Authors: Bernard Langley
S
lip smiled and pointed to the fourteen
suns in orbit above them.
“
Magnifique
!”
declared
Pierre
, giving him
a hearty pat on the back.
“
Yeah
great, loads of suns, big deal
,
”
said Pete, far more concerned as he was
,
with how red his shoulders
had gone
.
“
No you ape
,”
began Crinkle
,
“
what Slip’s getting at is
,
we’ll harness the gravitational pull of all those suns, translate that power through
the Humdinger’s energy converte
r, crank up the
transcranial
modulation unit, and let rip upon every mind in the universe
!”
“
Yeah
I know
,”
lied
Pete
in a small voice, only just above a whisper.
“
So everybody, the plan’s the man
,”
said Slip
,
“
what about you Frenchy, we could use someone who knows his way around a fine cheese
?”
“
Thank-you my friend, but my fight is here, I have a resistance to lead
!
”
T
hat said,
Pierre
pulled an emergency
beret from his pocket
,
and placing it at a devilishly
agreeable angle on his head,
lit a cigarette and left.
“
Oh my friends
,”
he
said turning
,
“
I am sure we shall
meet again someday. Au revoir et
bon chance
!”
“
What a lovely man
,”
commented
Crinkle
,
watching him as he walked back to his resistance pals.
“
Yeah
,
yeah
, whatever
,”
said Pete.
“
Right then my little Renegades
,”
started Slip
,
“
it’s high time we were deep inside everybody’s minds. Back to the Humdinger
gang
, the past beckons
!”
Fendel and
Pierre
mad
e their way
through the fiery ruins of Krassis. In this reality, the Co-leen had taken their dislike of other species to an entirely new level, having made extinct all other forms of sentient life, all that is, were it not for the Co-leen resistance leader
Pierre
. Fendel was feeling quite un
-
amused by the scale of destruction he was witnes
sing, and walking past the umpteenth burned and
mutilated structure, thought he would find out if
Pierre
had some idea as to what a next course of action might entail.
“
So
Pierre
,
”
he began
,
“
how did you escape the Co-leen?
”
“
Ah well, my little friend,
”
said
Pierre
drawing on a cigarette as he spoke
,
“
the Co-leen may be clever, and powerful, but they made one crucial mistake when it came to me.
”
“
Oh?
”
he queried
.
“
Why yes,
”
replied
Pierre
flicking his gittane away
,
“
the Co-leen came to Krassis quite recently you know
,
and it was here that a large
battle took place. Many seasons
in and we thought that the war could still go either way. We still had some tricks up our sleeves, and we were expecting to be reinforced any day.
”
“
What happened then?
”
“
The Burn,
”
answered
the Frenchman
.
“
The Burn?
”
“
Something that
should
never
have been allowed
to exist, by anyone’s standards!
”
The Burn was an experimental technology that took advantage of a new development in chaos physics. Chaos physics attempted to explain the inherent laws of the universe by introducing elements of randomness into everyday science. So where it was universally understood that mass could be explained by sitting in a bath and watching the displacement of the water. Chaos physics went on to say that were the bath instead made of wheat, and filled instead with ambivalence, and rather than getting in the bath you sketch it using a hammer, then the resulting science, though certainly weirder, was actually a pretty fair summary of a universal law. The Burn was a quite unexpected result when some chaos physicists got together and
decided to introduce some dark energy, and balloons in
a particle accelerator. The
resulting fission created an atom so evil,
that it made Hit
ler look like he had a pretty decent shot at a posthumous Nobel peace prize
. This atom was then placed in conventional missiles,
and the resulting explosions
,
would quite literally burn away a planet.
“
Sounds serious,
”
he remarked
, perhaps a little too casually.
“
It is serious,
”
said
Pierre
,
“
so serious in fact
,
that they have used this Burn to destroy
almost
all intelligent life,
all that is
were it not for you and I, my little chickadee.
”
“
Then how did you escape?
”
“
Well then my little pastry puff, they had me cornered not too far from this very spot, I had been hiding out in a disused water hockey rink. When they came upon me, I had only one option left available to me.
”
“
Which was?
”
asked Fendel, wide-eyed.
“
I will show you,
”
said
Pierre
undoing his trouser fly as he spoke.
“
No, no, it’s quite alright!
”
he said alarmed
.
“
But I insist, my ch
er
r
y pie, you must realize the truth of this!
”
said
Pierre
removing his trousers in one practiced movement.
Fendel’s eyes were now firmly closed, refusing as he was to register the Frenchman’s immediate truth.
“
Hold out your hand, and prepared to be amazed!
”
insisted
Pierre
.
“
No thanks, must rush, got to see a dog about a man and all that,
”
he said wishing he still had his emergency teleport belt buckle
.
“
Open your eyes and behold my magnificence!
”
demanded
the Frenchman
.
Now sure, he
was
certainly no prude, and he
definitely
did not want to offend his newly made friend, he did however feel that opening his
eyes was probably not the most optimized
option
left available to him
, so decided instead that he would open one eye very quickly, closing it again almost as it had opened.
“
Well,
”
said
Pierre
smugly
,
“
what do you think?
”
“
What?!
”
“
Yes.
”
“
But you’re a… I mean, that you’re a…
”
he stammered.
“
I know, it’s quite something huh
?
!
”
He
had glimpsed
Pierre
standing fully naked
atop a
nearby
bench. He registered his head being as what he would have expected, however below that, it was really anyone’s guess.
