🚀 go-pugleaf

[Continued From Part Two]

     The meeting was at the Phelps' tonight. Dinner was pot luck; too many
people had brought potato salad. But Martha had made her famous roast beef
so the luck was still good. Hot apple pie with generous hunks of cheddar
cheese to top them followed after. Reverend Enkoimesis had a kind word for
everyone and made the children laugh with his card tricks. Nobody talked
about work, as there were so many other things to chat lightly about over
coffee and biscuits. As everyone expected, Tom agreed to pull out his
fiddle and entertain the crowd after dinner. Finally, before the night
could end, Reverend Enkoimesis rose and tapped his glass for silence.
     "My brothers and sisters," he said, smiling benevolently at the crowd.
"My oh my, my family's grown, hasn't it?"
     Those in attendance chuckled politely at the statement, then hushed to
allow the Reverend to continue. "Tonight is a very special night for me.
After all, it isn't every evening that we can gather to send forth no fewer
than twenty of our good neighbours to spread the word of the Church of Whee
Hat'cha and mission for our cause. Everyone, please rise and raise your
hand in benediction."
     The crowd obeyed and the reverend continued. "To those leaving us to
do our work, I ask you: are you ready?"
     "Yes!" was the resounding refrain.
     "Will you remember the words of our god, our book and our prophet?"
     "We will!"
     "Will you spread these words to warm the hearts of other, bring them
comfort in times of need, succour in times of danger and love in times of
anger?"
     "We will!"
     "Do you carry the words near your heart?"
     Twenty hands reached into bulging breast pockets and removed small
volumes. "We do!"
     "Do you also carry the symbol of our cause near your lips?"
     Twenty hands replaced books and pulled small, stylised dragons hanging
from chains around necks. These they pressed to their lips before replying.
"We do!"
     "Are you prepared for the sacrifices ahead? For the taunts, the jeers,
the anger, the doubt? For the hatred and the torment that you will suffer?"
     "We are!"
     "Are you prepared for the miracles to come? For the mercy, the joy,
the love? For the happiness in serving Whee Hat'cha to the best of your
abilities?"
     "We are!"
     "Do you carry your means of escape where they might be readily employed?"
     Twenty hands tapped hollow teeth filled with cyanide. "We do!"
     "Then we the community of Shady Acres send you forth into the world
with our blessings, to bring the words of Whee Hat'cha to the unbelieving
ears." Hands were lowered and the congregation sat down. "Do we have any
pie left?"
***
     Doctor Stevens slumped against the wall of the emergency ward and let
fatigue overtake him. He had spent the entire evening removing shrapnel
from those who had stood too near a car when it had passed warrantee and
spontaneously exploded. No one had died. No one had needed his special
talents of negotiating with Death. The exhausted doctor was too far away
now to reach anyone at the moment that they died should they decide to
shuffle off the mortal coil now. They would just have to take their chances
like everyone else who had ever lived.
     "Sandwich, doctor," said a nurse, handing him a pastrami on rye with a
toothpick holding the whole together. Tiredly he reached out and took the
sandwich, affixing clamps to hold it together. Withdrawing tweezers, he
probed the bread until he found the tip of the toothpick, embedded very
deep under the bread layer. Carefully, so as not to disturb the fragile
lettuce layer, he extracted the toothpick and sealed the hole with a daub
of mustard. The nurse shrugged and walked off as Stevens devoured his
'patient'.
     "Phone, doctor," said a nurse from her station, behind Stevens. Her
hand gently discouraged him from clamping down the phone to extract the
handset so he settled, in his brainfogged way, for simply answering.
     "Mm?" he asked, the effort of shaping a two syllable word like 'hello'
proving to be beyond him.
     "Hello. Have I reached Doctor Stevens?
     "Mm," answered Stevens, wondering who could be calling him just before
his body was about to collapse.
     "I'm glad. This is Arthur Doyle... you remember me I hope."
     "Mm hm."
     "Good, good. The organisation is being reformed and we need someone to
take charge of a medical section. Though our other doctors have more
experience working with paranormals, you have the most overall work
training, so I'm offering you this job first. Will you accept?"
     "Mmm... hmmm... mm hm."
     "Excellent! Get yourself to the Beanstalk first thing and bring ideas.
Not too many, though as I've a feeling that medlab is going to be filling
up very quickly."
     "Hmm???"
