What Kind of Fool?: A Science Fiction Comedy (These Foolish Things Book 2)

by J Battle

  I really wasn't expecting the snow.

  Chapter 16 Now… I really should be wearing my good pants

  'So, how did you know my name?'

  Ing looks down at me as if the answer is obvious. It may well be, but not to me.

  I've managed to convince his spaceship that I actually exist and the deck has extruded something that looks a little like a stool, but its top isn't quite flat and it has bumps in all the places where I'd prefer there not to be bumps when it's my bottom and delicate bits that are resting on it.

  Still, it would be impolite not to sit, so I'm sitting.

  'I have had much contact with your AI, and his colleagues, and it was arranged that we meet here to investigate the local situation and discover what benefit can be obtained for our separate races.'

  'The local situation being a water world dominated by a mind controlling monster,' I offer.

  'That is a little simplistic, Phil. And judgmental, if you don't mind me saying.'

  'I was the one it had Ing shooting at, so I think I have a right to be judgmental.' I'm right; aren't I?

  'That may well be the case, but we still have a job to do here. Ing's world needs the water, and we need somewhere to redevelop our fish stocks.'

  'So we're going to steal its water, and fill what's left with alien fish?'

  'That again is not the complete picture, but, yes, broadly you are right.'

  'And what's my job?' I can see it coming, but I have to ask.

  'You and Ing will persuade Kleptrip of the benefits that will pertain if it works in a friendly and co-operative manner with us on this project.'

  'I can't even persuade my sister to make me a coffee!' I snap; entirely justified I think. Am I ever going to have a normal, stay at home, boring sort of life again? Don't answer; even if you know, let me pretend that when I leave here, that'll be it.

  'I'm sure that, with your unique experience of interfacing with alien species, and with the help of our associate here, you will do an excellent job of fulfilling this task to a mutually beneficial level.'

  ‘And?’

  There's always an and, isn't there?

  'And I'll be here in an advisory role in the event that a situation occurs where a modicum of intelligence is required.'

  I would be insulted, but something has just occurred to me, and I know it's obvious, and you've probably been asking yourself the very same question for ages, but I'm hesitating to bring it up, because he'll only make some disparaging remark about my intellectual failings, or he'll tell me something I don't want to know; and you know how I feel about that.

  ‘Why hasn't this mind control monster tried to take over my mind?’

  There; I've asked it. It wasn't that hard, was it?

  'I have been shielding you from any undue influence…'

  ‘But?’

  There's always a but, isn't there?

  'But, when you are ready; when you are certain that you are absolutely comfortable with the concept, when you feel that you can trust me completely, when all of your fears…'

  ‘Get on with it, man! You're making me worried with your not getting to the point. You sound like me.’

  'You are quite right, Philip. Knock, knock.'

  Now I am worried. Whatever he's going to tell me, it must be so bad he's got to tell a knock-knock joke first.

  ‘Who's there?’ I ask, just to get it done with.

  'Doctor.'

  I know this one, I think.

  ‘Doctor who?’

  'No, he's far too busy to waste his time with you. You’ll need to make an appointment.'

  ‘Is that it?’

  'Maybe it still needs a little work?'

  ‘Maybe it still needs a little humour. Now you've got me all relaxed, tell me what I need to know.’

  'Well now, that is a long list. Where shall I start?'

  ‘Let's be situation specific, shall we?’

  'If you insist, but you really should investigate the event horizon of a black hole; you'd be fascinated; I'm sure.'

  ‘I'm quite fascinated by my current, particular circumstances, Neville.’

  'As I was saying earlier, when you are ready, I will lift the barrier that protects you from Kleptrip's influence.'

  ‘I knew you were going to say that,’ I snap, because I'd seen it coming. ‘Won't I go crazy and start acting irrationally?’

  I know, I've left myself open here.

  'Would we notice the difference, Phil?' Then he laughs. He hasn’t laughed before, and I wish he'd stop. He hasn't quite got it right. If you imagine the sound someone makes when they've been hit on the head with a cricket bat and combine that with the sound of a sea lion in heat, then you'll be pretty close.

