Post# 4128 Sorry for the delay... this went on much longer than I had intended. "That's what she said!" No, um... I've never written a single thing in my entire life, so I'm sorry if this is dry and senseless. Maybe I should have paid attention in English class instead of ditching to go play with the 'puters. ;-) -- Phil HML Story Bored, Part 006 --- Inside the Fortrette of Solitude (what DO you call a 12 inch Fortress?), the four reptiles were meeting around a large table. Well, three of them anyway. Jerhevon was lying on the floor, snoring loudly in a drunken sleep, flat on his belly as stegosaurs are prone to do. For the past hour, X had been briefing a skeptical Red about the new-but- not-necessarily-improved-Dinosorceror, and both of them about the possible fate awaiting the planet and the whole universe for that matter. While there seemed to be no end to the questions Dinosorceror had to ask, Red seemed to be spending most of his time staring at X with a goofy "Do you honestly believe you can pull this sort of thing off?" stare (no small feat for a creature lacking pupils), but not saying a word. It's difficult and frustrating to try to rebut what's only implied... if there were one question she'd LIKE to hear out of Dinosorceror at this point, it would be the one he just happened to ask next: "Do you honestly believe you can pull this sort of thing off?" X shot Red a toothy grin and a "neener neener I gotcha!" glare. "Well, no, not just the three, er, four of us. And would somebody PLEASE get that stegosaur a cup of coffee or something?" X punched some buttons on an instrument panel, and the wall behind her faded to black. "There are others on this planet that will take up the cause..." Dinosorceror was fascinated by the colorful lines and foreign text now beginning to fill the massive display screen. Some sort of map, though he couldn't tell of what. He looked back to X, then followed her gaze to Red... "The insane? The terminally gullible? Perhaps some secret stash of reptile empathizers to which you alone are privy? Exactly which 'others' did you have in mind?", Red dripped with sarcasm. "We found you by sheer dumb luck, didn't we? And... and... HIM...", gesturing to the still-snoozing stegosaur. "And yes, there will be a few sympathizers, and yes, we'll even recruit the insane if it comes to that. Surely you realize what will become of this planet, no, this entire sector of the galaxy, if we do nothing? Now, are you just going to puff off to another convenient dimension, or can I count on you? Are you in or aren't you?" Red stared down at the table, wrinkled his brow, and shifted his mouth around for a while before answering. His eyes swirled with reddish hues, then yellows, then back to reds. He had made up his mind long before any of this, but relished the dramatic pause. Finally, he looked to X and grinned. "Of COURSE I'm in. You think I'd pass up this sort of chaos?" He gave her a dopey grin, cocking his head for a complete "like you had to ask" look. X rolled her eyes. "Good. And by the way, we DO have agents already installed on this planet. Not many, just a few dozen, most of them cleverly disguised as humans. In fact, most of THEM don't even know. But with aromatherapy and the proper instruments we can revert them to their proper forms, glean what information they've absorbed about the culture and operation of this planet, and recruit them to the cause." She turned her attention back to the screen, and the others followed. Occasionally a small white circle would be added to the map, in addition to the large red circle which Dino assumed marked their current position. The image was slowly zooming out, but Dinosorceror still couldn't make heads or tails of it. He squinted and tilted his head, but it still wasn't quite right. "We should keep moving right now anyway. We'll pick up our men as we go along, until we can settle at the base of operations. As you can see, the bulk of the agents on this continent are located near the coasts. From our current position, we'd best move up the west coast, then tra..." "Excuse me," Dino interrupted in a nasally voice. Now that the map was zoomed all the way out to display the full globe, he could see what he had been missing. "Your map... It's upside down." He was bent at the waist and neck to get a more comfortable view of his planet. X closed her eyes and sighed. "No, YOUR maps are upside down. It's Galactic Standard, shit-for-b... er... Dinosorceror." "Get used to it, lizard-boy," Red chimed in. He was currently tugging at Jerhevon's pits, trying with only partial success at getting him to stand upright. "Now, before I was so rudely interrupted, I was trying to say... we'll need transportation and some other basic needs. With the Lens we can sleep here, but we're still going