Earplug Adventures: The Veil of Shytar (part 9)

Today I broke off from doing other ‘stuff’ because the rain became too torrential to continue. So guess what – I clambered into the attic studio and shot some more scenes. The Veil of Shytar is back on-track! Here’s something I prepared earlier…

So after passing through a pedestrian door from the laboratory into another place entirely…

…Bubbles and Barclay were presented with a representation of the fruits of their industrial espionage.

“Whadda ya think?” Pansy demanded.

Bubbles wasn’t sure how to respond. “Err, very dark and foreboding.” She managed.

“Great.” Pansy snarled. “And you, Mister Scrimmage?”

Barclay also struggled. “Before I can really form an opinion,” he replied, “I’d like to see the real thing  first.”

“Good answer.” Pansy said as her half-smile fell. “I think that can be arranged. In fact it’s an absolute certainty.”

As they turned to depart the ‘hangar’, Barclay felt certain that he and Bubbles were about to receive information that neither of them had expected or particularly wanted to hear…

Giving both a sidelong glance, Pansy dropped a bomb in their collective lap:

“The ship needs two pilots.” She said clearly and concisely. “Miss Gloor: Mister Scrimmage: You are to be those pilots.”

Neither earplug had seen any point in arguing with this revelation. As good Punting-Modesty employees they responded with good grace. In retrospect it had been inevitable. If the ship proved too dangerous, who better to die fighting the controls than the two people who had brought the plans to the company? It was all perfectly logical. So, while the construction of the full-size vessel got underway, its two pilots spent their time sitting around on solariums in the Lemon Stone sunshine, chatting, drinking coffee, and enjoying impromptu farting contests…

Moreover, because it would take time to create the prototype of a re-imagined (and altogether more defensively useful) alien life-boat, the cheerful two-some were despatched to faraway places – like these old ruins on what remained of Mutant Island – to enjoy themselves and learn a few things about surviving in a hostile environment without the support of civilisation…

As their transport lifted off and swept away into an azure sky, Bubbled squealed, “This is just sooo exciting!”

“Yeah,” an unusually up-beat Barclay replied. “And if you wet your knickers with excitement, no one will care.”

“That’s right.” Bubbles replied, “I can wash them in the pounding surf and leave them to dry in the sun on that old stone wall behind us.”

They also learnt the strange art of mountaineering…

…though the exertion did turn Bubbles’ face an unsightly red. And Barclay maintained a respectable distance to avoid seeing up his supervisor’s skirt. 

So, whilst life in the Museum of Future Technology’s many Café Puke outlets carried on as usual…

…and a huge UFO made a threatening appearance from the dark side of the Moon…

…that was shot down by Valentine Earplug, in his Punting-Modesty XL5 Facepuncher, which then crashed, deafeningly in a lake near the coast of southern Greenland…

…and drew huge crowds of fisher-folk to watch the three hapless alien invaders shiver in the icy waters – winter arrived in the mountaintop citadel…

…so Bubbles and Barclay soon learned survival techniques that might save their lives, should they crash land upon an icebound world…

“Right about now,” Barclay groaned as he followed Bubbles’ leaden footsteps through the snow, “the idea of becoming a Barista is gaining traction – unlike my snow shoes.”

However worse was to come. Having recovered from their mountain trek, the former BINS operatives were subjected to hypno-scary stuff that was intended to find if they ‘had the right stuff’. Or, to put it another way: to ascertain whether they were psychologically and physically capable of controlling their vessel during periods of high stress and violent trauma…

Barclay couldn’t speak, so he tried to send a telepathic message to his supervisor and co-victim:

“Bubbles, have you still got that application form for Café Puke?”

Of course Bubbles sensed nothing from her partner, so she failed to respond. But she didn’t argue with him when, during a brief lull in the wintery weather, he suggested they try to escape by climbing over the chain link fence that surrounded the Punting- Modesty facility…

Unfortunately the fence was entirely illusory. When Barclay attempted to climb it, the image faded – to be replaced by an impregnable force field.

“Oh well,” he said philosophically, “we would probably have fallen to our deaths anyway.”

© Paul Trevor Nolan 2022