Intergalactic, Insectiod Assassin in:
The Pachydwerp in the Room
season one, episode six
T.A. Cuce’
&
RiFT
This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to
persons living or dead are purely coincidental.
Copyright 2011
The Pachydwerp in the Room
TA Cuce’ & RiFT
They’re asking me to silence my cell phone. That means another one of those forced memories is about to begin. It’s like limbo, or wherever I am, becomes the universe’s biggest movie theater. Only I don’t get a screen, a speaker, or artificially flavored, yellow dye number three, I can totally believe it’s not butter syrup topped popcorn. Worst off, the lack of legs (or anything resembling physical form) means I can’t walk out after shooting the screen and/or the camera man. I’ve got to stop all this thinking, I’m depressing myself.
Shhh, the movie’s starting.
I was sitting in my office with my claw-feet propped up on the desk, reading the Galaxy Gazette (darkmatter prices were up again) when I heard someone blunder into my outer office calling, “Hello, hello,” in a deep, impatient voice. My receptionists kept disappearing, mostly around lunch time.
Strange.
Anyway, whoever’s pounding steps were shaking my chair so hard that I could barely keep my complex eyes on the print. The someone yanked my door open without knocking. I peered over the paper with a couple hundred retinas and stroked the trigger of my tuba blaster as a huffing and moaning mass of curly brown hair squeezed through the door. I kept the upper two claws on the paper to keep whoever’s mind off my lower pair.
He was panting for breath as he wiped the sweat off of his hairy brow with an embroidered handkerchief he clutched in a long proboscis and held out a holograph in a dinner-plate sized paw. His nails were as big as light bulbs and looked nearly as delicious.
“Sorry pal,” I said. “No matter what she told you, I never touched her. She’s not my type; too fat and too woolly.” My complex eyes focused on the flickering image. “I must admit though…I dig the tusks.”
“No, no,” he wheezed, still panting, and flapped ears the size of bed sheets. The breeze blew all the paperwork off my desk and out the window. Thankfully it was only bills that I’d never pay and the latest string of death threats. “She’s my daughter. I want you to find her,” he said in a voice so deep it rattled the plates of my exoskeleton.
“And kill her?”
“No! Just find her!” he shouted in an extra basso, excited voice. By the cut of this jerk’s affected accent, I’d say he was a ranking member of the hoi-polloi. Bug, I hate those guys.
It was an odd request. “Are you sure you don’t want her killed? It’s the same price.”
“Good heavens, no! I want her returned to me—alive! I’ll pay anything for her safe return.”
My antennae perked up. “Well then you’re in luck, my fees are outrageous.”
He squeezed his massive, furry ass into a chair with a groan that I’m fairly certain came from the chair.
He started cleaning his glasses with the beach towel-sized handkerchief and mumbled something unpleasant to himself. Then he sighed, the breeze sent my antennae into acrobatics. “I’ll give you an unlimited credit stick to use for expenses until she is returned, and then a bonus of twelve thousand in gaseous form.” He set the pinch glasses on the squat end of his proboscis, and then peered over them at me with bloodshot eyes the size of Ostrichpus eggs.
I tried to look calm but my right antenna was twitching like it wanted to jump off of my head, run over and hug him. “Okay,” I croaked. “I’ll find her.”
“Excellent!” he exclaimed and rocked back in my chair, which I expected would explode. Then, with a clearing of his throat that boomed like distant thunder, he knitted his fingers over his ample belly. “Most excellent. I want you to get started right away. I simply must have my little princess back, delicate flower that she is.”
I pointed a claw at the flickering hologram. “You mean this one?”
“Of course!” he trumpeted.
“Hey relax pal, it’s an easy mistake; I mean she barely fits in the projector frame.”
“Oh my goodness,” he mumbled into the hankie then cleared his throat again. “Now, all the pertinent information is in this packet.” As he dropped the folder on my desk I took note of how delicately the two wiggly fingers at the end of his proboscis could move. They could definitely work a weapon if that was his plan. I kept a few dozen retinas watching the possible threat. “And my son, Randolph, will be assisting you.”
A huge, hairy figure squeezed through the doorway, the spitting image of his father except for a lazy slouch, tusks shorter by half a meter, and a little propeller beanie resting on the big hump atop his woolly head of ruddy-brown curls.
“Wait a minute!” I leapt up and slammed a claw against my desk. “The tusks, the fur, that thing on your face—you’re a Pachydwerp!”
“Good heavens bug, what gave it away?” the elder one said with a snigger, waving me off with the handkerchief.
“Your striped tie,” I said and dropped back into my chair. “I don’t deal with Pachydwerps.”