to need some gear and a lot of food. Oh, and money. Earth money." All eyes turned to the Dinosorceror. Or is that two Dinosorcerors? Red held Jerhevon's shoulders to help stabilize him. Dino instinctively patted his thighs and buttocks, where his pockets had spent the past two decades or so. Only then did he remember the small drawstring pouch he had tied to his belt before they left. He wedged in a couple stout fingers and counted aloud, "fifty...sixty...sixty-five... six...seven... sixty eight cents!" All groaned. Jerhevon flopped onto his belly again. "No... wait a minute!" He pulled a small plastic card from the pouch. "I still have my Sears card, and there's room on it!" Everyone perked up considerably. Then the Dinosorceror drooped as he pulled the OTHER card from his pouch. "Damn!" "What is it?", X asked. Dino held up the card, his photo ID. "I don't look like this anymore." Red and X looked amused. But it was Jerhevon, his inhibitions still in the bottom of a bottle off in God knows where (or when), who popped the question. "And this is a problem?" "No ID, no charge. Sixty eight cents is it." X shut off the screen. "Well then, we'll have to FIND money. We should split up to cover a larger area, but I don't want us out there unarmed. I've got this..." She heaved the strap to her massive gun over her shoulder, "Red and I will explore to the north. Uh, that's south to you, Dino. And you two..." yanking Jerhevon back up by the wrist, "...will go sout...er...the other way. You've got the Lens. If you should happen to run into anything nasty, don't try anything stupid, just stick to the basic shrink feature. That should cover just about any human threat." Dinosorceror was grinning hard. He was too busy fiddling with his Sears card to hear the bit about encountering nasty things. "And what are you looking so goofy at?", the raptoress asked him. "Am I gonna stay this way forever? I mean, like a dinosaur?" "No, not forever, only the rest of your life..." She glanced at her chronometer. "...which isn't going to be very long if we all just stand around here making small talk. We'll meet back here in three hours." X heaved the gun strap a little higher up her shoulder, and started moving out. "Ready with that Lens, Dino?" But again Dinosorceror didn't hear her. He was busy doing a little jig, waving his Sears card overhead and laughing, "Ha ha! Debt free! Fools! You'll never find me!" *** One hour and two and a half miles later, the dinosaur pair had found a whopping fourteen cents between them. Jerhevon, still a bit droopy, followed a couple paces behind Dinosorceror, as they made their way down one of the larger streets in town, watching the gutters and checking the change slots of each telephone and newspaper machine along the way. "My feet hurt, and I'm STARVING," the stegosaur whined in a half-daze. "Me too. We've almost got enough here for a cheeseburger or something." He scanned his surroundings. "I seem to recall there being a Hardee's in this direction, just past the highway." He tugged at Jerhevon's wrist to get him moving a little faster. A couple of blocks further along, Dinosorceror spotted the restaurant in the distance. They made their way along the highway overpass, and were halfway across the exit ramp, when they were accosted by a bedraggled man wielding a paper cup and a crudely-constructed sign reading, "Homeless veteran. Please help." "Change, sir?", the man asked the more alert of the two dinosaurs walking past him. "Already did, thanks!", Dino called back to him. They reached the opposite curb and were on their home stretch to a hot beef sandwich, when Dino stopped suddenly in his tracks and swung his arms out, knocking the wind out of Jerhevon, who had still been lagging a couple of paces back. "Of COURSE! That's IT!" Dino did a quick about-face, grabbed the stegosaur by the wrist again, and took off in the direction from which they had originally came. Jerhevon, still facing Hardee's and drooling profusely, nearly suffered whiplash as he was dragged back across the road, Dino depositing 82 cents in the man's cup as they whizzed past. "Thank you! God bless!", the man had called back at them. Little did they know they were being watched. No, not by the homeless man. In fact, with that 82 cents, and a lot of determination and hard work, and though the magic of compound interest, he eventually found his way off the streets, landed himself an honest job, and, *IF* our heroes manage to save the planet from absolute destruction, will eventually become quite a successful businessman, earning a small fortune from his clever design for childrens' dinosaur action figures, and sharing the proceeds with various schools, orphanages, and medical research institutes. Big if. No, they were being watched from a rooftop half a