by Hercules
'I don't think it's quite time yet,' the translator said while Nigel was speaking. 'They are still too aggressive.'
'You better not be holding out on me, you freak,' the shortest of the Quokkas said.
'Why would he do that, sir?' the third Quokka said. 'He has nothing to gain.'
'He's got everything to gain, you idiot. Everything,' the short Quokka said. 'You're in on it too, aren't you?'
'In on what, sir?'
'I'm watching you both, understand. One slip and you're both fucking fucked,' the short Quokka said, and stormed off. Tits saw him walk right through a wall, which he didn't find all that amazing after months of exposure to Quokka tech.
'Too many shrooms,' Nigel said, and shook his head. 'At least he wasn't violent this time.'
'I agree, sir. What do you think we should do?'
'What can we do? Keep on with the plan and if he becomes too much trouble, we'll have to take measures.'
'Oh, I hope we don't have to do that, sir. Having to disintegrate the pilot may have a negative effect on morale.'
'If he gets any more erratic, we may have no choice. And this plan of his to expand our business is spreading us far too thin. Harvesting humans isn't a bad idea, especially if he already has the market for the testicles, but the mushrooms are our core business. We should make sure that's fully bedded down before we open up new lines,' Nigel said.
'But he's right when he says they would provide the extra income we need to fully exploit the potential of the mushrooms, sir. And it's not too high risk.'
'What do you mean, it's not high risk? It's another thing we have to hide from the cops. Getting humans to distribute flabby was a huge mistake. The cops are already a bit suspicious about Earth's climate getting warmer and if they find humans with flabby then they'll know that someone's operating here. Cops don't like mushroom pirates or human traffickers. If they find out we're doing both, they won't even bother taking it to the council. We'll be executed on the spot and the images broadcast to the galaxy as a warning to others.'
'I thought we'd sorted the climate problem, sir. I thought the humans were blaming themselves.'
'Not all of them, lad, not all them,' Nigel sighed. 'Some of the smarter ones have seen through our fake science and are making noises about it. Let's hope we can stomp on it before it gets too loud.'
'Maybe we can add the climate-denying humans to the testicle list? Win-win, as the humans say.'
'We aren't going to win anything unless the pilot straightens out and stops popping shrooms like a human with a bag of those em-and-em thingies. He's already so crazy that you could mistake him for a real human when he's got his suit on. And it's tough enough to run one complex operation with a shroom-fucked pilot, let alone two,' Nigel said, as he and the other Quokka wandered towards the wall. 'As you progress in your career, lad, you'll learn that growing mushrooms is a dangerous business. If the cops don't get you, then the shrooms probably will,' he said, just before they vanished through the wall.
Tits' curiosity was piqued and, with the confidence that his new Arnold-Schwarzenegger-esk body gave him, he decided to follow Nigel. This crap about harvesting testicles and avoiding cops had an ominous sound about it. Besides, he'd always wanted to see just where the Quokkas hung out when they weren't attending property auctions. He swallowed down his common sense and went through the wall, head first.
Instead of giving him a concussion, the wall flowed around him like it was made of custard and he found himself in a small room that glowed with a weird purple light. It had the look and feel of an elevator and he was not at all surprised when it opened up into a vast cavern with exciting bits of electronic hardware dotted around the floor. Nigel and his companion were nowhere to be seen, so he decided to have a look around and see what he could see.
'Hey, you,' his translator chip said. Tits turned to see a cute little Quokka with hands on hips and making an angry face at him, which quickly changed to shock. 'What the fuck! You're not one of us. How the fuck did you get down here?' it said.
'Sorry,' Tits said, 'I got lost and went through a wall.'
'Bullshit,' the Quokka said and took a step forward. Tits remembered what Nigel's vest had done to Big Spaz's gun and started to back away.
'What are you scared of?' the Quokka said in what Tits decided would have been a mocking voice if the Quokka translating technology had been able to convey emotion. 'You're a hundred times my size. I keep telling people that humans are cowards and won't stand up to a physical challenge and now I have my proof.'