Pierre
’s neck ended in a spring like device, not unlike what Pete would call a slinky. The slinky then attached to a swirling ball which moved much like an eddy of mist, this ball formed the upper half of
Pierre
’s torso, which had two humanoid arms attached. The lower h
alf of his torso was made entirely
of some kind of metal, which reflected the light of the
fires around him. I
n the centre of this chrome body was
a tiny door, behind which he
assumed must be some sort of processing unit, or t
er
r
ifically handy compartment for ciggies. Again two humanoid legs attached here, which meant that when
Pierre
threw on a shirt, no one would give him a second glance.
“
You’re a… You’re a…
”
“
Yes,
”
put in
Pierre
,
“
go on.
”
“
You’re a… What are you
?!
”
he shouted sudde
n
ly
.
“
I’m your friend Fendel, you have nothing to fear from me.
”
“
Right okay sure,
”
he replied
,
“
it’s just
that up until five clicks
ago, I kinda assumed that you and I were on the level, you know, a team.
”
“
And why should this bother you?
”
asked
Pierre
putting his trousers back on.
“
Well, for starters, what in Hupa Hool are you?
”
“
I am French my little cherub, I am here to help you to get back to your friends and defeat the Co-leen menace,
”
replied
Pierre,
opening the compartment in his body.
“
Oh really
?!
”
said Fendel
,
“
and why should I believe you?
”
“
You don’t really have a choice now do you,
”
answered the Frenchman
,
removing a sinister looking cheese knife from behind his metal door.
“
Now hang on, what are you going to do with that?!
”
“
This!
”
And as
Pierre
spoke
,
he plunged the knife
deep
into Fendel’s heart, killing him instantly.
Pete, Slip and Crinkle made their m
er
r
y way back to the Humdinger. Once aboard, Pete was the first to speak.
“
Right, time travel then, where to start?
“
“
Well
,”
said Crinkle
,
“
we don’t want to get carried away and just crank the think up to eleven and hit go, this needs to be planned out methodically, you know with forethought.
”
“
Yeah
,
”
agreed Slip, grabbing a hammer.
“
Okay, forethought huh,
”
said Pete
,
“
and what was that energy conversion thing you mentioned?
”
“
Well,
”
she began
,
“
the Humdinger has its own energy conversion unit onboard, so everything
that
we don’t use
,
from leftover food to our toenail clippings
,
are pumped into it, and hey presto, we get power. Okay it’s not
quite
as simple as hey presto, some very technical things happen between toenail clipping and recycled energy, but as far as you’re concerned caveman, hey presto et voila!
”
“
Oh
yeah
thanks, and it’s earthman, not caveman
,”
he replied
with a small voice.
“
Yeah
it’s simples!
”
shouted Slip,
banging his hammer into a very fragile looking piece of inexplicable technology.
“
Should he really being do that?
”
“
No probably not.
”
“
Hang on peeps, this is going to smart!
”
And with that
,
Slip swung the hammer high over his head
,
bringing it a full 360 degrees until it finally made a colossal thud, coming to rest
destructively
in an array of quite startlingly confusing machines.
“
Harnessing the power from 5 suns now… 6… 7 suns now,
”
said Crinkle.
“
Wait hang on, what happened to methodically, you know, with forethought!
”
Pete shouted back
, trying to make himself heard over the whir of machinery.
“
We need more hammers!
”
y
elled Slip.
“
Pete, take the time device and attach it to that using this,
”
she ordered him
, pointing at a glowing orb of sort, while waving in her
hand an object that seriously resembled
a SCART
cable.
Pete took the cable and Fendel’s time trave
l
ling device
,
and made his way over to where she was pointing. On first inspecti
on the orb seemed to be endless;
a dark, pulsating ball of dark energy
, sucking in time thirstily through its mirror-less exterior;
but on further examination, he discovered there were grooves along the circumference with illegible writing underneath.
“
What do I do?
”
he shouted
.
“
Plug it in!
”
yelled Slip, who now had another hammer
,
and was rhythmically banging machines in a fashion that could almost be described as methodical.
“
Attach the device to the machine using the lead!
”
put in Crinkle
, somewhat redundantly.
He
looked back at the pulsating orb and could have sworn for a moment that the tiny language written around its edge had made sense for a moment. Squinting his eyes
,
he
then
stared harder a
t the cryptic writing
, willing himself to understand.
“
If you are reading this,
”
i
t began.
The words became hazy again, so he bi
t his tongue and prayed hard that he may be
able to read the remaining text.
“
If you are reading this…”
Damn it, he had already read that part, he must r
emember to
only read things once in the future.
“
Up to 8 now… 9… 10 suns being harnessed!
”
Crinkle yelled, almost entirely drowned out by the deafening throng around them.
“
Then it is very likely.
”
“
Then it is very likely what?
”
he wondered.
“
Then it is very likely that I am about to explode.
”
“
Plug it in!
”
y
elled Slip and Crinkle in unison, who had made their way over to their DJ desk in anticipation of going on the thought waves.
He
noticed then that the groove around its edge
was actually a series of cable ports
, one of which
,
l
ooking suspiciously like a SCART
socket.
“
It says it’s going to blow!
”
he shouted
.
“
11… 12… 13 suns! That’s it, if you don’t do it now, we’re gonna fry!
”
“
Warning – maximum power conversion threshold broken – warning - maximum power conversion threshold broken.
”
f
lashed the orb.
“
Well,
”
he thought
,
“
this is either a t
e
r
r
ifically dumb idea or a… No
,
hang on, this is a t
er
r
ifically dumb idea!
”
Suddenly a large hammer whizzed inches passed his nose. He turned to see a rather disgruntled Slip, banging machines with his remaining hammer and shouting at him, though he could no longer be heard over the computers.
“
Fine,
”
he decided cathartically
, plugging the device into the orb.
“
Warning – explosion imminent – evacuate Humdinger.
”
f
lashed the orb, before the time device activated
,
and then all fell silent.