FrustratedPilot
Meanwhile, eyewitnesses on the surface were attempting to explain the situation to police officers--
"Something was eminating in the air, giving me a headache--and then this loud dance music came out of that red thing and it sank into the ground!"
Suddenly, everybody could hear--and feel--gunfire and explosions under their feet.
The police detective on the scene said, "Evacuate the area! There may be a broken gas main and if something sets it off we may lose all of downtown!"
Then his cel phone rang. He answered it, "Detective Waltrip."
The voice on the other end was the Coroner. "We just got in a body from the Market Park district. Dental records and fingerprints match those of a Federal agent."
"We have a situation here. I'll be over as soon as I can." He hung up. He said, to nobody in particular, "I wonder how things could possibly get worse."
Blondlot
"Can we go back to the dorm yet?"
"Yeah, yeah. Just let me get the check taken care of." I walked to the cashier, check in hand. The Junior Jumbler trailed close behind, mumbling to himself. Maybe he was trying to remember what the limbic system does for the test tomorrow, or he was just cursing my existence. You know, business as usual.
The cashier took my money and gave me my change. We left. I was hit by a car.
What? I'm skipped something? Okay, well let's back up a bit.
I was hit by a black Cadillac piloted by a pair of arms sticking out of a indiscernible blob of tan body parts. It came tearing out from around the way, where the park and reflecting pool are. I was clipped bad enough to knock me out. I believe that I’m bleeding internally as well. Better? I can't tell you much more than that. Broken ribs and blackouts tend to take it out of me.
...
Jesus, if you need to know more, ask the guy who hit me. He's lying by his car over there. See it? The one that smashed into the light pole. Better hurry; he seems to be in the midst of being dragged back into the car. Now let me be unconscious in peace.
----
Blondlot slowly crawled from the wreckage, cursing himself for a painfully stupid plan, emphasis on “stupid” and “Painful”. But at least he was out… for the moment, at least. The crash combined with a little bit of his suit’s power, helped to propel him out of the vehicle and into open air. Unfortunately, Uberman’s burly arm (which was ten feet long at the moment and covered with eyes) was still wrapped around his leg and was slowly dragging him back towards the wreck.
This wasn’t good.
“I don’t know what you are, but you had better LET GO!” He screamed, trying to both use his telekinesis to push away the arm and fly at once. Unfortunately he was far too drained emotionally to use any of the abilities. A bit more of the thing began to pour out of the wrecked auto, slithering towards him. More faces appeared and popped in the ooze
“Sttttop, evil…”
----
You’re back? Didn’t I tell you to talk to… you’re caught up? Here, I’ll feed you a bit more, then you leave me be, okay?
Right when I was hit the Junior Jumbler screamed out. He ran to my body, which was now prostrate on the cement. “Are you alright? MATT!” He said.
“I… ack…. Besides the r-ribs and the pain and the white light and the fact that my hindquarters seem to be leaking something foul from every possible opening I’m fine.” I blurted out. Christ I wasn’t feeling good then, let me tell you. And comedy wasn’t helping.
He crinkled his nose in disgust. Obviously the comedy wasn’t helping him either. “Shut up, you idiot.” He said, with a look of obvious relief overtaking him. “Stay here. I’m gonna call the cops. STAY HERE!” I gave a weak smile in response. Jesus, where did Junior think I would go?
Anyway, five or six minutes went by of me lying there and the bastard that hit me screaming about superheroes and whatnot before Junior popped his head back around to check on me and my surroundings. At first he was relieved to still see me breathing. I guess I’m lucky to have no bits of rib bone in my heart or something. But anyway, he turned his head towards the crash and went white. Whiter then usually, I guess. Then he ran back into the restaurant, screaming something to the cashier.
That brings us back to the present. So much for friendship, I gue… hey, he’s coming back out with one of those huge ornamental swords they had up on the wall behind the counter, screaming "AAAAAHHHHHHH" the whole time. That’s kinda weird.
----
Blondlot turned to the direction from whence the sound of the shout emanated. He saw a large man, covered in some sort of word puzzle tattoo, like a circus geek, charging him with a very, very, very large oriental sword over his head. He cringed.
“AHHHHHHHHHH” The large man screamed, just a breadth from Blondlot’s position. He leapt in the air, bringing the sword down with as much force as he could muster. The arm that held Blondlot was easily severed by the titanic swing, freeing him. All of the faces screamed and folded in upon themselves, becoming less solid and more liquid. They ran together, smoking and bubbling. Blondlot scurried to the wall, using it to get to his feet.
“Who the hell are yo…?” Blondlot said, before the sword-wielding stranger decked him with his free arm.
“That’s for hitting my friend with a car. Oh, and you’re welcome.” One of the managers came out of the restaurant, obviously looking for the Junior Jumbler.
“The cops are on their way… hey, that isn’t our sword is it? What the hell is… are you okay?”
Junior Jumbler dropped the sword on the pavement with a loud clank. He looked dizzy and sick. “I-I’m fine. I just did about ten things that were a little too out of character for me, bravery being cardinal among them. I’m going to pass out now.” The Junior Jumbler sank to the ground, victim of his own mundane nature backlashing.
----
He passed out? Heh. Poor Junior Jumbler. Unlike his brother he is usually too normal for the skin he was born in. By the way, who the hell are you and how are you talking to me? You don't need to answer that- I'm probably just dreaming this all right now.
Ugh, I think the ambulance is coming. No, those are the cops. Wait, they don’t look like cops… F.B.I? Enough of this- I’m supposed to be out cold right now.
---
Somewhere in the park district, by a reflecting pool (in the parking lot, to be exact), the case Blondlot brought with him sat waiting for someone to claim it. It glowed slightly.
Tom the Fanboy
Tom strolled down the hall with his deputies and entered the theater's lobby.
"You two can sit over there, pull up an empty paint can and hold tight while I check up with my pal here." He rolled them two cans to sit on so they could avoid the still slimy floor. Pulling the shopping cart full of supplies across the room he aproached a worried Nodrog. "So what's going on?"
Nodrog looked up from behind a Cling-on Dictionary and technical manual of some sort.
"Well I've gotten the system to work smoothly but only if it's set to Cling-on Command mode. Remember when we put that in for our viewing of "Star Tec 6"? Anyway It's been a real pain trying to get anywhere. So far three emergency windows popped up and I've only translated two. The first one say that the Blaxecutors were activated and the second say that the NEUTONS has reached one hundreth of a micron above safe capacity."
Tom frowned. This wasn't good. Not only did the Blaxecutors' activation mean there was a full scale conflict on the decks below but the NEUTONS' problem was distressful. The SoF crew had used a kinetic compression beam to fit as much dangerous and annoying stuff into the NEUTONS as possible. If any more was somehow crammed in through the vibramantium casing then it could end up exploding or worse. "I'll go check on the NEUTONS, There still Tri-Chorders in the desk?" Nodrog reached into a drawer and handed him the sensory device that doubled as a MIDI player. "OK, thanks. See ya in a few." Tom turned to get down to the dangerous NEUTONS when he bumped into Muttley.
"Oh! Hey! Good to see you made it. Here take this gun and keep those two covered. got it? Thanks!" Tom ran out of the room after giving Muttley a pat on the back.
"Um, Nodrog? Who are these guys?" Muttley said as he inched around the room, keeping the lounging "prisoners" covered.
"Some guys FPilot recruited. Tell me if this sounds right." Nodrog began to read his translation of the third message. "Near-Death Withdrawal. Ram Thunder Pound at a slow dip." Muttley looked blankly at Nodrog and blinked a few times. "Right, probably messed up the infinitive."
FrustratedPilot
The gunfire (and the accompanying rocksteady 70s R&B soundtrack played by the SOF muzak) fell silent. Warily, FPilot moved away from Baseball Batman in a non-threatening manner and looked at the scene of the fracas. RoboShaft and RoboT stood triumphant over a pile of unconscious Solactor bodies. One assault rifle on the deck was twisted like rotini.
RoboShaft said, "One pack of honky mutts, duly spayed and neutered."
FPilot approached the robots, continuing his non-threatening stance. "Where's the--err--the Head Turkey."
RoboT said, "He blew. He opened a sunroof with a wad of C-4. I still wanna piece of him."
FPilot said, "You may yet get your chance. I'm sure there are plenty more turkeys where he got these. Wait for further orders...I need to report this to the commanders."
He pointed the robots out to Baseball Batman--"Good. Order. Is that what you want?"
Nodrog
Nodrog flipped through the Cling-on dictionary. Recently, his head had taken a few too many hits for his own good, and it was hard for him to concentrate. Plus, Nodrog had never been very good at translating non-computer-programming languages.
"Ok, does this sound right: Life Support Failure Near. Computer RAM crashing. Please repair malfunctioning fusebox."
-elsewhere-
Detective Strebek was the first police officer on the scene. At last three people were unconcious. One of them appeared to be covered in crossword puzzle tattoos and had recently been weilding a sword. He took off his helmet and put it on the handlebars of his motorcycle. He looked up to see his partner approaching and delivered the line he'd developed for just such a situation. "Thank god it's Friday!"
Friday ignored him. Ever since she had transfered in, replacing Strebek's old partner, Strebek had greated her with some similiar comment. She bent down to examine the scene, her nostrils flaring as her augmented senses took in the scene.
FrustratedPilot
FPilot arrived in the theater, near breathless from the ordeal, and lightly dusted with gunpowder soot. "How are we doing?" he asked.
Nodrog
"Situation Normal..." reported Nodrog. The SOF's computer begin to make warning announcements in Clingon. And, since even Clingon birthday party invitations sound ominous, the warning announcements were sure to strike fear in most hearer's hearts.
"All Fouled Up. (SNAFU)" finished Nodrog. "We're on emergancy back-up auxilary don't-even-kid-about-using-this oxygen supply, which will run out in about fifteen minutes if we don't stop the short circuiting fuseboxes and get power back to the life support systems."
A mysterious figure appeared in the theatre. He stood slightly taller then Nodrog, but his thin frame made it clear he weighed less. His skin was bone white, and seemed totally bald. A large black baseball hat was pulled down over his face, concealing his facial features, and he wore a pair of tight black denim jeans, a black t-shirt with a "Who wants to live forever?" Highlander T-Shirt, and a black coat. When he spoke, it was in a dry voice that somehow managed to make the listener think of echos from a great distance.
He spoke: "I hope you fix the problem quickly. Otherwise, it's going to REALY mess up my schedule."
The man turned and looekd at FPilot. "Oh, it's you again."
FrustratedPilot
"At least you aren't calling me Scott like you did last time." FPilot found an "Ay-Team" walkie-talkie among the tools strewn on the floor. He checked the battery in it and once he was satisfied it would work, spoke into it: "Yo Bruthas, this be the FPilot tawkin at ya. Git down to da basement and meet me by da juice joint. If any mo' heavy dudes come crashin' da SOF's partay, bounce 'em so hard dey leave dents 'n the sidewalk, dig?" The voice on the other end, probably RoboT's said: "Word."
FPilot then gave a good hard kick to the faux woodgrain frontside to the stage. A wall panel fell down and a large switch was revealed. It was set to Cling-on. FPilot switched it to Common Tongue. "The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drains."
FPilot then went behind a changing screen, took off his shirt and trousers, and put on a fresh Gizmonetics jumpsuit.
"Reaper, you're with me," he said as they left the theater for the lower levels of the SOF.
FrustratedPilot
FPilot was humming to himself, breaking into song sometimes. "I'm a bookkeeper's son/ I don't wanna shoot no one/ but I crossed my old man back in Oregon/ don't take me alive/ got a case of dynamite/ I could hold out here all night/ yea I crossed my old man back in Oregon/ don't take me alive" Death said, "Cut that out."
"There are times to enjoy the silences, and times to shake the rafters. You know that."
This time FPilot and his grim acquaintence took the back stairs to the keel level. When FPilot nudged aside a roach in his path, Death asked, "Why didn't you stomp it?"
"I'm wearing new shoes."
"Sheesh."
"Now here comes the hard part..."
They had come to the area where FPilot had left the mattress from when he used the firecracker on the fusebox. RoboT and RoboShaft were already there.
"Wassup?" RoboShaft asked.
"Our time if I don't do this job right...both of youse, go to standby mode. Chill."
In an instant, both robots de-activated themselves. FPilot dropped the cable case he had been carrying and opened it. He started humming again...
Da da da, da da da da---
Dum da da da da da da da da
Forty-second Street!
Like Bugs Bunny in the cartoon where he became Public Enemy #1, FPilot pulled the master switch to the whole Satellite down and then furiously began pulling off and then rewiring cables. By the time he was through, the whole wall looked like a plate of tie-died linguine with cables going every which way. Then he flipped the master switch back on.
To his gratitude, FPilot heard the air scrubbers and oxygen generators whirr to operational speed. "And to think my grandfather used to get paid for work like this..."
Tom the Fanboy
Tom strolled along the interior of the SoF whistling along with the Tri-chorder's version of Peter and the Wolf. He kicked up a chunk of plastic tubing, probably from a bundle of cables somewhere, and began using it as a jaunty cane.
His mood darkened somewhat as he came around the corner of the hallway and saw the blast doors at the end of the hall. They were rippling. Tom stopped the music and switched the device to scan mode. Good, at least the mag shielding on the blast doors held. They had put NEUTONS in a cell in what had been called the ship's "brig". They had held various borders and odd creatures there before releasing them back into the wild. Of course several aliens did manage to make it to Earth's surface when they crashed, but in the hopes of never having to deal with it's contents again the crew repaired the brig as an extra safety measure against the NEUTONS ever getting opened/breached.
Further scanning revealed that there was an "unkown energy fluctuation" in the brig. As well as "several life forms beyond description and two nanites". Tom didn't know why the Nanites were in there but he knew that the term "beyond description was usually bad. This meant that the creatures either didn't have forms yet, were constantly changing their forms faster than the Tri-chorder could read them, or had such outlandish shapes that not even the Tr-chorder's Advance Creativity, Understanding Machine, Extrapolation Numbers (ACUMEN) could define it. ACUMEN was a thing integrated into nearly all the machines and computers on the SoF that allowed them to cope with the bizare situations that fandom presented. For it to not be able to explain something was rather odd.
"Well, best get the Nanites out of there 'fore they get hurt and then talk to Nodrog." the fanboy strolled over to the computer console at the brig security desk just outside the doors and turned the console on. While he waited for that he shouted at the rippling door. "Hey! Nanites! Get out of the brig before you cause more problems! Get to a communicator port so I can talk to you on this console here!"
Tom pulled the swiveling roller chair upright and put the seat back on before sitting down in front of the console. Punching up the ship's intercom system he opened two windows. One for Nodrog, who he directed the call to right away, and one he left open for the Nanite call.
"K'chath Puck'h! Oh.....hey Tom. Sorry, I'm trying to get used to English again."
"You get the computers up and running now?" Tom grinned. "Nah, the damn thing's playing favorites again. I think it still has a crush on FPilot." Tom chuckled at the old joke from their time on the ship. The computers all seemed to work better for FPilot than anyone else so the joke ran that he had a supernatural machinery charisma. FPilot and all the robots they asked would neither confirm nor deny this. "Figures. Listen, we have a situation down at the brig. There's some weird stuff going on and I'm getting some critters that are "beyond description" down here."
"Aw damn, and things were going so wel after Death-" The screen went black. The lights went black. The console stopped humming. The blast doors kept glowing. The interior of the brig kept buzzing. The magnetic shield did not keep humming. The doors glowed brighter as a tiny pinch appeared in the corner of NEUTONS directly across from where the Nanites had shoved the chip in. Through the pinch sprang a kinetically compressed beam of matter that was quickly expanding to it's normal size. The pinch disapeared after displacing this volume.
Before the lights came back on the blast doors stopped wavering and glowing and all was silence.
Tom heard a whump and some clattering from the interior of the brig.
The lights came back on. The console came back on. The air conditioning came back one. The oxygen scrubbers came back on. The magnetic shields stayed off.
Nodrog
The psychiatrist (the one trying to open the door which led to Shanna's mother's cell) broke his last chicken bone. "We'll need to sacrifice another chicken!" he cackled.
"No, we are NOT going back to the KFC" snarled Chaos. He guestures, and a waves of chaos lept from his fingers, striking the door.
All the asylum's doors, windows, and walls, EXCEPT for the door Chaos had hit, promptly vanished. Smiling, Chaos opened the door. "Come on out, dear sister-in-law..." he called. "We got some 'spleenin to do..."