  ‘Very funny,’ I say. ‘But it was a serious question.’

  'You have no need to worry, Phil. Although you will be open to its influence, all of your thoughts and actions will be filtered through me, so you will cause no harm to yourself or others, apart from the that inflicted by your lamentable taste in clothes.'

  ‘So, to protect me from the mind control of Kleptrip, you are going to control my mind?’

  'Yes, but in a nice way. I won't make you do silly things, record it and post it on all of your favorite social media sites; honest, you can trust me.'

  ‘OK, if we've got to do this, then I want a time limit on it. Let's start with one minute, then the barrier comes down again and we evaluate what we've learned. How does that sound?’

  'I'm not convinced we'll learn much in such a short time. Ask Ing what he thinks.

  'What do you think?' I ask Ing, after I'd told him everything he'd missed.

  'You might find that you want it to last much longer than one minute, Philip, or one minute might seem like an especially long time to you.'

  I'm going to do something quite remarkable now. I'm not going to over-think what could go wrong, or spend hours worrying about the possible consequences, or go on about the chances of being eaten. I'm not going to employ any of my usual delaying tactics. I'm not going to sleep on it, or dwell over a pint or a coffee. I'm not going to try to find someone else to take my place, or argue that it's not a good day to do this; that the stars are not correctly aligned or that, for a job like this, I really should be wearing my good pants.

  Nope; none of that. Any minute now I'm going to say, go on then, let's do it.

  'Your wish is my command.' He knows I'm not ready, but he does it any way.

  Now this is… strange. I'm saying strange because it's surely a better word than the first word that came into my head. Soggy. I was going to say this is soggy.

  I'm looking at my legs as If I don't know quite what they are for, and I don't think I've got enough fingers on my hands. Five always seemed sufficient before, but now, well, thirty two is a nice number.

  I seem to be on my stomach now; well the floor of the spaceship is very close to my face, so I can't think of another explanation. This close, it looks really grubby. It must be hard to maintain a good cleaning routine when you're whizzing around the universe.

  'Hello, Phil. Can you hear me, Phil?'

  It's Neville, and of course I can hear him. I think he expects a response, so a wriggle my lower limb frills as if to say, yes I hear you but I'm a little busy right now.

  'Phil, can you hear me, Phil?'

  I don't think he understands Frill.

  Now it's all over and my mind is clear.

  ‘Wow,’ I say. ‘That was sort of freaky and weird, but, I don't know, strangely, wow.’

  'What did you learn?'

  ‘Don't load me with that, man,’ I say, still feeling a little disconnected.

  'I knew one minute would not be enough,' said Neville, in an 'I told you so' sort of voice.

  ‘Let's try an hour then,’ I suggest, because I want to do it again.

  'We should compromise and try ten minutes,' replied Neville.

  ‘OK, now.’

  Something is looking at Ing through my eyes; I can feel it.
I'm looking him up and down as if I'm just about to ask him out on a date.

  I've got my strange hands running up and down my body, pausing every now and then to prod and squeeze, just to see how this odd body feels. Somehow my hands are inside my pants and Ing is looking at me and I'm getting …no, it's OK, that's stopped now, but my head feels funny. It's as if cold minestrone soup is being slowly poured onto my head and is dripping down my face and neck; now it's dripping down my back and I want to get a towel and clean it all up, but I can't move my legs.

  My mouth opens and, I don't know, it's a noise that comes out. Like a grunt or a groan, as if I'm not sure how to use my tongue and lips to form words.

  I'm trying to help, but I don't know what I'm doing. All I do know is that it is very important that I say something to Ing.

  'Ing.' There, I've said it. It wasn't that hard after all, but I've no idea where it's gets us.

  I'm not sure if he's giving me a funny look, because all of his looks seem strange and unfathomable to me.

