So then Azleev went sprinting across the student campus in the direction of Jixyl’s quarters to find out why.
. . . . . . .
Stella Gascrom had still not been added to Eric’s A.T.S. friend list. And by now it had become Monty’s turn to take a shift.
“No luck yet?” Garth inquired.
“Ar, yeah. I forgot to mention, he added her a couple of hours ago so it’s all sorted now. Panic over,” Monty replied, sarcastically, “but I just thought I’d keep sitting here like a muppet clicking ‘refresh’ for a couple of extra hours rather than telling you, just cos I enjoy it so much.”
“Alright. I was only asking,” Garth snapped, defensively.
“Don’t worry, if and when he adds her as a friend you can rest assured that I’ll deem it significant enough to mention the fact,” Monty mocked.
“Ar, I hope he hasn’t snogged any lasses already,” Garth mused.
“Have faith in Eric’s bottling-it skills,” Monty encouraged, optimistically.
“Yeah, without alcohol I suppose there’s a good chance he’ll bottle it,” Garth agreed. He looked skyward in a symbolic gesture to indicate that he was looking out across the galaxy towards Eric on the planet Fem. “Come on, Eric,” he pleaded. “We’re relying on you. The people of Fem are relying on you.”
“Why are you looking at the ceiling?” Monty asked, not getting into the spirit of things. As they were sat in a hotel room in Magalluf[78], Garth had technically been looking at the hotel room ceiling, rather than across the galaxy.
“It was meant to be a symbolic gesture to indicate that I was reaching out across the galaxy to Eric on Fem,” Garth explained, just like I explained a few moments ago.
“But the ceiling’s in the way,” Monty pointed out, “so you’re actually looking at the lampshade.”
“It’s a gesture,” Garth repeated.
“And besides, you’re looking the wrong way. Fem’s over there,” Monty joked, pointing in the opposite direction to where Garth was looking.
“Surprisingly enough, I can’t actually see fifty billion light years in any case,” Garth pointed out. “So which way I look is irrelevant.” Some of Monty’s sarkiness was beginning to rub off on him.
“Aye, cos the ceiling’s in the way,” Monty repeated. Even though some of Monty’s sarkiness was rubbing off on Garth, he still had more than enough left over for himself.
This time Garth ignored Monty’s sarkiness. “It’s horrible not knowing what’s going on,” he reflected. “He could be snogging a lass right at this minute. Right as we speak.”
“Or he could be sitting in his room about to log into his A.T.S. account,” Monty added. “We don’t know, so there’s no point worrying about it yet.”
Then he clicked ‘refresh’ once again.
And hoped. And hoped. And hoped.
. . . . . . .
Right at that minute Eric wasn’t in fact logging into his A.T.S. account. But neither was he snogging a lass. He was in fact standing outside Mr.J’s restaurant just about to say goodbye to his two mates before heading off to check his A.T.S. account.
But then something caught his eye. “Hey, that’s good, like,” he remarked.
“What is?” Kesta inquired.
“Any main course of your choice plus a free fruit shake for a hundred credits,” Eric answered, pointing to a tiny poster outside Mr.J’s.
“Trust you to spot a bargain as usual,” Kesta chuckled. Even though Jixyl and Azleev were paying for all of Eric’s expenses on Fem, Eric’s inherent tightness had nevertheless still manifested itself on one or two occasions.
“Anyway, I thought you weren’t hungry,” Hex reminded Eric. “I thought you said you needed to check your A.T.S.”
“I’m not. And I do,” Eric confirmed, “but when there’s an offer as good as that it’d be rude not to take advantage of it.”
So the three friends found themselves a table inside Mr.J’s and ordered three special offer meal deals.
“So anyway, Kesta,” Eric remarked, as the waiter took their orders to the kitchen. “If I’m gonna try and talk to Sveltish Indie Chick, does that mean you’re gonna talk to Nine Out Of Ten?”
“Who’s Nine Out Of Ten?” Hex inquired.
“Hey, you’re out of the loop, like,” Eric commented, before adding, “She’s this lass that Kesta fancies.”
“I can’t. She’s got a boyfriend,” Kesta protested. “I’m not a home wrecker.”