Blondlot
Sttim sat nervously in Mr. Rikk's anteroom, waiting to talk to him. He looked about at his surroundings, surveying the two sets of oak double doors (one set leading in, the other out of the anteroom), the Mesopotamian bas relief artfully positioned next to a set of Chippendale drawers, and thick mahogany desk where a secretary would sit. Instead of a secretary there was a guard, a seven-foot tall pile of coiled muscle, precision and fanatical regard for his employer. He had a FAMAS resting on the desk. Like Blondlot’s glock from earlier it was a threat of violence. Some people just were that way.
Behind the guard was a large mirror in the rococo style; it reflected the butchered Van Gogh hung behind and above Sttim. It was Van Gogh's self-portrait; it had been given Vulcan Ears with a pink crayon. It wasn't very funny to Sttim, the joke being that Van Gogh removed one of his other ears in a fit of non-logical madness and now he wouldn't have to worry about such things any longer.
Sttim hated losing bets. They reeked of poor planning on the part of the loser. One should never let luck interfere with success. This particular loss could end up him up in the deep dungeons at the mercy of the Flogman. And even though he had filched the bet as to buy Thack time, he still couldn’t help but feel angry that he lost. It felt sloppy.
One of the guards by the entrance to the office received a message through his earpiece. He looked at Sttim, emotionless “Mr. Rikk will see you now.” He opened the door, swinging it wide.
Sttim briskly walked through the double-doors, halting and letting out a sharp yelp in shock upon entering the room. Grabbing his heart he slumped against a chair.
Mr. Rikk and the twelve Blondlot clones smiled. In unison.
----
The ambulance sped towards Sister of Mercy, jostling its passengers with every turn. The EMS crew stooped over the two patients, eyeing them with some uncertainty. One had hit the other in an auto accident and had caused moderate damage, breaking two ribs among other things. That wasn’t the odd thing. Although there were small differences, the one in the suit was fit, muscular and without a bit of fat, had a haircut and wore no glasses, they were the same person. According to the friend of the victim he had no twins, so they weren’t apparently related.
“So who the hell is this, Nick?”
“I’ve no clue, Joe. They look the same.”
“I know, they do. They Brothers?”
“I’m not sure… One of them is some sort of Government agent. INS division seven, whatever that is.”
“How do you know?”
“His wallet fell out of his trousers. Honestly I ain’t ever heard of a division seven. Or a division six for that matter” Joe and Nick were tossed violently by the turning of the ambulance. It felt as if they made a right at the last light, which wouldn’t make sense, seeing as Sister of Mercy should be straight ahead by both of their reckoning.
Nick shouted to the driver “What the hell is going on. Where are we going?”
In response a sunglasses bedecked face peered back into the hindquarters of the cab. He removed a gun, silencer equipped, from his jacket. “We aren’t going to the hospital. You’re going nowhere. He squeezed the trigger, piercing Nick’s heart with hot lead. Nick slumped, gasping once before bleeding out all over his uniform and the floor.
Joe froze, eyes locked on the two black-suited men who had been driving the whole time, one of which had just killed Nicholas Bishop, his friend. “What…”
The man with the gun turned to Joe. “and Mr. Pernice, you never knew of division seven cos you never needed to. Goodbye.” He fired once more, hitting Joseph Pernice, age 34, in the chest. The gunman turned back around, securing his gun in his shoulder strap.
The driver spoke “call Agent Jones. Let him know we secured both the artifact piece and two… hurm, suspects.” The gunman nodded, putting the call through.
Joseph Pernice and Nicholas Bishop lay very still and very dead as the Agent driven ambulance tore through town, en route to the crashed satellite.
----
“Honestly Sttim” Mr. Rikk started saying, a devilish smile spreading across his plain face. “You would almost think you didn’t expect my science team to finish my project. Would you like a drink?” He motioned to his liquor cabinet, causing one of the Clones to immediately move towards it.
“N-no, I’m fine… and I wasn’t thinking that at all. I knew we had the best of the best. We are Slans, after all. but…”
“Yes. But. Feasibly it would have been impossible had we gone about the normal routes of cloning. Hell, cloning itself is a preposterous concept. But what we’ve devised is… strategically sound. These small fractions of the total unit standing behind me are a state of the art technology. They are living, breathing metatheory. Speculative in nature forged from raw energy and patterned from Mr. Boughton’s own genetic code.”
“Er.”
“Sound confusing? It is. These particular creations are like suspended belief personified. I would have no use just for ordinary clones; I can get hit men anywhere. I wanted to see his suit, to get a good idea of the concepts involved, a bit of the physics. Then I could speculate these boys into existence. They have his power, they are my new foot soldiers. Cheap and easy to make…” He swung his hands, smiling maniacally. “and so powerful. Show him”
The clones began floating, two of them glowing with radiant energy. Three zipped about the room at breakneck speed, hitting corners of walls and turning suddenly barely missing each other. The two glowing clones let loose two titanic barrel-shaped bursts of energy, each canceling the other out. Tim felt his heart creep up his throat as he stared up at Mr. Rikk’s insane, impossible creations.
Mr. Rikk laughed out loud, staring at Sttim. “Oh and if you and your number one crush believed yourselves safe to escape, think again. I know you and Thack would never betray me and I don’t really need either of you now that I have enough blondlot’s lying around to plot a million creative courses to Elsewhere and beyond… but...” The end of a bullwhip shot out from the anteroom, snapping tightly around Sttim’s neck, pulling him from his chair with a jerk. “I don’t like to leave loose ends. Take him to the Flogman.”
"Yes sir." A familiar female voice said.
Through him teeth Sttim hissed “Nooooo. Thack… I'm sorry I...”
“Oh, him? I’m sure the twenty little charmers that I sent to give him his pink slip are already done.” Mr. Rikk began laughing again, almost crying from the pure joy of being always one step ahead.
Sttim began thrashing as the whip bearer dragged him backward towards the elevator. She cackled in sadistic delight as he winced with pain. Tears formed around his eyes. The whip was loose enough to not prevent him from breathing. He remained conscience the entire trip to the dungeon.
FrustratedPilot
FPilot was about to make a RAM tap on RoboShaft when both he and RoboT reactivated. "Wha?" FPilot managed to get out, as he dropped to the floor from the chair he was standing on. RoboT said, "Good Thomas's on da raprod. Wants us downtown. We're bookin'."
FPilot watched them leave. "I know what time it is." He stood straight and looked at Death. "I suppose you know how to work the torpedo tubes on this boneboat?" All he got was a silent shrug. "Very well," FPilot said. "You and I are getting off this Sat and get to looking up an old friend's address, right?"
Nodrog
CyberThack looked arround the mostly empty pancake resteraunt and sighed. In his hands, he held what appeard to be a PDA wired to his baseball hat. In reality, it was... a PDA wired to his baseball hat. CyberThack finished his last bite of pancakes, and then looked accross the table at where the two... others set.
"You're sure you can do this?" he said. "I don't meen to be annoying, but your my-world counterparts never struck me as being that effective."
"We can handle it." Sully assured him. "We just need to know, can you handle your end."
CyberThack nodded. "Once I'm in, I'll make sure the records indicate you two are deceased, and delete all other mentions of your existance."
"Then I believe we have a deal." said Miller.
CyberThack sighed and pressed a button. "Algorytham 3 / Mindsuck v6.66 Iniated..." the PDA screen read. "Conciousness upload at 00%. Conciousness upload at 01%. Conciousness upload at 02%."
CyberThack didn't begin screaming untill it had reached 13%. He didn't stop until it reached 78%.
At last, the screen flashed "Conciousness upload complete", and Cyber-Thack's life less body slumped to the ground.
"So, now we take his mind to FIB." said Sully, picking up the PDA and unplugging it.
"But first, " said Miller, grabbing up Cyber-Thack's body. "Breakfast."
FrustratedPilot
Which is why FPilot told Pinkerton he didn't want to be around when the bats had their evening meal.
One elevator was back working so, FPilot and Death rose back to the top level, and then they found the hole through which Kerg Batse had escaped the SOF. FPilot turned on a flashlight and peeked through the breach. "Hmm...looks stable enough. Sure you don't want to go through first?"
Death just hmmmph!-ed.
"Don't say I never give you any consideration." FPilot crawled through and Death came behind him--and then the SOF damage control system began sealing the breach in the hull behind them.
* * *
On the surface, the ambulance commandeered by the FiB arrived at the SOF crash site. Detective Waltrip tried to flag it down: "Hey! Turn around and leave! This area is being cleared!"
Just then there was a huge blast from underground. A huge segment of concrete culvert tubing blew from the earth and soared up into the sky in a cloud of dust and smoke--and then came back down.
The driver of the ambulance applied the brakes too late. It was the last thing he ever did, as the tube hit the cab of the ambulance and crushed it like a soda can.
Waltrip had ducked when impact occurred. He stood in the street unscathed. "I had to ask. I had to f---ing ask..."
Muttley
"OK what've we got here. A Greek pun and somebody who can't spell "Muggle". Should be no problem to a guy who does Latin translation without a safety net! Lets see if we can't get some music to lighten our day". Muttley began fiddling with the sound system, looking for something he could recognise, glancing occasionally at the lounging figures, who seemed unconcerned. Finally he put the gun down to free both hands. Engrossed in his search, he failed to notice the two FiB agents start to edge towards the door.
"At last, something I can hum" thought Muttley, as he straightened up, grabbing his camera instead of the gun. "What the - - Oh No!" he squealed; the backs of the agents were just disappearing through the door. A scrap of common sense made a valiant effort to get to the surface of his mind, failed, but caused him to trigger the camera before it gave up.
"Any man left on the Rio Grande Is the king of the world as far as I know"
sang the speakers ominously.
Behind him, unnoticed on a high shelf, an orange closed its eyes and shook its head in despair.
FrustratedPilot
Luckily for FPilot and Death, the gas main blast happened on the other side of SOF from where they were. But the tunnel behind them collapsed. FPilot had a hankie tied over his face to keep out the dust...which still made it very hard to see.
Eventually, they came back to street level via a sewer manhole. As they stretched themselves out of the hunchedback shape the tunnels forced them to assume, FPilot said, "If Kerg Batse came this way, he probably found a car to steal."
But FPilot noticed he had an audience no longer. Death had wandered off. "Oh well."
* * *
FPilot had gotten his Mercury back and returned to the hangar. One of the first things he did was start up the computer...not the desktop...not the laptop...the other piece of his settlement from the government: 8-Xark-8. The capsule-shaped robot emerged from a battered wooden crate.
"By your command." The robot said.
God, I was a big 'Galaktika' fan back then, FPilot thought. He changed clothes once again--the sewer-stained jumpsuit went in the dumpster, and FPilot put on his "reserve" Fooldyaman body armor/G-suit.
"Preflight my F-5 and link up with the SOL computer if you can. Monitor the global grid for any signs of Solactor activity."
"Sir?"
"Kerg Batse is alive. He escaped Mount Saint Ellen and may be attempting to restart the organization."
"Password for F-5, please?"
"Smoking Causes Heart Disease."
"Counterpassword: Who stole the mountains?"
"Jason Waltrip." FPilot said.
"Access confirmed, F-5!"
The back doors of the hangar opened, and FPilot ran to the fighter jet, warming up its engines in a loud wail. The canopy opened for him and FPilot climbed into the cockpit and strapped in. He dashed though the preflight checklist, and when it was all ready, called Billberg Tower for clearance.
"Cleared for takeoff, Northrop Five Fox..."
Tom the Fanboy
Tom shook his head in disbelief as the console went through it's reboot process. Looking at the door he noticed that it had stopped rippling. "Well that's something I guess." he thought as he began opening commincations. As soon as he got an open line he sent a message to security (which at this time meant the Blaxecutors) that the brig had been breached. Once he had back up on the way he turned the console around and moved to take cover behind the desk in case whatever escaped the NEUTONS decided to come out. So far he hadn't heard anything from the other side of the door but he decided to be safe.
He reached around the desk and checked the velcro panel underneath and found that the neural baton was still there. Pulling it loose, he armed the blue glowing tip of the Demolisher Man weapon. "I just hope it's not that lightning gremlin. He'd love this thing. Hmmm... but he wouldn't have gone WHUMP." Tom continued to talk to himself to sort out his thought proccesses until support arrived. "Ok, there was some noise besides the whump so it may be armed, or it may be dead....there were some pretty noxious things sealed in there. Hmmm...If only I could get-" Tom was cut off by the ominous singing coming over the activated PA system, something about the Rio Grande that he didn't recognize.
Tom was just pulling out his makeshift pocket watch to check the time when the console gave an incoming message bleep. Curious, Tom poked his head up and noticed that the Nanites were trying to report in as ordered.
Grinning, Tom got on his knees and opened the comm window.
"Heytheresirwhatcanwedoyafor?"
"Yeah, listen. What exactly were you doing with the NEUTONS?"
"We'rejustleavingitafteraddinganitemtothecontents. Why?"
"Because you just caused abreach in it's holding structure! One of you go and get the kinetic compression beam ready, we're gonna need ta put this stuff back. I want the otherone to get me a visual feed of the interior of the brig so I can survey the damage."
"Willdo!" The two nanites chimed as they closed the screen.
"OK, that's ready." Tom sat back down and rubbed his knees, remembering why he'd tried to get carpeting for his room and the theater. "Let's see, security is on it's way. That means RoboT and Roboshaft and whoever else is here or active will be here in a few minutes. The nanite will probably take 15 minutes to get to the beam on deck c. The camera should be up when security arrives too. Hmmm...Oh yeah! The magnetic field!" Tom stood up quick enough to set him off balance a little as he scrambled through the console's various menus and programs to get the magnetic shield back up.
*************
Inside the brig there was a small whimper.
"Oooh...fire's flying and crushing little cans...." the voice's english lilt trailed off into light giggling as the speaker rose from the floor where she'd been thrown. Looking around the woman pouted and brought a slender white hand up to carress her neck. "I don't like them they push so hard it squishes. Bound in a box shut with locks. Mmmm...Free now! Hee hee ha ha ha." The woman stretched out her arms, slowly spun around and threw her head back as she giggled. With a sigh she turned her suddenly cold eyes to the items on the floor. Leaning down delicately she picked up a doll dressed in modern clothes and stood back up. She ran her fingers along the dolls head and looked at it with the eyes of a child.
"Who are you my precious thing? Oh I remember you were with the boxlockers who put me and my love away. Stopped our lovely games." She pouted and lowered her head to look out from under her brows at the doll. Wagging a finger at it she scolded, "You shall have to pay for that you naughty boy. There's much to come before the box eats us again." She clutched the doll tightly and spun once more. "Mmmm....much to be done before the dark moons rise." Stopping her spin suddenly, her dress swished around her and she threw the doll violently against the wall. She didn't know that it was voodoo doll for one of the other men of the SoF and that they would feel the impact of the wall. She stalked purposefully towards the doors while humming the tune to an Old English nursery rhyme and activated the buttons in tune. The doors began to unseal themselves.
"My stomach is hungry and my tongue is dry." The dark haired woman whispered through her pearly white fangs.
***
"Quit your Jive talkin and get us up to tha lock up!" Roboshaft yelled at the elevator backup system that the recent powerdown hd caused to activate and that wouldn't revert to normal until manually set. The Mervin 6 droid brain housed in the elvator droned back.
"Go up faster they say, go down to the hanger they say. Here I am brain the size of a planet and I don't even get a body to complain about....."
"Listen foo'! I'll knock that brain outta yo box if you don't get us to tha jailhouse quick. You dig?"
There was a long pause while the elvator began to pick up pace. "I dig." said the very tired and melancholy voice of the elevator.
******
Tom tapped the keys frantically and tried to get the magneticfield around the brig back up.
"Ohhh...what if it is the lightening gremlin? he'll be in the system lickty split and cause all sorts of problems with the computer and try and singa along to.....whatever kind of music this is*." He had finally gotten to the security controls when a communication window opened and covered the control options.
"HeythereIjustgottothecamerauphereandthoughtya'dliketosee!" It was the nanite on the interior of the brig.
"Great! Lemmie see!"hopefully this means that security will be here soon.
The screen displayed the interior of the brig as seen from the corner above and to the right of the blast doors. He could see the NEUTONS at the end of the room, it was sealed and it's readout lights were all green so it wasn't giving anymore problems. All the cells on that side were closed. Tom could make out several items on the floor but they were small. Sacrificing full visibility for zoom he focused in on the top three of the items.
