“So Pierre,” he began, “how did you escape the Co-leen?”
“Ah well, my little friend,” said Pierre drawing on a cigarette as he spoke, “the Co-leen may be clever, and powerful, but they made one crucial mistake when it came to me.”
“Oh?” he queried.
“Why yes,” replied Pierre flicking his gittane away, “the Co-leen came to Krassis quite recently you know, and it was here that a large battle took place. Many seasons in and we thought that the war could still go either way. We still had some tricks up our sleeves, and we were expecting to be reinforced any day.”
“What happened then?”
“The Burn,” answered the Frenchman.
“The Burn?”
“Something that should never have been allowed to exist, by anyone’s standards!”
The Burn was an experimental technology that took advantage of a new development in chaos physics. Chaos physics attempted to explain the inherent laws of the universe by introducing elements of randomness into everyday science. So where it was universally understood that mass could be explained by sitting in a bath and watching the displacement of the water. Chaos physics went on to say that were the bath instead made of wheat, and filled instead with ambivalence, and rather than getting in the bath you sketch it using a hammer, then the resulting science, though certainly weirder, was actually a pretty fair summary of a universal law. The Burn was a quite unexpected result when some chaos physicists got together and decided to introduce some dark energy, and balloons in a particle accelerator. The resulting fission created an atom so evil, that it made Hitler look like he had a pretty decent shot at a posthumous Nobel peace prize. This atom was then placed in conventional missiles, and the resulting explosions, would quite literally burn away a planet.
“Sounds serious,” he remarked, perhaps a little too casually.
“It is serious,” said Pierre, “so serious in fact, that they have used this Burn to destroy almost all intelligent life, all that is were it not for you and I, my little chickadee.”
“Then how did you escape?”
“Well then my little pastry puff, they had me cornered not too far from this very spot, I had been hiding out in a disused water hockey rink. When they came upon me, I had only one option left available to me.”
“Which was?” asked Fendel, wide-eyed.
“I will show you,” said Pierre undoing his trouser fly as he spoke.
“No, no, it’s quite alright!” he said alarmed.
“But I insist, my cherry pie, you must realize the truth of this!” said Pierre removing his trousers in one practiced movement.
Fendel’s eyes were now firmly closed, refusing as he was to register the Frenchman’s immediate truth.
“Hold out your hand, and prepared to be amazed!” insisted Pierre.
“No thanks, must rush, got to see a dog about a man and all that,” he said wishing he still had his emergency teleport belt buckle.
“Open your eyes and behold my magnificence!” demanded the Frenchman.
Now sure, he was certainly no prude, and he definitely did not want to offend his newly made friend, he did however feel that opening his eyes was probably not the most optimized option left available to him, so decided instead that he would open one eye very quickly, closing it again almost as it had opened.
“Well,” said Pierre smugly, “what do you think?”
“What?!”
“Yes.”
“But you’re a… I mean, that you’re a…” he stammered.
“I know, it’s quite something huh?!”
He had glimpsed Pierre standing fully naked atop a nearby bench. He registered his head being as what he would have expected, however below that, it was really anyone’s guess. Pierre’s neck ended in a spring like device, not unlike what Pete would call a slinky. The slinky then attached to a swirling ball which moved much like an eddy of mist, this ball formed the upper half of Pierre’s torso, which had two humanoid arms attached. The lower half of his torso was made entirely of some kind of metal, which reflected the light of the fires around him. In the centre of this chrome body was a tiny door, behind which he assumed must be some sort of processing unit, or terrifically handy compartment for ciggies. Again two humanoid legs attached here, which meant that when Pierre threw on a shirt, no one would give him a second glance.
“You’re a… You’re a…”
“Yes,” put in Pierre, “go on.”
“You’re a… What are you?!” he shouted suddenly.
“I’m your friend Fendel, you have nothing to fear from me.”
“Right okay sure,” he replied, “it’s just that up until five clicks ago, I kinda assumed that you and I were on the level, you know, a team.”
“And why should this bother you?” asked Pierre putting his trousers back on.
“Well, for starters, what in Hupa Hool are you?”
“I am French my little cherub, I am here to help you to get back to your friends and defeat the Co-leen menace,” replied Pierre, opening the compartment in his body.
“Oh really?!” said Fendel, “and why should I believe you?”
“You don’t really have a choice now do you,” answered the Frenchman, removing a sinister looking cheese knife from behind his metal door.
“Now hang on, what are you going to do with that?!”
“This!”
And as Pierre spoke, he plunged the knife deep into Fendel’s heart, killing him instantly.
17.
Pete, Slip and Crinkle made their merry way back to the Humdinger. Once aboard, Pete was the first to speak.
“Right, time travel then, where to start? “
“Well,” said Crinkle, “we don’t want to get carried away and just crank the think up to eleven and hit go, this needs to be planned out methodically, you know with forethought.”
“Yeah,” agreed Slip, grabbing a hammer.
