Renegade T.M. Read online

  After marching for forty or so clicks, or what Crinkle’s reduced stature took for marching anyway, she decided she was lost. Looking around, she found herself in a dark and dreary forest. The trees were deep-rooted and ancient, and appeared to whisper to one another as she made her way by them. There appeared to be little other life, except for the odd fly that lurched out in front of her, seemingly drunk on some kind of insect cider, and a lone bird’s cry that randomly pierced the forest, shaking her from her internal monologue. All about she found richly coloured mushrooms in clumps around the tree trunks, mushrooms that seemed oddly familiar to Crinkle, though she could not for the life of her remember why.

  “What am I doing here?!” she said to nobody in particular, though she imagined the surrounding trees acknowledged her statement with whispered assent.

  “I mean seriously, how did I get here, and what am I doing with my life, I mean, my death?!”

  Nobody answered her directly, though a faint wolf’s cry echoed somewhere in the distance.

  “What’s so wonderful about this place anyway?!” she continued becoming increasing unnerved and growing even more upset with every footfall, “I wish…”

  She paused for a moment as she approached a larger than usual clump of the toxic looking mushrooms.

  “I wish… “

  “Yes little one, what do you wish?” asked a voice from nowhere.

  “I wish I was alive!” she finally blurted out, suddenly becoming aware that someone else had spoken.

  “By Hupa Hools, what a thing to say! Be careful what you wish for little one!” said the voice.

  The voice was coming from one of the mushrooms directly in front of her. As she approached, she observed that the voice had come from something perched on the largest of all the mushrooms there, though she was struggling to make out exactly what. With an effort of will she managed to bring into the focus the originator of the voice, and as it all became clear, she felt that either it was rapidly expanding in front of her so that it now filled her entire view, or else she had suddenly shrunken down to size of a mouse and now perched on the very mushroom she was observing but a moment ago.

  “Who are you?!” demanded Crinkle.

  “Who me?” replied the figure, “why I’m nobody.”

  The figure could be likened to a giant caterpillar, it sat on it’s larvae like body and looked most at ease resting atop this largest of all the mushrooms. It puffed on an enormous pipe and sent smoke billowing so that it engulfed her as a mist might. All told, the caterpillar looked decidedly at home, and eyed her as a chess grandmaster might eye an opponent who called the knights “horsies”.

  “So you wish you were alive,” said the caterpillar in a tone that worried her.

  “Er, maybe, yes, what’s it to you anyway?” she asked defiantly.

  “What’s it to me?” repeated the caterpillar.

  “Yes, what’s it to you?!”

  “Oh nothing really,” it replied, “I just thought I may be of some assistance, that’s all.”

  “Oh yeah, how?” she questioned, not at all ready to trust this creature.

  “It just so happens, that I may have acquired something that makes you, oh how did you put it, not dead… “

  “Alive!” she interrupted.

  “Yes! That’s it. Something that makes you alive, quite alive,” drawled the caterpillar as though using the word for the first time.

  Crinkle’s heart jumped at this, she longed to be rid of this place, still, she was not quite ready to put her trust in this colossal caterpillar.

  “The question then becomes,” it continued, “what are you going to do for me?”

  The caterpillar took a deep draw on its pipe and then blew a smoke ring at her that was so large that she simply sailed through the middle of it.

  “Erm, dunno,” she replied sounding a little lost.

  “Then I guess you’re going to be staying here a while longer.”

  “There must be something I can do,” she said with desperation in her voice, “I’ll do anything,” she pleaded.

  “Well perhaps there is something you could do for me.”

  “Oh yes, what is it?”

  “I want you to retrieve something for me,” said the creature enigmatically.

  “I can do that, no problem!”

  “On the other side of the forest lives a man, his name is Ben. Some time ago I loaned him some gardening equipment, and now I want it back.”

  “Want what, what is it you want back?” she asked.

  “The Sacred Shears of Salamaloo!”

  “What?!” said Crinkle, suddenly finding the situation ridiculous.

  “The gardening shears of Salamaloo are no ordinary pruning shears, for they were forged in an age when gardening was used for the manipulation of reality!”

  “Reality manipulating gardening shears huh?” she said finding the concept a little hard to grasp.

  “Yes exactly,” confirmed the creature, “get me these, and I will send you home little one.”

  She took a moment to consider what was happening. Okay, magical gardening shears was perhaps a little far fetched, but then she was currently conversing with a pipe-smoking caterpillar. She decided she would go along with it all for now, even if there was only a tiny chance the creature was telling the truth and could return her to life, then she thought it was worth pursuing.

  “Okay,” she agreed, “I’ll get you your shears back from Ben, then you keep your end of the bargain and resurrect me from the dead.”

  “It appears we have a concordat,” said the caterpillar, “now hurry away and bring them to me as soon as you can.”

  “I will,” she said turning to leave.

  “Oh young girl,” said the creature as though just remembering something, “probably best if you don’t mention me to Ben.”

