Surprise Visit (part 10): An Earplug Adventure

Into double figures. These extracts just keep coming. At least they will do all the time you want to read them. Thank you for that, by the way. Without readers, what would be the point of writing these tales? Especially since I do so enjoy doing it. Keep up the good work. Tell your friends. Let’s spread the word. Enjoy Part Ten…

Five minutes later Magnuss and Hair-Trigger stood upon the truncated Wide Blue Yonder, pressed up against their visitors…

“Sorry about this,” Magnuss said, “but we don’t want the aliens to detect our use of the matter transmitter. We’re using just one to carry all nine of us. Squash up. Squash up!”

Moments later…

…multiple flashes lit up the fake surroundings. A split second later, multiple flashes did likewise in a subterranean bunker beneath the real Museum of Future Technology…

“Okay everybody,” Magnuss said after everyone had felt themselves from head to toe, “let’s go!”

And, boy, didn’t they go! Magnuss set a blistering pace…

So fast that he and Hair-Trigger were soon gasping for air…

…and poor little Faati – the Queen of the Pygmies – was in danger of being left behind. But what she lacked in outright speed, she more than made up for in stamina. So by the time the flagging forerunners had reached the sole exterior viewing window, she had caught up…

“You gotta run really fast to lose a pygmy.” One of the earplug engineers present on the shop floor below said. “I always bet on them in a marathon.”

“Me too.” Another replied. “I bought my apartment with the winnings.”

Naturally, Nigel was more than interested in the alien saucers. Already an idea was forming in his illustrious head. “Can we go somewhere quiet where you can show me images of these alien swine?” He asked, yet managed to make it a command.

“Sure.” Magnuss replied. “I was rather hoping you’d say that. Just follow the signs.”

“Are you sure you want to take them to a Café Puke?” An uncertain Hair-Trigger asked of her husband…

“Can you think of a better place?” He responded. “The coffee is crap, but the ambiance can’t be equalled – especially with their latest Fifties Diner décor.”

At that moment, a short distance away, in the arboretum Café Puke…

…three Baristas awaited their next customer. It had been a quiet start to the morning, and thus far clientele had only occupied a few tables…

“Oi, can we really afford to keep that air-con running?” The pink female, Mary-Sue Wassack, said to the others. “And I don’t mean that in a fiscal sense: the museum is running on battery power you know. Okay, they’re very futuristic batteries, but they don’t last forever. Then this job’ll get really hard and sweaty. I do don’t hard and sweating – not unless I’m down the disco with a can of lager in my hand.”

One of the others – possibly the sole male Barista, Jungle-Jake Johnson –  might have argued that if they turned up the heat, what few customers they had would leave. However all three Barista’s attention was soon drawn to a face at the door…

“Ah-ha,” they heard Magnuss say cheerfully. “Stay right there. Don’t shut up shop, and don’t turn off the air-con: you’ve got V.I.Ps incoming.”

© Paul Trevor Nolan 2022

PS The cover to the free PDF e-book version is ready. It looks like this…

Judging from the cover image, that looks like a surprise visit we’d all like to avoid. Next time phone before you arrive: we can make sure we’re out!

Alternative Reality Art: Thames Departure

After leaving distant London a flaming ruin, alien attack craft depart via the River Thames…

…en route to a rendevouz with the Brighton and Hove Albion football stadium in Sussex. Aliens don’t like soccer. And they really hate English seaside towns.

The Epoch of Dung (part 12) An Earplug Adventure

Shortly Angel was only too pleased to report recent events to Cushions Smethwyke…

“This can’t be coincidence,” Yabu said as he and Cushions were appraised of the situation.

“It can’t?” Cushions questioned the leader of Yabu Youth.

“Well yes, obviously it can; but it’s very unlikely.” Yabu replied. “Funny, don’t you think that just when something goes seriously awry with the Tunnel Temporale, we find a bunch of enemy Incense Cones hiding in the bowels of the museum?”

“When you put it that way, I guess you’re right.” Cushions acknowledged the logic of Yabu’s reasoning. “But how are we gonna find out: they don’t speak our language – and they think like weird aliens!”

“Leave that to me.” Angel said. “Let me remind you that when the museum was attacked by End Caps from Hyperspace, I used my power of illusion upon them. It even worked upon their Attack Robots. I have a plan for this bunch of evil subversives. They are going to tell us everything they know.”

Five minutes later Angel had joined the captives in the museum’s jail. Five minutes and one second later, all six captives had forgotten they’d ever been in a fight, and were safely ensconced inside their hidey-hole. Moreover, their leader – Emperor Conrad Moose – appeared to…uh…appear on their com-panel…

“Right then,” Emperor Conrad Moose’s voice seemed to roar from the tinny speaker grille, “I’ve been very, very busy running my enormous empire, and I’ve kind of, sort of, forgotten why I sent you to the Museum of Future Technology. So I want you to bring me up to speed with my plan and what you’ve been doing whilst I’ve been very, very busy. Oh, and by the way, I’ve decided to learn Earplug really well, so use that language. Use our own language, and I’m gonna get really angry with you. Understand? Right: go.”