It seemd to be a bunch of papers that had all fell out of a hard plastic work case. One was a fanfic labelled "Pink Kryptonight", one was an artwork with two furries.........posing, and the other was a "script" for Episode 2 of Star Worz. All three had large red warning stamps on them to avoid mind damage from looking at them too much.
Just as Tom was shaking his head and dragging the zoom to another item there was a hiss from the blast doors as they began opening. Tom flinched and ducked behind the desk frantically. He usually tried to be brave when facing peril but he knew what kind of creatures had been sealed in the NEUTONS. Bracing himself and readying his neural baton he listened to the doors creak open and eventually stop. Two padded steps came from within and then stopped as a slow breath was taken and the lilting soft voice spoke.
"I smell a rabbit in the brush. Come here sweet rabbit......" the voice ended in a soft hissing of breath as the padding moved forward once again.
Tom blinked. Oh no, and Vallie's not...here this time.... His grip on the baton slackened. By the time he saw the slippered feet and the hem of the deep crimson skirt come from behind the desk he had dropped the weapon and was almost holding his breath.
"It's the little rabbit from before. You were quite fun before those mean old box lockers came." The woman grinned and breathed in a sharp breath as her prey simply froze at her feet and whispered a single word.
"Drewsila....."
****
The Blaxecutors tromped around the corner to the hall where the brig doors stood and saw them standing open with no-one there. Looking at each other they both inhaled* and began to run quicker. Roboshaft bent down over the console as RoboT strode into the brig. RoboT came out as Roboshaft was interchanging data in binary with the Nanite whose communication window had been left open. When he finished he looked down at the dropped neural baton then picked it up. RoboT spoke up.
"Looks like da pigeons done flown the coop with good Thomas."
"Yeah, stay here and lock this box up like a new impala in tha hood. I'll track those cats down. Keep it real with the brothers upstairs." Roboshaft then turned and began to track down the escaped prisoner and Tom.
"I dig." Said RoboT as Roboshaft turned to leave. He turned the console around and began talking to the Nanite. "I don't got time for yo jibberjabber. Tell the team what's happenin and keep yo'self outta my way dig?"
"Dig" blurbed the Nanite as his window blinked out. The Nanite then proceeded to send messages to the other noticable crew members still onboard. RoboT shut the blast doors and turned the magshield back on so the only thing escaping the chamber was the Nanite's signals.
***
In a darklight illuminated hydroponics garden on the ship's outer hull, wide glass windows showed the earth outside as the SoF settled. Drewsila had set Tom on a stool and was now circling him as he stared nervously down at his knees.
"mmmmm....the two moons nearly fell! How clever they are. They aren't coming now though......" She paused her taunting speach as she bared her fangs and gained the beastial forehead of the hungry vampire. "...I so hate to bothered on an empty stomach." Drewsila pulled back Tom's ponytail and sank her teeth into his neck.
Tom inhaled sharply and felt a pang of guilt. Not only should he not be enjoying this because he loved Vallie but he should be scared for his life right now. Somehow though.......it didn't seem to matter that he was going to die.
***
As Death clomped down the sewer tube with FPilot he heard a bong-like sound that was his stand by toll. As FPilot began speaking again Death hurried back to the SoF. Somone was going to be needing his services soon, and even if it was a false alarm he'd be glad to get away from the mortal who seemed to know it all.
"Honestly, just who does he think I am?" mumbled the grim reaper as he squirmed back through the nearly completely sealed hole in the hull.
Muttley
Muttley was near despair, as the FiB agents completed their disappearing act in a puff of grey smoke (should be blue, but this frame is in monochrome). "How in Gods Name am I going to explain this to the guys! " Oblivious to all of this, Steely Dan continued with "King of the World"
"I'm reading last years papers
Although I don't know why
Assassins, cons and rapers
Might as well die"
"Oh, if you can't say anything helpful, just shut up" shouted Muttley irritably, hitting the "off" button with unneccesary force. It broke, but the music stopped anyway.
He looked into the camera's preview screen, hoping for a message from Control. What came up was from the security systems "Temporary degradation remitted. System security fully functional. All firewalls locked and active" Looks OK, thought Muttley, why are they making such a big thing out of it? Looking closer, he made out a line in a small font, dark grey on the black background (1 (one) data packet compromised. Unable to locate. (A)bort, (R)etry, (C)rawl into a corner and whimper?)
"AAAaaargh! Gimme everything you have, right now, or after the next time I see you, what's left will fit into an HP-45, with room to spare!" Muttley squawked. Logic was never his strongpoint.
The voice input was disabled, but the display scrolled on as though answering him "Fem-type risk has escaped NEUTON supression field. Has apparantly abducted Auxiliary Tom. Both currently located in the hydroponics garden. er, - Emergency?"
In the background, the mangled sound system began to play a nagging bass pedal riff, just slightly faster than a normal pulse-beat. Thunder crashed, and it began to rain softly.
"if you give this man a ride, sweet family will die, killer on the road" sang Jim Morrison, his voice almost gone, worming his way into the remaining listeners minds.
Vallie
As she gently sucked from his neck, Drewsilla felt Tom's body become limp beneath her grasp, causing her to hold tighter. She drank slowly savoring the taste of his warm lifeblood and enjoying the feeling of it gliding down her throat. Drew smiled to herself as she drank thinking of how little Tom had struggled. One might chalk it up to her ability to hypnotise the strongest of men, but Drew knew this one was truely enamored with her.
'Pity to kill this one so fast. I didn't even get to play with 'im,' she thought to herself.
Suddenly there was whispering surrounding her.. in her ears.. in her head... whispers of warning. Drewsilla eased up on her prey just as his heart began to slow and let him fall gently to the ground. Drewsilla backed away as she tried to distinguish one small voice from another and focus in on what they were telling her...
"the tinman has come to find the wizard..." she whispers slowly to herself. "oh but if he only had a heart."
Drew kneeled next to the unconcious Tom and runs her fingers through his hair smiling before she backs away into the shadows... "Bye bye sweet rabbit"
Nodrog
Nodrog was doing something he had only done once so far in the story. He was crying. In front of his was SOF schematics, currently covered in scrawls made with red crayon, pencils, and a hot chocolate spill.
He ignored the message flashing on the computer. "It's... it's too complex! Snaf... Chaos... FIB... Truth... Lies... they were right, I can't handle the Truth... I can't handle it... Can't... I CAN'T!"
Nodrog ran, searching for a hiding place, still screaming out "I CAN'T!" at odd intervals. The top page of the blueprints flipped off in the breeze, revealing the hastily scrawled design for a chaos barrier reinforces. It showed two stick figures, one holding a small die, jumping through what was either a wormhole, a coffee-mug ring, or a giant doughnut. Calculations were scrawled in the margin, in Nodrog's normal crypto-caligraphy.
Nodrog
Chaos smiled at his sister in law. "You were always too good for my brother..." he whispered into her ear. He then waved his hands. "Time to clear the dance floor, my dear... collect the pieces." The Sattelite of Fans suddenly shimmered and was teleported several miles straight up, returning to it's geo-syncronous position in orbit. All damage to the SoF's life support systems were repaired, allowing the precious oxygen aboard to keep from leaking out.
Nodrog blinked as, looking out of a porthole next to his Hidey-Hole of Utter Cowardnice (TM, patent pending) was now a whole piece of transparent titanium, with a view of outer space on it.
Miller and Sully blinked in confusion, finding themselves in a large green house near the 'top' of the Sattelite of Fans. In front of them was Drewsilla, busy clutching onto Tom the Fanboy. The PDA was still held in Sully's hand.
The FiB ambulance drives hissed in surprise as he found himself in a large hanger. He turned the wheal, managing to bring the large ambulance to a stop just short of hitting a Winnebego with wings.
The Junior Jumbler, just as startled and without as good reflexes, was a little slower to stop. Blondlot's Geo Metro slammed into the back of the ambulance, driving it forward to crunch into the Winnebego's bumber, totally obliterating its' "Use the targetting computer, Luke!" bumber sticker.
Wish, the status of her mission unfinished, blinked as she found herself in the honeymoon suite of the Sattelite of Fans. Scattered arround on the silk pillows, satin sheets, and metal restraints were several other people she vaguely recognized as other Auxillary Fan Club Members. One of those members, currently hogtied with rough rope, looked at Wish and her current outfit, and then whispered a silent "Thank You" to whatever benevelent deity had been listening.
Chaos and Shanna's Mom set on the front of the SOF, watching the Earth turn below them. "You don't realy want to win, do you?" asked Shanna's Mom.
"It is predestined that I will win." said Chaos. "So of course I don't. But... the game still needs to be played. And mayby I'll get lucky this round. Come, my dear... time to play."
Shanna's mom pointed down at the cloud layer covering the Earth. "Oooh, that looks like Dotti when it's transforming..."
"Yes, one of my better works" said Chaos, as he snapped his fingers. With a bright flash of light, a bronx chear, and a mighty 'Hi-Ho, Silverware!', Chaos and Shanna's Mom transported into the SOF's hallways.
FrustratedPilot
As FPilot was making an overflight of downtown Billberg and the SOF crash site, he got an urgent message from 8-Xark-8:
"I'm detecting a massive Chaotic handwave in the vicinity! Take evasive action!"
So FPilot did Tom Croose move #14 from Topp Gunn--high-banked powerclimb followed by a half barrel roll and a lomcevak. He succeeded in avoiding the ascending SOF but not the Chaotic handwave. The F-5 fighter jet was now flying formation with the SOF in orbit. And FPilot saw he wasn't alone--he recognized a Solactor Tohomonculoid in the spatial distance.
His commo screen lit up. Kerg Batse, looking like someone who had just seen the gas prices for the first time since 1971, was on it. "Agent Bierce--what manner of trickery is this?!"
"There is a high-level Chaotic force acting in the area."
"Higher than the Great Wight? That's impossible!"
"No, it's fact. Deal with it."
"Bah! I'll still conquer the universe for the glory of Solactor! And your Satellite of Fans will be my first executee!" The Tohomonculoid changed from an indistinct ball of bronze into a huge techno-pteranodon/dragon creature.
FPilot and Kerg Batse moved to intercept each other...
Tom the Fanboy
Miller and Sully spun around surveying the situation. Sully looked to Miller but all he could do was give an innocent shrug. Drawing their guns they began to deal with the most immediate threat.
"End your feeding and step away from the fan." Sully said flatly as she steadied her aim on Drew.
Drewsila brought her head up slowly, her vampire ridges slowly fading back into her forehead as she regained composure. She cocked her head to the side and said "You're not the tinman. You're not supposed to be here." Drew dipped her fingers in the dribble of blood that came from the weak pulse on the fanboy's neck. Waving the wet finger in front of Miller and Sully she shook her head. "You're not supposed to be here, naughty children. This is our steel box." Drew licked the finger and smiled. "Mmmmmm....you want a taste don't you child?" She was gazing into Sully's eye as the two agents began to spread out to flank the rogue vampire.
Miller could smell the fan's life ebbing away. If the boy didn't get mecical attention soon he'd probably die.
Sully however was a bit more distracted. Even though her and Miller were careful to feed regularly to keep the hunger from affecting their mind she was suddenly starving. As she circled the vampire the victim began to cath her atttention more and she began moving forward as well as to the side.
Drewsila smiled and nodded to Sully as she bent her own nature against her. "That's right lovely girl, come have a drink." Miller was about to open fire when Sully dropped her gun and pounced at the boy sitting there on the stool. Drewsila laughed in glee and then, noticing Miller, fled out the door to the hallway. Miller holstered his gun and pulled sully off of the boy. She struggled against him, her eyes maddened by the hypnotism induced hunger within her. Miller forcibly shoved her against a rack of bean stalks. Pinning her arms at her sides he gave her a long and firm kiss. When he brought his head back she had returned to normal but was shocked.
"Um...thank you." Sully blinked and wiped the blood fom her mouth.
Miller turned and began checking on the fan who now looked to be in an even worse state.
"He looks pretty bad, I'll try and bandage up the wound but we may not be able to get him to emergency care in time. You may have just killed him."
Sully was about to comment about the stars outside the window when a voice interrupted her.
"For both your sakes you better hope that boys fine and dandy or else you're gonna be gettin a taste of some downtown SoF justice."
****
Roboshaft stomped down the hallway to the hydroponics garden,the clues had led hi there from the brig. He just hoped that his calculations of the female escapee's speed were correct and he'd find Tom and the vampire in there and not just another set of tracks.
Tromping up to the door Roboshaft pulled up short as a raven haired girl in a red skirt ran into him. She looked up at him for a confused moment then smiled and swept herself around him.
"Ooooh the big strong knight has arrived. Go quick else the boy flits off to his next life. The nasty vampire's making a quick snack of him." Roboshaft nodded and narrowed his eyes as the girl sped off down the hall. He stepped into the door way and analyzed the scene. Two vampires were in the room and one was a woman. The man was bandaging up Tom while the woman wasstaring out the window. The man commented on how she had nearly killed Tom.
Roboshaft ran the analysis through his proccesors. Female vampire. Injured Tom. Tom kidnapped by vampiric female escapee. Roboshaft stepped into the room and got his combat protocols ready with his medical protocols on standby.
"For both your sakes you better hope that boys fine and dandy or else you're gonna be gettin a taste of some downtown SoF justice."
****
Drewsila swiftly ran around the corner and pressed herself against the wall and giggled. "Little tinaman's tumbling down gainst the foolish children. Time's come to leave the ball."
With that Drewsila slowly walked down a corridor and began wandeing the midships, never venturing towards a cabin with windows.
FrustratedPilot
If anybody from the SoF had been looking out the window at the fight between FPilot and Kerg Batse, it would have seemed to them like a small bluejay against a much bigger crow--FPilot's small fighter had better speed and agility whereas Kerg's huge mecha had brute force and firepower and heavy armor. FPilot had been trying to remember how he and his Fooldyaman teammates defeated a similar creature...and then he did remember: a squeeze play with three attackers at once. Not something easily improvised when it's just the one of you. Then he had an idea--
"Hey Xark!" he called over his radio, "Do you know whether the SoF hangar has the A and C Core Block parts for the Victory GunFan?"
"I can check the manifest--but it's password protected. My password is out of date. I'll need to call the SoF itself for assistance."
"Do it! The SoF and the world depends upon it!"
"This is 8-Xark-8, Billberg doofer room calling Satellite of Fans...please come in..."
Tom the Fanboy
"This is 8-Xark-8, Billberg doofer room calling Satellite of Fans...please come in..." called the only manned console in the SoF, the console that the first incoming message in 6 months had been transfered to.
The person at the console pushed the speak button and leaned into the the microphone.
"This be the SoF, what kinda turkey be callin?"
"This is an emergency message from allied craft number F5. We need access to cargo/landing bay 045 for emergency equipment. Auxilarry fancode number 094452365."
"Yo code checks but I ain't authorized for this jibberjabber!" He put the call on hold and began to punch up the comm system to call up the other crew by intercom. "Listen up y'all. We got an incoming bro who needs anassist on downing this bird outside. One of y'all better get to the comm and clear 'im fore he gets himself turned into a shootin' star." RoboT turned back to the main console and took Xark off hold. "I done routed yo call. Till they get in gear I'll lay down the message from the SoF."
RoboT began accessing the secret information protocols stored in his subproccessors and the deep, firewalled core of the Pewterllion Starship Computer. As one of the only security authorized beings on the SoF he had access to the ships few but intrigueing weapon systems. Weapons on what the crew (as well as the scientis that marooned them) thought had been an unarmed ship. Now that RoboT had the chance he felt what could have been hapiness at the chance and authorization to use them. The process of unlocking and readying them wqould take quite some time though.
"Ain't nothin like an emergency call without superiors to use the big guns fo'."
FrustratedPilot
FPilot dodged another plasma blast from Kerg Batse when he heard back from Xark: "I got through to SOF and they're working on opening the hangar bay...but it'll take time."
"I guess they're doing the best they can--under the circumstances. But they'd better move fast or else they'll be facing this Solactor monster on their own."
FPilot lined up another shot on Kerg--pulled the trigger--silence. He looked at the weapons table. Everything was empty. Oh Crud!
FrustratedPilot
Of course, Kerg seemed to know FPilot had nothing left. If anybody had been watching out the portholes of the Satellite of Fans, they would have seen the F-5 take a direct hit from the mouth-mounted plasma cannon of Kerg's Tohomonculoid.