“You’re not a home wrecker?” Eric queried, with eyebrows raised. “So you mean to say, if Nine Out Of Ten came up to you now, and she was all, like, ‘Oo, Kesta … I really like you, so how do you fancy sneaking off from my boyfriend and getting down to some hot and horny fun and frolics,’ you’d be, like, ‘Sorry, but I’m not a home wrecker.’”
“Course I wouldn’t!” Kesta laughed. “I’d be straight in there.”
“So when you say you’re not a home wrecker, what you actually mean is that as long as no opportunity presents itself, you uphold a high moral code and you’re therefore not a home wrecker,” Eric reasoned, “but as soon as the opportunity presents itself, your morals go out the window and you are then in fact a dedicated and enthusiastic home wrecker.”
“Well, aye … basically,” Kesta admitted.
“That’s very commendable of you there, Kesta,” Eric joked. “It’s nice to know that thanks to your high moral standards, the homes of Fem are safe … as long as you don’t have the opportunity.”
Kesta just smiled. “Anyway, who’s your number one at the minute?” he asked Hex, diverting the focus away from himself.
“I haven’t really got a number one,” Hex shrugged. “I basically fancy every lass in Ko Pagna. They’re all fit here.” As if to illustrate his point four fit Sveltish lasses walked past the front of Mr.J’s at that exact same moment. “See what I mean!”
“Aye, I fancy every lass here as well,” Kesta agreed, “but you must still have a favourite.”
“Yeah, like, it’s a gun-to-your-head situation and you have to score with a lass in Ko Pagna,” Eric hypothesised. “Who would you pick?”
“Well I think you haven’t quite grasped the concept of a gun-to-your-head situation, like, Eric,” Kesta observed. “A gun-to-your-head situation would be something like, ‘You have to score with a mermaid. Would you rather her top half was a fish or the bottom half?’ That’s a gun-to-your-head situation. Not ‘you have to score with one of the many fit lasses in Ko Pagna.’”
“No, man. I don’t mean scoring with a lass would be a gun-to-your-head situation,” Eric clarified. “I mean having to choose would be a gun-to-your-head situation.”
“I’d go top half human and bottom half fish,” Hex revealed. “Cos at least that way you could have a bit play with her baps.”
“Aye but there’d be this big fish’s tail attached to her body,” Kesta pointed out.
“Well aye, but it’s better than having a big fish’s head attached to her legs,” Eric opined. “Like, I’d definitely go top half human as well, like.”
“Anyway, who’s your number one lass in Ko Pagna, then, Hex?” Kesta repeated.
“Well…” Hex pondered the question. “If I had to pick someone then there’s this lass who sits in front of Palm Tree Resort who’s probably got the most perfect baps I’ve ever seen in my entire life…” Hex enthusiastically remarked, before suddenly becoming all chilled again, “…but I mean, I’m not really that fussed. Like I say, every lass here is fit.”
“Ar! Are you on about Perfect Baps?” Eric inquired.
“Yeah, pay attention, Eric,” Hex responded. “I’ve just said … she’s got perfect baps.”
“No, I mean I think you’re on about Perfect Baps,” Eric reiterated.
“Yeah, I am,” Hex replied, becoming slightly bemused at Eric’s communicational shortcomings.
“No, I mean that’s her code name,” Eric explained. “She’s called Perfect Baps.”
“Ar, right,”
Hex smirked, finally realising that he was using the term ‘perfect baps’ to describe a pair of perfect baps, whereas Eric was using the term ‘Perfect Baps’ to describe a lass who happened to have a pair of perfect baps.
“Aye, and she’s got two other mates who are really fit as well, hasn’t she?” Eric continued.
“Nar, the lass I’m on about sits on her own,” Hex revealed.
“Ar … well that’s not Perfect Baps, then,” Eric replied.
“Trust uz. Her baps are absolutely perfect, like,” Hex insisted.
“Maybe they are,” Eric remarked, “but that’s not her code name. Perfect Baps sits with her two mates, so you must be on about a different lass.” Eric thought for a moment. “Has she got a red and white towel?”
“I dunno, man,” Hex replied. “I just noticed her baps and her fit body. I wasn’t really paying much attention to her towel, to be honest.”
