“What?”
“Guilty! He will be torn apart by fireworks. Send him away.”
“You cheated!”
“Always,” said Badloser. “I always win. The methods justify the means40. How else would I get what I want and then spend it on destroying the financial stability of whole galaxies? You men there, take the scum away and arrest these three for presuming to know my law, and attempting to bribe me, oh, and that trollop in the crowd with the double negatives, and anyone eating illegal flavours of crisps.”
The soldiers flanking Tom remained motionless.
“Do I have to do everything myself?” snarled the judge. He produced a blaster from under the bench, and levelled it at Tom. “Court is adjourned. Sentence to be carried out immediately.”
The weapon spat flame and the VIP box filled with smoke.
Correction Number 5
Things blow up (as usual)
Crisp Eaters are Neutralised
T
om stared helplessly at the blaster trained on him. There were rapid movements at his side. Both guards had drawn their own guns. They fired simultaneously. Badloser slammed back against the wall, two gaping holes in his chest. His own weapon discharged at the same time. The blast went wide and destroyed Errorcode’s desk, leaving him standing in the field, minus his trousers41, which blew into the stalls along with the rest of the remains. The audience clapped enthusiastically.
“Didn’t like to mention the Fifth Correction,” said Kara.
“And what might that be?” asked Tom shakily, “Purely out of curiosity you understand. I mean, I assume that the court hearing is over now.”
The soldier on his right answered. “The Fifth Correction,” he said. “If all else fails, blast it. Badloser knew that. He always was a bad loser.”
“Came from a long line of them apparently…”
“I know that voice.” Tom turned slowly towards the guard. He reached out and pulled the mask off. Tanda’s grinning face appeared. “I thought you’d gone to destroy the galaxy,” he said, laughing with relief.
“Naw, we thought against it a bit, Sah,” said the guard on his other side.
“Vac, you came back.” Tom hugged the Skagans flanking him.
“It is my role to serve and protect you, Sah,” said Vac, removing his own mask.
“And to conquer the galaxy,” said Tanda. “Don’t forget the prime directive.”
“Sorry?” said Tom.
“Er, ‘not’ to conquer the galaxy of course;” qualified Tanda, “Freudian slip of the undergarment.”
“Of course.”
Already, ushers were hurrying around the stadium, moving furniture and broken desks, returning the court to its original function. Of Errorcode, nothing was to be seen.
“Monty’s escaped then,” said Tom, indicating the matchwood remains of the prosecution desk. “I’ll take that as an official resignation; he was leading a double life as lawyer and landscape gardener, presumably claiming two salaries and therefore contravening his terms of employment. Phoist what a palaver. Excitement made me quite dizzy, as did the truth drugs they gave me.” Tom, sat down as his legs gave way. “So how did you all get here to save me in the gouge of time?”
“Once I’d found out you’d been arrested,” said the Magus, “I called up The Fukedds Belle and we made our way directly here. Vac and Tanda went ahead in their Pig-Ugly…”
“And signed on as staff,” said Tanda. “Badloser couldn’t afford to pay anyone, so we pretended we believed his promise of a good wage when the postal order arrived from his great-aunt.”
“I’m beginning to think there never was a postal order,” said Vac. “He may have been lying to us.”
“And I was coming anyway, with the authority of my family, to wind up the TCA,” said Caryl, “although we could now incorporate it into SCT, and get back to keeping the peace.” She snuggled into Tom’s lap. “I’ve missed you, Snookylumps.”
“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” said Tom, hugging her tightly.
“I wasn’t sure to start with,” she said, “but once I’d found my real family, I realised I’d wanted be back here, and persuaded them to let me look into the situation with the TCA.”
“So, no present, no tree, no cakes and pies there?”
“Nothing; they live on carrots and lager… and they kept trying to make me get my hair cut, as is their fashion.”
“A cruel family; you were right to return.” He turned to his prodigal head of security, who was now sighting along his regulation issue carbine at a couple eating a pack of potato crisps in the far stands. “Anyway Vac, I guess that since you have returned, you have decided against conquering the universe, despite the Prime Directive?”
Tanda coughed self-consciously.
“Perhaps this week,” said Vac. “We’ve done a good job today; got the bastard at last.” He waved at the bloody mess on the back wall of the lounge. “We should have done the business properly the first time.”
“The first time,” said Tom. “So it was you who blew the top off the executive offices of SCT, opening the way for me to take over and save the company and have a whole new adventure?”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that, Sah,” said Vac, discharging his weapon into the crowd.