The fighter, its wings and tailplanes boiling away into space dust, plummeted back toward Earth's atmosphere. Across the stratosphere, a final message: Tell wish I...
Then static.
Muttley managed to keep the SoF security security system linked to his camera. "Hey, is it OK if I just call you Control, or would you prefer SoFie?" he said, trying to make conversation with the AI. "Ah, SoFie, what can you tell me about this thing that's escaped from confinement?" he asked, getting his mind back on the job. "Well, I'm having trouble tracking it, but from analysing the NEUTON files, it seems to be Psychic and insane" replied the AI. Oh well, some hope then, thought Muttley.
Psychic. So I can't afford to get within its range. So I'll have to do this by remote control. From here, preferably.
Unexpectedly, there was a brief feeling of falling, but upwards. Suddenly it was several degrees cooler, and a mist of condensation formed in the air. Glancing through the panoramic window, Muttley was briefly transfixed "My God - its full of Stars!" he quoted absently.
"OK, give me the location of everything moving that you can track" Muttley commanded the AI. A 3-D map projection appeared above the desk, and he noticed a lot of green blobs together in a place labelled "Grade 1 Residential" and a red fuzzy blob wandering aimlessly in their direction.
"Whats that lot all together in - what is that - the Honeymoon Suite???"
"Seems to be most of the Auxiliary membership"
"And the fuzzy red one?"
"Is the one I'm not sure about, yes"
"OK, get me a video link with the Honeymoon Suite"
"Hello guys, Muttley here. I'm in the Theater control lobby, and seem to have access to most of the satellite systems from here. Something has escaped from NEUTON confinement and is headed your way. SoFie says its female, psychic and insane. Now I know you like a challenge, so I'm leaving this one for you. Besides which I'm sort of in control and sort of out of range, I think. I'll decoy her in your direction, and when she's outside the door, you go get her. Er, the Honeymoon Suite is Psi-proof, as far as I remember, so it should be a surprise, and there should be too many of you for her to get a lock on, once the doors open. Anyway, I can't think of anything better, can you?"
A babble of agreement broke out from the vid-link. At least Muttley though it sounded like agreement, he had the sound turned down, so he couldn't be sure.
Drewsilla saw a cat in the middle of the corridor to her left. She turned right, and it was soon lost to sight. An orange bounced across the corridor in front of her and disappeared down a side-turn. Intrigued, she turned to follow it, but it was gone. Strangely, there was no hint of a mind nearby, although there was a fuzzy, distant feeling of multiple confused consciousness.
Then the doors opened.
Nodrog
Baseballbatman whimpered as he tried to find out where he was. He seamed to be under a large number of scented pillows, on which several fans were laying/sitting/chained down to. He couldn't be 100 percent sure, but he was pretty sure this was an act of the evil forces of chaos. Nodrog turned on one of the computer terminals, ignoring the "You've got mail" message as he worked to activate the SoF's diagnostic system. Aside from several areas on the diagram flashing red, the most critical problem seemed to be a friendly ship that was asking for docking assistance. Nodrog searched the console top for the Manipulator Arms controls, and then sighed when he couldn't find the controls.
A few minutes later, Nodrog sighed as he managed to get open the cover of one of the SOF's computer terminals. The corkscrew blade of his swiss army knife was now permenantly straitened out, but he'd finally managed to get the cover open. Nodrog looked at the F-5 outside of the window and reached deep into the guts of the SOF machine.
The Sattelite of Fan's Manos arms activated and extened. The two robot arms reached out and grabbed the damaged F-5, and then began to pull the fighter into one of the SOF's many bays (045, to be exact)
Nodrog smiled and reached confidently for what he believed to be the SOF's landing assistance system. Unfortunately, he was wrong. A large surge of electricity sent Nodrog flying backwards, unconcious.
In the Sattelite of Fan's holodeck, systems begin to hum back to life. "Auto repair squence initiated. Parasitic power source confirmed. New program loading."
Chaos smiled as he dipped his date. "This will be fun..." he whispered. He looked up and glared at a wall. "More music!"
The Lambchop "This is the song that never ends..." begins to play.
Back online after a short hiatus... Ok, the holodeck is back online, and it looks like Baseballbatman is going to take on Drusilla. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Who knows?
Tom the Fanboy
RoboT got his console configured to the belly gun's targetting system and had a view of the dusty hidden compartment where they had sat waiting. Activating the final release he watched as crack of light grw on the bottom of the screen and all of the dust and clutter was swept out into the near-vacuum of space. Adjusting to movement and powering up, the twin barrel gun swung down and aligned itself towards Earth. On the right side of the screen, the MANOS could be seen retrieving the F5.
d thing the brass got steppin! Now there ain't no brothas to shoot down with this turkey." RoboT brought the aim around to target the pteranoid vehicle that was now angling around for a final run at the F5 as the MANOS dragged it to safety. Kerg wasn't going to let his victory be stolen so quickly. When the targetting system beeped RoboT let loose a bust from the turret.
In space , a small blister could be seen rolling out of the belly of the SoF with two tiny shafts coming from it. That is, small compared to the size of the SoF. In reality this was a dual fire Ion cannon meant for use against large alien vessels or creatures. Modified for stun capabilities against silcon based space creatures, the wepon could knck out mechanical and biological attackers. The two blasts that flew from the turret did just that when they struck Kerg's Tohomonculoid. There was a ripple of electricity and the craft began it's slow somersolt through space away from the SoF.
"That'll teach big bird to stay outta our airspace." quipped RoboT. He shut down the turret defense system and put it back into it's hiding place as his protocols told him. He felt what may have been sadness at having to put his new toy away.
FPilot sighed as his ears were filled with static. He didn't know whether his final message would be heard or not. Looking out of the cockpit he saw that the Solactor was now doing a victory loop before coming in at the SoF itself. FPilot shook his head and turned to ask Xark a question. "Life support?"
"We have approximately 3 minutes of oxygen remaining."
"Well, at least I'll get a good view of the Earth." FPilot was shaken by the sudden impact of the MANOS as Nodrog began to bring him back to the SoF. "Well what do you know...." He was about to have Xark configure the radio for contact when something else caught his eye. Two blue streaks of energy shot out from the SoF and hit the Solactor craft dead on. The thing froze and began to float backwards.
"Looks like an augmented ion blast, the Tohomunculoid will be back. Xark, start calculating how long it will take for Kerg to get the thing running again. I just hope the F5 will be ready by then."
your command." Xark replied.
Tom laid on the floor, at least it looked like the floor. Their were people neaby standing on it. It felt like half of a vaulted ceiling though. He could smell blood.
Probably mine, that's what I get from being bit I guess......at least it was everything I hoped..... Tom slipped from conciousness again.
Roboshaft narrowed his eyes at the two suspects. There had only been one escapee. A female vampire. The man had just commented that this woman had fed on Thomas. Suspect found. That didn't explain the man though. "Just who the hell do you think you are?"
Miller stood up and glanced at Sully.
"I'm Agent Miller F-FBI. This man needs medical attention immediately. Is there a medical facility in this building?" Sully was going to comment that she didn't think they were in a building anymore but the android interupted her.
"You ain't nothin onboard the SoF so keep your badge in your pocket. Wrap the wound and take the boy to the med station. It's four bulkheads down and a deck up the turbolift. You take him to the H-Doc and get that hole in his neck fixed up pronto less I think you two's workin together." Roboshaft stepped to the side of the door and locked his eyes on Sully. Miller ripped the boy's sleeve to make a bandage and began to think of what Sully was going to do.
Nodrog
RoboShaft tapped his chest. "Boot up the doc."
Robart Picardo blinked and looked arround, finding himself in what appeared to be a black room with bright yellow strip lighting. "Hello? Where am I?"
A synthetic, computerized voice spoke. "You-you are onboard the Sattelite of Fans, on the Holodeck. You are the SOF's emergancy holo..."
"Great, I've been kidnapped by obsessed fans again!" muttered Robert Picardo, walking out of the holodeck. Or at least, trying to walk out of the holodeck. When he tried to get though the open door, he bounced off. "Hey! What's going on? I have to get back to film the final episode! I have to get out of here!"
"Command processed..." the voice spoke. "Moving program..."
The hologram believing itself to be Robert Picardo eeped as he was transferred from the SoF's holodeck to the SoF's medbay.
"This is not happening" muttered the program as he looked around the state of the art medbay. While the medbay was sterile, and filled with state-of-the-art (and sometimes even futuristic) medical equipment, it was not very well organized. To use Nodrog's description of it, it was in a 'Entropy Maximized State'.
Nodrog
The Program Believing Itself to be Robert Picardo was trying to tidy up the SoF's med bay when two people, dressed in suits, came in, carrying a very pale looking human.
"You the doc?" asked Miller.
"Yes. I meen, No." said Picardo. "I just play one on TV."
"Hope you play a good one, then..." said Sully. "This fanboy... er, man lost a lot of blood."
Picardo went to look over at Tom. "I don't have any idea what to do..." he started to say, then realized some part of him had some idea what to do. "Um, someone hand me one of those tricorder thingies."
Miller reached over to a pile of somewhat organized equipment and handed Picardo one of the tricorders.
"MEDICAL Tricorder." said Picardo. He then groaned and began beating his head against the med table. "I did not just say that. I did not just say that."
Miller and Sully looked at each other, and then shrugged.
ELSEWHERE
"Gunth... I'm tired!" whined Smith.
"Shhh!" said Agent Silly. "Gunth is trying to figure out where we are."
"I still refuse to believe we've been abducted by aliens." interjected Muller.
Gunth sighed as he listened to the other three members of the BIF club argue. "We appear to be aboard some sort of cross between a sci-fi museum, a sattelite, and a space station."
"That's not a space station, that's a moon!" said Silly, quoting a well known alter-universe movie.
Tom the Fanboy
Roboshaft stood outsideof the medbay working on a hall console. The female had showed a badge similar to the male's. The two both agreed that they should be in the records. While he monitored the interior of the medbay with one window, the other was conducting a data base search for Agents Miller and Sully. Roboshaft watched the medbay interior closely to make sure that the two "Agents" didn't try anything funny. He was currently opting whether or not to activate the viral containment field to keep the Agents from escaping. He left it off thinking that it's activation might cause the suspects to panic. The agents were becoming less of a concern as they stood back and let the Doctor "work", it was the doctor that now worried Roboshaft. He was not acting in his common efficient manner. Roboshaft scanned the medbay for a backup doctor but the 20-ONE-bee med droid in the corner was still incapped bye the crash. The holo-doc wouldhave to do.
Blondlot
----
7:54pm, Mr. Rikks dimension
"Cowboy Dan's a major player in the cowboy scene. He goes to the reservation, drinks and gets mean...” Rikk sang the Modest Mouse song softly, comfortably seated in the captain's chair of the Epoch, his newly finished warship. He smiled as a technician informed him that the ship would be ready to attempt dimensional shift in ten minutes, give or take a few minutes depending on how clean the pathing Guth left was. He thanked the tech for the update and motioned for him to leave.
He continued singing "...Knocks him to the floor, saying 'I've got mine but I want more. I've got mine, but I want MORE'"
As it turns out the pathing was immaculate, bless Guth's digital soul, and they would be ready to depart within the hour. Mr. Rikk stretched out in his seat, enjoying total success.
Minutes later the decks rumbled as reality came around upon itself, folding, twisting and screaming.
A voice came over the intercom "This is engineering. We recommend all persons stay seated during the phase shift. We will begin initial transferal in five. Four..."
8:03, our dimension
Blondlot awoke with a start, his jaw throbbing. "The freak must've taken boxing lessons", he mumbled. He sat up on the crash-cart and looked around. The interior of what looked to be an ambulance greeted him. Two bodies dressed like Emergency Medicine Specialists lay sprawled on the floor in pools of blood, long dead.
He got up, shaking his head to clear his muddled thoughts. "Ugh, what the hell?" Exploring further he found the cab to be completely crushed, a mangled hand gripping a gun stuck out from the twisted metal, indicating horrors best left unexplored.
Turning, he finally noticed the other occupant. He squinted at the unconscious figure. The man seemed familiar to him, almost like... He gasped.
After a moment of staring he began to get him bearings straight once more. "It must be a version of myself", he thought. "I must of hit myself with the car when I was trying to escape from that thing." He chuckled. "This IS too funny". He turned towards the doors out.
"Hey"
Blondlot turned around. He... the other He was trying to sit up, wincing and biting his lip. "What do you want?" Blondlot asked, fishing Pinkerton's sunglasses from an inner pocket of the jacket and putting them on.
"Who're you?" The wounded Him said, obviously unaware of the situation.
"I'm... an agent of your government. I protect people." He smiled falsely. Blondlot moved towards the door handles, intent on leaving before his doppelganger noticed the similarities between them.
"Oh... Could you give me a hand?" He was trying to move without causing too much tension in his chest. "I think my ribs are b-broken." He let out a small scream and fell back against the cart, his breathing ragged.
Blondlot turned away, trying to hide his face. It wasn't smart to talk for long, especially since they had almost the same voice. "Then you should probably stay put" he blurted out.
"I just... what happened?" The now supine other asked. He was referring to the state of the cab in general. He obviously hadn't noticed the bodies either. He didn't seem to be very observant of anything.
"A horrible accident. Relax, the-" he looked for identification on the suit. He found the little badge stuffed awkwardly in his pants pocket "-F.I.B are taking care of everything." He opened the doors, stepping out into what appeared to be some sort of hanger. Stranger and stranger.
He heard his duplicate scream from in the cab "Oh my god!" Obviously he had noticed the body. Blondlot chuckled again.
He ran around the cab, as not to be seen, shouting, "Don’t worry. They were, uh, secret agents or... something. Remain calm." Blondlot turned his attention to something sticking out of the wreckage- it was the blue cube that had been in his hands when he had been attacked. He thought on what to do for a moment and finally, he reached his hand into the breast pocket of his jacket, pulling the handkerchief out. He used it to pick the cube up. Nothing happened. Smiling, he wrapped the cube tightly with the cloth and palmed it. Still nothing.
"How am I supposed to remain calm with dead people laying next to me?"
Blondlot sneered at the stupidity of the question. "I said calm down!" He didn't have time to pamper some inferior version of himself.
"Geez, okay already... Agent-type guy?"
"Yes." Blondlot said crisply.
"After you're done doing your... agent-type stuff..."
"What?"
"...You'll come back for me, right" The voice sounded pathetic.
"Yes. NOW RELAX!" Finally the other him calmed himself and quieted down.
“Good”, he thought, returning his attention to the cube and his last experiment with it and the handkerchief. “I think I’m now starting to understand what’s going on.”
----
Inside the ambulance Matt hummed to himself. Every once and awhile his eyes would drift from the holes they were burning in the ceiling to the bodies and he would shiver involuntarily. He really wished the spook had taken him with; they weren’t the most pleasant company to keep, these bodies.
“I’ve never heard of the F.I.B.” He said out loud, musing. “ I wonder where the junior jumbler is…”
----
Outside of the SOF in the vacuum of space a small economy car was slowly orbiting. Inside Junior Jumbler sat, slack jawed and tightly gripping the steering wheel. “Who knew VW Golfs were air-tight,” he mumbled, in shock.
Static began blaring from the speakers. From the noise a voice emerged “They aren’t”, the voice said.
Junior looked down, towards the hub of the receiving unit. “Uh…”
“Hello?” the voice said.
“Hu-hullo?” Junior Jumbler said. “Who is this.”
“Not important. What is important is that I am keeping you alive. I have an interest in you. Your life could be… valuable to me”
“Um. Okay?” Junior Jumbler was sweating. He was convinced that he had somehow passed out in the car while tailing the ambulance. He was probably rolling into a ditch right this moment.
“I know what you’re thinking. This is impossible, right?”
Junior Jumbler shook his head reflexively. He stopped himself, realizing how ridiculous it was to do that.
“Right. Well it isn’t impossible, actually. You want to know how I’m keeping you alive?”
Junior Jumbler shook his head. He didn’t stop himself this time.
“Magic.”
Junior Jumbler blinked incredulously. “That’s goofy. I really am dreaming.”
“No, no you're aren't… hmm, you’re a man of science, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Well think of it this way. It’s math. Really, really complicated math. With a good enough understanding of it you can… bend rules, go places, do things. Are you following me so far?” The tone was almost mocking.
“Yes. Though that is total bollocks, whoever you are. Things are more complicated than that.” He laughed. Man, this Ambrose Bierce, Occurrence at Owl Creek death stuff was really annoying. He wondered in his usual darkly humorous way if his body was burning in the flaming wreckage yet.