  “But shouldn’t I tell him that you want your shears back?!” she asked somewhat taken aback.

  “No, no, just go and get them for me, hurry along now, the early bird and all that.”

  “But what if he won’t give them to me?”

  “Then my fine little friend,” replied the creature, “I’ll think you’ll find the whole matter is quite simply redundant.”

  “Good luck, must dash,” said the caterpillar, who, taking an almighty draw on his pipe, then disappeared in a puff of smoke.

  Crinkle was left on her own, and making her way down from the mushroom then seemed to return to her normal size. So she was off to thieve the shears of Salamaloo from a chap called Ben, but if it meant she could get out of this hell Hool, then she was going to see it through, whatever happened.

  29.

  Dink sat in the transportable nursing the stump that had been a hand only a little while earlier. He had requested the driver CPU take him to the Emergencies and Accidents unit, so he could have a new one attached. Though his hand hurt, or at least the space that should have contained a hand, hurt, this was not what was bothering him most, rather he could not shake the distressing feeling that he was being watched, and as if somehow he was simply acting out a role and saying lines that had already been said many times before.

  “There’s a call for you sir,” said the driver CPU, “shall I patch it through?”

  “Who is it?” asked Dink.

  “Says he’s a Mister Framer, and he works at Rikorn.”

  Mr Framer was his boss, he was already running late and now with this hand reattaching detour, he was going to be even later.

  “Er no thanks,” he replied a little flustered, “tell him I’ll call him back.”

  Dink had worked at Rikorn for most of his adult life. He had graduated from the Co-leen Academy with average certificate of education, and then started temping at the company as a means to save up and go galaxy hopping. However, many circuits later he found he was still there, and that rather than having saved up for his space adventure, he had instead micro-sized his plans, so that he was now aiming for a weekend away at Butlands with his psyc
hotic girl friend, and dreamed of one day achieving middle management, a paunch and his own transportable spot with his name on a sign.

  “Here we are sir, Emergencies & Accidents.”

  “Oh thank you,” he replied, relieved to have arrived already.

  “Your account has been debited fifty thousand shapes, do you want a bio receipt?”

  “No thank you.”

  “Have a nice brightime sir!”

  Dink made his way into the E&A unit, and as his transportable pulled away, the one which had been following, pulled into the spot it had just vacated.

  “Come on,” beckoned Pete, jumping out of the transportable, “he’s getting away!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Slip, evidently not as amused to be following the soon to be Co-leen Emperor as Pete clearly was.

  “Now what?” asked Crinkle.

  “Now, we jump him!” answered Pete excitedly.

  “Jump him?” quizzed Slip, “come on Earthy, what’s that gonna achieve exactly?”

  “Okay, not pounce on him exactly, but we need to talk to him, to make him see sense.”

  “Couldn’t hurt Slip,” appealed Crinkle.

  “Yeah we’ll see,” Slip replied, adding “will be an evil psychotic megalomaniac, always an evil psychotic megalomaniac.”

  Dink sat in the waiting room of the new hand department glancing nervously at his fission watch. He was now what would be classed as excessively late, the kind of late that could be likened to arriving for a party the morning after, then further realizing the party had actually been last weekend. He was certain Mr Framer would be wanting to see him if he ever made it in to work again, and it was unlikely to be one of those cosy little chats which begin with the words “so how are you?” At least he was next in line for his bio-fitting, where a machine would scan his DNA and a new hand would be artificially grown from his stem cell reserves. The hand would be ready instantly for it was rapid-aged using t-cell acceleration techniques, at least then when he did arrive to work, he would be doing so with two hands.

  “Mr Mormid?” queried someone in a white coat, presumably a Doctor.

  “Yes that’s me,” he responded.

  “Please come this way, your hand is ready to be implanted.”

  Dink returned his magazine to its table home amid the many others, and followed the Doctor down a corridor. As soon as he had rounded the corner, three shifty looking figures made a move to follow him.

  “Come on this is our chance,” said Pete excitedly.

  “What do you mean chance?! This is insane!” said Slip, still evidently unenthused.

  “As he’s having his hand attached, he’ll be a captive audience, he’ll have to listen to us!”

  “We’ve come this far haven’t we,” put in Crinkle.

  “What,” Slip began sarcastically, “then we explain to him that we’re from the future, and that many circuits from now he will rule the Co-leen, and destroy most of the known universe?”

  “Well, not exactly,” Pete replied, “I think a gentle nudge in the right direction will suffice.”

  “Gentle nudge, how?” asked Crinkle.

  “Well, we’re all agreed that Dinkle Mormid becomes the most evil dictator in the history of the universe ever, right?”

  “Agreed.”

  “So what we essentially need, is the diametrical opposite to all that is evil.”

  “What, like religion?” asked Slip.

  “Not quite,” Pete replied.

  “Charity then.”

  “Nope.”

  “Come on then tell us?!” cried Slip and Crinkle in unison.

  “Fishing.”

  “What?!” said Crinkle despairingly.