“Eric was probably thinking, ‘Oo, look at that lovely towel she’s sitting on. It goes really well with her bikini,’” Kesta joked.
“I’m just trying to work out who you’re on about,” Eric protested, defensively.
“Does she wear a totally skimpy thong?” Kesta asked. “And when she comes out of the sea she unties her hair and shakes her head, and her hair flows over her shoulders and her baps jiggle ever so slightly.”
“Yes. And yes,” Hex confirmed. “You see Eric, if you’d mentioned her skimpy thong and her jiggling baps then I might have known who you were on about. But not her towel.”
“Aye, that’s not Perfect Baps. That’s Tits McGhee,” Kesta revealed. “Aye, she’d be in my top three as well, like.”
“Why’s she called Tits McGhee?” Hex inquired.
“That’s just her code name,” Eric shrugged.
“I know, but why can’t she be called Perfect Baps?” Hex quizzed.
“Cos Perfect Baps is called Perfect Baps,” Eric explained. “You can’t have two lasses with the same code name. That would just be crazy.”
“Well why can’t Perfect Baps be called something else and Tits McGhee be called Perfect Baps?” Hex persisted.
“Cos Perfect Baps was called Perfect Baps first,” Eric enlightened. “You can’t go changing people’s names. That would just be anarchy. You have to stick to the rules.”
“Don’t try and argue with him about code names,” Kesta remarked. “He wouldn’t even let me call Nine Out Of Ten, Ten Out Of Ten.”
“Why not?” Hex inquired.
“Because no matter how lush a lass is in real life,” Eric explained, “you’d always pick a famous lass over a non-famous lass. So if you give a non-famous lass ten out of ten then that means you’d have to give a famous lass eleven out of ten. And that’s mathematically impossible … so you’ve gotta, like, stick to the rules of maths.”
Kesta and Hex looked at Eric with smirks on their faces.
“I’m just explaining the rules,” Eric shrugged. “Don’t blame me. I didn’t invent the rules. I just ensure they’re adhered to.”
“So anyway, does that mean Sveltish Indie Chick is a nine out of ten?” Kesta asked.
“She’s a nine point seven,” Eric replied.
“Nine point seven!” Kesta retorted. “How come you can have a nine point seven and I’m not allowed to go over nine?” He looked quite annoyed at this apparent injustice.
“Sveltish Indie Chick is a special case,” Eric contended.
“Hey, it sounds like you totally fancy her, like, Eric,” Hex observed.
“Ar, I do,” Eric acknowledged. “Seriously, this is how much I fancy her … like, if I could either score with five famous lasses of my choice, and they were all, like, totally horny for uz, or … I could go out with Sveltish Indie chick, then I’d…” Eric paused as he contemplated getting jiggy with the five most attractive famous women on Fem. “Actually, that’s not a very good example,” he concluded, “but I mean, I do totally fancy Sveltish Indie Chick, like.”
“I think I’m gonna call Nine Out Of Ten, Nine Point Eight Out Of Ten from now on,” Kesta announced. He was still annoyed at what he saw as Eric’s inconsistency in applying the rules.
“Howay man, Kesta,” Eric remonstrated. “You can’t go changing lasses’ names. You know the rules.”
“Well if you can change the rules and make Sveltish Indie Chick a nine point seven then I can change the rules as well,” Kesta retorted.
“I never changed the rules,” Eric insisted. “I said you can’t make a non-famous lass a ten out of ten, but I never said you couldn’t have decimal points. You were the one that suddenly jumped down to nine. But you could have had decimal points if you’d wanted.”
“Well you didn’t tell uz that at the time,” Kesta grunted.
“I just assumed you’d realise,” Eric shrugged.
“So how come Sveltish Indie Chick’s only a nine point seven and not a nine point nine, then?” Hex inquired.
“Cos she smokes,” Eric explained. “And normally smoking would qualify for between a nought point five to one point five penalty, but in Sveltish Indie Chick’s case it only cost her a nought point two deduction, on account of her overall lushness and coolness.”
At this point their meals and shakes arrived so the conversation died down and was replaced by eating. Then, after they had finished their meals they reconfirmed their arrangement to meet at Hang Out at thirteen o’clock and then went their separate ways.