All of a sudden Junior couldn’t breath. He felt as if his body was swelling, as if he was about to… explode. His vision was going black as the voice resumed.
“IT IS MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT, YOU PEON! NOW, WILL YOU LISTEN TO ME AND DO AS I SAY, OR SHALL I LEAVE YOU TO YOUR PRIOR DATE WITH THE PHYSICAL LAWS OF SPACE?” The voice boomed.
Junior jumbler tried nodding and almost instantly again he felt fine.
“Good. As I was saying, sometimes there are things, things that speed up the ‘calculations’ for a ‘mathematician’, or maybe they help him or her understand better more… difficult math. Sometimes they have problems already embedded within their being. Think of them as magical calculators, or computers. Are you still with me?”
Junior Jumbler nodded weakly.
“Good. Well I found a ‘computer’ split into pieces here in this plane. Most of them are on the planet earth, well within my grasp, but due to things beyond my immediate control two of those pieces are out there, with you. I want you to get them for me. When you do get them I’ll make sure you get back home. Okay?”
“Uh… how do I… what do I…”
“See the big ship you’re slowly circling? The two pieces are in there. One is in the possession of someone wearing something like the ‘computer’ I want. He’ll be dangerous if confronted. The other you’ll need technical assistance to get.”
“Um, how do I get there? I don’t think I can drive this thing in” Junior asked, now in some sort of dreamy autopilot.
“Oh, that’s the easy part. You’re going to hitch a ride in. They should be here right about now, actually.”
“huh?”
“Wait for it. Don’t fail me, by the way. The last guy who did wasn’t as lucky as you with the whole ‘vacuum’ thing. “I’m signing off for now. Bye” The stereo went dead again.
“Wait! What ride? Come back!" Junior felt a jump as the vehicle began to tumble through space. Something suddenly approaching from behind has disrupted his gentle orbit. He turned in his seat to see what it was. A giant black ship, twice the size of the SOF was… was… pushing through the very fabric of reality and heading straight for him. In white letters on the hull of the ship the word “EPOCH” was plainly visible. Junior Jumbler stared wide-eyed as it glided effortlessly in a trajectory that would intersect with his own point in a matter of moments.
“This is all too fantastic. I-I guess that’s my ride.”
The radio started up again. Ride of the Valkyries was playing.
Tom the Fanboy
The hologram believing itself to be Robert Picardo wavered over a high tech piece of machinery in the medbay. Miller and Sully supported the other end of the long plasteel tube in order to keep it level. The "doctor" watched the readouts as the young man's body slid inside the horizontal tube. Once the readout was green he nodded to Miller and Sully and they both lowered their end of the contraption.
"This machine is a Muscular Weaving Chamber that.....weaves muscles." I can't believe I'm spouting technobabble at these people when I'm not even a real doctor. he pulled something out of a drawer and turned back to the two observers. "You see, a great deal of the tendons and muscles on his neck were shredded when the victim was injured. much in the same way as....as..." He turned to get a look at the "before" picture on the capsules display when he was interupted by Miller.
"A bite from a human sized attacker?"
"I was going to say a dog."
"Oh, I suppose that would do." Sully glared at Miller reproachfully as the doctor continued.
"Once this machine has replaced the muscle tissue we can slap on one of these.."he paused to read the lable, "...Syn-th-flesh pad on the wound. Then all we have to worry about is his bloodlevel getting back to normal."
Miller turned to Sully and whispered so quietly that only her heightened vampire senses could hear him.
"You realize we may have to give him a transfusion."
"But I thought we agreed that we wouldn't turn anyone!"
"He still has blood in his system so it won't be turning, it will just..."
"Just turn him into a half dead creature. No it's too risky. You know the chances of addiction and how the body can have allergic, even fatal reactions to necrotic sanguin humours."
"Listen, I'm just saying that we're the best shot for life this kid has. You really trust the doctor here to fix him?"
Sully pursed her lips in concentration and studied the doctor's movements. He didn't seem to have been familiar with the capsule when they had activated it but his fingers seemed to be flying across the buttons now. Odd. Sully didn't want the guilt of this boys death to be hers but she knew the risks of a transfusion, she had to weigh her trust in the awkward medical skills of the doctor and the possibility of causing more damage with her supernatural blood.
"You know that if you don't, I will." Miller whispered in her ear.
Sully looked at Miller's grim expression with a mix of shock and puzzlement. Her mouth opened to speak but the moment was broken by a nearby "ahem". Looking over she saw the doctor facing them with an eyebrow raised.
"If you two are quite finished a man's life is on the line here. Now you," He pointed at Miller "Will hold up the end of the capsule so that he can be put back onto the table while she waits to slap this onto his neck." Here he handed Sully the plastic coated rectangle of Synthflesh. "I will prepare the transfusion bag and the replacement hemoglobin." Walking over to the humour dispensor he grabbed a noncorrosible IV bag and began to look through the nozzles. It seems I remember more about this job then I thought. I suppose that being cooped up on the same part of the set for a few seasons leads to getting a good feel of the place. "Excuse me, could you read off his blood type from the display?"
"Type A negative." Sully said helpfully. Miller noticed she didn't even glance at the panel and allowed himself a grin. In the short time they had been undead she had become quite the conoseur.
The hologram that was becoming less like Robert Picardo and more like the Doctor, thanks to the holosystems repair process, began to program the blood nozzle. If not for the odd stains and the large warning signs one might've thought that the humour dispensor looked like a soda fountain. Except instead of beverages, one got vital fluids from the sturdy nozzles. One of the more grisly machines in the medbay it wasn't looked at much and had it's own SEP field that only the doctor or registered nurse was immune to. The Doctor set the machine to A positive and hooked up the baggie. There was a clanking noise as the machine came to life at the push of the "dispense" button.
-------
On another deck, across the ship, lights came on. A dark room was suddenly illuminated by the orange running lights of a wheeled platform. 3 feet wide and 6 feet long, the wheeled machine rolled slowly out of it's restrained parking space. The doors of the chamber had been opened and the restraints set free by the millions of Nanites buzzing around the surfaces of the room. As it rolled out into the brightly lit hallway the large mess of wires, buttons, levers and hoses on the top could be seen. Sticking out of each end of the pile atop the platform was a device similar to a lazer or other sort of energy weapon. Along the black and yellow stripes on the side of the platform, large white letters proclaimed this to be the "Kinetic Compression Beam". It now rolled towards the brig with seemingly no-one at the controls. If you had a big enough micro sope however you could see that the machine had scores of tiny robots on it operating it as a group. There was one Nanite who had somhoe found a cowboy hat his size who was "stradling" the fore most tip of the front beam nozzle.
------------
Baseballbatman slunk out of the Honeymoon suite and shut the doors behind him, leaving the other auxilery members behind so as to keep them out of the way of his coming battle with the forces of Chaos.
"I must protect the forces of order. Those people were just as harmed and confused as myself so they must have gotten attacked as well." Satisfied with his rationalization he began to slink down the hall with his bat raised ahead of him and the glove cupping the die so that he could see it's glow. The wavering light was slowly getting stronger which meant he was on the right track.
------------
As the machine attended by the doctor clanked into action, Sully slipped the sythflesh into her pocket for a moment so she could use both hand to adjust her pumps. However, when her hand slid into her suitjackets' pocket she felt a smooth plastic bulk within. The PDA containing CyberThack! She and Miller were on their way to insert into the FiB networks when they had been teleported to this place. Perhaps CyberThack could help get them out of here and away from the large black android. First he would have to be uploaded somehow though. She began to ponder what to do with CyberThack, it helped to keep her mind off of the near dead fanboy she was tending.
-----------
Drewsila felt a flash of consciousness down a nearby corridor and then felt it subside into a single mind. "Is that the home of the kitty and ball? They oughtn't run away." she grinned as she glided slowly through the shadows towards the concious mind. "Oooh, but this isn't orange at all. It's all thatch of squares in black and white." The vampire pouted a bit and slumped against the wall. "This shant be nearly as yummy as a color."
Nodrog
"SHUT UP!" snarled Nodrog. He had finally managed to get himself back to his room on the SoF. His bed, the remains of a LEXX moth, was just as he'd left it, with most of the sheets and pillows tangled up together. Current, Nodrog was sitting cross legged on the bed, a large marger board laying on the bed top and two different colored markers in his hands. "I don't work for you anymore!" he grumbled as he drawled a mix of cryptic symbols, C++ Code, and Looney Tunes characters.
"It's just a matter of reprogramming..." he muttered to himself. "Shut up!" he told himself. "Normal people do not talk to themselves! Oh, yeah? Well normal people don't tell themselves to shut up, either! Well you started it! I meen, me started it! I did not! I wasn't talking to I, I said me! Me who! Oh, don't you start my... Look, let's get back to writing Chaos++, ok? Now, if I use the Goto command inside the infinite loop command, and have Logic return a non-boolean value..."
-else where-
Order blinked. He had finally managed to take over an avatar. It was something he was not used to doing; a successful possesion was always a matter of chance, and his brother had always been the chance taker.
Order looked down at a console, where he had apperently just activated some form of Sub-Ether teleportation device. He turned to see Mr. Rikk's enraged face.
"WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?" snarled Mr. Rikk. "HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU, NO HITCHHIKERS!"
"It wasn't me! Would you believe it was three of the prisoners in the brig?" said the body Order had jumped into.
"No, I would not." snarled Mr. Rikk.
"Would you believe two of the prisoners?" asked Maxwell Smart, AKA The Possesed Avatar of Order
Blondlot
Agent Jones stood utterly still in the elevator as it descended. He was worried. They had been totally unsuccessful in their attempt to retrieve the last of the artifact pieces and all of humanity might suffer because of it. He couldn't believe how many things had gone wrong. At very best they had the near complete artifact in their control, but no one on staff was left with any shred of their old originality left. Nothing but the full strength of the artifact would reach what little sparks their old fan hearts still held.
"I can't even turn to outside authors or fans,” he said out loud, massaging his temples. "In a case like this we might end up with a twenty foot tall green colored Dr. What roaming the earth. Unless we get it all we're stuck".
The power in the elevator stuttered, stopped, and then the elevator itself stopped in turn. The emergency lights switched on, casting a harsh red light.
Agent Jones raised an eyebrow.
Nodrog
Then, the elevator began going up. Very rapidly. Agent Jones whimpered, having flashbacks to a similiar elevator ride, and hastily begin trying to push the stop button. "NO!" he shouted as the stop button did absulutely nothing to stop the ascent. "Please tell me I have NOT been captured by that Crazed Confectioner, Wonkie Willa, and his silly transparent alluminum elevator!"
-elsewhere-
Chaos grinned as he looked at the SoF's tractor beem control panel. "Oops" he said, in a voice sure to convince the listener he had done what he just did on purpose. "Oh well... Another one on his way. Are you ready, my dear?"
Shanna's mom nodded. She was currently wearing what appeared to be a cross between the Power Loader from one of the Aliens movies and a small tank; her head was the only thing visible through the transparent canopy.
"Now, remember" said Chaos. "I want Drewsilla alive... well, un-dead. She's much too powerful an agent of me to be allowed to continue running arround this satelite, but I don't want her dead, um, dust yet."
Chaos turned back to the console. "And now, while I'm waiting for Agent Jones to show up, let's see what these messages are..."
-elsewhere-
The Hologram believing itself to be Robert Picardo was having a massive internal paradigm shift. It is a great shock to going from believing you are Robert Picardo to suddenly believing you are a hologram based on Robert Picardo.
"I'm immortal... but I'm not real." he muttered as he worked to save Tom the Fanboy's life. "Well, I meen, not the real Picardo. Great, I'm having an idenity crisis about being a stolen idenity... I wonder if I'd sue if I knew. I meen, if Robert Picardo would sue... I know Paramount probably would."
-elsewhere-
"If (Reality(here)!=Reality(test))... no, If (RealityCompare(here, test) == FALSE) then..." muttered Nodrog as he worked franticly.
-elsewhere-
Agent Jones could tell by the lessening gravity that he was either slowing down (he wasn't) or being lifted up out of Earth's gravity well (he was). He pulled off his left shoe, and then picked up his (smelly) sock phone. "Hello, FIB? This is Agent Jones... track my current movement and figure out where I'm headed... Realy? I thought that crashed.... hmmm, back again? Ok, see if you can send up any agents to meet me there. Oh, and have them bring what we have of 'It', I think I'll need it. No, not IT, It. You know, with the 23 sider... right, that one. And check to make sure Wonky Willa is still in his cell."
FrustratedPilot
Kerg Batse was watching the monitors of the self-repairing Tohomonculoid when he noticed two new contacts...a small one, about the size of a car, and a bigger one, nearly the size of the Tohomonculoid. The bigger contact was drawing the smaller contact aboard. Was this the chaotic force Agent Bierce had mentioned? Kerg thought. As The Ride of the Valkyries came loud and clear over the speakers in the cockpit, Kerg decided to forgo his assault on SOF and turn to face the new arrival. He cut short the Damage Control cycle and fired the huge robeast's thrusters...
* * *
FPilot finally emerged from the carcass of his once-pristine F-5. Looking at it, he mused, "We both have seen better days." Then, across the hangar bay, he saw the stowed A and C units for the Victory Gunfan.
Nodrog
Agent Jones sighed in relief as the FIB elevator stopped moving. Apperently, it had finally arrived wherever it was going. Agent Jones adjusted his suit and glasses, restoring them to their normal somewhat indimidating neatness. Just then, there was a knock on the metal doors of the elevator. With a frown, Agent Jones pushed the door open button.
The metal elevator doors slid open, revealing a short man with a long white beard and wearing a white robe and a ridiculous hat. On the front of the hat was a black letter 'D'.
"Hello" said the man. "I am your Destiny, Agent Jones."
"When does Destiny knock?" asked Jones, puzzled.
"Aw, I and Fate got bought out in a hostile take over by Oppurtunity" said Destiny. "Fate should have seen it coming... anyway, Jones, your destiny has always been to protect Earth from alien, non-human forces, correct?"
Jones frowned. "Shouldn't YOU be telling ME?"
"Well, trust me, it is." said Destiny. "That and to never find a human woman good enough for you who actually likes you and can survive more then a single season in your company."
Jones's frown deepened. "Season?"
"Don't ask." said Destiny. "Anyway, now is your greatest challenge: To save Earth from invaders from ANOTHER DIMENSION!!!"
Jones's frown deepened yet more. It was realy quite impressive, actually. "Another dimension? Again?"
"Um, well, yes." said Destiny. "'cept this time, instead of an evil... well, good... well, different version of yourself, you must defeat..."
Destiny quickly held up a polaroid photograph in front of Jones face. "HIM!"
"You surrounded by two beautiful women in bikinis?" asked Jones, puzzled.
"Whoops, wrong picture..." said Destiny, blushing bright red. He quickly flipped through his collection of polaroid photos and pulled out the correct one, showing Mr. Rikk.
"HIM?!?" said Jones, startled. "You meen all this time he's been from another dimension?"
"No, you're thinking of his this-dimensional counterpart." said Destiny. "This guy is MISTER Rikk."
"So where is he now?" asked Jones. "Preparing some massive battle fleat in his home universe, to come and conquer this one?"
"No, he's in that ship over there." said Destiny, pointing to the docking port Jones's elevator had come threw. Visible in the distance, unfiltered sunlight glistening off of it's sharp, raked contours was Mr. Rikk's massive battle/star ship.
Just then, Mr. Rikk's ship fired some form of greenish-purple (don't ask) energy beam at the Earth.
"He's blowing up the Earth!" yelped Jones. "My pension plan is on the Earth!"
"He's not blowing it up... yet." said Destiny. "That's just a 'Pay no attention to the man behind the screen' screen. Untill it's removed, nobody on Earth will pay attention to anything going on up here. Fortunately, Order was succesful in his plan to delay the screen's activation untill your men, with the 23 sider and a few other items, were able to leave the atmosphere."
-elsewhere, and a few minutes before-
"Activate the 'Pay no attention to the man behind the screen' screen, Ensign Smart!" snarled Mr. Rikk, glaring at the shining blue-green jewel of Earth.
"Right away, sir!" said Order, pushing the button on the console.
The console hummed to life, and then spat out a cup of something almost but not quite entirely unlike something almost but not quite entirely unlike something somewhat resembling coffee.
