Science Fiction and Fantasy Box Set 1: The Squishies Series

by Claire Chilton

  “I’ll take my chances,” Foamy said, bracing himself for the injection.

  Parklon nodded and pushed the needle under the skin on the top side of Lord Foamy’s left hand. He injected the second chip into his bloodstream and then removed the needle. He pressed some cotton wool over the injection mark to stop any bleeding.

  “Now what?” Foamy said.

  “We wait. It shouldn’t take long. It’ll hurt, but you can’t scream or make a lot of noise,” Parklon said as he pulled a short rubber stick from his medical bag and put it into Lord Foamy’s mouth.

  “Bite down on this if you need to scream,” Parklon said.

  Foamy nodded, and then his body twitched. His eyes widened, and his muscles strained against the leather bindings.

  It’s beginning.

  Parklon winced as Foamy’s body jerked crazily on the bed, and he growled in pain, biting down on the rubber stick. His eyes were red saucers and spit rolled out of his mouth when he gasped through the rubber bit.

  Finally, the shaking subsided, and his eyes rolled in his skull. He spat the rubber bit out of his mouth, looking dazed.

  Parklon checked Foamy’s hand. He found a tiny square beneath the skin.

  Holding his wrist down, Parklon carefully sliced through the skin with a scalpel, and then pulled the chip out with a pair of tweezers. Then he pressed a clean dressing against the wound, putting pressure on it for a short time. He used some medical tape to secure the dressing in place before he glanced up at Lord Foamy.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like someone shoved a red-hot poker into my brain.” Foamy slurred his words.

  “Can you walk?”

  “If not, you’ll bloody carry me out of here after that,” Foamy snarled.

  Parklon smiled and threw the chip, tweezers, scalpel and syringe into the medical waste bin in the room. Then he unbuckled the leather straps that bound Lord Foamy to the bed.

  “We need to hurry,” he said, helping the older man off the bed and walking him toward the open window. “We don’t have much time.”

  He lifted Lord Foamy and pushed his feet out of the open window first, followed by the rest of him. Once Foamy was outside, Parklon threw his medical kit out of the window and levered himself out after it.

  Both were now outside the building. Parklon hurried Lord Foamy into the back of the white van and sat him down on the floor.

  “Any side effects I need to know about?” Parklon asked him.

  “Not that I can tell,” Foamy replied, rubbing his brow.

  “Okay.” Parklon handcuffed him to a metal bar in the back of the van.

  Foamy scowled at him. “Is that entirely necessary?”

  “Yep,” Parklon said as he shut the back door of the van with Foamy locked inside.

  He picked up the hold all and threw it onto the passenger seat of the van. Then he climbed into the driver’s seat.

  He glanced at the time. He was still on schedule. He started the engine and drove out of the Haimfield Medical Institute.

  The road was deserted and dark, with many twisting turns and sharp bends. He carefully drove up the hillside on his way to the pick-up point. His instructions were to drive to the outskirts of Yelrab and meet an operative there who would take Foamy in for interrogation before he would be imprisoned indefinitely in a military prison.

  “Hey,” Foamy called from the back of the van.

  Parklon peered back. “Wha—”

  A flash of purple shot through the small gap between the front seats and burned a hole in the dashboard.

  Parklon ducked out of the way just in time, or it would have hit him. His sudden movement jerked the steering wheel sharply to the left. The van swerved off the road and crashed head-on into the concrete wall on the edge of the highway.

  Parklon’s shoulder took the brunt of the impact when he slammed into the steering wheel, because he had been ducking sideways when the crash came.

  He shook his head, trying to break through the fog of being dazed. He tested his arms and legs for breaks, systematically trying to assess the damage. One shoulder felt as if it had taken some damage, but he could rotate it, so it seemed he’d made it out in one piece.

  He heard the back door open and footsteps running away. He growled. Son of a bitch!

  He opened the driver’s door and almost fell out into the tarmac. He staggered out of the van and saw Foamy stumbling down the road.