     "I can't go into it over the phone, doctor. All will be disclosed when
you arrive. Goodbye, Stevens."
     "Hm hm."
     Stevens was nearly able to hang up the phone with a good deal of
assistance. He would take a leave of absence and go immediately... perhaps
not immediately. He still had to slide down the wall and fall asleep on the
floor of the emergency ward first. Then he'd be free to leave.
***
     A shape slumbered.
     The shape was enormous... ghastly in proportion... and breathed in and
out in wheezing gasps, chilling the blood of those around to hear it.
     Aluminium sacrificed to the hideous shape littered the slumbering
form. The ground shook as a loud noise was emitted by the sleeper. Birds
fled. Squirrels relocated. Penguins were nowhere nearby so they continued
to eat raw fish guts in peace.
     Then the spell ended and the shape shifted. There was a flurry of
motion as rank coverings were pushed aside to admit the sleeper to the
outside world.
     "Wha'zz 't?" asked the once-sleeping shape's companion.
     "My Ki(nikein) senses 'r tellin' me... tha' th' Taskforce's
reformin'!" shouted Doug, his eyes wide and his liver ruined. "They're gon'
need my help! To... th' Beercave!"
     "We don' hav'a Beercave, we've go' a root cellar where y'keep beer.
G'back t'sleep."
     "Oh, righ' Night."
***
     "No," said Doyle, over the phone, "We've been very careful not to tell
Doug of our plans."
     "Thank heavens," replied Al Peterson. "I remember the time he drained
a keg and belched out every speaking role in "Hamlet". The man's insane. He
called disco an aerobic workout. He made us wear mood rigs... MOOD RINGS!
And Dirty Combat... Flashattack... Strictly Carnage... the man was crazy.
Nutso. I'm still not sure I shouldn't go into therapy for what he did to
us."
     "Why don't you?"
     "Because the morning after the night before, my therapist wouldn't
take any of my calls and then she skipped town to join a cult that worships
dust moozies. You'd think she was trying to avoid me or something."
     "That's all well and good, but Al.. you might've guessed that this
wasn't a social call."
     "Well yeah, I did. It doesn't cost five dollars for the first minute
and fifty cents for each additional minute."
     "No, no, no. I meant the other kind of social call. The kind that
doesn't involve Mastercard or sex."
     "I'm not following you, Doyle."
     "I'll try to couch this in terms that you can grasp, Al. I'm calling
about Aurora."
     "What about it?"
     "It's coming back together."
     There was a moment's pause on the other end of the line. When Peterson
spoke again his voice was strained, though he made an earnest attempt to
sound genuinely pleased. "That's... terrific, Doyle. Best of luck."
     "I didn't just call to get your blessing, you know. I want you to be a
part of this, Al."
     "Doyle... look. I'm not in the military anymore. I've been out for
over a year because of what I did and I'm so out of practice that it isn't
a joke anymore. Heck(sm), I've been selling trampolines door to door to
stay afloat."
     "Yes, bu-- trampolines? There's a market for those?"
     "The business goes up and down. But that's not the point, Doyle. I'm
not what you want. End of story."
     "Wrong. You're exactly what I want, Al because I don't want you for
the armoured division of Aurora."
     "You don't?"
     "Nope. It would be nice if we had the time to train you back up to
specs, but we don't and I've a more important job for you anyway. The
organisation needs a liaison with the public because I'm positive that I
won't have the time to talk to the press, release press releases and
otherwise liaise in a liaisonly manner. We need someone who knows and knew
Aurora intimately, someone well respected and who has his finger on the
pulse of the whole structure. Someone like you."
     There was another pause. "Doyle... look, I'm real glad that you
remembered me, but I'm not your man. All I know is fighting and following
orders. You don't want me."
     "Al you're a strong man, but far too stubborn for your own good.
Anyone else who went through what you did would've been broken and thrown
their life away. But you rallied, got back on your feet and now look at
you. You're a door to door trampo-- you're a um... you have your health.
How many other people could say that while standing in your shoes?"
     "I don't know..."
     "I'll be sure to issue you lots of orders until you settle in."
     Peterson sighed. "If I start to screw up, will you promise to fire me?
And I mean that, if I'm not your man I want to know that right away. No
putting it off, no being polite, just bam say the word and I'm out of
there."
     "I promise. Thank you Al. Somehow I just don't think I'll be firing you."