  'Yes, Phil?' he says very slowly. I think he's saying it slowly but I'm sure my times sense is a little out. I think I've been under for hours, but Neville is supposed to drop the barrier after 10 minutes. That's right, isn't it? You heard him.

  Unless he's forgotten, or perhaps he can't. Maybe he and Kleptrip are fighting for control of my mind, and my head is a battlefield.

  I should be more worried, I suppose.

  What's happening now? I'm moving; good, my legs still work. But where am I going?

  Oh, I'm walking towards Ing.

  'Hi Ing,' I say, and my voice sounds almost normal, although it's not me speaking.

  'Please help me,' we say; at least I'm not trying to kill him, I think, which is good.

  'What can I do for you?' his voice seems about right now, speed-wise. Perhaps Kleptrip is getting the hang of this verbal communication lark.

  'Ssch, Ssch, Ssch,' we whisper, so quietly even I can't hear what we are saying.

  Ing bends down and says, 'Can you repeat that, Phil?'

  Then, as quick as something really, really fast, I grab his hat and then I freeze.

  Now I can sort of feel the battle raging in my head. In the red corner is some faceless sea monster; I don't know what it looks like but I don't like the way it groped my crotch. In the blue corner is my irritating, wisecracking passenger. It occurs to me that I don't know what he looks like either, but at least he's never tried to slip my hands inside my pants.

  Then it's over and I let go of Ing's hat with my perfectly normal and really quite elegant hands.

  'Are you OK?' asks Ing, and you know, I am OK, but I'm not doing that again. No way; not in a month of Sundays. It was all just a bit too real for my liking.

  'I think we're almost there, Phil. The next time you should be able to open a dialogue between yourself and Kleptrip, and then we can start to influence her.' Neville sounds as if he's actually having fun.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I' m not going back,’ I say. ‘Never, ever, ever,’ I say, just to make my point.

  'On the count of five,' says Neville.

  ‘Look, who's in charge here?’ I snap, although I already know the answer.

  'Four.' For someone who loves to show his ability with words, Neville can sometimes be quite succinct.

  Chapter 17 Then…I don't want to talk about it

  'We should talk about this.'

  Millie didn't want to talk about this; she knew exactly what was going to be said. She'd had Argu's performance streamed directly to her base and had been witness to his greatest failure. At the end, she’d stared at the display, desperately trying to extract the tiniest amount of pleasure or humour from what she'd seen. She even watched it again, in case she'd missed some subtle stroke of genius, a hidden jest that only the most perceptive would detect.

  But, if it was there, it was so clever that even she couldn't see it.

  Teddy held up his watch for her perusal. Against her will, she looked. Phil's dial was satisfyingly red, but the Universal dial was almost as red, and that wasn't good.

  An audience of 120 billion had watched Argu's abysmal joke and the verdict was almost unanimous. Even those few who claimed to see the funny side were unable to be convincing in their support; it was nothing more than loyalty to the old joker.

  'Well, I suppose we have to do something about it,' she said begrudgingly.

  'That sounds like a good idea to me. What would you suggest?'

  'That we reduce the campaign against Chandler?'

  'Reduce?'

  'I can't stop! There are…things in place that cannot easily be stopped.'

  'Then a program of redress should be implemented.'

  'What do you mean by that?'

  'We all have our part to play in moving the Universe towards balance. If we all do our part to move those things that we can influence away from the red towards the black, then, one day, balance will be achieved.'

  Millie looked down at her teddy. Why was he preaching to her now? Preaching to a future Lord High Fulcrum; it was an insult.

  In any other situation she would have pounced on him and caused him great pain for the affront. But they were in the field and she would have to put her anger on the back burner; for a more appropriate time.

  'So, what exactly do you want me to do?' It was hard for her to accept a specific instruction from her teddy, but there was not much she could do about it for now.

  'I have an idea which I believe will make a significant shift towards the black for the Universe, and perhaps even for Chandler.'

  Millie didn't like the sound of that; not at all.

