Or maybe it was magic. He had absolutely no idea how it was done, and could only speculate at this point. Either way, the cities were way up there, and the Untitled was way down here, and there was nothing else for miles and miles in any…
Wait. What was that?
Something loomed in the distance, beyond the fog. It was another city, either floating on the ocean or – more likely – on one of Parloo’s few land masses. As they drew closer, Cal felt that sinking feeling of familiarity. There were no shiny towers or grand architectural wonders on display here. Instead, there was lots of concrete, lots of grime, and lots of industrial-looking buildings churning smoke into the air.
The clouds weren’t clouds at all, Cal realized. They were pollution from the smoke-spewing stacks of a thousand factory chimneys.
“Oh, but I wanted the nice bit up there,” Cal groaned. “Why do we always end up in space Detroit? Seriously. Every fonking time.”
“Docking request accepted,” Loren said.
“Well, of course it was accepted,” said Cal. “I mean, it’s not like they’re going to be inundated with requests, are they? Who the fonk would want to come here? It’s lucky they remembered how to work the radio.”
“Actually, sir, it appears to be quite a busy port,” said Kevin. “Despite appearances, Parloo – even down here – is a thriving civilization, with lots to offer travelers from all across the galaxy.”
Cal looked up. “What, do you work for the tourist board now?” he said. “Let’s just land, get the tracking thing off – ideally, but not necessarily, without blowing Mech to bits…”
“Fonk you, man.”
“And then get the Hell out of here before we all get poisoned. Sound like a plan?”
Miz shrugged. “Whatever,” she said. “But, I don’t know, maybe we should hang around for a while. Just, you know, to recover from Loren’s flying.”
Cal snorted. “Uh, no. Look at this place. There is nothing that could possibly make me want to stay here,” he said. “Trust me.”
* * *
“Oh my god, they have a Five Guys,” gasped Cal, as the Currently Untitled swooped low over a busy street and twisted awkwardly into its designated landing bay.
The fact that this alien planet had a Five Guys restaurant didn’t make any sense, he knew. It was impossible. While the Five Guys franchise had spread pretty far across the face of the Earth, the chances of finding one on a remote planet in the depths of outer space were slim, to say the least.
So, he reasoned, it couldn’t be a Five Guys. It had to be something that merely looked like a Five Guys.
A lot like a Five Guys. Same color scheme. Same logo. Same everything.
The ship landed heavily, jolting Splurt down from the ceiling. He rebounded like a rubber ball a few times, before splatting against the viewscreen. His bulbous eyes shot Loren an accusing look as he slid, very slowly, to the floor.
“Sorry,” she said, deliberately not meeting anyone else’s gaze.
Cal was the first to get to his feet. “OK, Mech, do the thing with the thing,” he said, heading for the door. “I need to go check on something. I think I just saw a Five Guys.”
“What’s a…?” Miz began, then she waved a clawed hand. “In fact, you know what? I don’t care. I bet it’s some stupid Earth thing.”
“It is,” Cal confirmed, and then he trotted along the corridor, lowered the ramp, and hurried outside, ignoring Loren as she shouted after him. “I’ll be right back. Just wait for me.”
Thanks largely to its floating overhead infrastructure, the planet of Parloo had branded itself, the ‘Planet of Ten Million Cities.’ It was not, it had to be said, very imaginative branding, but then the Parlooqs weren’t a very imaginative bunch, particularly those who had elected to work in the advertising sector.
It didn’t actually have ten million cities, either. In fact, it had slightly more, but even the literal-minded Parlooqs were quick to realize ‘the Planet of Ten Million, One Hundred and Seventeen Thousand, Six Hundred and Four Cities’ wasn’t going to easily fit on the posters, and so had rounded down.
Of all Parloo’s many cities, though, its only land-based one was undoubtedly the worst. It had no official name. Those living in it referred to it simply as ‘Down Here’ while those living above it rarely, if ever, thought of it at all. If they did have to make reference to it, it would usually be in the form of a crinkling of the nostrils and a slightly nauseated shake of the head, and that would be the end of it.