The End
Appendix 1
Job Description
This is the full specification for the role of
Cyclic Imperator
(if you think you’re up to it)
Job Responsibilities:
To develop unclear direction of the organization by providing ambiguous projections and leadership services; to prepare bonus plans and confuse staff.
Duties:
Accomplishes surveillance strategies by undermining accountabilities; miscommunicating and degrading values, policies, and procedures; implements recruitment based on the old chums’ act, thwarts training, coaching, counselling, disciplinary, and communication programs; ignores monitoring, appraising, and review of job contributions; ensures that planning and reviewing compensation strategies are removed from the organisation.
Derails organization prospects by ignoring economic trends and revenue opportunities; fails to take advantage of acquisition and expansion prospects; ignores organization operations and opportunities for improvement, cost reduction, and systems enhancement; accumulates capital to fund bonuses.
Ignores financial performance by giving huge salaries to the executive staff; initiates corrective actions if the remuneration is not high enough, and minimises the amount paid to the workers.
Takes every opportunity to ignore the advice of experts, and buys up any failing organisation ripe for takeover, especially if they have proven track records of toxic debt and financial misconduct.
Maximizes return on bonuses by identifying investment opportunities, maintaining relationships with the gambling community and wasting any finance that could be paid to general staff.
Conceals financial status, by developing imaginary forecasts, manipulating results, falsifying variances and preventing improvements.
Skills and Qualifications:
Bonus planning and strategy, manipulating pay scales, lack of vision, inferiority management, resisting process improvement, thoughtlessness, misappropriating budgets, deceitfulness, escalating complexity, greed and stupidity, being a thick-skinned bastard and will be required to actively work on developing more greed and stupidity where possible.
Appendix 2
String Theory
Various Explanations thereof
“If you’ve been raised in a country where fat-cats are paid for being incompetent, politicians are stealing money on creative expense claims, cancer cannot be cured but councils spend funds on speed cameras and ridiculous parking restrictions, and Government controls are so weak that benefit-tourists, travellers and cheats can thrive without contributing anything to society, then why should the concept of parallel unive
rses be so very impossible.”
Hardiman Shriker, from the book, ‘Mend your Ways now, you Slimeballs; I know where you Live!’
“To the extent that we even understand String Theory, it may imply a massive number of possible different universes with different laws of physics in each universe, and there may be no way of distinguishing between them or saying why the laws of physics are the way they are. And if I can predict anything, then I haven't explained anything.”
Lawrence M Krauss
“Every time I get knocked on the head, I find myself in another of these realities. I really must be more careful.”
Two-Dan $mith (sic)
“In String Theory, all particles are vibrations on a tiny rubber band; physics is the harmonies on the string; chemistry is the melodies we play on vibrating strings; the universe is a symphony of strings, and the 'Mind of God' is cosmic music resonating in 11-dimensional hyperspace.”
Michio Kaku
“The String Theory proposes that there are a large number of universes, and that they come into existence via eternal inflation. As one universe continually expands, others percolate within it, and we call the whole shebang ‘the Multiverse’.”
George Dvorsky
“String theory envisions a multiverse in which our universe is one slice of bread in a big cosmic loaf. The other slices would be displaced from ours in some extra dimension of space.”
Brian Greene
“Yeah, right, but can I eat it?”
Agent Bott Scrotblogbinbinglebucketfootwanker (no relation)
About The Author
Robert Wingfield is the Project Leader of the Inca Project, a free resource for anyone with a good book to write, or who has written one and needs help to get it into print. Many excellent writers have flocked to the cause, as a viable alternative to waiting for conventional publishers to acknowledge their talent, or charging them for the pleasure of ‘vanity publishing’ their work.
This is the fourth book in the satirical ‘Dan Provocations’ series, following our dimension-hopping hero as he gets battered from one end of the multiverse to another. In order, the others are The Legend of Dan, Third Universe, Into the Fourth Universe, and The Fourteenth Adjustment.
The author lives in darkest Norfolk, UK, with naught but a collection of computer hardware, a savage wit and a writer’s hat as company.
www.cantbearsd.co.uk
www.incaproject.co.uk
Notes
[←1]
Loosely: If you mess with Time, We mess with You
[←2]
Personal Demotivation Plan – Defined as, “A continuous cycle of self-deprecation and abuse to discourage employees, teach them to hate themselves and the company and plan for the future by moving job.”