Not knowing quite why, but probably because Tits' subconscious was considerably more intelligent than he had ever given it credit for, he reached into his belt where he kept a small blade and cut a thin line across his forearm.
The Quokka looked at the bloody limb in horror, made a woozy face and vanished before its body had even hit the floor.
'Cuz! It's really you. I thought you were another one of those rats disguised as people.'
Tits turned to the direction of the voice and saw his cousin, the council inspector who had gone missing months ago, peeping out from behind a piece of computerised hardware. 'Spiro? What the fuck are you doing down here?'
'I could ask you the same question. I been down here for fucking ages, mate, hiding from the rats and eating nothing but mushrooms. Do you know the way out? Please tell me you know the way out. If I have to eat another mushroom, I'm gunna fucking explode.'
Tits turned to where the lift had expelled him and saw nothing but wall. 'It's through there,' he said.
'Really?' Spiro said, and ran to the wall. He put his hand out and touched it. 'It's solid.'
Tits went to stand next to him and pushed at the wall. His hand went right through. 'I can get out, ' he said, 'and they're not rats, actually, they're Quokkas.'
'What, like the ones we has in Queensland? No wonder they're so cute.'
'Yeah, and no,' Tits said. He'd had several conversations with Nigel over a beer and a flabby pill, and had become quite knowledgeable about the space Quokkas. 'They is related to Earth Quokkas in the same way we are related to baboons. And they're from Western Australia, not Queensland.'
'Whatever they are, we gotta go warn the authorities.'
'What?'
'They kidnap people and give then anal probes,' Spiro said, and his voice cracked. 'Please, you gotta go and get the cops. Get me outa here. Please, before that little fucker that vanished comes back with friends.'
'They actually kidnap people? Where do they keep them? Show me.'
'No! Just go. I can't wait to get out of here and have a gyros. I NEED a gyros.'
'Show me or I'll go find them myself.'
Spiro looked exasperated. 'Fine,' he said, 'but stay low and follow me. I don't wanna end up in no cage with a probe up my arse.'
The two members of the Greek diaspora snuck stealthily through the Quokka den, slinking from shadow to shadow with Spiro in the lead and Tits being disgruntled in the rear.
After ten minutes or so of slinking about without seeing a single living thing, Tits' patience finally snapped. 'Do we have to crawl around? There's no one here.'
'The little fuckers are hard to see and when you see what they do to people, you'll want to sneak around as well.'
'Okay, okay, just keep moving then.'
'We gotta go through the mushroom room and sometimes there's a few of them in there, especially if they're harvesting,' Spiro said, 'so be extra quiet, okay.'
Tit's rolled his eyes, but followed his cousin as quietly as his new gargantuan frame would allow.
After a few more minutes of sneaking, they came to a large door with a window set in it that reached from Quokka height to human height. Spiro put his finger to his lips in the universal sign of shut-the-fuck-up, then turned and looked intently through the window. Tits did another eye-roll.
'Okay, it looks clear,' Spiro whispered, and pushed open the doors. The room they entered took Tits' breath away. 'What the fuck,' he said, as he
looked out over mushroom planters as far as the eye could see.
'Come on,' Spiro said, and followed the wall to another door.
Tits followed as his cousin led him into a strange purple corridor with another set of doors on the other side. When he stepped through those, he lost his breath again. 'Oh my God,' he said, and stepped into a room full of cages. Most of the cages had a human occupant, and every cage with an occupant had a small bag on top. Each small bag had a tube attached, and each tube ran down to the bottom of the cage and up into the bottom of the occupant.
The aroma in the room was unmistakable. 'It smells like flabby in here,' Tits said, and then realisation dawned. 'Holy shit! The poor fuckers are getting flabby enemas.'
'I freaked out,' Tits told Metho and Skip while they sipped at mugs of sweet, milky tea that Vera had made for them. 'It turns out that the little robot I found lets everyone who's touching you go through the wall as well. We bolted back to my uncle's cafe but we didn't go to the cops cos we're pretty sure some of the ones at Rosetown station are Quokkas.'
