Re: [CLUE-PICKUP:108] GB vs. the World tonight

[Tom Holub <tom@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>]

On Thu, Jun 15, 2000 at 02:51:30PM -0400, Zachary Uram wrote:
> Who is this famous/infamous (?hehe) Fuzzy Bunny? He must be
> really good if his return is "triumphant"! :) Can east coast ppl
> play also?

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It was a long time before anyone ventured near the rim of the smoking crater.
But the suns rose to the middle of the sky, and the people knew that no 
spirit walked the lands in daylight.  Soon enough a brave young one crept
to the edge and peered in, and not to be outdone, the rest followed.

The air stank of charred earth and melted iron.  The quiet click-ping of 
cooling metal was the only surcease from their breathless silence.

An awarawk flapped by, awarawking.

A circle irised open in the top of the strange silver meteor, and before
the onlookers could jump back, a head popped out and looked around.  Twin 
oven mitts appeared on each side of the hole and tested the edges as the
crowd shrank back in wonder.  After a moment, the man levered himself
up out of the opening, dusted himself off, slipped off the oven mitts,
and threw them to the floor of the crater.  "Fucking Erik."

His tunic was the color of dark gold, or summer's wheat when threshing time
comes.  On his right shoulder was a single black square, and his dark hair
fell to his shoulderblades.  As he looked up, the elders started away --
he had the beard of a priest, but no mustache, and his eyes were brown,
not blue.

"Well howdy," said the man.

Uneasy silence.

"Aw damn.  Parlez-vous francais?"

More silence.  The young looked to the elders, pensively.

"Sprechen zie...fuckit."

The man fumbled in his tunic for a moment and came up with a small flat
device.  Wrestling with it a moment, he folded its lid back, pressed a
switch on the side, and pulled out a pen.  Looking around for a moment
for somewhere to sit, he finally settled down on the floor.

"Good morning!" said the strange black box.  "We have crashed.  If you
feel you have reached this recording in err--"

"SHUT the FUCK UP."  The man glanced ruefully at the skitterish spectators
above.  "Patter level zero."

"ackno--"

"SHUT the FUCK UP.  Handwriting recognition maximum."  The man scribbled
on the box with the pen, muttering quietly.  "Dear...Mojo...no, not Micro,
Mojo...have...crashed...on...stupid...fucking...planet...not janet, planet.
Looks like...I won't...make...Rigel.  Bagel?  What the fuck.  Rigel.  R-i-
g-e-l.  Yours, me.  Okay, now send that on the J band, priority 1."

"There's a discount special on the double L band today only for crash
messages.  Five parsecs just fifteen sixty five," mentioned the tablet.

"Did I or did I not say the J band."

"It's your money."

"SHUT the FUCK UP."

"Sent."

"Excuse me, sir," inquired a venturesome young lad from above.  "What is
that?"

The man looked up with a sudden beaming smile.  "English!  SCORE."

The child disappeared suddenly behind the fold of an elder's robe, and
an unmistakeable whack sounded out, followed by a quiet dull thump.  Another
elder smiled and shrugged at the newcomer and came forward to the lip of
the pit.  He bowed.

"Who are you?" he asked.  His blue gown shifted nervously in the wind.

"Bob Hope."

"Ha ha no but seriously."

"Aw fuck, you have him in your culture?"

"_Road to Bali_, the works."

"okay, Simon Le Bon."

"Loved you in Duran Duran in the 20th century."

"Fucking _blojo_ never crashes on the advanced planets.  Fucking _blojo_ gets
worshipped as a fucking god whereever he fucking goes," the yellow-clad
newcomer bitched.  "Okay.  Okay.  Coriolan."

"Welcome to our planet, Coriolan."

"Thanks.  And you are..."

"Now get off."

"...not exactly extending the peace branch."

"Our legends speak of people like you who come from the stars in strange
metal spheres."

"All lies.  We are but peaceful merchants on a diplomatic mission of mercy
bearing medical supplies to the needy of the universe."

"Even the ones who wear red?"

"Well no, those are evil swine who repeatedly violate our sacred mission
and refuse to accept our benign..."

"Just as the legends say.  You are at war with them."

The head-clonked youngster staggered out from behind the robes of an elder,
clutching his forehead and whimpering silently.

"Well," said Coriolan, "...yeah.  But..."

"Guess how much we want to be involved in an intergalactic war involving
two sides of destructive power unimaginable to us."

"Not a lot?"

"Not a lot.  And that's why," said the elder, leaning closer, "it really
sucks to be you."

Coriolan looked up from the bottom of the pit.  "Yeah?"

"The way I've got it figured, we can't possibly let you live, because
you'll be back.  And you'll bring others from both sides.  And pretty
soon, we'll be back in the stone age trying in vain to figure out fire."

Coriolan's box chimed.  "Boss, 5 minute LL band vox message from Mojo."

"speak it," Coriolan said, looking into the elder's eyes.

"'You equals a c c plus plus stop.  Dooshed erik plus five though stop.
Doosh doosh stop.  Do I rewl or w...'"

"Fast forward two minutes."

"'...rewling stop.  Human highlight film stop.  Unfuckingbelievable stop...'"

"Fast forward two minutes."

"'...rewlage.  Regret to inform you that we are not comma repeat not comma
going to come rescue your ass stop.  Too busy on front stop.  Cultivate
vegetables comma maybe we'll pick up your grandchildren in four hundred
years or so stop.'"