A generous way to describe it would be to say it was a lively place, full of interesting characters and intriguing opportunities for anyone with an open mind, a loaded blaster and, ideally, no sense of smell.
The less generous ways of describing it were far too numerous to mention.
A glum-looking Parlooq in an ill-fitting uniform approached Cal as he trotted down the ramp. The man moved slowly, as if his sloth-like qualities didn’t just dictate his looks, but his very way of life.
“They’ve got everything you need in there,” Cal said, jabbing a thumb towards the ship and skipping past the Parlooq. He was several steps past him before the guy’s expression changed to one of confusion, and pushing out through the swing doors before the Parlooq could utter a sound.
The sights and sounds and smells of the Down Here hit him all at once. Cal’s instincts all screamed at him to duck back through the doors and retreat to the ship, but he had to find out if he’d really seen a Five Guys.
What if he had? How was that possible? The only thing he could think of was that there was someone else from Earth here on Parloo. Someone – most probably – somehow connected to Five Guys. Maybe one of the five guys themselves! Assuming they actually existed, and weren’t just some clever marketing ploy.
The sidewalk heaved with bodies, most of them large, and all of them sweating. Although there was little in the way of direct sunlight, an oppressive heat pushed down on the city, like it was trying to smother it and snuff it out.
Undoing a couple of buttons on his shirt, Cal spent a few seconds trying to get his bearings, realized it was a completely futile exercise, then just pushed through the crowd in a random direction, hoping he eventually found what he was looking for.
As Cal ducked, dodged and forced his way through the tightly-packed procession, voices grumbled at him.
“Watch it.”
“Wait in line.”
“Quit shovin’ back there.”
Most of the people around him looked nothing like the Parlooqs he’d seen, either on screen or in person. They seemed to be all sorts of species, but all of them wore the same sour expression, and carried the same bitter, downbeat demeanor.
The heat had to be playing a part in it, Cal reckoned. He’d only been on the planet for a matter of minutes, but already he could feel himself becoming irritable. If only everyone would get the fonk out of his way, he could look for the restaurant, figure out if he’d imagined the whole thing (almost certainly, he thought), then get back to the ship where they at least had air conditioning.
He could hear traffic thundering past on the road, but a moving wall of oversized pedestrians meant he couldn’t see the cars themselves. From the rumbling he felt through his legs whenever something noisy went past, he could tell they were definitely traveling on the ground, though, and not hovering like the ones they’d passed in the cities above.
So, no flying cars, no moving walkways, no tube-based high-speed transportation. If Up There was the future, Down Here was the luddite present that was probably in danger of becoming a thing of the past.
The sidewalk traffic parted a little on Cal’s right. He made a dash through the gap, knocking aside two thin-limbed little bat-faced creatures, who chirped and cheeped angrily as they struggled to stay upright on their hooved feet.
“Sorry, didn’t see you there,” Cal lied.
He turned down a quieter side street, then crunched into the stomach of a hulking round figure coming the other way.
&nb
sp; “Ow, watch where you’re going, man!” said Cal. Although the first part of the sentence had come out sounding quite aggressive, it eased up towards the end. This was because the person standing before him was very big, and while its torso looked like a gelatinous ball of peach-colored fat, that stomach had been as solid as a rock.
“What? What is ‘man’?” the figure demanded. “I is woman!”
“Well, I mean, obviously!” lied Cal, looking the figure up and down. This involved a lot of neck movement on his part, and quickly gave him a sort of reverse vertigo. “Uh, sorry. Listen, I don’t suppose you’ve seen a Five Guys around here anywhere?”
“I seen lots of guys around here,” the woman grunted. “Which ones?”
“No, not…” Cal sighed. “Doesn’t matter.” He looked along the street at the crowds and the traffic and the store signs. None of the signs mentioned any number of guys, let alone the five Cal was specifically searching for.
He’d only been looking for a couple of minutes, but the heat – that fonking heat – was draining the will to continue right out of him. It had been a mistake. He’d got it wrong. That was all there was to it.