'It's kinda hard to believe that they kidnap blokes to sell their balls,' Metho said. 'But, then again, it's hard to believe I was about to enrol in an Aesthetic Design course at university. What do they do with the rest of the bloke?'
Tit's shrugged. 'Fuck knows. Probably nothing nice, but you know what's weird?'
'Your face?' Skip said, and giggled.
Tits ignored him. 'There were a fair few women in there. If they just wanted balls, why take women?'
'We think that's where Basset has disappeared to,' TS said. 'He was supposed to meet up with us yesterday, but he never made it. And his phone has been turned off.'
Skip, who was feeling a little groggy and hadn't really been listening to Tits' story, decided he had something to add to the conversation. 'It's obvious what the flabby done to me and Metho, and look wot it did to Tits,' he said, like a conspiracy theorist who had spotted an obvious government cover up, 'but what about you? Why didn't it effect you?'
'Paracetamol,' TS said. 'I get these really bad headaches, so I usually have some paracetamol in the morning. It seems to neutralise the effects of the flabby. That's what we injected into you just now.'
'What, so just paracetamol? I know people who eat those things like lollies,' Metho said.
'Well, not just paracetamol, we tried that first with Poppy but it didn't do anything,' TS said, 'so I added a little bit of vodka, which is what I washed the pills down with, and it worked. The first injection I made cured Poppy, but I overdid the alcohol and it made him really drunk. Your injections had far less vodka.'
'See, Metho, I tol' you she was one of us,' Skip said, happily. 'Vodka is the only way to wash down a pill. Do you have any around the house, by any chance Vera?'
'Now, I un'erstand that we have to rescue Small Spaz,' Meho said, 'but how? Those robot vest things they wear could fuck us right up.'
'With meat,' TS said, and smiled. 'Little bags of rotten meat.'
'But what if they don't vanish? What if they has gas masks or something?'
'Then we'll have to get a bit rough,' TS said.
'That's when you kick their heads in,' Skip said, in an approving tone of voice.
TS rolled her eyes. 'Please, kicking is for barbarians.'
'But you kick Skip and Tits all the time!' Metho said.
'That's just for fun. I'm a civilised person, and civilised people use weapons,' TS said and pulled a gun from the recesses of her jacket.
'I think you have to be really close for the vests to get ya,' Tits added.
'This all sounds so fucking stupid,' Metho said in an exasperated voice. 'I mean, mushrooms and testicles? What sort of a combination is that? Are you sure you haven't been overdoing the steroids?'
'It's not something you can mistake, mate,' Tits said. 'There was a billion mushrooms down there, and at least twenty people being fed flabby through a tube in their arse. The cages weren't locked or anything, but not one of the people was conscious. What we didn't see was many Quokkas. Spiro reckons he never saw more than five or six together at one time, and Nigel was talking about killing his boss because he was always stoned on mushrooms and it was making him insane. From what I seen, these guys are just crims that are making it up as they go along.'
'I hate to tell you this, Multicultural Man,' Metho said, 'but so are we.'
'Look, I don't reckon this is gunna be all that hard,' Tits said. 'We go in, chuck meat at all the Quokkas, grab Small Spaz and get the fuck out.'
'It's not the initial operation that concerns me,' Metho said. 'It's the inevitable reprisals that will follow.'
Skip giggled. 'You sound different now you has read all them books,' he said.
Metho clocked him with the mug.
'But still the same ol' Metho,' Skip said, after he'd climbed back onto his chair.
'So, what are we gunna do?'
'Well, we've been thinking about this and we have come up with a plan,' TS said.
Chapter 5
Night had fallen and the Crew-sans-Small Spaz were lurking in a laneway opposite the Quokka cafe where the Belgradia had once stood.
'When you said you had a plan, I thought it would be more than just break in and grab the fucker,' Metho said.
