How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy

by Charles Fudgemuffin

  “Yeah, but it’d be just our luck that we’d end up blabbing to one of the few PC do-gooders and then ‘kapoof!’ All our hard work down the drain,” Azleev replied.

  “Well you can wimp out if you want,” Jixyl goaded, “but I can take my booze, so I’m having a good few more beers yet.”

  So, true to his word as always[68], Jixyl had a few more beers, while from that point onwards Azleev stuck to soft drinks.

  So when it came to the end of the night and the two friends returned home, Azleev sensibly went straight to sleep, whereas Jixyl instead had a brilliant idea. At least he thought he had a brilliant idea.

  But you see, although Jixyl was quite correct earlier in the evening when he proclaimed himself to be a ‘highly intelligent genius,’ what he failed to realise is that alcohol is no respecter of intelligence. Alcohol can transform a highly intelligent genius into a daft gormless chump. Or it can transform a daft gormless chump into an even bigger chump.

  And so, as Jixyl was considerably drunk, he had himself been transformed into a bit of a daft chump.

  Anyway, the first idea he had was to inform Stymer of the imminent success of the mission, which wasn’t in itself a bad idea.

  ‘Aye, I’ll tell Stymer the good news,’ he thought to himself. ‘I’ll send him an A.T.S. message.’ So Jixyl logged into his A.T.S. account and began typing out a message.

  But then he had a better idea. Or so he thought. ‘Nar, actually … a moment like this deserves more than a simple message. I’ll send him a Supermail.’

  And that was his ‘brilliant’ idea. But as anyone who’s ever used A.T.S. will know and testify, using an application programmed by a developer non-affiliated with A.T.S. to send a highly confidential message would have been a risky course of action even when sober. Because non-affiliated A.T.S. applications made their money based on the number of page views they generated. So in order to ensure more page views the programmers would try every way possible to get people to forward their application onto other A.T.S. users.

  Sometimes they would do this quite blatantly by refusing to let the user use their application until they forwarded a ‘recommendation’ onto twenty of their A.T.S. friends.

  But other times they would employ more devious methods, the most common of which was to include a tiny pre-ticked box hidden away at the bottom of the page, with a message along the lines of ‘okay to forward to twenty randomly generated friends’[69] written in tiny letters alongside this pre-ticked box.

  Now if Jixyl had been sober, it’s possible he may have remembered to scroll down the page to check if ‘Supermail’ was one of the non-affiliated A.T.S. applications that used such a sneaky method of self-advertising. Then again, he might not have even remembered to check for this even if he had been sober.

  But when drunk the chances of him remembering to carry out this check were slim to none.

  So after he had finished typing out his message, and finished adding all the bells and whistles that Supermail allowed you to add to your message, he then hastily clicked ‘send.’

  ‘Aye, that’s let Stymer share in the good news,’ he thought to himself, smugly.

  Unfortunately for Jixyl however, it had also let ‘twenty randomly selected A.T.S. friends’ share in the good news as well.

  One of which just so happened to be Monty.

  Chapter Nine – Petty Spite

  “Fuck!” Monty exclaimed, as he stared at the screen. “Ar, fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fffuuuccckk!!! This is bad, this. Ar, this is shockingly bad!”

  A news report had just been on TV linking Graham Souness with a possible return to the Newcastle manager’s job. Monty then logged into his A.T.S. account and discovered even more bad news.

  “Ar, fuck!” he repeated, as he read Jixyl’s Supermail message. “Ar … this is even worse! Fuck! Fuck! Fffuuuccckk!!!”

  It was clear from the message Jixyl had sent Stymer that the Femlings weren’t planning to kill every living species on Earth after all. In fact from Jixyl’s message it was clear that the Femlings were no threat to Earth whatsoever. In fact the reason why Jixyl and Azleev had decided to help Eric kill all the Femlings with the Telix-17 virus was due to one thing and one thing only.

  Petty spite. The Fyralings were jealous of the Femlings and their five fingers. That was the reason why Eric was at this moment living on a planet billions of miles away across the galaxy with the intention of unleashing a species-obliterating disease upon its population. Petty spite and jealousy. Not saving the Earth from a race of evil planetocidal maniacs. That was all lies. Jixyl and Azleev had fed Eric a load of patter. It was simply petty spite. Pure and simple.