"Hmmm," the elder mused, "maybe we won't have to blow you away after all,
if your compatriots are to ignore y..."

"'psych! exclamation point end of file,'" continued the device.

A giant blinding light suddenly filled the sky, blotting out the twin suns.
A roar as of the heavens being ripped open followed, knocking the crowd to
its knees.  Some staggered to their feet and ran to ramshackle huts at the
edge of the clearing.

Coriolan clambered out of the pit, slipping and falling on the wet grass
as the new third sun grew closer and closer, making all the shadows into
sharp impenetrable blackness.  The youngster who had first spoken was
suddenly shouting into his ear.  "Take me with you!"

"What the fuck do you...," Coriolan began, but the boy was off, running
to a hut.  The unmistakable hair-raising whine and ozone stench of a laser
rifle made Coriolan bellyflop to the ground, shouting instructions to his
tablet.  "SHIELDS UP!"

The boy came running back, carrying in his right hand something small and
unidentifiable. 

"Personal shields up.  Shields 90%.  Shields 80%.  Shields 74%," sang 
the tablet shrilly.

The third sun touched down and the screaming of its turbines keened down,
replaced by the angry shouting of the villagers.  A door popped open in
its silver side in front of the right engine pod.  "Shields 24%."

Coriolan pushed the boy into the blackness beyond the door right as the
tablet announced, "shields 1%.  Our father who..."  He dove in, feeling
the hot sweep of the invisible lines of death playing against his heels.

The door slammed shut and the lights came on.  A deep, resonant voice 
announced, "Ship shields up.  Shields 100%.  Shields 99%.  Shields 100%."

"Much better," mentioned Coriolan as he moved to the contoured chair and
strapped himself in.  The boy stood looking in wonder at the blinking lamps
and the camera views of the enraged villagers outside.

"Shields 99%.  Shields 100%.  Shields 98%, whoa, a lucky shot.  Shields
100%.  Retaliate?"

"Nah.  Lift off, prepare for warp 12.  Erik's probably fucking carrying
again."  Coriolan stowed away the tablet in a drawer and cracked his
knuckles.  "Oh, kid?  Strap yourself into that chair over there..yeah,
great."

"What is this place, Coriolan?"

"Welllll I hate to tell you kid but the name's not Coriolan."

"Shields 99%.  Shields 100%."

"No?" asked the youngster, clicking the straps shut.

"sunscreamer."

"The walker of darkness, the bloodstained shadow on the fifth moon, the
one who speaks in the clicking tongue of necrotic beetles and whose
very touch is the vilest sin."

"do the bit about the leaves."

"And a thousand black leaves spin around him in a constant whirlwind of
death, and his features are a blur behind them; and they guard him from
harm and cause him to be absent from the PLACES of harm.  FOR HE IS the
lord of deceit."

"Love that bit."

"So you're the one who caused the second Stone Age for our people?"

"We needed a repair planet.  You're not going to hold something five
centuries ago against me, are you?"

"No, I never really got into religion anyway."

"Cool, cool."

The viewscreen shifted and the villagers suddenly dwindled, disappeared.
The plain became a vast terrain, then a continent, then a planet.

"What does this button do?" inquired the youth, pressing it.

"ooh, HARDfuckingCORE.  Have any loved ones back home?"

"No, I was an orphan, and everyone hated me."

"Well, that's good, because you just..."

A bubbling mass of bright flashes filled the screen.

"...instantiated the Third Stone Age," finished sunscreamer.

"sucks to be them."

"fuckin' a.  Anyway, hang on tight, because we're going to have to juke
this rom off our backs.  Hit that big red button over there, thanks.  By
the way, what's your name?"

"It is...was the custom of my people not to hold name until we reach eighteen
years of age."

"Hmm.  Well, what'll I call you.  Guest?"

The boy wrinkled his nose.

sunscreamer fought the controls of the ship briefly, and then evened
them off.  "That oughta do it.  So what did you go back to your hut
to get before you came on board?"

The boy held up a dirty old stuffed animal.  "My favorite thing."

"And what a favorite thing it is.  Does *IT* have a name?"

"yeah.  It's my fuzzy bunny."

                *                    *                     *


The people knew better than to go near the place in the jungle where
the meteor had crashed.  The tomes warned of the evil horrors that
accompanied such portents.  The priests, with their turbans, clicked
their tongues and sang strange dirges such as they had never before
sung.  They told of the screamer of stars, and of the melting of the
ionosphere which had almost destroyed all the lands.  They told of
the second coming and the Bristled Lapin who had caused the earth to
rise up in lava and claim civilization for the second time before
going off to engage in pitched battle.

But one child was curious, and he snuck away from the teepees of
the camp into the depths of the jungle.

The air stank of charred earth and melted iron.  The quiet click-ping of 
cooling metal was the only surcease from the breathless silence.

An awarawk flapped by, awarawking.

The child crept to the edge of the furrowed crater.

"Is anyone out there?" he heard a voice call.  And then, strange
and wondrous incantations: "Flowers for the lady!  Pizza delivery!
Snausages!...Come save me, Buddy-Felix!..."

                *                    *                     *

TO BE CONTINUED?

(c) 1994, Felix S. Gallo

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Everyone is welcome to play.
 -Tom