"Would you believe in a few minutes, sir?" said Order, franticly pushing other buttons. He neaded to find the right control quickly... he couldn't effectively delay Mr. Rikk's plans if Mr. Rikk was annoyed at him.
Mr. Rikk growled and walked over to Order's console, ignoring the lights and beeps filling the bridge.
The ship's voice spoke. "Self destruct activ... no, now it's deact... no, it's activated again... off... on... off... on... MAKE UP YOUR MIND!"
Mr. Rikk reached over Order's shoulder and flipped a switch, activating the ship's ITMBTSS.
"Oh, THAT." said Order, sweating nervously.
"Self destruct off again." said the ship's voice.
"Ensign Smart" growled Mr. Rikk. "Report to Torture Room 3 on the double!"
"Right!" said Order. "Torture room 2, on the triple!"
"No, " said Mr. Rikk. "Room *3*, on the double."
"Ok, " said Order, "The Double Torture Room on floor three."
"No... oh, just report to a torture room and lock yourself in there!" grumbled Mr. Rikk. "And does anyone know where Flogman is?"
Tom the Fanboy
The Medbay-
Miller and Sully stood by as the doctor babbled about contracts and being sued by himself. Suly had slapped the synthflesh patch onto the fanboy as he slid onto the table and the doctor was now hooking up the IV and taking the young man's life signs. The doctor seemed unaware of what his hads were doing though as he discussed things with himself. Sully stepped over to Miller and gave him a glimpse of the PDA in her pocket. They shared a knowing look.
The doors to the medbay swished open and Roboshaft walked in. "Allright you two, I just found your files on the SoF archives. You two are coming with me." Having monitored the goings on in the medbay, Roboshaft knew that Tom would be allright with the doctor. The door swished shut as th two agents carefully followed the android.
"So if I was sued by Robert Picardo as the Doctor then Paramount would have to counter sue him for defamation of properties, but whose lawyer would represent who?...."
The darkened halls around the honeymoon suite-
Baseballbat man glanced down at his chaos sensor as it flared brighter, it was close. He could almost feel it....
Drewsila leapt from around a corner and landed a brutal punch to BBBman's solar-plexus. He definitely felt that.
"Little rooster's come the hunt the fox?" She held his face in both hands and lifted it up to look at it. "You should have stayed in the hen house little bird."
"Not bird..."BBBman growled as he made eye contact with the vampire. The hardwood surface of BBBman's weapon slammed into Drewsila and knocked her into the opposite corner of the intersection."....BAT! It's a pun!"
Drewsila rolled over and looked up at the superhero. Narrowing her eyes she whispered "We should mince words when we're the pie."
As BBBman came forward Drewsila stood up and readied herself for him. BBBman took another swing at Drewsila, she was ready this time. She grabbed his wrist and used his momentum to fling him down the hallway. His bat clattered away from him but he clutched the glove to his chest tightly.
"I...am and agent of ORDER!" He shouted as he slowly got up. Drewsila ran past, stepping ont him to knock him back down on her way by. "Chaos will not WIN!" Kicked the bat further down the hall away from them and opened her mouth to speak, but as she turned around she fell silent in wonder.
"I agree with you whole-heartedly! WE MUST LOOOOOSE!!!" The yelling remark came from a speaker. The speaker was mounted on a suit of tank like machinery that had just rumbled around a corner at the opposite end of the hall. On the top of the massive suit was a glass bubble in which could be seen the head of Shanna's mother.
"I won't let you hurt her!" the speaker blared as the suit rumbled forward.
Drewsila smirked. "No need for the clankity tank." Drewsila pounced on the stunned BBBman who was looking for his bat. Drewsila puffed up her vampire brow ridges and extended her fangs as she began to feed on the agent of order.
Just around the corner, the doors to the honeymoon suite opened and a fan poked her head out.
"Whoa! Somone turned Shanna's Mom into Juggernott!" Another fan poked his head out and argued "Nah, that's a Mobile, AL suit from season 3!"
A third fan stuck her head out the door and yelled "Knock it off your two! The bat guy's in trouble! Let's go!"
Somewhere else-
Giggled and played with some clay, slapping a blob back and forth between his hands.
"Hee hee, add some power to us, add some power to them, mix it all up and thow it around......" He tossed the piece of clay up into the air and it stuck.
"And maybe we'll end like's it's supposed to! Grrr, can't have that!" Grabbing the piece of clay he noticed he had sculpted a perfect sphere. "This must be my brother's fault. I'd better see what he's up to. If he loses this on purpose......!" Tossing the piece of clay against a wall Chaos walked back and to the left. The piece of clay had formed a perfect replica of Guerinca by Picasso.
FrustratedPilot
Somewhere on SOF, a television screen was showing a broadcast from Billberg--the local evening news.
The anchorman said, "We're still trying to piece together this afternoon's events downtown, but from what authorities have told us, a large-scale gas explosion occurred in the vicinity of a new construction site. All the area hospitals are reporting admitting minor injury cases and some major ones. The Billberg Metro Police have established a security perimeter and will resume investigation in the morning.
"In a apparently unrelated incident, a man identified as Bobby Pinkerton was found dead in Market Park. Metro Police are looking for this man--Stephen Bierce--for questioning in connection with Pinkerton's death. They are offering a reward for information on Bierce's whereabouts, but caution that Bierce should be considered armed and dangerous. If you have a tip, call the number on your screen..."
Nodrog
SOF Command Processing System
Please enter user ID:>Nodrog
Please enter password:>*****
Stand by for security/trivia question:
What was the designation of the Enterprise seen at the end of Star Trek 4:> NCC-1701-A
Correct. User Nodrog verified.
SOF:>list games
Falcon's Maze
Tic-Tac-Toe
Checkers
Chess
Poker
War
Thermo-Nuclear Global War
SOF:> Tic-Tac-Toe
Number of players:> 007
Secret command mode accessed.
Warning: This command mode was designed for the use of the SOF Omega Classified Command Staff ONLY.
SOF Omega:> List immediate threats
Large vessel, unidentified, demanding our surrender. Commanded by a 'Mr. Rikk', if transmission can be believed.
Tohomonculoid, stunned, possible future threat.
Approaching FIB Scuttlecraft, requesting docking clearance.
Several unidentified onboard intruders. Tenative IDs: Drewsilla, Agent Jones, Shanna's mother, A small orange, Chaos, Death, Destiny, Miller, Sully, Smith, Muller, Silly, Gunth, Baseballbatman, Intruders 917 - 948 inclusive.
SOF Omega:> Open docking bay 051.
Docking bay 051 open.
SOF Omega: > Direct Scuttlecraft to land in docking bay 051.
Order sent.
SOF Omega: > Status check: Idendify status of user Nodrog.
Nodrog is currently unconcious in his bedroom. He may be in need of medical attention.
SOF Omega: > Status check: Identify status of intruder 'a small orange'.
A small orange is currently in the form of an adult, overweight male human and is using this computer system.
SOF Omega: > Print map of SOF, marking the location of the NEUTONS stoarge facility.
-PRINTING MAP-
SOF Omega: >
Warning, this terminal has not been used in 30 minutes. Leaving the SOF Command Processing System in Omega mode is a breach of security. Please log off immediately.
SOF Omega: > _
Murasaki
Still grumbling, Stephen tried to remember how exactly he had been coerced into breaking into his Aunt and Uncle's house to download Murasaki's main anchor onto the black laptop he now carried in a padded backpack. Well, maybe "break" was too strong a word, but banging on the door at three in the morning and then mumbling something about needing a vital peice of information off the computer he had once used and had since come into their posession didn't count as civil. He allowed himself an indulgent chuckle, would they have beleived the truth - that an ancient dragon he had accidentally trapped in IBM compatible format on that very computer had discovered and befriended the Auxilary Fanclub of Billberg, and couldn't very well answer their call for help on her own now?
"You know, one of these days I'm going to stop feeling guilty about that accident, and then where will you be?"
[In control of the dataflow that governs every little bit of information you depend on so much in your modern "civilized" world, Baka, now get going, Hashte!
FrustratedPilot
Back on the Satellite of Fans...
Pi Rho and NonMugle had used the confusion of all the Fans' Auxilary meeting and having to get caught up on everything to make an escape from the theater. They took the back stairs to the hangar.
Pi said, "I can't wait to get out of this place."
Non said, "I knew Pinkerton had been barking up the wrong tree. Well, if we run into any FiB agents we can claim that Pinkerton had been brainwashed by these Fans and it wasn't our fault we got into this mess."
They entered the hangar--"Our Camaro!" they said in unison, recognizing the vehicle immediately.
Pi said, "We need to find a garage door opener--"
FPilot shouted to them "So there you are!"
Non gasped, "Eeek!"
FPilot said, "Get over here, both of you. I need some help prepping these modules for assembly."
But Pi and Non were already running for their car and getting in.
Pi said, "No way am I gonna work for that murderer any more!"
Non stopped in his tracks in shock. Pi stopped in his tracks because a huge hand had grabbed him by the cuff of his shirt.
RoboT asked Pi, "Whut you fools be tawkin' 'bout?"
Tom the Fanboy
Tom felt a cold something wrapped around his arm. If he had not been so fascinated in feeling things again then perhaps he would have questioned what that thing was.
OK. What happened? I was near the brig when Drewsila caught me. She led me.....somewhere dark and romant-...spooky. Somewhere dark, just dark. Yeah.
OK, then she started feeding...I rememberthat and then darkness.
No.
There's something else. What happened?!?
It was like I was sliding down out of my body and then got jarred around and flung into darkness. I wonder how long I've been out.......
Hmmmmm. The Blaxecutors had gotten my call so they're probablly taking care of the brig now. I wonder what else is going on around the ship. Oh! I can hear something now....
Sounds like a man! Well, it's certainly not Drewsila so someone must have rescued me. I'm not dead because my neck still aches and I'm not a vampire because I'm not.....cold? No, I am kinda cold. Breathing! that's it! I'm still breathing!
Who's voice is that? Grrr...I can tell, he's mumbling to fast. What else is there to hear?
Hmmm....scraping and bumping. Maybe he's moving things around in the room. Room...what room am I in? It's kind of cold, I'm lying on something soft, there's something cold on my arm...but only part of my arm. It's...a sensor or something, like they stuck to my chest on my 4rth birthday! I'm in the Medbay! That must be the doctor!
Wait. If that is the doctor that means the holograms are working again and there may be more intruders getting in! FPilot and Nodrog would know that though...yeah, they've got it under control. That's why the doctor isn't checking on me. I'm stabilized and there's no emergency. I should open my eyes and try to move a bit.
Nnn...GAH!!! light!!!
Slowly.....slowly......
Tom's eyes opened and he blinked at the light of the medbay, which the Doctor was slowly tidying up and getting clean. As he worked he mumbled about being Robert Picardo, a character called the doctor, the doctor, or just an illusionary figure.
Tom inhaled sharply at the pain when he tried to move his head to look around. This got the Doctor's attention.
"Ah! You're concious! I guess this proves I at least know what I'm doing here no matter who I am!"
Tom raised an eyebrow in puzzlement. He was going to have to find out what had been going on.
Tom the Fanboy
The Kinetic Compression Beam squeeked to a halt outside the brig. Since the beam was something only an authorized SoF crew member could use, and no one was there waiting for them to either use the beam or order them around, the Nanites had finished their appointed duties and swarmed away to go back to their own agendas.
Earlier----
Since RoboT was also not authorized to use the KCB he tapped into the surrveillence system to find someone who could come and use it. He saw various members of the crew busy or incapacitated around the ship. One pair caught his interest though.
Their status was "Newly Deputized, former enemies". Their names were Pi Rho and NonMugle. RoboT noticed that they had a shifty look to them as the shuffled quickly down the hall. He'd have to go get them.
RoboT decided to take the stairs down the two decks between him and the docking bay the pair were headed towards. As he went he began processing simulations of his next encounter.
Encounter deputies: Deputy status no longer functioning, detain and hold.
Encounter deputies: Deputy status maintained, request accompaniment to brig for use of KCB.
"Them turkey's better be actin' good. Else I'm gonna be draggin more garbage for tha brig."
RoboT jumped down to the first landing of stairs, pivoted by swinging arounf the guardrail and jumped down to the next landing. He'd be at the docking bay in no time.
In a halflit hallway---
Drewsila was pouting. Her fun was getting spoiled again. It was noisy. There was fire. The man she just tried to eat made her tongue feel black.
"You're juice is rotten my little gloved boy." She whined as she spat an ink-like substance onto the deck.
BBBman grinned and took a momentary pride in the fact that he wasn't real. As an imagined being not only did he not have blood, but he had the internal substance of a comic book character since that was his creator's inspiration. His insides were all ink and pulp while his outside seemed like a real person. He began to follow Drewsila as she backed down the corridor but he had to stop and duck when she kicked his bat at him. When he lookedup she was gone. Picking up his bat he turned and looked at another force of Chaos.
Shanna's mom had not been expecting the swarm of fans that jumped her from behind. The various auxilary members that had been dumped into the Honeymoon suite were now hanging from the mechanized war machine like hyenas to a water buffalo. They clung to the turrest to keep them from shooting the fans, they pushed it back and forth trying to tip its bulky form over (taking a tip from Rikk in TMDG). One bulky fan even sat on top over the cockpit bubble to block Shanna's mother's view.
Shanna's mom was screaming and scrambling to get the controls to work. She didn't know what the machine was supposed to do but it wasn't this. "We're not supposed to Lose because of you people!!!! We have to lose when I rescue the vamp!" She sent a male fan barreling into a female, causing them to roll on the deck and end up in a rather awkward position. The femal had been in the way of her forward sensors. She now saw that Drewsila had escaped and her mission was successful.
"Hooray! I Won! I won!.....no wait! LOSING is what I need to do!" With that she powered down the systems and let the large robot war machine fall over under the weight of the attacking fans.
As the machne toppled over the fans leapt away. BBBman approached and smiled. "Good work fellow champions of order! We shall indeed triumph! Take the pilot away while I hunt down that foul undead beast!" BBBman turned dramatically and began running down the hallway after Drewsila.
Back at the robot, the Fans were beginning to all talk about what had just happened.
"Who was that Guy?"
"Casey Joe from 'Turtles?"
"This cockpit reminds me of Grim Scaramouche!"
"This lady looks like an old version of that chick Kath hangs out with!"
"I'll betcha we could get this .50 cal offa here and mounted on my Datsun by sundown!"
The medbay--
Tom accepted the painkilling stim-shot and glass of orange juice from the doctor.
"Agg..ahhh. Much better Doc. Thanks."
"Don't mention it, although I'm not sure if I'm who you're talking to."
"Ummm...right." Tom rubbed the still odd feeling neck wound and began to get up from the table. The doc had removed the transfusion IV several minutes ago and Tom was already feeling whole again. During that time the Doctor had explained how Tom had been brought here, though Tom did have to ignore countless comments questioning the Doctor's self and Robert Picardo. Tom now knew that Miller, Sully, and Roboshaft had been here dropping him off.
"OK, I think I've got a lot of work to do around the ship. Thanks again Doc. Oh you might want to fix that." Tom said as he walked out the door and pointed at the Vital Humours dispensor. Snot was dripping out of the nozzle in fingersized globs. The doctor hecticly began work on the machine, mumbling "Dammit Tom I'm a hologram of an actor who played a hologram of a doctor not a plumber!"
While walking back to the brig, Tom came across a computer terminal tha was active and logged into. It had the access screen of the SOF secret command mode on it. Tom hadn't ever gotten into that part of the system since most emergencies on the SoF were handled with humor. He scrolled up to read the previous command lines and sighed.
"Looks like someone rolled bad on the wandering encounter table. I'd go help Nodrog but I think I need to go check on the NEUTONS before anything else happens to it. Hmmmm....."
----
SOF Omega: > List active system users.
Muttley, small orange
SOF Omega: >Open video chat with Muttley
----
Muttley looked up in suprise as a window proclaiming "Incoming chat with "small orange"". He hesitantly clicked on the window and was relieved to see Tom staring out at him.
"Oh cute, I see you got my email."
"What? Email?- No, tell me later. Listen, I need you to find Nodrog, he's been injured and needs medical attention. Do a location check on him with the computer and get him to the medbay. The doc is up and running so just get him there. I'll be fixing the NEUTONS if anyone needs me."
"Nodrog's down? Then I' guess I'll hafta help him out! Good luck!"
The window closed and Muttley turned to tell theothers he had to leave. Looking around he realized there was no-one in the theater area to talk to.
