human currency?”
“Wait, laser bore accident?” Clive asked
Tom frowned and shook his head. “He hasn't been the same since.”
“Whatever. Why can't you guys just beam it up to your ship?”
“That would be shoplifting,” Dick or Harry said.
“Okay, so kidnapping is okay, but shoplifting is wrong?” Clive asked.
Tom nodded. “We put you back!”
“After an anal probe!” Clive said. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a woman give him a disapproving look and shoo her child away from them.
Clive took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don't see a Sir Fraggalot with a nuclear flechette.”
“Here's a Sir Hackenslash with a nuclear flechette,” Harry or Dick said, indicating another figure.
Clive grabbed the Sir Hackenslash and a Sir Fraggalot with a molecular disruption mace and started toward the checkout counter.
“Aidan can switch their weapons if he wants to,” Clive growled.
As he passed one of the rows he heard a child ask: “Mommy, what's an anal probe?”
“I can hotwire an ATM to give us some human currency,” one of the aliens said.
“That's okay, but shoplifting isn't?” Clive asked.
“Interstellar law is quite complicated,” Tom explained. “It's similar to how your government can extort you but you can't extort your government.”
“Actually, that almost makes sense,” Clive said. “Well, never mind. Put it up here with these two.”
He smiled at the bored-looking clerk behind the counter. She looked at Tom, Dick, and Harry, but didn't seem to care. Holiday shopping season was too hectic to get bent out of shape about aliens.
They left the store and started toward the exit.
“Human,” Tom said, “explain the dynamic to me. Your mate sent you out in search of a toy for your spoiled brat niece. If you do not return with it, she will kill you. However, you have not checked in for several hours and your car is abandoned on the side of the road. Wouldn't she be happy just to have you back safely?”
“You've never seen a woman after she didn't get the perfect gift for her niece,” Clive said. “Besides, husbands everywhere know that if we do not obey the exact letter of our orders from our wives, nothing – including alien abduction and anal probing – can make her forgive you.”
Dick or Harry pulled out Clive's cell phone and tried to reactivate it. He tinkered with some of the material inside it. Suddenly, Clive saw another toy store.
“This way,” he said, steering them through the crowd of screaming children and angry parents. He dodged a couple of black-clad teenagers and ended up in a brightly-lit toy store.
A frumpy-looking woman had loaded two Mister Giggles into her cart and was pondering the third and final one.
“Lady!” Clive shouted. He hurried over and stood beside the woman. Both of them grabbed the doll at the same time.
“It's mine,” the woman said. She reeked of cigarettes and cat urine.
“You already have two,” Clive said. “I've had a bad day and this will make it all go away!”
“I always have a bad day,” the woman said.
“I believe it,” Tom muttered.
She glanced at the alien and looked back at Clive. “Tell your oddball friend to shut up and give me my toy.”
“It's not yours,” Clive said. “I have it.”
“I have it, too. Let go or I'll spray you with mace!”
“Tom, can't you stun her or something?” Clive asked as he struggled with the woman.
“It would be unethical for me to stun her in this instance,” Tom said. “This is a contest of wills.”
“She's threatening to spray me with mace!” Clive said.
“I'll do it, too!” the woman said. A muscle beside her eye twitched.
“I believe you, but I'm not letting go,” Clive said.
“Human!” Dick or Harry shouted. “I think I fixed your primitive communication device! You have a message.”
“Not now,” Clive growled. “Look, lady, I've been abducted by aliens, who promptly conducted an anal probe, and then we went to four toy stores before finding this very toy. If I don't get it, my wife will kill me.”
“Human, the message is from your spousal unit,” Harry or Dick said. “She left five messages.”
“Not now!” Clive snapped.
“Madam Human,” Tom said, diplomatically. “Is it really necessary for you to obtain this third item when you have two others in your cart?”
“Gotta keep one in mint condition in case they become worth something,” the woman said.
“Can't you stun her? Please?” Clive asked. The woman put her foot on his leg and was trying to push herself away from him.
“I said it's unethical.”
“We could use the anal probe,” Harry or Dick suggested. “There's nothing in the laws preventing us from doing that.”
The woman's eyes widened. “You keep your filthy, three-fingered hands off me...”
“Yes, do it!” Clive said
“Human, you're frothing at the mouth,” Tom said.
“PROBE HER!” Clive shouted.
“Mommy, what's an anal probe?” some kid asked from around the corner.
The woman took one hand off the toy to grab her mace. Clive, in a feat of inhuman strength, wrenched the doll from the woman's grasp and dashed toward the checkout counter.
“Madam, if you would kindly bend over,” Dick or Harry said.
Clive glanced back and saw the woman spray mace right in his V-shaped face.
Clive skidded to a stop in front of the counter and handed the checkout woman the doll. She was staring at the aliens and the woman struggling in the back.
“SCAN IT!” Clive yelled.
“Don't do it!” the woman called. Clive looked back and saw her plow Tom over with her shopping cart.
She was heading right at him at ramming speed.
“SCAN THE BLOODY DOLL!” Clive roared.
The girl ran the doll over the scanner and the computer registered the sale. Clive quickly swiped his credit card and looked over his shoulder.
She was almost there. She was screaming like a banshee and, behind her, were three aliens who looked like they were hired as extras in a war movie.
“Go! Leave me!” Tom said to Dick or Harry – whichever one wasn't blind. “Protect the human.”
The other alien was trying to get Tom off the floor.
“I won't leave you!” he cried.
“Sign your receipt.”
Clive looked at the clerk and signed the receipt as quickly as he could. The clerk put his copy into the bag with the Mister Giggles doll.
At the last second, Clive dove out of the way of the incoming cart. The woman hit the counter with a titanic crash.
The clerk was thrown against the wall and ended up on her back staring at the ceiling.
“Thank you and have a nice day,” the clerk droned from the floor.
Clive hurried over and found his aliens huddled together.
“You can put the anal probe away,” Clive said. “It's over. We got it.”
“I hate human holiday customs,” the maced alien muttered.
“Me, too,” Clive said. He looked over his shoulder and surveyed the wreckage by the counter. “Let's get out of here before we have to deal with security. I think you double-parked the flying saucer anyway.”
The car was running by the time Clive got there. He would have been there sooner but the aliens had to burn a metal boot off the landing strut because Tom had, indeed, double-parked.
Clive pulled into his garage nine hours after he had left on his little errand.
Clive wanted to introduce Aidan to Tom, Dick, and Harry, but they were too angry and injured to agree to any kind of meeting. Clive decided he was lucky not to have caused an interstellar incident.
Clive came into the house, closed the door,
and staggered over to his favorite chair. He collapsed into it and looked at the smiling Mister Giggles doll.
Sitting was still uncomfortable.
Mary came into the room.
“Where were you? Did you get my messages? Why didn't you answer your phone?”
“It was knocked out by the EMP,” Clive said.
“What?”
“Never mind,” Clive said, shaking his head. He handed her Mister Giggles.
“But that's what I called about!” Mary said. “My sister called and her daughter changed her mind. She doesn't want a Mister Giggles. She wants a Matilda Mae Wettum doll.”
Clive looked up at his wife and stared at her.
“No,” he said.
“What?”
“No,” Clive said. He picked up his laptop and turned it on. He started sorting the Christmas card list and wondered if he should add Tom, Dick, and Harry.
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