“That looks dangerous,” Geezer said numbly.
“It is.”
“Excellent.” Geezer rubbed his hands together excitedly. “Where do we start?”
NORKLANDIA
King Brand Jezden sat upon his throne in a marble room.
His crown was made of platinum and gold and was crested with multiple jewels and diamonds. The throne was large and cushy and it overlooked a sea of worshippers, guards, and prisoners. He was surrounded by a harem of impossibly beautiful women, which he felt was fitting since he considered himself to be an impossibly handsome man.
To his left sat the most beautiful of them all. It was his queen, Jiggly Nipples. He had provided precise direction for her construct. She had long dark hair, blue eyes, a set of norks that could cure impotence throughout the galaxy. Best yet, he’d made sure that she couldn’t speak. She could make proper sounds that followed along with sexual activities, of course, but she had been developed as a nag-free model. His entire harem carried this particular feature.
“Get me some more grapes,” Jezden told his queen, “would ya, babe?”
“Oooh,” she replied.
“Love this place,” he said as she wiggled down the steps and headed off towards the kitchen. While all of the women strewn out at his feet were a sight to behold, Queen Jiggly Nipples was perfection personified … to Jezden anyway.
He sighed happily and then clapped his hands.
“Bring in the first prisoner!”
The guards dragged in a man who was yelling out, “I didn’t do anything, my lord!” from the moment he crossed through threshold of the entryway. It was Peon Grover Curr. He was always in trouble for one thing or another.
“He’s lying, sir,” said Guard Hemlo as they finally got to the foot of Jezden’s throne podium.
“Most certainly lying,” the Guard Londy agreed.
“I am not,” Curr said.
“Yes, you are,” Hemlo stated.
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“Will you two shut the shit up?” commanded Jezden, quieting them down. He focused in on Curr. “What is it you’re being accused of, dude?”
“They said that I tried to storm the castle walls, sire, but I live here. Why would I need to storm the walls?”
“Maybe you were trying to see my chicks naked, man?”
“What? No, sire! That would be rude and … no, I promise you that I was not doing that.”
“We found this on him,” Hemlo said, holding up a white piece of parchment with a stick figure drawing that had long hair and a couple of round circles near the arms. They had dots at the end of them.
“That’s not mine,” Curr cried out.
“You were going to sell these on the black market, weren’t ya?” Jezden accused.
“Honestly, no!”
“Take him below to the probing table. One-hour sentence.”
“Wait,” Curr said anxiously. “You’re not going to just throw me in jail like you always do?”
“Nope. Our torture master came up with the probing table for us to use as a punishing, uh, tool. It’s proved to be much more effective than jail time, man.”
“Oh,” Curr said with a worried look as Hemlo snapped his fingers and two other guards came up and pulled Curr away. “What’s the probing table do, exactly?” Curr asked the guards.
“You don’t want to know,” one of them replied.
“Let’s just say you’re going to be sitting funny for a while,” said the other one as they exited the room.
By now, Hemlo and Londy had the next prisoner standing at the base of the podium. It was the spitting image of Stanley Parfait. Jezden had always felt a hint of animosity towards the old guy because he had apparently designed all facets of Jezden. He was cool with most of the design choices, obviously, but for some reason Parfait had made Jezden a jerk. The android knew that he was a jerk because the chicks on the Reluctant always called him one, even if they still wanted him to bone them from time-to-time.
“What did you do, guy?”
“There’s no point in denying it, sire,” answered Parfait. “Your wisdom exceeds all bounds.”
“Yeah, true. So, what’s the gig?”
“I looked at the women ... a lot. I have pictures all over the place and drawings too. I make tons of money on them.”
“Is that so?” Jezden replied. “Hey, weren’t you in here a couple of days ago for this same crime?”
“I was, sire, but I can’t seem to help myself. I should be, uh, sorely punished.”
“Yeah? Maybe five hours on the probing table will straighten you up.”
“I’m sure it will,” Parfait said with wiggling eyebrows. “More than once, no doubt.”
“What?”
“But, to be fair, sire,” Parfait added quickly, “you gave me five hours last time and it’s clear that it wasn’t enough to dissuade me from being naughty.”
“Hmmm.”
“It was wonderful … erm, I mean horrible, sire, but I obviously didn’t learn my lesson.”
“Ten hours, then,” Jezden commanded. “That will teach you!”
“Your wisdom truly knows no bounds, sire,” Parfait said almost joyfully as he skipped away with the guards.
Jiggly had returned and began feeding Jezden grapes. They were delicious.
He glanced over his harem while waiting for Hemlo and Londy to bring up the next prisoner. They were all delectable indeed, especially the replicas of Ridly and Moon. He had enhanced both of them a fair amount and had made sure that Moon was locked in to using the Gravity Plahdoo personality that had long disappeared when all three of Moon’s original personalities had been merged into one. Liberating or not, it was a sad day for men everywhere.
He looked up to find that Peon Kip Sandoo was being held in place by the guards.
“What did you do, fella?”
He didn’t reply.
“This guy was found stealing from the rich and giving to the poor,” Hemlo said.
“Why?”