block away. The creature squatted as best he could so he would not be seen, which is probably to everyone's benefit. Erect, he would stand a bit over eight feet tall, was nearly half that wide, with purplish-black skin and covered from head to toe in various horns, claws, barbs, and other nasty things. And teeth. Lots and lots of sharp, pointed teeth. "Watch." Those had been his orders. And if he was a good boy, he might get another order, an even better one, perhaps "maim" or "pummel". But for now he was content to watch. For above all other things, even above their sheer strength, or their keen ability to just look really nasty, the one thing his species had been specifically genetically engineered for was loyalty. So he watched, and grinned an evil 266 tooth grin. *** X donned her gleaming, wrap-around shades in the afternoon sun, while Red's eyes naturally adapted, swirling in dimmer colors. Less than an hour until they were to regroup at the Fortrette, and they hadn't turned up a single penny. But that wasn't their real purpose in going off together. They had things to discuss, in private. "...and you're certain this new Dinosorceror character is the right man for the job?", Red was saying, "C'mon, he doesn't even know which way is up!" "He just hasn't adjusted to his new body yet. Sure, he's a little goofy, a little naive, but while we're on this planet, who better to steer us clear of trouble than a seasoned local?" Red made a face. "I don't know... I mean, what if he's one of those... oh, what's the word... a nerd? You know, locked up in his room all day playing with his computer?" X laughed. "The Dinosorceror, a computer nerd? No, I don't think so... if that were the case, the whole planet... no... the whole universe, would probably already be conquered by now." Red was about to say something, when around the corner coming the opposite direction walked two police officers. X quickly tried to hide her gun behind her back, but the thing was so damn huge she might as well be displaying it to them on a pedestal. The policemen just stopped, crossing their arms and tilting their heads in the universal "well what do we have here?" gesture. X panicked. She pulled the gun forward and set it to "smithereens," and was just about to heft it, when Red shoved it rather forcibly back down toward her groin. "Don't say a word, I know how to handle this." They approached the officers, Red's eyes swirling hypnotic shades of blue-green. The two groups converged in front of a butcher shop. "Greetings, puny Earthlings! I am... uh... Captain Polska Kielbasa of the... um... starship... Porterhouse! We seek directions to the convention center!" The officers shot each other a "you've got to be fucking kidding" glance, as they reached toward their belts. "Uhhh... big Star Trek convention! Yeah! William Shatner will be singing there!" X understood now what Red was getting at, and started to play along. She set her huge gun to "silly noises and flashing lights" and let off a few 'rounds' at passing cars, some sausages hanging in the store window, and finally at the policemen. The officers eased up, even managing a laugh. One turned away from the street, blushing visibly and hoping nobody saw him standing around with two large reptiles. He feigned interest in the shop's black pudding, which was the most attention it had received in months. The other man offered directions. "Let's see... yeah... keep going the way you are. See that second light down there? Go left there, and it's probably, oh, at least a mile in that direction. Long walk. Aren't you guys burning up inside those outfits?" Red dodged the question. "Thank you for your assistance, officers." He raised a hand to them. "Live long and prosper!" X tried to play along with the one human hand gesture she knew, but Red forcibly pushed this to her groin as well. The two policemen went along their way, laughing among themselves and amusing each other to no end with The Eight Standard Star Trek Impressions. Eyes wide open, mouths sealed, and standing very erect, Red and X walked quickly to the corner, then bolted off the right, toward the Fortrette. *** Well out of harm's way now, but a bit behind schedule, the two reptiles were still running when they passed Dinosorceror and Jerhevon, sitting on a park bench and lying belly-down in the grass, respectively. "What's the big hurry?" Dino asked. Beside him on the bench was a paper cup overflowing with money. On the ground, between the bench and stegosaur, were two shopping bags full of stuff. Dinosorceror was munching on cheese puffs and drinking a Big Slam Chocolate Yoo-Hoo, The Beverage With it's Own K-T Boundary. "Hey! Nice shades!" "Ahh, good, you're okay!" X exclaimed. "See, Red? I told you this guy was a pro!" Red addressed the Dinosorceror