  “Ar, fuck!” Monty repeated, once again. “Fuck! This is fucking bad this, like!”

  Monty had once been told that ‘profanity was a lazy mind trying to express itself.’ However, it has to be said that on this occasion the motivation for Monty’s profanity was in no way related to laziness. On this occasion the motivation for Monty’s profanity was that he was shit-scared out of his fucking brain.

  Furthermore, as the narrator I would also like to point out that the profanity in my narrative description of Monty’s state of mind, namely that he was ‘shit-scared out of his fucking brain’ was in no way due to laziness either. Rest assured that I considered several descriptions before deciding that ‘shit-scared out of his fucking brain’ was the description that most accurately conveyed Monty’s state of mind at this time.

  Anyway…

  “Fuck! I don’t fucking believe it!” Monty exclaimed. “The Fyralings have been stringing us along all this time. Fuck! This is fucking scary!” he fearfully, not lazily, added.

  But then suddenly, Monty’s fear was instantly replaced by intense joy and relief as he came to a logical realisation.

  “Hang on a second, though!” he uttered. “If the Fyralings have been patter merchants all this time then that means the Femlings don’t want to kill us after all! Earth’s safe! The Femlings aren’t evil planetocidal maniacs! Yes!” He punched the air with delight. “Ar, yes! Ar, fucking get in!” That time I have to admit it was just laziness. “The Femlings are sound! Earth’s safe! I’m going to live! Yes! I’m going to live!” But then though, Monty suddenly couldn’t help feeling a little bit selfish at his last comment, so he corrected his thoughts. “I mean … we’re going to live. Everyone’s safe. We’re all going to be okay.” The lack of exclamation marks on his corrected thoughts, however, gave the game away as to what brought Monty the most relief between his survival and everyone else’s survival.

  Suddenly however, as quickly as his joy had arrived, it was instantly gone again. “Ar, hang on, though,” he uttered. “If the Fyralings are full of patter and the Femlings don’t actually want to obliterate life from Earth, then that means the Femlings are harmless. And innocent. The Fyralings are purely killing them out of petty jealousy and spite. Not to save Earth. Just out of petty jealousy and spite.” Monty stared into space for a few moments. “Ar, fuck! Eight billion Femlings might die and they’re totally harmless.” Monty stared into space for a few more moments as the enormity of his realisation hit him like a twenty ton mallet.[70]

  “Well actually I would probably guess that only about ninety percent of the Femlings are sound,” he told himself. “There’s bound to be about ten percent of them that aren’t very nice people … so ninety percent times eight billion … that’s only…” He did some quick sums in his head. “…a lot of sound Femlings that are going to die.[71] Woah, that’s still a lot, like.” He stared into space for a few seconds longer, before exclaiming, “Ar, well. It’s a shame for them, like,” with, it has to be noted, rather less enthusiasm than had been present earlier when he was exclaiming his joy at realising he wasn’t going to die.

  But then, once again, it was fear which became the very much dominant emotion in Monty’s brain. “Fuck! If the Fyralings will kill eight billion… sorry, slightly less than eight billion harmless Femlings, just cos of a petty digital inferiority co
mplex, then what will they do to Eric? Fuck! Once the mission is over he’ll be the only one that knows they were responsible so they’ll probably want to ensure his silence. Fuck! Eric is in danger! They’ll probably kill him! Fuck! Eric’s in deep shit!”

  And then an even scarier thought entered Monty’s head. “Fuck! I know about the mission as well! Fuck! They’ll probably kill me as well! Ar, fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I’m in deep shit!”

  And then another not quite as scary but nevertheless far from ideal thought entered Monty’s head. “Ar … and Garth knows as well. So he’s in danger as well.”

  “Fuck!” Monty shook his head in despair. “I need to warn Eric,” he remarked, getting his focus together. “And Garth.”

  Warning Garth was a rather simple task that involved nothing more than simply sending him a text message asking him to come over immediately as he had something extremely important to discuss.