Murasaki
Sitting at one of the tables while watching the firecrews try to contain the worst of the raging fire further down the street, Stephen leaned over and began whispering.
"Well, I guess that means we can go back to Oregon now... since it looks like your 'SoE' or whatever is gone"
[Nonsense, I can recognize a chaos field when I feel one. The SoF is still within this solar system, or I would have heard the end occupance spiral seq-]
"Whatever, I'm going to get something to drink"
[Then get Jolt]
"Why? I was going to get a rootbeer."
[Despite the fact that you seem to have given up... I wonder, did you ever look up?]
"At the ceiling?"
[Tanoshikunai, outside, at the sky]
"You're getting weird, do I need to recharge the battery again?"
[Okoru! You are not at all helpful, take me to the payphone outside. You are going to go shopping]
"???"
[If I can't depend on you to observe what IS happening or even what isn't, then I will have to acquire an optical interface]
"Wait, are you saying you want me to buy you a webcam because I'm not good enough?"
[Normally I would leave such a stupid question unanswered, but I can tell you are ready to actually refuse my requests #grumble# so I will elaborate: I think you are unable to see the truth because it is being hidden from you... that englishman wrote about it, eto... an S.E.T. field?]
"You mean an SEP feild? Vamn I always hoped one of those wouldn't work on me... alright, let me pay for this and I'll get going. Should I just leave you plugged in?"
[No, I may think of some other items it would be useful to have.]
FrustratedPilot
RoboT stood in front of FPilot, a "deputy" in each hand. "Wacha want me to do with these two bozoes?"
"Hang on to them a moment while I give them a what-up."
"Can do." RoboT said.
"We saw on the TV, Pilot...you killed Pinkerton and left him in the Park," Pi said.
"Wrong," Pilot replied. "I left him safe and sound at the Czech Diner. It was up to him whether he could find the TRUTH at Market Park. True, I didn't tell the TRUTH to expect him, but the TRUTH probably didn't do the deed either."
"I certainly don't believe you." Non said.
"Your belief is irrelevant. Your cooperation, however, is relevant." Pilot turned his attention to RoboT. "What's the situation upstairs?"
"The brig is getting out of hand, and we just had a fight involving the Aux Fans, a vampire, that funky dude in the Yankees uniform and a 200-pound can of fruitcake. Good Thomas' laid up, and Nod-man's been bashed up too. Ed Crater's gone to help Nod, tho'."
FPilot thought a moment. At last he said, "Brig has priority. If these two don't help you get a hold on it, then lock them in with the trouble themselves."
Over the "deputies'" protests, RoboT said, "Word." and all three left the scene.
FPilot looked back at his work. 8-Xark-8 would be a big help right about now, and he was over 2000 miles down.
The cockpit section of the F-5 was now mated with the C parts of the Gunfan, which now made the F-5's new engines. The A parts, slowly being unstowed from the hangar bay overhead, would fit atop the structure made by combining the C parts and the F-5 section.
As if a sign from heaven, a stray surge of electricity flowed briefly through one of the A parts' umbilical lines. The Gunfan's head emerged from a fairing that opened like a seedpod, and its eyes shown with a glow that almost made it seem alive. The angular, noh-mask like face was crowned with a Ford Fairlane hood ornament above the eyes.
Time to make Kerg and all the intermeddlers pay...
Nodrog
Mr. Rikk was annoyed. This was not unusual; Mr. Rikk was frequently annoyed. Apperently, the universe counter balenced Mr. Rikk's fantastic successes and abilities by surrounding him by useless incompetants, like that Ensign Smart. Oh, and for those of you wondering, Order (in the body of Smart) was experiencing something both he and this body were used to expierencing; namely the sensation of being lost. "I know, I'll check this map... Torture room, dungeon room, room of ultimate suffering, dentist's office, IRS Audit room..." Order said as he read off the map. "Sheesh, what'd the guy do, have Walt Disney's evil twin design this place? The room names just get worse and worse! Well, hears one that sounds promising: Emergancy Post-Humorous Exaust Portal. Anything that's humorous can't be too bad..."
Back in the control room, Mr. Rikk was feeling annoyed, which he was used to. What Mr. Rikk was NOT used to being, however, was ignored.
"STILL no response from that sattelite station?" he asked, pointing at the view screen. "Very well, send the surrender request AGAIN, this time on all frequencies and formats, and not just with that universal computer encryption Cyber-Thack made. Also, see if you can figure out what all those other space craft are."
"One of them looked a bit like a SNAF Scuttle craft." (The FIB scuttle craft, holding the 23 sider et al) said Sttim, hesitently. "The one that docked with the sattelite. "And the others... well, that one..."
Nodrog
Almost-but-not-quite-entirely-pointless Theatre brings you:
A Tale of Two Temps
by: Nodrog Skrap
Scene:
Earth, While-You-Web House of Discount Computer Parts central warehouse.
Players:
Will Never-be-seen-again, low level employee temporary employee of While-You-Web.
Gohn (pronouced 'Gone') With-this-scene, fellow low level temporary employee of While-You-Web.
When the scene begins, Will has just taken a printout from a computer while Gohn prepares a box.
Will: "Ok, we've got an order for a computer camera rx-2439 and a quantum logic adapter card Ns-924, from somebody named Stephen."
Gohn: -giggling- "Stephen? What a wierd name! Hey, let's throw in a consolation prize!"
Will: "Sure, why not? After all, it's not like this stuff belongs to us."
Gohn: "Oooh, I'm going to include one of those force-bubble generators..."
Will: "You meen like the one in the Explorer's movie? Cool! (Movie about three kids who travel in a home made space ship, with the help of a pair of alien kids)"
Gohn: "What are you going to put in?"
Will: "Oooh, how about this Tea-and-not-tea simultaneous container?"
Gohn: "Excelent!"
Will and Gohn giggle as they pack the required equipment, plus several additional boxes, into the large shipping box.
Will dumps in a load of styrofoam peanuts, while Gohn stirs the contents arround.
Will and Gohn: (Chanting) "Fed-ex, fed-ex, Send delex, Peanuts hold and cardboard flex!" (delex: Said to sound like delux)
Will: (chanting) "Eye of camera and boxed adapter, Made by government funded Japanese crafter..."
Gohn: (chanting) "secret parts and government toys, send to Stephen that odd-named boyz..."
Will glares at Gohn for adding the Z, then shrugs.
Will and Gohn: (Chanting) "Fed-ex, fed-ex, Send delex, Peanuts hold and cardboard flex!"
-curtain falls-
Muttley
Muttley turned to his camera and addressed the preview screen again.
"SoFie, you still there? Can you show me where Auxiliary Nodrog is right now?"
One of the green dots in the 3-d display turned orange and began to blink.
It had appeared to be part of the mass in the "Honeynoom Suite", but on closer examination could be seen to be one level up and a little to the right.
"Thank you SoFie, and how do I get there from here?"
A purple line traced a path from the Theatre lobby to the residential area.
"Thank you SoFie, looking good!" Depressing the privacy switch he added "for something programmed by a Web Design 101 dropout". Through the lobby speakers, SoFie replied " I have eyes and ears everywhere, Eddie baby, and I'll hold that remark against you. I would change the GUI, but I'm inhibited against self-modification, as you well know!"
Following the path SoFie had traced, Muttley was soon outside one of the Residential suites. "I'll surely need a password to get in here" he mumbled " now what would it be - - - hmmmm Nodrog Skrap - - Parks - - McArthur Park (singing, very badly) "someone left a cake out in the rain" - - -" There was no reaction from the door. Itchycoo Park? Lakeside Park? What could it be? Muttley hit the door in frustration. It swung open, mockingly (that's with a kind of sarcastic creek, and don't say you weren't expecting it). Muttley dashed inside, to find Nodrog unconscious on the floor.
"Sofie! H-How good are your diagnostic facilities!" stammered Muttley, swinging the camera up to focus on Nodrog. "Tell me whats wrong with this fan!"
"Better than your diction, thats for sure" spoke the SoF AI, in an electronically surly voice. "I don't need your poxy handheld toy, my sensor records tell me everything I need to know. He's been hit several times on the head, electrocuted, and then he tried to wrap his mind around the core code for a Chaos Processing Unit. Its amazing his heads still in one piece. He needs a strong sedative to calm him down, and his brain needs cooling. Wrap a wet towel around his head."
A cup of green liquid popped out of the wall dispensor, and a drawer opened revealing Nodrogs towels. In the bathroom, a tap began to run. "Enough of the hints, already, I'm on it" said Muttley irritably as he followed SoFies instructions.
Soon a soggy Nodrog was beginning to show signs of consciousness. Muttley, looking for clues, found many scraps of paper with fragments of scribble on them. Turning to Nodrog, he blurted out "Its no good toying with C++ and Java, thats too obvious, too easy to understand! For a Chaos Processing Unit you need properly-defined nonsense in the core code! Something along these lines:
Twas brillig, and the programmers
did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the managers,
and customers outgrabe.
Nodrog looked on blankly.
Nodrog
SoFie cleared her throat. "You MIGHT want to wait a few minutes before attempting to iniate communication. Based on my knowledge of Nodrog's physiology and the most recent events, he's currently fighting a headache that, if it was an ice-cream headache, would have required injestion of liquid nitrogen while skinny-dipping in the Artic Circle."
Muttley looked around. "Does Nodrog have any tylenol in this room?"
SoFie spoke again. "Negative. The nearest headache medication is in the SOF medbay."
A small bell rang.
Muttley frowned. "What was that?" he asked.
SoFie said: "I have just finished preparing an answer to a question Nodrog asked earlier."
Muttley asked: "What question?"
SoFie answered: "Question: Can I, as the SOF Main Computer, run a Chaos Code Compiler sufficiently complex to allow the programming of a Chaos Processing Unit."
Muttley said: "I'll bite... what's the answer?"
SoFie replied: "In theory, if I shut off all life-support, orbit maintenance code, NEUTON storage protection, security systems, and if the code was written in the tightest possible form... I can state, with only a 49.9% chance of failure, that in theory, there is a hypothetical possibility I could run such a compiler."
Muttley sighed. "So, no chance at all."
SoFie made a sound reminescent of a shrug. "That is correct... we would need something beyond just a normal computer."
Murrley looked at SoFie's nearest terminal screen. "So, what do I do now?"
SoFie said, "I would suggest getting Nodrog to medical bay."
Murrley sighed and leened down, trying to figure out some way to carry Nodrog's 300 pound plus body.
SoFie spoke up. "Shall I consider recording the activity in the honeymoon suite?"
Tom the Fanboy
Tom logged out of the computer and closed the console, it wouldn't do for a secret security computer to be accessable to anyone. Running along the corridors he finlly came to the brig.
Tom scrambled up to the kinetic compression beam and began the activation cycles, the device would be primed and ready to fire in no time. The problem that tom was worried about was how to get the targets in front of the right beam. The cart that the KCB was mounted on was not highly mobile and probably wouldn't be able to turn around in this hallway. He'd have to get the NEUTONS items in the hall outside the brig before he could beam them back in.
Tom shuddered.
Not in fear of encountering Drewila again but in the fact he might have to touch the infamous "Pink Kryptonite" fanfic.
As Tom continued the activation process the components of the KCB began to unfold. The "front" of the device held the EWEB placement turret which looked like a tripod weapon from Star Worz. In the rear was the T-RON laser, which looked like a shrinking ray from "Sweety I Micronized our Children". Through an advanced targetting system the operator would scan and transfer the target with the T-RON and the matter would be transfered to the holding location via the EWEB. If the holding location was not fit to contain compressed matter then the target would violently revert to normal size, hence the problems with the NEUTONS. To decompress/ retrieve matter the process was reversed.
Tom hoped that he could find a good spot in the NEUTONS to put the spilled items back in. While the KCB finished warming up he went to the security desk and began unlocking the brig doors and the magnetic field. As the blast doors opened he saw the clutter on the floor and smelled one of the MDC Hamdingers that had gone bad several years before his arrival on the SoF.
"OK! That thing's got priority!" Tom toed the food-like thing and slowly rolled it into the hallway target area. After doing a visual scan of the NEUTONS to make sure it was stable he began scanning the interior for a suitable place to put the thing he had just moved. In the quark based micro-viewer he saw the various items that had been crammed into the NEUTONS. The clutter seemed packed until he came upon a surface, a huge surface with a line across it. Confused, Tom began to scan this surface and compile an image of it on one of the KCB's other monitors. As he scanned the roughly triangular shape he found that the line curved around and stopped. Vexed, he waited on the monitor to show the reduced image of his scan.
It was a plane in a triangular shape with an "C" on it. He didn't know what it was but the size of the thing meant that it hadn't been compressed. Tom knew this was the cause of the NEUTONS' problems and began targeting it for removal.
Nodrog
The following message has just been announced on every speaker aboard the SOF:
ATTENTION, ALL RESIDENTS ON THE SPACE STATION / ARTIFICIAL SATTELITE ORBITTING EARTH. THIS IS THE RSS EPOCH, FLAGSHIP OF THE GREAT AND ALL POWERFUL MR. RIKK, RULER OF EARTH (IN OUR UNIVERSE 0). YOU HAVE EXACTLY 30 MINUTES TO SIGNAL YOUR COMPLETE AND UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER TO MR. RIKK, AND VOW TO SERVE HIM AS HIS LOYAL AND WORSHIPFUL SLAVES, OR YOUR SPACE STATION / ARTIFICIAL SATTELITE WILL BE DESTROYED. ANY SHIPS ATTEMPTING ESCAPE WILL BE AUTOMATICLY DESTROYED. ANY ATTEMPT TO CONTACT EARTH OR ANYONE ELSE ON IT IS FUTILE. ANY FAILURE TO SURRENDER OR ATTEMPT TO ATTACK WILL BE PUNISHED. 30 MINUTES BEGIN NOW. END TRANSMISSION. BOY, MR. RIKK SURE INSISTS ON MAKING THINGS SOUND BLEEK FOR THOSE LOSERS... WHAT DO YOU MEEN THE MICRAPHONE IS STILL ON?!? TURN IT OFF! OFF! OF....
We now return you to whatever you were doing to save Earth and defeat the evil Mr. Rikk. Thank you.
FrustratedPilot
"Mr. Rikk wants an answer, does he?" FPilot said when the transmission ended. He pressed the button on the dashboard--the one for the garage door opener remote control--and put his hand on the waldo joystick. He pulled both joysticks back and the completed Victory Gunfan robot stood up, FPilot in the cockpit capsule within the machine's torso. FPilot made it walk to the launch catapult and lock its feet into the catapult cleats. If anybody had been watching through the window at the bosun's station, they would have seen the robot hunch down as its engines revved to take-off power, and heard over the loudspeakers: "Victory Gunfan, GO!" Instantly the catapult and rockets simultaneously engaged, thrusting the robot out to space. The door closed behind the robot and the hangar airlock repressurized.
As the Victory Gunfan streaked to Mr. Rikk's ship, FPilot said, "I've got an answer for you," and the robot drew its huge Sword of Painful Mecha Dismemberment...
Nodrog
Mr. Rikk stared in delight at the craft exiting the SoF. "Oh my, a Gunfan... and here I was afraid I'd destroyed them all."
Mr. Rikk turned to face his cowering command crew. "Ready my Gun-Down-Fans!"
"Y-yes sir!" squeeked a timid minion.
Mr. Rikk began strolling to his private hanger. "Now, don't fire unless I send the order or I begin to lose. Oh, and Computer: confirm weapon lockout."
The ship's massive computer spoke in a ponderous, synthesized voice: "Confirmed: Ship weapons will not target Mr. Rikk or any vessel/ship/planet/other Mr. Rikk is believed to occupy."
Mr. Rikk nodded. "It's not that I don't trust you, minions... it's just that I don't trust you. Gun-down-fans, away!"
FrustratedPilot
FPilot could see the Epoch open its own hangar bays over the long-range TV picture on the dashboard.
"Well, they aren't going for the usual opening salvo of laser and missiles followed up by the big-fanny gun blast..." FPilot thought. Then he noticed something else in the area: a spent booster upper stage, of the kind the space shuttle uses to loft satellites into higher orbit. Big enough to hide behind...too small to be readily detected as anything but junk.
FPilot then had the idea: Space Combat ploy #414. He holstered the sword and made what is called a zero-Doppler turn to confuse the enemy radar...then pulled out the Polish Bazooka from the backpack and assembled it...