     "We'll see."
     "We will indeed. See you here at the Beanstalk as soon as you can
arrive. Goodbye."
***
     Commander Lydia Tonk, retired, lazed in her bed and considered getting
up. But it was barely past one in the afternoon and she didn't start work
for another hour. Cursing those long three-to-five days as taste quality
controller at the Sterno plant, Tonk rolled over and tried to get back to
happy dreams about svelte oiled men who had discovered that their one true
destiny in life was to one-up each other in attempting to make her giddily
happy. She had this dream almost every night and quite enjoyed it, except
when it turned into a nightmare. When it did, the winner of that contest
always revealed himself to be Chris Farley. She would then have to jump out
of bed to shower the dream from herself.
     Tonk groaned and tried to hide under the covers as a knock sounded at
her door. When it persisted, the woman bowed to the inevitable and slipped
on robe and gun holster. She walked to her front door and greeted the
uniformed man there with a smile, a wink and the barrel of a .45.
     "Hi!" said the man brightly, grinning into the dark muzzle of death.
"I'm Petey, your singing telegram!"
     Tonk growled for a second and pointed the gun at Petey's immaculately
polished shoes. "You're gonna be a dancing telegram soon if you don't beat
feet."
     "This means I'm not getting a tip, doesn't it?" asked Petey brightly,
his grin fixed on his face like a month old grilled cheese sandwich sticks
to the ceiling of a house when thrown upwards with a good deal of force
upon discovering that the cheese within is processed and not fresh.
     "A tip? Hold on. I think I've got a claymore somewhere around here."
     "I know!" enthused Petey. "Why don't I deliver the telegram and THEN
you can kill me here in cold blood on your porch in sight of the
neighbours!"
     "Nah. I'd invite you in for cookies or something first and then kill
you privately. But sure, let's hear your telegram."
     Petey cleared his throat, put his hands on his hips and began to
undulate in grotesque ways.
     "What the HELL(tm) are you doing?" shouted Tonk, waving her gun at the
man's face.
     "Your sender paid for the Elvis option!"
     "Well cut that out, you look like you're trying to lose a jock strap
filled with itching powder."
     "The customer is always right!" exclaimed Petey, standing stock still.
He cleared his throat again and began to sing to the tune of 'Old
MacDonald'. "I'm sending out this little note/ to a really fine Commander/
there's a crisis brewing in the skies/ and we'd really love to have her/
U-F U-F-O/ U-F U-F-O/ U-F U-F-O/ With bombs and guns and lasers! So report
right now/ to the tall Beanstalk/ we're not getting any safer!/ If you go
and try to weasel out/ I've got your transfer on paper!/ D-R-A-F-T/
D-R-A-F-T/ D-R-A-F-T/ Commander you've been drafted!"
    Commander Tonk blinked a few times as the air turned from solid bright
blood-coloured red to something that passed for invisible. Slowly she
grinned at Petey with a rictus smile and spoke with a slow, soothing voice
that was best captured by Jack Nicholson in the final moments of 'The
Shining'. "Come in. I have cookies..."
***
    Doyle hung up his phone and smiled to himself, pleased. The last core
addition to Aurora had accepted. They had all accepted. Even Lydia Tonk had
said yes upon the administering of copious doses of sodium pentathol and
footage from the Miss Teen Coleslaw '65 pageant. Everything was falling
into place again and the nucleus of the first line against the invading
enemy had been forged. But Doyle's work was far from done. He had to hire
support staff, secretaries and those people who walked through rooms
carrying clipboards to make organisations look larger than they really
were. At the same time, he had several hero teams to contact, to get under
the aegis of Aurora once more for the protection of country and planet.
After that he would have done his job; the rest would be up to Earth's
defenders.
     While in Glid-space, the Invader flotilla drew closer with every
passing second, determined to rid the universe of the savages who would
allow sentients to go to their doom helpless and crying out in distress.
This was not an invasion, occupation or even a war.
     This was a holy crusade, and a fire burned in the heart of each and
every Invader in the fleet.
     They had served chili for lunch.
***
As usual, this story is trademarked, all rights reserved 1997 to
Frobozz/Chris Angelini (email:frobozz@eyrie.org, homepage:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~cangelin). Everything alluded to is intended as
satire, and no trademark infringement is intended nor implied. How many
licks does it take to get to the centre of a Superguy post? The world may
never know.