[←3]
A piece of ass one finds when traveling abroad, that he later flies in to his rural home town to show off to his friends.
[←4]
Quadrillipods have a fascination for timepieces. The overall objective is to exceed fifty.
[←5]
The forcipules are modifications of the first pair of legs, forming a pincer-like appendage always found just behind the head. They are used in the capture of prey items, injecting venom through a tube in the tip.
[←6]
Or was it the other way round?
[←7]
The last one accidentally detonated an explosive device being stored in Left Luggage at the airport and found its way into some very tasty burgers.
[←8]
Those one or two readers who have met the Skagans before will remember that they greet all visitors (and members of the opposite sex) by making energetic and imaginative love to them – the visitors, not the readers, although if that would persuade them to buy more books, then it’s a thought.
[←9]
Large sticking plasters were used extensively as sex aids in Skagan lovemaking rituals.
[←10]
Like a kangaroo court, only smaller.
[←11]
Like Euro MPs don’t, of course.
[←12]
Nigel was not its real name of course. Because humans don’t have the audible range and vocal chords to pronounce it, the alien had adopted the name to make it simple for the locals.
[←13]
Again the actual name gets lost in the translation
[←14]
See the appendix of course
[←15]
Because it was a Hynishota Pointless
[←16]
Section 14, paragraph 4, immediately under where it advised on different ways of throwing rocks at people you disagree with.
[←17]
‘Fairly Unique’ Monty was working on his oxymoron collection.
[←18]
“In particle physics, a pion is any of three subatomic particles: π0, π+ and π−. Each pion consists of a quark and an antiquark and is therefore a meson. Pions are the lightest mesons (and, more generally, the lightest hadrons), because they are composed of the lightest quarks (the u and d quarks).” Wikipedia - So now you know!
[←19]
See ‘The Legend of Dan’ and every other book in the series for explicit details.
[←20]
A traditional and popular Christmas carol from England. The earliest printed version of "I Saw Three Ships" is from the 17th century, possibly Derbyshire, and was also published by William Sandys in 1833.
[←21]
If he was the sort of fish-seller that used creative expletives, that is.
[←22]
Musical references in overdrive here – sorry.
[←23]
Jones and Welson, a manufacturer of soiled undergarments and definitely not firearms. Oddly, customs officials never looked inside the carrying cases, so it was the ideal way to smuggle contraband.
[←24]
See ‘The Legend of Dan’.
[←25]
Named after the dictator’s favourite horse, which he rode at every opportunity.
[←26]
For our hero, Neckbeard the Pirate was the Magus all along - I bet you never guessed.
[←27]
And here we have another shock revelation; ‘Ruth’ was the gynoid, Kara, all along - I bet you never guessed that either.
[←28]
See any of the other tomes in the Dan series
[←29]
For many years, ‘T in the Park’ was at the heart of Scotland’s music scene, but as all the attendees have been drowned by the normal weather conditions, and a pair of ospreys are nesting nearby, it has been discontinued.
[←30]
Laser detection system – it could have been ‘Radar’, but that is so last universe.
[←31]
The term originated with the assignment of nephews to cardinal positions by Catholic popes and bishops in the 17th Century. These nephews were usually their illegitimate offspring.
[←32]
Yes, like ‘handsomely’, but Kara had made an effort with her appearance today and looked rather girlish.
[←33]
As you guessed, it is the dummy that is animated, not the tailor, whose movements are probably described differently.
[←34]
Yes, it’s the ‘Scaler’ bag again. Bigger inside than out: a lot bigger.
[←35]
Not to be confused with a ‘black hole’, escape from which is thought to be impossible without the aid of a very creative writer.
[←36]
For full job description see Appendix 1 if you’d like to apply. The only real qualification you need is to be a certified arsehole.
[←37]
Meaning ‘Holy Moley’. Saint Gloria was famed for the moles on her skin which were said to represent the cosmos when view from behind the bike sheds.
[←38]
‘Cuff’, like golf, only you go to the clubhouse first for a skin-full and then work it off
afterwards on the caddy, every time you miss the ball.
[←39]
The Mock Pirates were feared universally as they would board your vessel, and then, when you’d given them all your valuables, stand around poking fun at what you were wearing.
[←40]
Badloser liked being mean, or because he was so good at being it, more than one ‘means’.
[←41]
For comic effect and to further humiliate the Weasel.
The Fifth Correction Page 29