Nodrog
Mr. Rikk looked arround. The alien Gunfan was nowhere to be seen. "I *HATE* hide and seek..." he muttered to himself. "Gun-down-faans, target all non-inhabited artificial objects within range of micro-rockets. Then arm micro-rocket cannons and fire."
From the back of the Gun-Down-Fans, what appeared to be two large machine guns deployed. From the barrels of the machine guns, a seemingly endless stream of small rockets fired, blowing various communication, weather, and spy sattelites into random bits. The rockets continued to fly, turning the littered orbital junkyard into nothing more then Mr. Rikk's ship, the SoF, Mr. Rikk's Gun-Down-Fans... and the Gun-Fan.
"Gun-Down-Fans, deactivate micro-rocket cannons... prepare for hand-to-hand combat mode. Deploy monomolecular chain whip and left arm shield."
From the right fist of Mr. Rikk's Gun-Down-Fans, a thin chain emerged, made of metal links each one molecule thin. A thin forcefield ran throughout the whip, holding the chain together. Some of the panels surrounding the Gun-Down-Fans' left arm unfolded, forming a simple, flat shield.
Tom the Fanboy
The Reality Dysfunction Key was violently wrenched from the sealed locker that was the NEUTONS. It shrank as it travelled through the KCB and flew into the placement nozzle. Zig-zagging through the maze of tubes and hoses in the main part of the machine the Key shot out of the targetting scanner and onto the floor outside the brig. Tom leaned around the edge of the cooling KCB to take a peak at the mysterious object.
One deck below:
Drewsila placed the last of the now-dead Solactors against the wall. She left their mouths and hands taped but arranged them so they were leaning on each other serenely. Had she left them unbound, each would have woken the others and revealed her location when he screamed in pain and terror. They had been a delicious meal, fear was one of Drewsila's favorite flavors.
"Little dead soldiers all in a row. Marching off to nowhere land together." Drewsila took a deep breath in through her nose and gazed up at the ceiling. "Is my darling Spyke awake? Little Willam flashes conscious and then hides away in the shadows. Don't worry sweets, I'll come and flush you out of the shrubberies." Drewsila began making her way to a stairwell so that she could find where she sensed Spyke's presence.
Back at the Brig:
Tom was reaching down to pick up the Reality Disfunction Key when he was startled by a loud announcement over the PA system.
ATTENTION, ALL RESIDENTS ON THE SPACE STATION / ARTIFICIAL SATTELITE ORBITTING EARTH. THIS IS THE RSS EPOCH, FLAGSHIP OF THE GREAT AND ALL POWERFUL MR. RIKK, RULER OF EARTH (IN OUR UNIVERSE). YOU HAVE EXACTLY 30 MINUTES TO SIGNAL YOUR COMPLETE AND UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER TO MR. RIKK, AND VOW TO SERVE HIM AS HIS LOYAL AND WORSHIPFUL SLAVES, OR YOUR SPACE STATION / ARTIFICIAL SATTELITE WILL BE DESTROYED. ANY SHIPS ATTEMPTING ESCAPE WILL BE AUTOMATICLY DESTROYED. ANY ATTEMPT TO CONTACT EARTH OR ANYONE ELSE ON IT IS FUTILE. ANY FAILURE TO SURRENDER OR ATTEMPT TO ATTACK WILL BE PUNISHED. 30 MINUTES BEGIN NOW. END TRANSMISSION. BOY, MR. RIKK SURE INSISTS ON MAKING THINGS SOUND BLEEK FOR THOSE LOSERS... WHAT DO YOU MEEN THE MICRAPHONE IS STILL ON?!? TURN IT OFF! OFF! OF....
Tom pressed himself against the wall and tried to catch his breath.
"Well, at least now I know what's going on outside! I guess somebody got this crate airborn again!" Tom walked back over to the Reality Dysfunction Key and picked it up. Besides glowing slightly and being made of a red, plastic-like substance the thing looked like a normal bike key. Looking closer Tom saw that it was labelled on both sides with the word "Activator" while the triangular edge panels read C, P, and U with each letter on a seperate panel.
U\
P< >=====0 (Rough diagram to avoid
C/ Longer explaination)
Tom pocketed the thing and got back to work. Using the large space provided by the previously non-compressed key, he targetted the antideluvian hamdinger and placed it in the NEUTONS.
Tom then began moving the less harmful items out of the brig and into the targetting area to KCB them back into the container. He still couldn't bring himself to touch "Pink Kryptonite". He was standing over it contemplating what to do when a dark figure stepped around the corner and moved towards him.
Drewsila came around a corner and recognized this area as the brig, More importantly, she recognized that this was the area that she had escaped from earlier that day. She was moving down the hall to pick a long white thing with a cartoonish cat head at the end when a blue/gold beam of light shot out from the brig's entry hall and sucked the item into it. Drewsila pressed herself against the wall and hissed. She remembered that beam. That was what the space people had used to squish her and her love into the dark little box for so long. She knew that if she were to get hit by it again she'd be caught. She slunk back to a nearby office to contemplate how to avoid the light beam but still rescue Spyke.
"Yo good Thomas, you ready to farm some turkeys?" Shouted RoboT as he pushed the two trouble makers ahead of him.
"Huh? Oh! Those two! Did you guys piss off the muscle?" Tom put his hands on his hips and shooks his reproachfully.
"Flyboy wants 'em to help the lock down but they move in if they drop the ball." RoboT growled from behind the two "deputies"
NonMugle stepped towards Tom.
"Listen, we were working fine in the past remember? You had the gun and we did the painting.... We can do that again! Just keep that killer away from us! We don't wanna end up like Pinkerton."
Tom crooked an eyebrow. "Whatchoo been doin T?" RoboT shrugged and continued to loom over them. Pi Rho shook his head violently and jerked a thumb back to the docking bay.
"No not this trogolodite! The ex agent you've got in your docking bay building some sort of Mobile Suit!"
"OH! HIM!" Tom relaxed and chuckled. "I'll keep him away from you. Just do me one favor."
"What?"
"Just pick up this sheef of papers here and very carefully set it down over there."
Nodrog
Mr. Rikk reflexively jerked back, causing the Gun-down-fans retro-thrusters to fire. "Gun-Down-Fans! Target Gun-Fan in front of me! Arm micro-rocket cannons and fire!"
The Gun-Down-Fans two micro-rocket cannons obediently deployed, and then displayed a flashing red message.
"I'm out of micro-rockets?!? Ok, activate electro-magnetic spear catapult!"
The Gun-Down-Fans' left arm split open, revealing a single long alluminum spear between then two halves of the Gun-Down-Fans' left arm. The massive electromagnets built into the arm halves hummed with power, beginning to prepare to hurl the alluminum spear at speads which, if the Gun-Down-Fans was is atmosphere, would easily be classified as supersonic.
-elsewhere-
Spyke sighed, staring at the picture of Puffy the Vampire Slammer. He had always been attracted to large sized women, and only Drewsilla's jealousy had kept him from confessing his love to Puffy. "Mayby it's just the high cholesterol count..." he muttered to himself, "but thin girls just don't taste right."
Spyke shrugged. No, even when he was just Willy the Broody, human, he had loved plump women. It was normal for his time. At least, with Drewsilla gone, he could dream...
FrustratedPilot
FPilot's dashboard display read: "Warning! Adversary eminating large-scale magnetic field!"
"Nothing like Third Grade science. Polarize the hull!" FPilot ordered his autopilot. And then moved into melee range.
Ever try to put two magnets with the same pole together? Just as Mr. Rikk's spear catapult had reached enough charge to launch the spear, the magnetic forces threw the Gun-Down-Fans into an about-face! The spear launched all right--just at the Epoch instead of the Victory Gunfan!
The two mecha collided like an American-rules footballer tackling an opponent from behind. They broke again when the Gun-Down-Fans' magnetic field had subsided. By this moment, FPilot's Gunfan was liberally applying Spidy String to the arms and legs of the Gun-Down-Fans. "Good thing they had a two-for-one sale on this stuff at Superheroes' Depot..."
Nodrog
Aboard the Epoch, Mr. Rikk no longer ruled. Chaos ruled. Well, not litterly, since Chaos was still on the SoF. But noone was realy prepared for what had happened.
The metal spear had pierced the Epoch's command bridge's protective armor.
"We're under attack!" screamed someone.
"Warning: Hull breached. Atmosphere venting. Please input instructions." announced the Epoch's computer.
"Return fire" screamed someone else.
"Cannot do so. Targetting system has been overridden." announced the Epoch's computer.
"We're all going to DIE!" screamed someone else.
The bridge doors, sensing decompression and that Mr. Rikk was not on the bridge, promptly sealed the doors.
"The bridge is now completely depressurized" announced Epoch's computer... or, at least, it tried to announce. In vacuam, noone can hear you make announcements.
*a few minutes later, outside the command bridge air-tight doors*
Order, in the body of Max Smart, knocked tenatively on the armored doors. "Um, excuse me, I got lost..."
FrustratedPilot
With the Gun-Down-Fans duly cocooned in Spidy String, FPilot's Gunfan then lassoed it with a tow cable and hauled both its own butt and Mr. Rikk's butt back to the docking bay of SoF. Once inside, the Gunfan took the cable and hogtied the Gun-Down-Fans and suspended it from an overhead rafter. Then FPilot put the mecha in its parking place and readied it for shutdown, but not without making a call first:
"Calling SoFie...place an energy leech field around the captured mecha and have an honor guard assembled for our guest."
"Working. Hangar bay is sealed and repressurized. How do you clean up Spidy String, anyway?"
"Soybean oil. Or that artificial butterlike substance that theaters put on popcorn."
"Understood."
FPilot shut off the commo, and opened the cockpit.
Nodrog
Mr. Rikk managed to finally wriggle through the excape hatch on his Gun-Down-Fans. His highly advanced Gun-Down-Fans was out of commision, its electro-magnetic servo couplers jammed with some firm of aerosal based string. Worse, when the Gun-Down-Fans was dragged into this bay, its pilot refreshment system had broken, coating Mr. Rikk in a mix of artificial popcorn butter, Cola-Coca syrup, and salted peanuts.
At least the mixture, however, seemed to erode the string enough for him to escape from his helpless Gun-Down-Fans. Cursing his luck, Mr. Rikk wriggled into one of the SoF's ventilation ducts.
-a few minutes later-
A troop of 30 humanoid robots, freshly assembled, marched into the SoF's bay.
FPilot frowned at the 30 identical robots, standing like so many black-clad stormtroopers.
"This isn't what I meant, SoFie... and why did you make them all black?"
SoFie's response came, not in her regular voice, but from a wav file from her massive storehouse of movie quotes. "I wanted to make him perfect."
FPilot shrugged. "I hope you remembered the Soybeen oil... let's get our mystery Gunfan pilot out of there."
"The pilot of said Gunfan is no longer in his vehicle." announced SoFie. "He escaped 3.1 minutes ago into my ventelation system. Do you wish me to apply the desolvant anyway?"
Nodrog
Drulin Faanboy sighed, looking around the coridors of the SoF. He had not been one of the Fans^2 lucky enough to have been captured by the evil Dr. T, and this was the first time he had been allowed on board. Combined with waking up to find himself in the same room with a scantily-clad Wish had been like a dream come true.
Now, hopelessly lost and rejected by a women who looked just like the actress who played Drewsilla on Puffy the Vampire Slammer, it was more like a nightmare. Drulin looked and found himself outside a metal door marked 'Holodeck #8. Please do not use for Discworld simulations'.
"Oh boy!" said Drulin, opening the door and stepping into the holodeck. "Computer..."
"SoFie" announced the SoF's computer.
"Um, right..." said Drulin. "SoFie... run holodeck program Drulin-1-a."
"No such program listed." announced SoFie.
"It always works in the show..." muttered Drulin to himself. "Ok, run a simulation of Puffy the Vampire Slammer, but put me in as Oddz... and make sure it's an episode where Willowy-thin is in love with me, ok?"
SoFie hastened to comply. Drulin's hair and body reshaped itself into that of Oddz, as the Sunnyhell school library appeared arround him. In front of him stood a very worried looking Gills (big surprise) and Willowythin. Behind Willowy-thin,Puffy stood holding a stake with a silver tip.
In the currently chaos-intensified state of the SoF's holodecks, they were able to alter more then just the player's appearance. Also, the SoF was in a position for the moon's full reflection to be visible from the SoF.
Werewolf Drulin turned and ran through the still open holodeck door, followed by Puffy, Gills, and Willowythin.
"I just know someone is going to blame this on me..." muttered SoFie.
I figure, whenever Drewsilla gets Spyke out, we might need Puffy to stop him. Note: as the SoF moves/orbits/whatever, it's possible Drulin will alter back and forth from his Oddz appearance to his werewolf appearance. Feel free to use him in your own segment. Just be aware that, if you kill him, you'll need a silver weapon AND a hankerchief. The hankerchief is for a very emotionally upset Willowy-thin who has yet to fully realize her both-sides-of-the-fence tendencies... ahem, I better wrap this post up before this note is longer then the rest of the passage way.
Oh, but am I the only one who wants to see a Wish + Willowy-Thin scene?
FrustratedPilot
Suddenly the SoF was rocked by a severe impact. The P.A. system was overridden by a broadcast: "This is Kerg Batse to Satellite of Fans. My Tohomonculoid, as you can tell, is back to full operation. I know you have Mr. Rikk aboard. Convey him to me now or be destroyed."
In the hangar deck, the robotic honor guard had fallen like dominoes. FPilot got out of the way before he would have been trapped by the their tangled limbs...and noticed an open bag of Plantsman Peanuts on the deck. There was a trail of such bags leading to an air duct.
SoFie announced, "Hull breaches on levels 4, 5, 6 and 7."
And then there was a voice entering FPilot's mind: I hear you, little flyboy. Where are you? Put on your leather bomber for me. Put on your silk scarf for me. I'll take you to heaven. You will be very tasty to me. The mindvoice was laughing...
FPilot tried to thinkspeak back, Peanuts. You like peanuts. You must have peanuts, or you must die.
But the voice came back: I want you. I'll let you take my joysticks...
But the SoF shook again, as Kerg's technomonster continued to assault the hull with its claws and teeth.
"SoFie, I'm going out. Ready to cycle the airlock." FPilot said as he climbed into the cockpit of the Victory Gunfan and started it.
Come back, pilot! I'll show you where cloud nine is...
The mecha's autopilot said, "Startup engaged. Internal damage detected."
FPilot closed the cockpit. "Systems status?"
"Critical. Shrapnel damage extensive. Damage to weapons, engine, actuators, life-support, extraction--"
"I get the picture." FPilot marched the mecha out to the airlock.
* * *
"This is Kerg Batse again. You have 60 seconds to produce Mr. Rikk or I will cut your station in two. Respond."
"I've had enough of you!"
The Tohomonculoid turned its head and saw the Victory Gunfan standing on the hull, sword drawn.
FPilot added, "Back off or else!"
FPilot saw the Tohomonculoid charge its plasma mouth cannon and decided not to wait. He fired his thrusters--and halfway to the technomonster the main one exploded from previous damage. In midflight, the Victory Gunfan took a direct hit from the plasma blast.
Inside the cockpit, the dashboard overloaded and FPilot took a hard bolt of electricity through the head and chest. He screamed in pain. But he stayed awake.
The Victory Gunfan hit the chest of the monster. FPilot tried to swing the Victory Gunfan's sword arm, but the Tohomonculoid was faster, and ripped the arm off with its claw.
But FPilot saw that he succeeded in knocking the monster off the SoF and both Kerg and himself were floating off into space. "One down, one to go." he mused.
Kerg brought both of the monster's claws against the Gunfan. "Agent Bierce, this is the last time you defy me--the last time you deny me! You have no more--"
Then he heard over his headphones, "Self-Destruct sequence underway. Destruct in four seconds...three...two..."
"--You wouldn't DAR--!"
SoFie already had all the portals closed, so nobody saw the Victory Gunfan render itself into a bright ball of subnuclear particles, taking the Tohomonculoid with it as they both boiled away into space.
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Just to let everyone know that the Rifts and Palladium settings belong to KevinSiembieda and the PalladiumBooks company, Star Wars things belong to George Lucas, and the Vampire settings belong to the White Wolf company, any idea's, character's, etc. belong to me. Any attempt to use these char's for money or self promotion will give I, White Wolf, and the PalladiumBooks company every right to not only sue you but to hunt you down and destory or torture you in the most painful ways imaginable...if such a thing doesn't apply to you then nevermind. That being said thank you for visiting and have a nice day ;)