“Thanks for your, you know, help, I guess,” Cal said. The hulking woman nodded slowly.
“You want good time?”
“No,” said Cal. “No, I do not.”
“Suit self,” she said, shrugging her planet-like shoulders. She waddled past him onto the main street, and was somehow lost in the passing crowds.
Cal undid another button of his shirt. It was open almost all the way to his stomach now, but the heat was still squashing him beneath its thumb, trying to turn him into a greasy spot on the sidewalk. He wondered, briefly, if it would be easier just to let it, rather than try to fight his way back through the crowds again.
The temperature climbed a few more degrees. Cal felt his head spin all the way around, and then there was an intense burning sensation on his face. And possibly some bruising and blood.
“Oh, shizz,” he slurred through his dry lips. “I’m on the ground.”
And then a hot, sticky darkness poured over him like molasses.
* * *
“Hey, Tobey Maguire,” Cal said.
Hollywood actor-turned-ongoing-psychotic-episode, Tobey Maguire, looked up from the table he was sitting at. A flicker of irritation darted across his deceptively youthful features, then was replaced by a welcoming smile.
“Oh, hey,” said Tobey Maguire. “I was just doing a jigsaw puzzle. What happened to you?”
Cal shrugged and looked around. They were in a bubble of dull light, beyond which lay nothing but darkness. It felt tight and oppressive, like the inside of a cave, but Tobey Maguire didn’t seem to mind too much.
“Not sure. One minute, I’m standing up, the next, boom. Sidewalk. And then here.”
“Oh. OK,” said Tobey. He gestured to the jigsaw. “You can help me find the blue pieces.”
Cal puffed out his cheeks and took another look around. If past experience was anything to go by – and he’d had a lot of experience of being knocked unconscious and/or murdered lately – he was here until he woke up. There didn’t seem to be much else to do while he waited.
“Sure. Why not?”
Cal crossed to the table and realized immediately that he’d made a mistake. Tobey Maguire’s jigsaw strategy was all over the place. He’d started building outwards from a random patch of blue in the middle, and was now ferreting through the box trying to find more pieces to join on.
“Jesus Christ, Tobey Maguire, what is this?” Cal asked. “Start with the corners and build up the edges first! That’s, like, Jigsaw Etiquette 101.”
“Some of these bits were already stuck together in the box,” Tobey Maguire explained. “So I thought I’d just start there.”
“Do you think that’s how the Taj Mahal was built? Hmm? Do you think that’s how they put together the Eiffel Tower, Tobey Maguire? Just found some bits that were already stuck together and built outwards? No! They had a structure. They followed a plan.”
Cal was surprised by how passionate he felt about the jigsaw. The last time he’d built a jigsaw had been with his daughter, back before… Back before. He didn’t remember getting nearly as worked up about that one. Admittedly, that one had only eight pieces, and each of them was numbered in the correct order, but still.
He rooted in the box and found two of the corner pieces. “Jesus. Blue. What is this supposed to be, anyway? Just a blue rectangle?”
Tobey Maguire shook his head and pointed to a couple of white pieces. “No. It’s a message.”
Cal stopped searching. “A message? What kind of message?”
Tobey Maguire nodded to the lid of the box. It was sitting upside-down on the table beside him, the image on front hidden from view.
“What kind of message, Tobey Maguire?” Cal asked, suddenly nervous about what he might find on the front of the box.
“See for yourself.”
Cal hesitated. He placed the two corner pieces down on the table in roughly the right position, wiped his sweating palms on his pants, then turned over the box.
There was, just like Tobey Maguire had promised, a message there. It was written in bold white text on an all-blue background.
You have been poisoned, it read. Wake up, or you are going to die.
“Oh,” said Cal. He dropped the box lid. It vanished before it could hit the floor. “Shizz.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Cal paced back and forth in the narrow space, convinced it was becoming narrower by the second.
“Come on, think, Tobey Maguire,” he said. “How do I wake up?”
“I don’t know,” Tobey Maguire admitted. “Open your eyes, maybe?”