And so Eric headed back to his room with the intention of checking his A.T.S. where Stella Gascrom was waiting for him with the Earth-shattering, sorry Fem-shattering news of Jixyl and Azleev’s deception.
. . . . . . .
Azleev hammered on Jixyl’s door for the third time. “Jixyl, if you’re in there, open the door!” he called out. “It’s important! The success of the mission could depend on it!” There was no answer. So Azleev tried ringing him again, but there was still no answer on his phone either. So he brayed on the door again. But still there was no answer. “Ar, where is he?” Azleev muttered to himself.
Where Jixyl was, was stretched over the toilet spewing his guts up. For all his bravado the previous night about being able to handle his booze, the truth of the matter was that Jixyl was very susceptible to hangovers. And given that he had drank a particularly large quantity of alcohol the previous night, this was therefore a particularly bad hangover. The worst that Jixyl could ever remember having in fact (not including his early drinking days, obviously).
Azleev gave one more knock on Jixyl’s door, again without answer, and was just about to give up when he had a stroke of luck. At that moment the toilet seat fell towards the down position, striking Jixyl on the head, who let out a loud ‘ow!’
Azleev’s eyes lit up. “Jixyl? Is that you? Are you in there?” he screamed, this time twice as loud as he had previously shouted.
Jixyl heard him this time, but was in no fit state to deal with visitors and so he decided to just keep quiet and hope Azleev would go away. He also decided to clutch his head in his hands to try to make the pain from the toilet seat incident go away. It didn’t work. Instead the toilet seat pain just sort of mingled with his hangover pain and merged into one big massive pain that was greater than the sum of its parts.
His ‘keep quiet and hope he’ll go away’ strategy, however, also proved as unsuccessful as his ‘clutch his head to make the pain go away’ strategy, because Azleev banged on the door once again. “Jixyl, man! Open the door, you spoon!” he demanded. “If you don’t open the door I’ll break it down,” and to prove that he was serious Azleev flung himself against the door. The frame and hinges soaked up the force quite easily but it made a suitably loud bang which proved it was a serious threat and jolted Jixyl into action. He opened the door to his friend then slumped back against the wall and rested his head in his hands once again.
“Hey, you look rough,” Azleev observed.
Jixyl just groaned.
Azleev wasted no further time and got straight to the po
int. “That Supermail message you sent to Stymer … you also sent it to Monty.”
The information seemed to swim around inside Jixyl’s brain for a few seconds, until suddenly his eyes sprang open. “What?” he asked, looking particularly shocked.
“You also sent it to Monty,” Azleev repeated.
“How do you know that?” Jixyl questioned.
“Cos luckily you also sent it to me,” Azleev revealed.
“Fuck!!!” Jixyl exclaimed. Actually, the actual Fyraling profanity that he actually exclaimed was about six times stronger than the word ‘fuck,’ but since no equivalent word exists in English, ‘fuck’ is the word that any English person who was listening on G.O.T. would have heard.
“Yes, ‘fuck’ indeed,” Azleev agreed. “So I’m afraid there’s no time for you to sit around feeling sorry for yourself. You need to log into your A.T.S. account straight away and recall the message.”
“So he hasn’t read it yet?” Jixyl inquired, hopefully.
“I can’t be one hundred percent certain, but no, it doesn’t appear that he’s read it yet,” Azleev replied.
Jixyl suddenly found some energy from somewhere and jumped up and ran to his computer. Working on the theory that ‘the less people that know, the better’ they decided it was best to attempt to recall all twenty of the unintentionally sent Supermail messages. Eighteen were showing as unread and therefore recalled without any problems, but two of the messages were marked as read and therefore couldn’t be recalled.
“Phewf!” Jixyl exclaimed, as he scanned the list of recalled messages and discovered that Monty’s A.T.S. account no longer contained plan-threatening revelations. “He hasn’t read it.”
“He probably hasn’t read it,” Azleev corrected. “That’s how it appears but we can’t be completely certain that he hasn’t totally covered his tracks.”
“So are you saying you reckon we should silence him?” Jixyl asked. “Like, just to be on the safe side.”
“We can’t do that,” Azleev remarked. “Eric would get suspicious if Monty stopped messaging him.”
How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy Page 30