The Incense Cone Infiltration and Temporal Dislocation Squad – as they liked to call themselves – were slightly taken aback by this: their emperor usually despised anything related to earplugs, except news of their failures and disasters. To demand they use the cursed language of their enemies confused them: but they rallied quickly…

“Um, where would you like us to start?” The pink Incense Cone inquired.

Major Flaccid, who was providing the voice of Conrad Moose, decided to take a chance: it would be inadvisable to rouse his captive’s suspicions by knowing nothing whatsoever about their mission. “Well obviously I remember the earplug’s horrible Tunnel Temporale is involved: but I can’t quite recall exactly what you’re supposed to do with it. Like I said, I’m a very, very busy emperor.”

This seemed to settle the Incense Cones. It was the turn of the pink Incense Cone to preface his opening line with the word ‘well’. “Well,” he said as he tried to ignore a nagging and implausible ache in his groin, “we travelled the requisite amount of distance in time to this era, where we set off a chain reaction in the Temporal Cascade Equaliser. Coming from a period in which the technology is more advanced than it is in this era, it was easy-peasy to kick-start the troublesome Tunnel Temporale with a remote hyperspace signal. The first the locals knew of it was when the Tunnel burst into life. But then something unexpected happened, and we don’t really know why.”

“We suspect,” the blue Incense Cone, volunteered, “that the activation of the Tunnel Temporale initiated an instantaneous time storm. Rather than destroy the current Museum of Future Technology, as planned, which would then instigate a massive incursion into this portion of space/time, by our gallant assault troops from the future, and the annihilation of any surviving earplug resistance, something else happened.”

Major Flaccid – a keen ‘amateur dramatics’ actor in his spare time – decided to ‘go large’. “What?” He roared. “What?”

Angel inserted a suitable visual representation of Conrad Moose…

This resulted in the exposing of Incense Cone physical characteristics that earplugs were unaware of…

…those being enormous gobs; startled expressions; and nasty odours that erupted from their hindquarters.

 The pale Incense Cone with yellow lips was the first to overcome its shock and horror. “It’s not all bad.” The creature said hurriedly. “We seem to have created a divergent time-line.”

“Explain to me how this is ‘not all bad’.” The Moose/Flaccid apparition demanded.

“When the alternate time-line reintegrates with the flow of time,” The Green-Eyed individual at the end of the line interjected – and therefore hoped to gain some ‘Brownie’ points – “disaster will be invoked. One of the time-lines will be destroyed. We are currently in the process of constructing some advanced devices, of my design, that will guarantee that it’s this time-line that fails to survive re-integration. We’ll poke them down the Tubo Di Tempo as we leave, just before temporal re-integration commences.”

Flaccid gulped at this news. Fortunately, his ‘subjects’ put this down to a case of ‘wind’. “Yeah-yeah,” he mumbled as he tried to collect his wits, “But won’t the accursed earplugs spot the devices and remove them?”

“No probs.” The pale blue Incense Cone – sensing that it was in danger of being a mere spectator in the Emperor’s eyes – said quasi-confidently. “We’re wrapping them in Bags of Invisibility.”

Again, Flaccid found himself caught unawares. This time, however, an involuntary and enormous fart enveloped his entire body, which was serendipitous because it gave his brain the energy it required to think quickly and with precision. “Oh, good. What do they look like? Do the earplug’s Cones of Invisibility interact with them – rendering their contents visible?”

“They look like unused plastic roasting bags.” The grey Incense Cone, who was beginning to feel like a bystander, answered. “Inflated ones, of course, with the little plastic ties pulled tight. We’ve calculated the likelihood of an earplug-built Cone of Invisibility making contact with our Bags of Invisibility, and therefore rendering it visible, as less than one in a million. Don’t worry, Emperor Moose, the earplugs won’t know what hit ‘em. In fact, they won’t even know they’ve been hit. They won’t exist.”

The pink Incense Cone didn’t want to appear to have lost control of the conversation: “Yeah, that’s right.” He said. “We don’t know what the alternate version of the museum is gonna be like exactly; but it aint gonna be pretty. We can clear them out in no time at all – excuse the pun.”

Naturally, Angel took this startling information to Cushions and Yabu…

Cushions quickly shifted mental gears. “Okay,” she said, “I’m not quite sure what we can do with this info, but at least we’ve got the perpetrators under lock and key. Let’s hope Margret Greenhorn and her leggy dancing girls are on the case in the other time-line.”

© Paul Trevor Nolan 2022