“Yes!” Cal cried, stopping. “Wait. My eyes are open.”
“Oh. Yeah,” said Tobey Maguire. “Then I got nothing.”
There was a soft click as he slotted another piece into place. “Kinda wish you hadn’t lost the box, though. That’s only going to make this harder.” He looked up from the table. “It’s got almost five hundred pieces, you know?” he said, in quite an accusing tone, Cal thought, like this was somehow his fault.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Cal said. He flexed his fingers in and out. There was something burning through his veins. He could feel it churning around in there, boiling his blood.
How had he been poisoned? The Symmorium? It had to be. That gray mush must have been tainted.
“Never trust a big shark-person, Tobey Maguire!” Cal spat. “If I die, I want you to tell everyone those were my last words, OK? Never trust a big shark-person.”
Tobey Maguire nodded, then smiled slightly wistfully. “You know, that reminds me of a joke.”
“Oh?” said Cal, interested, despite the gravity of the situation.
Tobey Maguire waved a hand. “It’s too long. You probably wouldn’t get to hear the end.” He turned his attention back to the jigsaw. “Funny, though.”
A whisper rose from the darkness.
“Cal. Caaaaaaal.”
“Did you hear that?” Cal hissed.
Tobey Maguire continued with his jigsaw.
“This would be much easier with the box,” he muttered.
“Will you shut the fonk up about your jigsaw?” Cal spat. The more his blood boiled, the more explosive his temper threatened to become. “And help me get out of here! There must be something here that’ll help me get out, or wake up or whatever. Some sort of hint, or clue, or…”
“It’s a puzzle, alright.”
“You can say that again.”
“Yep. A real puzzle.”
Cal sighed. “I know! I heard you the first time. Now how do I get out?”
Tobey Maguire tutted and leaned back in his chair. “OK. I thought you’d have worked it out by now, but it looks like I’m going to have to step in.” He lowered his eyes very deliberately to the jigsaw. “Huh?” he said. “Hmm?”
“What? What are you doing? Stop l
ooking at the fonking…” Cal gasped. “The jigsaw? Is that it? Is that how I get out? You have to do the jigsaw?”
“You have to do the jigsaw,” said Tobey Maguire.
“Cal,” wheezed the voice from the darkness. “Caaaaaal.”
Muttering below his breath about ‘stupid jigsaws,’ Cal hurried to the table. “Step aside, Tobey Maguire,” he urged. He flexed his fingers, cracked his knuckles, then he set to work hunting for the two remaining corner pieces. “And find me the flat edges,” he barked.
The shadows grew tighter. The thing that was out there shuffled closer.
“Cal. I am coming for you, Caaaaaal.”
Tobey Maguire began depositing flat edged pieces onto the table. As soon as he put one down, Cal snatched it up and clicked it into place. “You see how much more efficient this is?” Cal asked. “Corners, sides, work inwards. Every time.”
“I have so much to learn,” said Tobey Maguire.
“That’s the first step,” said Cal. “Admitting you have a problem.”
Cal was just reaching for another of the pieces when his hand melted. It dribbled like hot wax onto the table, spattering across the partly-made jigsaw puzzle.
“Ooh,” said Tobey Maguire, wincing. “That is… That is unpleasant. Does it hurt?”
Cal studied the glistening stump of his arm and shook his head. “Surprisingly not,” he said, reaching out for a jigsaw piece with his other hand. It, too, bubbled and blistered, then flopped onto the tabletop.
The thing in the darkness dragged itself closer. “Caaaaaaal.”
“Shizz. OK, Tobey Maguire, you’re going to have to finish the jigsaw for me.”
Tobey Maguire gazed down at the table in horror. “But… But I can’t. I’ve been trying for hours. I’m not ready.”
“Now you listen to me, Tobey Maguire, and you listen good,” Cal snapped, with such ferocity the former Spider-Man actor immediately sat to attention. “You can do this, OK? You can build this fonking jigsaw. You are ready, you hear me?”
Space Team: The Guns of Nana Joan Page 5