  But how to warn Eric presented quite a problem. It was clear from the message Jixyl had inadvertently sent Monty that Jixyl and Azleev had access to Eric’s A.T.S. account, so taking the chance that Eric was going to log into his A.T.S. account before either Jixyl or Azleev did was a considerable risk. And given that eight billion (and three) lives were at stake, a two to one gamble was a worryingly dangerous gamble to take. And when you also considered that so far Eric seemed more interested in just enjoying the sunshine than keeping up-to-date with his A.T.S. messages, the odds were probably even considerably greater than two to one that Eric would read the warning message before Jixyl or Azleev.

  But A.T.S. was currently the only way Monty had of communicating with Eric. He wasn’t blessed with the gift of interplanetary travel like Jixyl and Azleev. He didn’t even have an interplanetary mobile phone. All he had was A.T.S.

  So once Garth arrived Monty quickly brought him up-to-date with the situation in the hope that together they would be able to come up with a safe means of contacting Eric.

  “Fuck! This is totally fucked up, this, like,” Garth anxiously, not lazily, exclaimed.[72]

  “Aye, I know,” Monty agreed.

  “I totally trusted them,” Garth remarked, shaking his head in disbelief. “I thought they were totally sound. Like, for putting themselves out to help us and all that.”

  “Aye, I know,” Monty agreed, once again. “Fucking twats, eh?”

  “Yeah,” Garth agreed.

  “Anyway, we need to contact Eric and we can’t send him an A.T.S. message cos Fuckface Jixyl and Tosspot Azleev have got access to his account,” Monty remarked.

  “How do you reckon they hacked his account?” Garth mused. “Just cos I’m wondering if they’ve hacked our accounts as well.”

  “Ar, I hope not,” Monty replied. “That’ll just make things even more complicated.”

  “Ar, man. I think I’ve just sussed out how they’ve done it,” Garth exclaimed.

  “How?” Monty inquired.

  “Remember the receptionist at the Jerry Springer offices that Eric told us about? They remembered the number she dialled no problem at all,” Garth recalled. “So when Eric typed out his password they’ll have done the same thing. They’ll have just watched what he typed and remembered it. They must have excellent short term memories.”

  “Fuck! You’re right! That means they can log into our accounts as well,” Monty surmised.

  “Yep,” Garth acknowledged.

  “Ar, fuck! That just complicates things even more,” Monty exclaimed.

  “Yep,” Garth once again acknowledged.

  “Ar, man. We need to contact Eric and we can’t use our A.T.S. accounts cos Jixyl and Azleev have got access to them,” Monty recapped, “and Eric can’t use his cos they’ve got access to his as well.”

  “Tricky,” Garth remarked.

  “More like abso – fucking – lutely impossible,” Monty elaborated.

  “Yep,” Garth yet again acknowledged.

  “Can you stop agreeing with uz?” Monty requested. “You’re not being very helpful.”

  So Garth then attempted to be a bit more helpful. “Well for starters, you need to make it look like you haven’t been into your A.T.S. account for a few days,” he advised. “Just so that Jixyl and Azleev don’t know that you’ve seen the Supermail message.”

  “Aye, good point,” Monty agreed. “But what’re we gonna do about Eric?”

  The two friends looked at each other not knowing what to say. It was Monty who eventually broke the silence.

  “We could just do a runner somewhere,” he suggested. “The timing’s quite lucky actually, what with you just getting made redundant the other week.[73] And a couple of weeks away might do you good in any case … what with you splitting up with Sarah the other day.”[74]

  “How does that help Eric, though?” Garth quizzed. “And the Femlings?”

  “It doesn’t,” Monty admitted, “but there’s no point us all dying.”

  “Well yeah, that’s not a bad idea,” Garth agreed. “We should definitely go into hiding, but we still need to try to warn Eric as well.”

  “How about we write a coded message on his A.T.S. wall?” Monty suggested.

  “Hmm … not a bad idea,” Garth nodded. “What do you suggest?”

  “Like, some sort of message that secretly warns Eric that Jixyl and Azleev are dodgy, but doesn’t let Jixyl and Azleev know that we’re onto them,” Monty explained.