  Parklon launched himself after him, pumping his arms and legs as fast as he could. Foamy glanced behind him—too late. Parklon leapt on his back and pinned him to the ground. Purple lights shone out of his captive’s red eyes into the tarmac, melting it. Parklon held his head so it was facing down and pinned Lord Foamy to the ground with his own body.

  “You know, one day you and I are going to have a chat about how you do that,” Parklon muttered. Then he hit him on the back of the head, knocking him out.

  “But not today,” he added quietly.

  He carried Lord Foamy back to the van and checked the handcuffs. They had been melted off. He grabbed a rope, tied Lord Foamy up, and laid him on the floor of the van.

  Next Parklon sat at his laptop inside the van and turned off the looping cameras. They were far away enough from Haimfield now. It didn’t matter how long it took for their escape to be discovered.

  He logged into the HQ system and sent out a request for assistance.

  ‘The delivery is volatile. Transport is offline. Requesting assistance.’

  The system attached his GPS coordinates to the message and sent it.

  He sighed as he picked up his gun. He pointed it at Lord Foamy while he rubbed his aching shoulder. They were about fifty miles from the pick-up point. The operatives would have to come to them.

  His eyes never left the unconscious form of Lord Foamy. The guy was a menace, but there was nothing to do now but wait.

  Frothy bubbles surrounded Carla while she relaxed in a luxurious hot bath. She lay back against the tub and smiled, feeling perfectly content. Every muscle in her body turned into jelly as the hot water surrounded her in a cocoon of warmth.

  She could hear car doors banging outside, through the open bathroom window, as people finished work for the day and made their way home.

  Zoola was a weird place. During the day, it was drab. Work started for everyone at ten o’clock every morning and finished at four o’clock in the afternoon. Then, according to what Bex had told her, people went home for a nap until nine in the evening. After nine, the colorful side to Zoola emerged. Bars and clubs lit up the night sky. People flocked to them to dance, drink and party until the early hours every night.

  Zoola was a lot different from her home colony of Derobmi, where alcohol was banned and the culture worshipped cleanliness and order.

  It was half past four now and Bex was coming to pick her up at nine. She had decided that there was time for a nice long bath and a makeover before then. She had no idea what she was going to wear, but suspected it had better be fabulous and skimpy.

  She blew some bubbles off her arm and considered her outfit options. One of my short skirts and a camisole top might be okay. She imagined how it would look on her as she watched the bubbles she’d blown from her arm float toward the window.

  One of the bubbles popped on its way and a loud, rough voice swore at her.

  “Shit! Oww!” it said.

  Carla jerked herself up in the bathtub and wildly looked around. A transparent blob of something that resembled a cloud floated in mid-air in front of her and seemed to shimmy. Her eyes widened when it became clearer, and the cloud formed into a being.

  Hovering in the air, near the end of the bath was strange creature, which could only be described as a fat hairy fairy who was sitting on a bubble.

  “Buggery bollocks!” it said to her.

  She screamed and kicked out at it in a defensive reflex, sending it shooting out of the open window.

  It slowly floated back in and adjusted its tiny top hat. />
  “There’s no need to be mean!” it said moodily.

  “What the fu—” She began.

  “Now, now, no need to disgrace yourself with language like that.” It interrupted, folding its arms.

  She narrowed her eyes at it. “What are you? And what are you doing in my bathroom?”

  “It’s not your bathroom,” the little creature muttered. “And I’m an ethereal being,” it added with a smirk.

  “Oh? Oh! You’re an Esaenu!” She watched it scrunch up its face during her revelation and a bubble appeared from its rear end. She felt a bit queasy. He farts them out? Eww! That popped on me in the nightclub the other night!

  “Esaenu Gobbert.” It tipped its hat at her, displaying a bald patch in his frizzy orange hair. She frowned at it realizing it was a male. “But since we know each other so well now…” He leered at the bathtub. “…you can call me Gobbert, sweetheart.”

  “Oh. Eww!” She grabbed a towel from the rail above her and covered herself.