  “No hang on Crinks, monkey boy’s got a point,” said Slip, “I mean, who ever got into any evil-doing when they were fishing?!”

  “Exactly!” agreed Pete.

  “So we’re gonna convince him to fish?” asked Crinkle, with evident worry.

  “No we won’t need to!” exclaimed Slip.

  “And why not?”

  “All we need to do is get a rod in his hand and he’s away!”

  “Oh right,” she replied, rapidly losing hope in her male companions, “and where is this fishing rod?”

  “We can use this,” interjected Pete, having grabbed a broom that was propped against the wall of the corridor, presumably only recently abandoned by one of the hospital’s porters.

  “Brilliant my man!” praised Slip, “now if we take some of this cable that’s lying around, we can make that into the fishing wire!”

  “Slip! Don’t!” started Crinkle.

  Slip yanked at some of the flex that loitered the corridor and after a moment with his laser-pen, had enough to make a fishing wire. To Crinkle’s relief nothing else apparently happened; however, perhaps it was more than coincidence, that at that very moment, the power supply to hospital’s east wing went dead.

  “There, got it,” he declared, tying the cable to the broom handle, and making a quite unconvincing fishing rod.

  “Terrific, fail-proof!” said Pete, who was perhaps being a little over-optimistic.

  “You honestly mean to say, that once you get that broom handle into Mormid’s hand, he’ll decide that rather than rule the entire known universe for all eternity, he’s gonna rather go fishing instead?!”

  “YES!” chorused Pete and Slip together.

  “Well I must say, even though you’re both idiots, you’re both very assured idiots! Come on then, guess it’s now or never,” she said heading off down the corridor.

  “Slip,” said Pete staring after Crinkle.

  “Yes.”

  “Is this actually gonna work?”

  “Well put it this way,” he replied, “if it doesn’t, than least we’ve still got this fancy new fishing rod!”

  Pete watched Slip disappear after Crinkle, waving his broom handle with some cable attached.

  “Oh dear,” he addressed a nonchalant wall, as he set off after them both, “I appear to have set in action a rather distressing series of events.”

  If a corridor could convey pity, it would have.

  30.

  “What do you mean just over that hill?” asked Slip.

  “Yeah,” agreed Pete, “how could you possibly know such a thing?”

  “Well my little hupa hools,” explained Fendel, “I’m from another dimension, and being that I’m from another dimension, I know things that both of you couldn’t possibly.”

  “Oh really,” drawled Slip in a mocking fashion, “if you claim to know things that we don’t, then answer me this.”

  “Shoot,” encouraged Fendel.

  “What colour are the underpants I’m wearing?”

  “What?!” started Pete, “that’s the best you could come up with?!”

  “Trust me, he’ll never get it.”

  “Hmmm,” he began, “being that I’m from another dimension, I’d have to say that the colour of your underpants are…”

  “Go on.”

  “Are…”

  “See he’ll never get it,” said Slip.

  “Immaterial, because you’re not wearing any!” he finished triumphantly.

  “By Borz, he’s right!” stated Slip aghast, he then dropped his trousers and quite definitely proved it.

  “What’s wrong with you people?!” said Pete, desperately trying to shield his eyes.

  “No time for that,” said Fendel, turning to leave, “zip up Slip, it’s time to get Crinkle!”

  “Yeah, can we go now please?” appealed Pete, who thought that anywhere other than where he currently was, would have to better then watch Slip do more star jumps.

  “18, 19, 20! Okay done, let’s go,” said Slip pulling up his trousers.

  “Now,” continued Fendel, “if I’m not mistaken, Crinkle is just over this hill.”

  So they made their way to the top of the hill, and to Fendel’s secret amazement, found a fifty foot Crinkle on the other side.

  31.


  EARLIER

  Crinkle made her way through the forest, with the sole intention of reclaiming the sacred shears of Salamaloo from a chap named Ben. After a while she decided she was quite lost, that is until she bumped into a sign reading “Chap named Ben, forty yards”.

  “What a fabulously fortuitous sign!” she remarked to no one in particular.

  “Why thank-you,” replied the sign.

  “Wow, a talking sign!”

  “No, no, I’m Ben, I’m talking to you from my hut, there’s a little speaker in the “B” in “Ben” and a camera in the “o” of forty, see.”

  She looked closer and could indeed make out a tiny speaker and camera.

  “So, what can I do for you young lady, presumably, I am the one you seek?”

  “Erm, yes, I was wondering if I could speak to you about something?” she asked, suddenly remembering that she had forgotten to come up with any kind of convincing plan.

  “Did the caterpillar send you?” he asked all of a sudden, a note of panic evident in his voice.

  “The caterpillar,” she replied, trying to act natural, “why in Seventh Heaven, would a caterpillar send me?!”

  “So you definitely weren’t sent by a pipe-smoking caterpillar, who lives amongst the mushrooms on the other side of the forest?” he questioned sternly.

  “Nope,” she answered in a small voice.

  A moment passed, and Crinkle could feel the camera scrutinizing every inch of her.