“Says it was the right thing to do,” answered Londy with a shrug.
“It is?” Jezden felt confused. “Speak, prisoner!”
“The poor need your help and you do not care about them, King Tyrant,” Sandoo said menacingly. “Thus, I took it into my own hands to rectify the situation.”
“It’s King Jezden,” Jezden said, correcting the man. “There is no King Tyrant that I’m aware of.” He glanced at the two guards questioningly, but they had clearly not heard of this King Tyrant either. “Maybe you stole from him and not me, dude?”
“No, I stole from you.”
“Stealing is bad, guy,” Jezden said with a grimace. “You’ll end up dead for that.”
Jiggly leaned over and said, “Oooh and ahhh” in such a way that Jezden understood what she was suggesting.
“Good point, baby,” he said and then gave her a kiss. “My babe here says that I should ask if you’d rather face death or the probing machine?”
“I am an honorable man, King Tyrant,” Sandoo said firmly. “Though I admit that I stole from you in order to feed the impoverished, I only did so because there was more honor in that act than in doing nothing.”
“Dude, my name isn’t King Tyrant, it’s …” Jezden paused as his face furrowed for a moment. “Oh, I get it now. Not cool, man. Not cool.”
“I call them as I see them,” Sandoo said, his face betraying no emotion.
“Whatever, dude. So what’s it going to be? You want death or the probing machine?”
“As I said, King Tyrant …”
“Seriously, man, cut it with the name-calling, yeah?”
“… I am an honorable man. The rules on your books state very clearly that the punishment for stealing from your castle is death.”
“True, but we’re trying this new method of punishment that seems to be working pretty good, except for with that last guy anyway.”
“I have heard of this machine of yours,” S
andoo stated stoically, “and I am too much of a man to be subjected to it.”
“So you’re choosing death, dude?”
“Of course I am, you idiot.”
Hemlo smacked Sandoo on the back of his head. Londy elbowed him in the stomach at the same time. The man doubled over, but eventually pulled himself back to his feet.
“Peon Kip Sandoo, man,” King Jezden decreed after Sandoo finally recovered, “you are sentenced to execution for the crime of thievery against your king.”
“Fine.”
“Hanging, sire?” Hemlo asked.
“No.”
“Burning oil?” Londy queried.
“Nope.”
“Drawn and quartered?” said Hemlo, hopefully.
“Nay,” Jezden said, holding up his hand. “He is sentenced to death by way of the probing table!”
“Oooh!” said his queen.
FREXLE REPORTS
Frexle had returned to the Reluctant with Grog and Vlak as Inkblot was still not prepared to take on the two cavemen quite yet.
They headed off to engineering as he walked into the guest quarters and shut the door.
He put a call in to the Lord Overseer.
“Have you retrieved them yet?” Veli said upon answering the call, not even bothering with pleasantries … not that Veli ever bothered with pleasantries.
“Not yet, my lord,” Frexle answered. “I’m working on it.”
“What could possibly be so complicated?”
“They are all inside of fantasies, Lord Overseer. It seems that when a person is inside of a fantasy there are blocks in place that stop interference.”
“Ah, yes,” Veli said. “That’s true.”
“What’s that, my lord?” Frexle said, even though he’d heard the Lord Overseer clearly.
“Nothing, nothing at all. Well, you should contact their control people and explain the importance of getting them out.”
“I already have, sir. They said that they cannot interrupt due to the rules and regulations set forth by the owner of Fantasy Planet.”
“Shit. I have to admit that I never expected something like this to happen.”
“Sorry, sir?” said Frexle.
“Uh, was just uh … talking to someone else.” Veli coughed. “Just do your best. As soon as each of them exit a fantasy, get them aboard your ship. Once you have them all, get back here immediately.”
“Of course, my lord.”
SPLITTING UP
Sandoo followed Harr like a scolded puppy as they walked along the corridor to the next set of rooms.
“Sir, I’d really like to explain.”
“No, thank you,” Harr said, unable to keep himself from allowing Sandoo to stew in his own embarrassment for a while. “No time for it it now, or likely ever, Commander. Now, you go in and get Curr out of his fantasy and I’ll get Middleton out of his.”
“Yes, sir.”
Harr stepped through the door and immediately shaded his eyes. The sun was bright on the wide deck that Miles Middleton was lounging on. There were mountains on either side, the sound of crashing waves straight ahead, and the weather was impeccable. Now, this was a fantasy.
“Brilliant,” Middleton was calling out while clapping as a man flew off of a board on the right mountain. The instant the man was hovering between the two hills, a gigantic blade came out and sliced him in two. “Simply brilliant,” Middleton repeated and then glanced back at Harr and said, “Ah, there you are, towel boy.” He pointed at his forehead. “You may notice that my brow is damp.”
“Towel boy, eh?” Harr said under his breath.
“I had expected you to return with my tea by now, too,” Middleton said in a manner that suggested he was chastising Harr.
“Didn’t know you drank tea,” he said as he approached Middleton. “Didn’t know you drank anything at all, actually. Come to think of it, I also didn’t know that you could sweat.”