  “I know what a coded message is,” Garth clarified. “I meant, what exactly are you going to write?”

  “Ar … well I haven’t really thought it through that far yet,” Monty admitted.

  Garth then came up with another idea. “Why don’t we just set up a fake A.T.S. account for some made-up person, then add Eric as an A.T.S. friend? Then as soon as Eric adds the fake person as a friend, we quickly send him a message warning him that Jixyl and Azleev are dodgy. That way Jixyl and Azleev won’t be able to add the friend cos then Eric would know someone was logging into his account, so that way we can be sure that only Eric will read the warning message we send.”

  “Mebbees,” Monty shrugged.

  “Well it’s the best plan we’ve come up with so far,” Garth pointed out.

  “What if Eric doesn’t add the friend though?” Monty questioned. “Like, if we use a made-up person there’s a good chance Eric will just think ‘I don’t know him’ and click ignore.”

  “Hmm…” Garth pondered.

  “In fact … nar. It’s a bad idea,” Monty opined. “I reckon Eric would definitely just click ignore if he didn’t know someone, like.”

  “Hmm, so I guess we scrap that plan, then,” Garth decided. He dwelt on the matter some more. “How about this then… we set up a fake brand page and then offer him free stuff if he adds the brand homepage to his groups, then communicate with him that way. That’s got more chance of working cos the offer of free stuff should appeal to Eric’s frugal nature.”

  “We don’t know any brands on Fem, though,” Monty pointed out.

  “They’ll probably have a McDonalds there,” Garth joked. “And being serious, we can easily look some up on the G.I.N.”

  “But the flaw with that idea is that Eric doesn’t need free stuff, though,” Monty reasoned. “Jixyl and Azleev are financing his trip.”

  Garth pondered some more until suddenly his eyes lit up. “I’ve got it!” he exclaimed.

  “What?” Monty inquired, optimistically.

  “It’s the perfect plan!” Garth enthused.

  “What is?” Monty quizzed.

  “It’s obvious really … when you think about it,” Garth replied.

  “What is? Here, man. What are you on about?” Monty asked, impatiently.

  “We go back to my original idea where we set up a fake profile, but…” Garth paused for dramatic effect. “…instead of pretending to be a dude, we pretend to be a fit lass. Like, we use a photo of a really lush looking lass and everything. And then just to make absolutely sure that he adds her we include a welcome message alo
ng the lines of, ‘Hi, I’ve seen you around in Ko Pagna and really fancy you but I’m too shy to speak to you so I thought I’d contact you by A.T.S. first. I’d really like to meet sometime.’ Then we just leave it as that.”

  Monty’s eyes began to light up as well. “Aye, I see where you’re going,” he acknowledged.

  “It’s an excellent idea,” Garth boasted. “If Eric sees a fit lass that wants to meet up he’ll definitely be tempted to add her as a friend … whether he knows her or not. That’s just a typical Eric reaction. And if we word the welcome message right then that should make it a definite clincher. Then once he’s added her we’ll have an account we can use to contact Eric which Jixyl and Azleev won’t have access to.”

  “Aye! That’s a quality idea!” Monty agreed.

  “So what we do is we stay permanently logged into this fit lass’s account,” Garth elucidated, spelling out the final details of his plan, “then the moment Eric adds her we send him a message straight away to tell him the bad news.”

  “That it’s not really a fit lass and it’s just us?” Monty remarked.

  “Well, no … that Jixyl and Azleev are pure patter merchants that have been stringing him along and that his life might be in danger,” Garth corrected.

  “Ar, aye. That as well,” Monty replied. Monty’s enthusiasm then suddenly became somewhat subdued, however. “There’s just one problem though. What if Jixyl or Azleev look at this made-up lass’s profile and see that she’s got no friends? They might get suspicious.”

  “So we’ll create a load of other fake people as well then,” Garth suggested. “And add them to this fake lass, and write fake messages on her wall and stuff, so that she looks real. Then we’ll do the same for her fake friends and connect all these fake people up randomly so that they all look genuine.”

  “How many d’you reckon we should set up?” Monty asked.

  “A hundred?” Garth proposed. “Or, I dunno … two hundred?”