked himself in the nick of time, before continuing, “and surely, you already know Crinkle, well anyway, that’s her there.”
“What do you want?!” Dink replied, a little panicked now, “should you really be here, are you doctors?”
“I am a doctor of life,” said Slip, “I never found it necessary to actually learn medicine, just picked it up along the way, you know, while I’ve been living.”
Dink started looking for the help button.
“Now what have we here,” continued Slip, grabbing Dink’s chart.
“Leave that alone, you shouldn’t even be here!” shouted Dink, growing ever more alarmed.
He had found the button that called for help, but then discovered to his dismay, that it was located on the underside of grafting tube four, one that would be easy to push, were he not currently secured arm-deep in grafting tube four.
“Well, well, well, this is all very interesting,” commented Slip, reviewing the chart as he spoke, “it says here that you’re in need of a new nose, it says that it’s your second nose transplant this week.”
“Hand! It’s a new hand you idiot! What do you think this is here?!” said Dink pointing to his nose with his free hand.
“It’s your hand of course, and the pointy bit is your finger,” replied Slip without a trace of irony, “now, terrible business this, not having a nose. Perhaps, I can recalibrate the grafting machine here to work a little quicker,” offered Slip, pulling out a hammer.
“I think you should leave that alone,” put in Crinkle.
“Yeah, just leave it Slip,” agreed Pete, realizing the situation was going far from to plan.
“Please don’t hurt me!” wailed Dink, who had started to cry.
“We’re not going to hurt you, we’re going to help you,” declared Pete, sounding less than convincing, “Slip, show him your rod!”
Now, what happened next is very difficult to report, so instead I ask you to imagine a really awful situation and then multiply it by a ridiculously large number. What resulted were screams, tears, pain, horror, essentially an experience that no number of showers would ever wash away.
“Not that,” whimpered Pete, “your fishing rod!”
“Oh right yeah,” said Slip, pulling out the makeshift fishing rod they had cobbled together earlier.
“What’s wrong with you people?!” asked Dink with heartfelt earnest, “and what by Borz is that?!”
“This,” began Pete, “is your future! Nay, it’s the future of all us, everything single living sole!”
“Looks like a broom handle, with some electrical flex tied on the end,” replied Dink deeply unimpressed.
“Broom handle!” scoffed Slip, “electric flex! How are you meant to go fishing with that?!”
“Yes indeed,” put in Pete, desperately trying to maintain the paper-thin illusion of a fishing rod, “I mean, could a broom handle with flex tied on, do this?!”
That said, he grabbed the rod from Slip, and then casting it back way over his shoulder, as he had seen people do on the Fishing channel, he then lunged forward with all his might, launching the flex through the open window of the transplantation room.
“Wow!” expressed Dink, “that was pretty cool!”
“I know,” Pete replied with a cowboy swagger, wishing he had a cigarette he could take a heroic puff on.
“Now what?” asked Dink, genuinely excited.
“Now, we see what we’ve caught.”
That said, he started retrieving the flex and pulling it back through the window. Dink had big wide eyes, entirely engrossed in the matter of what he was going to produce from that window. Slip looked on him with admiration, as a father might on a child who had just stepped out of his shadow, and though he could not be sure, it looked as if Crinkle was smiling at him, admiring his fishing prowess and perhaps imagining what magnificent children they would make together. With a final heave, the flex end finally appeared back in the room, and as he beamed at them all with his newly found hero status, all of sudden, their faces dropped.
“What in the hool is that?!”
Pete looked down at the end of the flex, and discovered to his profound dismay, that attached to the end of it was a mutilated kitten. The flex had obviously attracted the innocent little thing, who having pounced on it, then gorged its paws on the wire trailing from the end. The poor creature had then become entangled round the thing, and quite noticeable were the bite marks in the chord, where the kitten had tried in vain to gnaw its way free. Pete the hero, had become Pete the evil kitten mutilator, and as he desperately tried to think of something positive to say, a tiny, pain-filled meow came out from its bedraggled body.
“Oh my Borz! It’s still alive, you bastard!” said Crinkle, with a look of pure hate.
“Do something you idiot!” barked Dink.
“Yeah come on man, you can’t leave it like that,” put in Slip for good measure.
“What do you want me to do exactly, throw it back?!” he replied sarcastically.
“You’re gonna have to finish it Pete,” said Slip seriously, “here take this,” he finished handing him the medical chart he had been holding.
“What do you want me to do with this?”
“Decapitate it.”
He looked down at the helpless creature and realized Slip was right. He could not leave it like that, so he would chop the clipboard into the kitten’s neck, removing kitten head from kitten shoulders in one fell swoop.
“Okay, nobody move,” he said very seriously, “I’m gonna finish this now.”
He brought the clipboard to just above the desired entry point, and then composing himself for a moment, then suddenly brought it down quickly through the neck, severing the head neatly so that it rolled across the floor and came to rest against Dink’s foot.
“Nice work champ,” stated Slip, quite matter-of-factly.
“Please,” pleaded Dink, kicking the severed kitten head away, “please, leave me alone.”
“Oh no you don’t,” said Slip, “we came here to make you fish, and make you fish is what we’re gonna do!”
“Perhaps we should cut him some slack here,” suggested Crinkle, “I mean we have just decapitated a kitten with a clipboard.”
“No way José avocado,” replied Slip, “we came here to do a job, and I’m gonna see it through right to the very end, even if you pastry puffs don’t have the stomach for it. Here, give me that,” finished Slip, grabbing the fishing rod from Pete.
“Careful Slip,” warned Crinkle, fully aware of his tendency to break complicated looking bits of technology.
“Take it,” Slip demanded, thrusting the rod out toward Dink.
“No, I don’t want to.”
“Take it,” he growled again, rapidly losing patience.
“No, I won’t,” replied a resolute Dink, sitting on his one free hand.
“We
ll, if you won’t, perhaps this thing will,” and as Slip finished, he shoved the fishing rod squarely into grafting tube four, where Dink’s new hand was currently being transplanted.
“Slip, what have you done?!” screamed Pete, before a whole host of alarm bells started to sound.
33.
“Sit down, sit down,” fussed Ben, as Crinkle made her way into his hut with the Fendel creature hidden safely in her pocket.
Ben’s hut could only be described as that which would result from having the past and future positioned at opposite ends of a giant hydron collider, and then by pressing full cycle and leaving the whole thing unsupervised for a couple of million light years. On ancient oak tables rested dark matter replicators and giah manipulators. A fire spat and clicked in an open hearth, and by it rested a self-phasing doget, its little digital chest rising and falling gently as it recharged. Crinkle found an old brown leather chair to sit in, and only when she had found herself ensconced comfortably in the old leather seat, did she realize that it was a actually a hard-light hologram, that was subtly adjusting itself on a quantum level to best make her feel comfortable.
“Now,” began Ben, “how about that cup of tea?”
“Oh yes please,” she answered.
“Sugar hump?”
“Yes,” she replied, “two please.”
“Ask him about the shears,” said the Fendel creature telepathically.
“Okay, give me a minute,” she replied, forgetting again to use her mind only.
“So you don’t want any sugar,” responded Ben looking a little perplexed.
“Erm, no,” she answered thinking quickly, albeit badly, “I usually add the sugar after.”
Renegade T.M. Page 14