  Gobbert scratched his beard, and some crumbs fell out of it onto the floor. “You could do worse than a trainee ethereal, you know.” He puffed out his chest and batted his eyelashes at her.

  Now out of the bath and with a towel wrapped around her, Carla examined him more closely. He wore a little blue jacket with coat tails. It didn’t fit very well, so it was open, and his hairy pot-belly hung out of it. The matching trousers hung low on him, and Carla just knew if she looked behind him, she’d see his ass crack hanging out of the back of them. She chose not to look.

  “How dare you watch me in the bath!” she cried, pointing a finger at him.

  He shrugged. “Why not?”

  “It’s weird and creepy and gross!” she said.

  “Wouldn’t be if you hadn’t seen me,” he grumbled.

  “YES, IT WOULD!” She wanted to kick him out of the window again. “Aren’t you supposed to be invisible?” she added as an afterthought.

  “Yeah.” He picked his teeth. “There’s something wrong with you.” He nodded her.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m working fine. You’re broken.” He told her matter-of-factly.

  “You spy on me naked in the bath and appear as if by magic, and I’m broken? Are you kidding me?”

  “No, you must be broken to see me,” he said, critically studying her. “Buggered, knackered, messed up—très stuffed,” he added to make his point.

  “Go bother someone else,” she muttered, already tired of talking to him.

  “Can’t—stuck now.” He picked his teeth again with his long dirty fingernails.

  “Stuck how?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Because you’re broken, I guess.”

  “I’m not flippin’ broken!”

  “If you say so.” He shrugged and scratched his ass.

  “I’m not—and I swear to God, if you put that hand in your mouth after scratching your ass, I’ll kick you out of the window again!”

  “Wasn’t gunna.” He put his hand in his pocket instead.

  “I’m not broken,” she said, more to herself than Gobbert.

  “Ah, don’t get down, sugar. At least you have a nice pair of… ow!” He didn’t get to finish the sentence, because Carla slapped him for where it was going.

  The force of her slap sent his bubble crashing into the wall, but it didn’t break, it just bounced there for a little while. He sat up on it and zoomed back over to her, bobbing around on the bubble in front of her.

  “Touchy little broken thing, ain’tcha?”

  “I’m not broken!” she grumbled. “Shoo, go away.” She brushed him toward the window with her hands.

  “Hey, watch it. Hands off the merchandise,” he said as his little bubble was pushed back toward the open window. One final brush and he was outside. She shut the window and locked it.

  He floated outside the window, saying something that she couldn’t hear through the glass.

  She stuck her tongue out at him and then turned and walked to the bedroom to get dressed.

  “I’m not broken,” she muttered to herself.

  Carla studied herself in the mirror. Her skirt was really short but the black boots covered her legs up to her knees, so at least she wouldn’t get cold in it.

  “That’ll have to do,” she said to herself. The clock on the nightstand flashed eight-fifty.

  She dashed downstairs to be ready for Bex’s arrival. She was excited about tonight. It felt like an adventure. It was an adventure. It would be her first alcoholic drink and her first time in a nightclub. It was a lot of firsts for Carla. She was a little bit nervous, to be honest.

  “As long as nothing bad happens, it’ll be okay,” she told herself.

  “What like?” Gobbert asked, appearing out of thin air behind her.

  “Crap.” Carla sighed.

  Parklon stared down the dark road, waiting. Time ticked by slowly and every so often Foamy moved. If he wakes up before they get here, how do I stop him burning a hole in my face?

  Parklon had thought of several things he could do, but none of them were likely to work. He had wondered why Foamy hadn’t burned his way out of Haimfield a long time ago, and the only answer seemed to be that he couldn’t. Which meant that chip must have had an inhibitor of some kind in it.

  As soon as he realized that, he had sent a second message to HQ. Maybe they could engineer a chip that would do the same.

  Lord Foamy groaned and rolled over, but didn’t wake. Parklon gripped his gun, ready to knock him on the head again if he needed to.

  Lights from a vehicle lit up the road ahead.