“Okay, forethought huh,” said Pete, “and what was that energy conversion thing you mentioned?”
“Well,” she began, “the Humdinger has its own energy conversion unit onboard, so everything that we don’t use, from leftover food to our toenail clippings, are pumped into it, and hey presto, we get power. Okay it’s not quite as simple as hey presto, some very technical things happen between toenail clipping and recycled energy, but as far as you’re concerned caveman, hey presto et voila!”
“Oh yeah thanks, and it’s earthman, not caveman,” he replied with a small voice.
“Yeah it’s simples!” shouted Slip, banging his hammer into a very fragile looking piece of inexplicable technology.
“Should he really being do that?”
“No probably not.”
“Hang on peeps, this is going to smart!”
And with that, Slip swung the hammer high over his head, bringing it a full 360 degrees until it finally made a colossal thud, coming to rest destructively in an array of quite startlingly confusing machines.
“Harnessing the power from 5 suns now… 6… 7 suns now,” said Crinkle.
“Wait hang on, what happened to methodically, you know, with forethought!” Pete shouted back, trying to make himself heard over the whir of machinery.
“We need more hammers!” yelled Slip.
“Pete, take the time device and attach it to that using this,” she ordered him, pointing at a glowing orb of sort, while waving in her hand an object that seriously resembled a SCART cable.
Pete took the cable and Fendel’s time travelling device, and made his way over to where she was pointing. On first inspection the orb seemed to be endless; a dark, pulsating ball of dark energy, sucking in time thirstily through its mirror-less exterior; but on further examination, he discovered there were grooves along the circumference with illegible writing underneath.
“What do I do?” he shouted.
“Plug it in!” yelled Slip, who now had another hammer, and was rhythmically banging machines in a fashion that could almost be described as metho
dical.
“Attach the device to the machine using the lead!” put in Crinkle, somewhat redundantly.
He looked back at the pulsating orb and could have sworn for a moment that the tiny language written around its edge had made sense for a moment. Squinting his eyes, he then stared harder at the cryptic writing, willing himself to understand.
“If you are reading this,” it began.
The words became hazy again, so he bit his tongue and prayed hard that he may be able to read the remaining text.
“If you are reading this…”
Damn it, he had already read that part, he must remember to only read things once in the future.
“Up to 8 now… 9… 10 suns being harnessed!” Crinkle yelled, almost entirely drowned out by the deafening throng around them.
“Then it is very likely.”
“Then it is very likely what?” he wondered.
“Then it is very likely that I am about to explode.”
“Plug it in!” yelled Slip and Crinkle in unison, who had made their way over to their DJ desk in anticipation of going on the thought waves.
He noticed then that the groove around its edge was actually a series of cable ports, one of which, looking suspiciously like a SCART socket.
“It says it’s going to blow!” he shouted.
“11… 12… 13 suns! That’s it, if you don’t do it now, we’re gonna fry!”
“Warning – maximum power conversion threshold broken – warning - maximum power conversion threshold broken.” flashed the orb.
“Well,” he thought, “this is either a terrifically dumb idea or a… No, hang on, this is a terrifically dumb idea!”
Suddenly a large hammer whizzed inches passed his nose. He turned to see a rather disgruntled Slip, banging machines with his remaining hammer and shouting at him, though he could no longer be heard over the computers.
“Fine,” he decided cathartically, plugging the device into the orb.
“Warning – explosion imminent – evacuate Humdinger.” flashed the orb, before the time device activated, and then all fell silent.
18.
Fendel awoke dead. Well not entirely dead, dead enough to qualify for an autopsy, but one which would likely end up with the attending doctor screaming something about zombies and then lunging for an axe. He awoke dead in the middle of a queue. Now he was used to queues, he could queue with the best of them. On the planet Shazam, he had once waited in line for nine stellar circuits in the hope of meeting Punkel Franbunkle, the creator of the shat, (a sort-of hat that kept your hair looking wet). Instead however, it turned out that Punkel had been assassinated on route. It later came out that the assassin was actually the renowned creator of the scap, (a sort-of cap that kept your hair dry by releasing a quite alarming amount of radiation). The scap had never really caught on see.
Now, this queue was a big one, and by big one, I mean endless, and he imagined that he could well end up spending a quite inordinate amount of time there, if he happened not to produce one of his Fabulous Fendel Plans, (copyright pending). Looking to his left he saw a Shallop from the planet Enuf, a distinctly stupid race, so was quite relived when to his right, he found a man from the planet Earth.
“Hello Pete.”
“Oh hello,” replied Pete, looking distinctly baffled.
“We haven’t met in this reality,” said Fendel reaching out his hand, “my name’s Fendel.”
“Pleased to meet you,” he reciprocated, “mind if I ask you something?”
“Please do.”
“Are we dead?”
“Oh yes, quite dead,” replied Fendel.
“Oh that’s a relief, I thought it might have been something I ate.”