'I told you, didn't I? Simple an' elegant,' Tits said. He was wearing his Multicultural Man outfit and carrying a huge and very smelly sack on his broad back.
'I dunno about this,' Skip said. He was feeling grumpy and had a headache that was not being helped by the smell of rancid meat that came from Tits' backpack.
'Okay, that's the last one,' TS said, who was the only member of the Crew focusing on the task at hand. 'Let's go.'
Tits raced out ahead with the intention of smashing his way through the locked door, but was disappointed. 'It's open,' he said, and led the way into the deserted cafe, splatting little bags of rotten meat against the walls and floor as he went.
'Do you have to do that,' Skip complained. 'There ain't no-one here.'
'Just in case,' Tits said. 'They're tiny buggers and hard to see without their human suits.'
'He thinks he's fucken Batman,' Metho said, and urged Skip forward. 'Come on.'
Tits led them through the empty cafe to the wall that was really a door. 'Okay, everyone put a hand on me and we all go through together. Ready?'
Metho and TS nodded in assent, while Skip just stood there looking miserable.
'On three,' Tits said. 'One, two, three.'
Three of the four Crew jumped through the wall, but Skip just stood there. As he turned to leave—with a smile on his face—a huge hand reached out of the wall and dragged him through. The others frowned at him in the purple lit room, but Skip just shrugged. 'I has a headache,' he said to his unsympathetic audience.
The door to the Quokka den opened and Tits dived through. He progressed along the floor in a series of acrobatic rolls and jumps, tossing bags of foul meat in front of him and to either side. TS followed, slinking from shadow to shadow with her gun drawn. Metho sighed and slouched his way into the huge room, dragging a reluctant Skip behind him.
Tits came to a halt behind a bank of electronics and looked back disapprovingly at Metho and Skip. 'You two aren't taking this seriously,' he said.
'They're fucking Quokkas,' Metho said. 'Even with their super vests, they're too cute to be a threat.'
'I has a headache,' Skip said.
'Look, this is serious. They could have Small Spaz.'
'For fuck's sake,' Metho said, using his exasperated voice again. 'They're Quokkas! The colour red makes 'em faint. What the fuck are they gunna do with testicles? They can't even wear 'em as earing with those weird little ears they got.'
'But you were all worried about it before,' Tits said.
'I reckon that was the flabby talking. Who could be scared of a Quokka, really? Not me, that's for sure.'
'Listen, you fucking thick headed Neanderthal,' TS said and strode forward until she was nose to nose with M
etho, an action made more menacing by the big black gun she was holding, 'these things aren't Quokkas, they are aliens. Sometimes these aliens look like Quokkas and sometimes they look like people. But, to be honest, we don't really know what they look like. They could be giant, salivating monsters with giant fangs and tentacles. They are aliens, got that? From outer space. Have you ever seen any movies with good aliens? Have you? Tits has already seen that they have people in cages down here. And my brother has gone missing a few months after we started doing business with them. Where the fuck else do you think he could be but in one of those cages?'
'Okay, okay,' Metho said. 'We'll take this more serious.'
'What about ET?' Skip said.
'Shut up,' the other three said in unison.
'The place where they had the people is through here,' Tits said, and led the way forward.
After a few minutes of darting from shadow to shadow, Tits raised his hand and brought them all to a halt. 'The mushroom room is just ahead so we gotta be extra quiet. If there are Quokkas in there, it'd be best if we caught 'em by surprise.'
The others nodded their understanding except Skip who, as he had previously indicated, had a headache and moving his head up and down would have been quite painful. Together they ran, doubled over, to the wall, and then carefully moved along until they had reached the windowed door. Four sets of curious eyes peered through the glass into the room beyond.
To Metho's surprise, there were Quokkas in the room. Four of them, to be precise, and they weren't the happy chappies that the Crew were used to dealing with. These Quokkas were shooting laser beams at each other with tiny black guns. Every so often, a beam would be deflected by a stream of tiny robots that shot out from a Quokka vest.