  Parklon hoped it was the right vehicle or this was going to look a bit strange. But no other cars had passed him in the last hour. Luckily, this road was pretty desolate and unused.

  A military truck pulled up behind the cleaning van, and two soldiers got out. Their uniforms were Derobmi. They looked like the real deal.

  Parklon waved at them, and they walked over to the van.

  “Passenger transaction number?” the big green corporal asked sternly.

  “Twenty-seven, four A-G,” Parklon said.

  The soldier visibly relaxed, and then he nodded.

  “What happened to your face, mate?” the smaller sergeant asked.

  “He’s got Rhecknaw powers,” Parklon said. “You need to keep him unconscious until HQ can put an inhibitor in him.”

  “Back in a sec,” the sergeant said before he went back to his truck.

  Meanwhile, the large corporal hoisted Lord Foamy up onto his shoulders and carried him toward the truck.

  Lord Foamy woke up while being moved, and he started to struggle. “Wait!” he cried.

  “Why?” Parklon asked.

  “Derehtob, the disease, don’t you want to know where it’s stored?” Foamy asked.

  “And why would you tell me that?” Parklon said, not trusting him.

  “Revenge,” Foamy shouted as the corporal stood him upright, turning him to face the concrete wall. The soldier held his head, so he couldn’t turn toward them.

  “Anything you’ve got to say had better be said quickly, mate.” The sergeant came out of the truck, carrying a syringe.

  “Tell me now or miss your chance, Foamy,” Parklon said.

  “They store it in a warehouse in Yelrab, or they did when I was working with them. It’s near the docks, a big warehouse at fifty-nine Riven Lane. You can destroy it all with one well-lit fire because it’s highly flammable,” Foamy said quickly, and then he kicked the corporal in the shins and tried to turn his head in a final escape attempt.

  The big soldier didn’t move an inch. Apparently, a kick didn’t have much effect on him. Foamy ended up shooting purple beams into the concrete wall, leaving big burn marks on it.

  Parklon nodded at the sergeant. He shrugged and injected the syringe in the back of Foamy’s neck. Foamy slumped in the arms of the larger soldier.

  “Looks like you boys can handle him without any prob
lems,” Parklon said. “I need to speak to HQ.”

  “Use the radio in the truck. It’s scrambled and on safe channels,” the sergeant said. “We’ll be tucking his lordship in for the ride home in the meantime.”

  Parklon nodded and climbed into the military truck.

  He picked up the two-way radio and stated his name and rank. Then he waited for a reply.

  “Agent four-five-nine, it’s good to hear from you.” Parklon recognized the voice of the General. “All went according to plan, I hope?”

  “So far so good,” Parklon said. “We’ve received new intelligence on Derehtob. It’s being stored in a warehouse at the docks in Yelrab. Do you want me to investigate?”

  There was a pause, and then the General’s voice boomed back through the speaker. “Affirmative, do you need assistance?”

  “Just an exit route,” Parklon said.

  “I’ll set one up and send the details over the online channel. Send the transport and the data with the military operatives,” the General said.

  “Roger. The transport is already loaded. Out,” Parklon put the handset back on the cradle in the truck and then got out.

  The sergeant was coming back from the rear of the truck.

  “I won’t be coming with you, but I need you to put this in the General’s hands.” Parklon handed the sergeant the USB drive.

  “Not a problem, mate.” He nodded. “Do you need anything else before we go?”

  “No, I’m good.” Parklon smiled.

  “Good stuff. See you around.” The soldiers climbed back into the truck, started the engine, and drove around the laundry van and onto the coastal highway.

  Parklon watched them until they disappeared, then he packed up his laptop and all evidence of his presence from the laundry truck. He thoroughly cleaned it, removing fingerprints, blood, and any indication that someone had been in the truck.

  He hoisted the hold all onto his shoulder and began walking toward the town below.

  One more job to do, then he could go home.

  “I.D?” The bouncer frowned sternly at Carla and Bex.

  Carla gaped at him. He was huge, completely bald, and had midnight-blue skin.