next, "And why is there orange powder all over your face?" "Oh, uh, my aim's still not too good." He got defensive. "Try waking up with your mouth a good eight inches away from where you've kept it for the past 25 years and see how well you do!" Red shot a "yeah, some pro" glare at X. If glaring were an Olympic sport, these two would take home gold medals and live the rest of their lives in luxury endorsing overpriced sneakers and breakfast cereal. "We hit a little snag, I'm afraid we didn't turn up squat", X started, "but it looks like you've dug up the mother lode! What gives?" Dino stood, setting his snacks down on the bench, and went over to Jerhevon. He rolled the stegosaur back a bit, wrestled a piece of cardboard out from under its belly, and held it up for them to see. Almost immediately, passers-by deposited $6.80 into his cup, and he also netted two "Oh, you poor thing"s, a pat on his mottled green crest, and a filthy quarter dropped in his Yoo-Hoo. "Thank you! God bless!" he called back over his shoulder. Red and X looked closer at what Dino was holding. It was a crudely- constructed sign that read, "Conceived in Harrisburg. Please help." "I haven't a clue what that's supposed to mean, but you're a genius, Dino," and kissed him on the snout while volleying a "see, I told you we needed a local" glare into Red's court. But Red was busy at this point, getting Jerhevon back onto his feet again. The raptoress licked orange powder from her lips. "Feh!" [Note to the Pennsylvania impaired: Harrisburg, the state capital, lies just a couple of miles away from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, which was a hot news item when it sprung a leak in the 70's. "No immediate threat" was the official response. Mmm hmmm.] Dino clapped once. "Enough of this stuff, spuds! Let's REALLY get to work!" He started to round up the bags and cup and snacks, grimacing at the Yoo-Hoo and handing it to Jerhevon, who took a big swig, belched, and spat a gleaming quarter into the money cup. They started off toward the Fortrette. Dino reached back for one last cheese puff that he had dropped on the bench. He opened his mouth and, with all the grace and beauty of a ten-minute-old moose, shoved it up his nose. *** Now back inside the Fortrette, they once again met around the large (well, to them) conference table. Jerhevon was seated now, nursing a very big, very black cup of coffee. "How did I get signed up to this 'save the universe' thing anyway?" "You were asleep. X voted for you," Dino explained, seated across the table from him. Red was at the head of the table. X was off to the side, pacing back and forth, flicking peanut butter M&M's into the air and catching them in her mouth. The candies made a terrific yummy noise the way she chewed on them. The contents of the two bags were spread out across the table, illuminating all to Dinosorceror's concepts of "food" and "gear." To maintain some element of decency, the former will not be described. The latter consisted of a box of drywall screws, an AM/FM walkman, a 2" Casio pocket TV, some kitchen gadgets, a set of Jurassic Park toy walkie-talkies, and a curling iron. Red held up the iron. "And this is for... ?" "I couldn't resist! It was a bargain! I guess I'm just a sucker for shiny things." He looked away, embarrassed. "So tell me, Mr. Dinosorceror... you play with computers very much?" Red asked, looking over to X with a sarcastic grin worthy of an Oscar. But it went unnoticed. She was tied up deep in thought, still pacing and staring at the floor. Dino did not answer. An SI-unit dramatic pause had passed, then another. Red looked back to him for an answer. Jerhevon sensed the odd pause and looked up himself, and X followed suit. The Dinosorceror was locked up. Catatonic. Each reptile in turn looked to where Dinosorceror was looking. Visible in the dim twilight through the open end of the dramatic Fortress of Solitude entry passage were one and a half enormous claws, attached to even larger purplish-black toes covered in scales and barbs. Somebody had new orders. The reptiles dove under the table, except for X, who ran for the door swinging her enormous rifle. Outside, she found the other two and a half claws belonging to the foot, along with a *second* such enormous foot. And, stacked atop these, what looked to be about a quarter mile of immense horns, claws, barbs, and other nasty things. The creature smiled and drooled. Growling, it lifted one foot high in the air. X raised her rifle, aiming for any part of the monster, which wasn't hard... ... and bombarded it with silly noises and flashing lights. "Shit! Wrong mode!" she yelled, running back inside. The foot came down... ============= Mail to xdraco@panix.com for list assistance. 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