“Granted, it’s for show, but this is my fantasy, yes? So I demand that you grab that towel, “ he added as he pointed at the towel that sat on a small glass table. “Yes, that’s the one.”
Harr picked it up and let it unfold in his hands.
“Excellent. Now, if you would wipe my brow ... ow ... ow ... ow!”
Middleton jumped to his feet and moved away from Harr.
“Hey, what the heck are you doing? You’re not supposed to strike me with the towel.”
Harr threw the towel forcefully to the ground.
“I’d appreciate if you called me ‘sir’ at the end of that statement, Ensign Middleton.”
“Uh …” Middleton looked over Harr carefully.
He couldn’t manage to say much, which Harr assumed was due to the fact that the android was catching on to what was really happening here.
Finally, Middleton pointed at Harr and squeaked, “Real?”
“It’s one thing to pretend about me this way, Ensign, but I’m assuming that’s Curr over there that you’ve been flinging about?”
Middleton looked at his feet. “Yes, sir.”
“That I don’t approve of. Now, get your butt in gear. We have a mission to attend to.”
§ § §
“You there, mop boy,” Curr said to a man who looked a lot like Captain Harr, “clean up that puddle that Sub-Ensign Middleton left on the floor.”
“Yes, sir,” Fake Harr said. “Straightaway, sir!”
Curr clasped his hands together and smiled brightly. “Fantasy Planet truly is the best.”
“Ensign Curr?” said Commander Sandoo.
“I’m an Admiral, thank you very much! The nerve.” He pointed at the guards and said, “Vaporize him.” They did nothing. “Do it!” Again, nothing. “Why aren’t they doing it?”
“Probably because I’m not a simulation, Ensign.”
“What are you, then?”
“I’m your commanding officer.”
“Oh, shit,” Curr said. “You mean you’re really Commander Sandoo?”
“Yes.”
“Uh …”
“We have a mission. You need to come with me.”
“Okay, yeah, sure,” Curr said, swallowing hard. “Uh, don’t say anything to the captain about him being my mop boy, yeah?”
“Don’t worry,” Sandoo replied. “He’s seen worse.”
SHUT DOWN
The two robots were working on affixing the new battery into Geezer’s chest compartment when Grog and Vlak walked into the room. Goozer had caught sight of them out of the corner of his eye (which was only possible because he and Geezer had updated their visual fields to be capable of such things), but he was too focused on connecting Geezer’s battery to pay much attention to them.
“Frexle sent you back up, eh?” said Geezer.
“He’s in one of the rooms,” answered Grog. “Said he had to report in to his boss or something.”
“Ah.”
“Stay still,” admonished Goozer. “These wires are much larger than I’m used to working with.”
“Sorry,” Geezer replied.
A few moments later, Goozer walked back out and then jumped down onto Geezer’s desk. He pulled out a tiny rag and began wiping his hands with it. There was nothing like the feeling of a job well-done.
“Now you connect up those wires there and you’ll be free of the ship.”
“I thought you were connecting the wires,” said Geezer.
“Only the miniature ones,” Goozer replied with a chuckle. “I can’t even lift most of these larger ones. Besides, if either of those two wires touch me, I’ll be zapped into infinity.”
The truth was that while the rest of the crew of The Ship were rather tiny indeed, Goozer had the ability to increase his size to almost four times his norm. He’d never asked Geezer why this particular feature was built in to him, considering that Geezer himself could not do this, but Goozer assumed it had something to do with making one’s creation better than one’s self. So while he had to increase in size to work on Geezer’s ch
est cavity, he didn’t want to grow to the point where he could work with the more dangerous wires. That was another thing that Geezer had integrated into his programming: self-preservation.
“Ah, right.” Geezer looked down at the wires and the leads. “Which wire goes where?”
“Red to green and green to red,” answered Goozer.
“Really?”
“As far as you know.”
“Right.”
“What are you guys doing?” asked Vlak.
“Looks like a battery of some sort,” noted Grog.
Vlak leaned in and looked over the box that lay inside of Geezer’s chest.
“Is that fission?” he asked, eyes wide.
Goozer put his rag away and surveyed the two men. He’d not recalled seeing them before, but that could be because they weren’t important enough to have been on the introductions list. For all he knew, there were another twenty people on the Reluctant that he’d yet to meet. Heck, there were plenty of people on his own ship that he’d only had occasional interactions with, after all.
“Who are these guys?” he asked Geezer.
“Temporary assignments,” Geezer replied while studying the two wires. “Picked them up from a prehistoric planet.”
“It wasn’t prehistoric to us,” argued Grog.
“I’d say it was historic to us,” agreed Vlak. “We kept records and everything. Granted, now that the Feeder has opened my eyes and mind a fair bit, I recognize that drawings of stick figures and sheep ain’t much, but it was current events to us.”
“Well said, Vlak,” Grog stated and then turned to Geezer. “We had a growing subscriber base, actually.”
“If you count the two of us, anyway,” Vlak added.
“Exactly.”
“It’s just a term ...” Geezer started, but then stopped. “Okay, they come from a planet where these two had discovered fire.”
Platoon F: Quadology: Missions 6, 7, 8, and 9 (Platoon F eBook Bundle 2) Page 31