  **********

  I've never been so cold in my life. It was so cold I wasn’t even shivering. My shoulders were hunched right up to my ears, my hands were as deep as they could go in my pockets and I couldn’t feel my feet.

  If I’d had my mac and hat, I'd have set them alight to get some heat, but that wasn’t an option. All I had was my jeans and T-shirt; I wasn’t even wearing a vest.

  ‘Can't you do something?’ I asked.

  'Knock, knock.'

  ‘No! No! Something useful! I'm freezing to death here; in a matter of minutes I'll be nothing but a tall, skinny ice-pop.’

  'How about this?'

  ‘What? I can't… oh wait a minute. Yes, that feels a little… no, that's a bit too…no, no, stop it's too hot.’

  'I'll just slow them down a little. How's that?'

  I was feeling a little better. I went from being as cold as the coldest thing you could possibly imagine, to being really, really hot in a matter of seconds. I was much more comfortable somewhere in between.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked, just to make sure it was something I was comfortable with. If it wasn’t, well, I'd just have to suck it up, wouldn’t I? Blue has never been a good colour for me.

  'I'm merely agitating your nanos. The friction will keep your skin warm and extend the time before your core temperature drops to non-positive levels.

  I didn't like the sound of that. I wanted my core temperature to be… whatever it's supposed to be. I didn't want it dropping. And I knew what Neville meant when he said 'non-positive.'

  I was standing on a slope, but I had no idea how high or steep it was because it was snowing and visibility was only 20 metres or so.

  ‘What do we do now?’ I asked. ‘And why are we here?’

  'Someone is…'

  ‘What? What's wrong? What's going on?’ Neville had gone all quiet and I didn't like it; not when I haven't told him to shut up, and not when he was about to say something that sounded very much to me like a warning.

  I was beginning to panic, and there was no-one to tell me to calm down or tell me bad jokes. I never thought I'd miss the constant chatter, but I was on my own and, really, what could I do without him?

  There was a movement ahead of me; just a disturbance in the white blanket that surrounded me.

  What should I do? It could have been my rescuers, heroicall
y braving the fierce cold to save a stranded T-shirt wearing traveler, or it could have been a ravening monster coming to rip off my head and suck out my brains.

  You're no use at all; at least Neville would have distracted me.

  'Don't move.'

  Oh sh…I didn't like the sound of that. It was a big booming voice, and there was a big booming body right behind it.

  I should have run; I know I should have run, but it was too late. They were here.

  There was a big wide hairy creature reaching towards me with great furry claws. On either side of it there were smaller creatures; equally furry and ugly. Did I say it was ugly? I should have mentioned that, because it was.

  'Who are you?' This from the beast on the left; from the woman on the left; apparently.

  The bigger beast pulled back his hood, and he was a man. That was a relief.

  They've come to save me, I thought; it's a good job I didn't run after all.

  'Hi, ' I said, smiling. 'Thank you, thank you, thanks.' I was very grateful to them.

  'What's that thing in your head?' This was the woman on the left; she didn't sound especially friendly. Perhaps they did this all of the time and she was just fed up at having to miss her favorite TV program again.

  'Don't worry; I've fried it with this,' said the third individual in a voice that didn't really give its gender away. It had something like a flimsy crossbow in it hand,

  'You've fried Neville!' I know I shouldn't have been so ungrateful, but that was a step too far.

  The big guy threw an arm over my shoulder and it was really heavy.

  'Come with us; out of the cold,' he grunted and, without a conscious decision on my part, we were walking through the snow.

  'Who are you?' I asked, as it seemed the polite thing to do.

  He grunted and gave me a squeeze. I wasn’t quite sure how to take I,t but I decided to interpret it as a friendly hug and leave it at that, for the moment. If the situation changed for the worse, I could always revisit that evaluation, if I was still alive.

  There was a building just ahead of us, looming out of the snow, which was the best thing I'd seen in a while, because I didn't think my nanos were being quite as enthusiastic as they had been in their attempt to keep me warm and, if you ask me, I was pretty sure that my core temperature had dropped.