“Yes I believe this queue ad infinitum, is what some would call purgatory.”
“Okay,” he agreed slowly, “so we’re dead, but in limbo, that’s what you’re saying right?”
“Yep, and by the looks of things we’re going to be here a while, here give me a boost,” said Fendel, motioning for him to link his hands together, so that he could get a leg up.
Fendel got his foot into Pete’s grip and boosted himself above the throng. Up there, he could quite clearly make out the queue now, it stretched on for as far as his eye could see, winding back on itself endlessly like a coiled spring. It was a queue with no apparent end, no beginning and no purpose, just a pointless expression of order on such a vast scale that this almost made it important in itself. When everything was considered, he did not want to hang around a click more than he had to.
“Erm excuse me,” he said, leaping down from Pete’s grip and trying to get the attention of the Shallop.
“Yes,” replied the Shallop.
“Mind if I ask you a question?”
“No,” said the Shallop in a long, slow drawl.
“How long have you been here?”
“Now that’s an interesting question,” began the Shallop in a particularly annoying voice, the kind of voice that began sentences with an “at the end of the day” or “to be perfectly honest”, Fendel was regretting his question already.
“A really interesting question,” it continued annoyingly.
“Thank-you,” he put in sarcastically.
“I’d have to say I don’t rightly know, but if I had to hazard a guess… “
“Yes please, hazard away,” he interrupted.
“If I really had to say, then I’d say somewhere between ten and twenty…”
“Yes,” he interrupted again, his impatience getting the better of him.
“Ten and twenty million circuits,” finished the Shallop triumphantly, looking ridiculously pleased with itself.
“As I thought,” he said addressing Pete, “come on, we’re leaving!”
“Oh good, I was just getting hungry,” replied Pete patting his stomach.
Fendel looked for a second time on the infinite queue that surrounded them, hoping to glean something that he may have missed that would promptly see them on their way. There was nothing more, purgatory really was a dead-end bore. So he decided there and then that drastic measures were now called for.
“Give me your shoe laces Pete,” he commanded confidently.
“My shoe laces huh, what you going to do, tie them together and form a gigantic length of rope, well in excess of, say, one whole meter?!”
“Well yes and no, yes I am going to tie them together, and no it will not be gigantic.”
“I get that,” said Pete, recognizing a quite severe irony deficiency, “what’s the plan then man?”
“Right, I’m glad you asked,” he said smiling, “how did you get here?”
“Oh some aliens called Colin or something came along and vaporized my entire planet.”
“Right, and you died.”
“Yep that’s the about the height of it,” agreed Pete.
“And I’m here because I was murdered by a double crossing, robot Frenchman.”
“What?!”
“Oh nothing,” he said hurriedly, “so I am of the opinion that since we are already dead, and we really don’t seem to making much headway here, then we should simply end it, again.”
“End it?” asked Pete “Yeah, as in hang ourselves, two wrongs make a right sorta thing.”
“Oh good, and my shoe laces form the noose then?”
“Yep.”
“And what if I don’t want to die, again?”
“Look earthman, I need to find my team, in fact, I need to find our team. This reality may be different to mine, but I’m certain that if anyone would have come up with the idea of cheating death by killing themselves, then it would have been Slip. And you may not realize this, but you’ve got some damn good pals out there, who have got your back, or at least would have, it if only they knew it existed. Now tie those shoe laces together, put one end around my neck and pull!”
Suddenly, two large humanoids dematerialized right in front of them.
“Hello, hello, hello, what have we here the
n?” the larger of the two addressed them.
“Oh typical,” thought Pete, “annoyingly predictable purgatory police of some sort!”
“Er, hello officer,” began Fendel trying to look innocent, “to what do we owe the pleasure?”
“Some talk of suicide been reported, have to follow up these things, I’m sure you understand. And what exactly are you doing with those shoe laces?”
“This,” replied Fendel removing the makeshift noose form around his neck, “we’re going skiing!”
“Funny time of year to go skiing,” queried the officer, who had obviously yet to go on the Questioning the Suspect, Getting to Know the Basics training course.
“Yes it is,” he agreed cheerfully.
“Well, that seems to clear that up then.”
“Excuse me officer,” began Pete, “but what would happen if someone committed suicide here?”
“Well, doesn’t happen often.”
“Often?”
“Yeah a group of crazies calling themselves the revolutionaries or something managed it, turned out one of them had a nuclear device in his pants, blew himself and all his friends up, I mean, mental or what?!”
“Yeah,” he agreed hollowly, winking at Pete.
“Doesn’t become itself, killing yourself when you’re already dead, the natural world just doesn’t agree with that sort of thing, not to mention the absurd logical paradigms it throws up.”
“Erm yeah,” agreed Pete feeling a little lost.
“Nothing to kill yourself with,” continued the police officer, “that’s the crux of it. No cliffs to leap off, no pills to swallow, no guns to blow your brains out.”
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