Pachydwerps are brilliant manipulators. They have brains the size of a loveseat, they can add sums up past smell and into the color spectrum, and have an oversized, stubborn determination to get whatever they want. They run most of the fortune five million companies. You can’t trust a thing they say. I had developed a method for dealing with them though—lie through your mandibles and never do exactly what they ask. “The deal is off.”
The one with the spectacles leaned a thick, hairy elbow on my desk; I’m pretty sure the impression’s still there. “Oh, I’m quite sure the deal, as you say, is most assuredly on.” He leaned back and crossed one tree-trunk thick leg over the other. “And for the record, normally I’d never have business dealings with a Kacekan, but this is a desperate situation. As such I’m prepared to double my offer and still give you the same bonus.”
My plan was working. “Okay, but I don’t have to find her.”
“Don’t have to…don’t have to—oh good heavens, of course you have to find her. That’s the whole point.”
“Okay, but I’m not going to kill her, that’s extra,” I had him eating out of my claws—so much for his big brain.
“Fine. See that you don’t,” he said and pushed his mammoth sized hips out of the grateful chair. “Now if you’ll excuse me, this whole experience has been quite exhausting.” He stopped in the doorway and shot me another glance. “You might want to look into renting a building with an elevator.”
He lumbered out of the room leaving me with his son. These woolly beasts were both brilliant and devious. I was going to have to be extra careful with this young genius following my every move. If they wanted to set you up, Pachydwerps could play you like a cheap nuclear brain fiddle. Good thing I only had a few complex nerve centers, brains were too easily fiddled.
He stared out the window, picking his trunk.
“All right kid, lets get started.” I shot him a steely gaze, at least it felt steely to me. My exoskeletonized face doesn’t really move, besides, I don’t have eyelids. “I want you to run downstairs, search the coffee shop for clues, and then bring me back a Barkhouse bold blend, black—that means no milk, no sugar, and no mealworm larvae.”
He shot me a blank, unreadable gaze. Tricky devil.
&n
bsp; “C’mon kid, your sister’s not gonna find herself. Now hoof it on down there.”
He blinked, his woolly flap of a lower jaw hanging open. I was beginning to doubt that this was a trick at all. Despite the fact that he was the size of a good luxury hover-car, he seemed like little more than a larva. Time to find out.
“Simon says?”
“Uh, see, Mr. 3, my pop says I’m not supposed to let you out of my sight.”
So that’s how it was going to be. Well if the old man wanted the kid to shadow me, then that meant I had to lose him ASAP (Annihilate Stupid Annoyance Post-haste). “How about this, I’ll give you a picture of me and you can stare at that while you get my coffee?”
“Gee, I dunno...” He scraped his enormous foot on the floor, rattling the lamp off my desk.
I glanced at the shattered glass, this kid was costing me plenty, and kept several hundred retina trained on him. “Or I could pull out one of your eyes and keep it here with me.”
“I’ll take the picture.”
Just as I thought.
I gave him one of my old wanted posters and sent him on his way. As soon as he was out of sight, I threw on my quadra-sleeved trench coat and jammed my antennae through their respective holes of my fedora. I slipped down the back stairs as quietly as my clawed feet would take me. Once I was safely in the alley, I opened the file on top of an overstuffed dumpster. Same old story, girl meets radioactive lunar jellyfish, girl falls in love, and then they run away to the Horsehead nebula.
Or so I thought.
I emerged from the alleyway onto the main street and there was Randolph, staring at the wanted poster and holding a cup of coffee. He noticed me before I had a chance to duck back in the alley. This kid was stupid lucky, and that was the most dangerous kind of luck.
“Oh there you are, Mr. 3. I got lost coming out of the coffee shop and forgot which street we were on. When’s my dad coming back? I’m getting tired.
A likely story; the coffee shop was in the same building. I snatched the coffee and took a sip.
“Blah!” I spit it out onto his feet. I looked at the cup, cream, sugar, mealworm larvae.
I needed to stay focused. “So your sister’s got the hots for a jellie, huh?”
“I guess so. Are you gonna drink that coffee?”
“Take it, I hate sugar. So this jellie is a tough guy, eh?”
“Uh…I never met him.” He slurped the coffee through his trunk.
“How long has she been seeing him?”
“Gee mister, I’m not sure.” He poked his trunk into the cup.
This kid was either playing me for a complete idiot, or actually was a complete idiot. I couldn’t risk a guess, not yet. “Where does your dad work?”
“Amalgamated Gravity.” He held out a trunk full of mealworm larvae. “Larvae?”
“Sure.” I flipped a handful into my mandibles. “So the old man works for A.G. huh? Another faceless drone in the universe’s largest company.”
“Oh no, Pop owns Amalgamated Gravity. And they don’t manufacture faceless drones anymore, they sold that division.”
“Blah!” I spit larvae onto his feet. “Your dad owns Amalgamated Gravity?” A zillion thoughts in the form of credit notes filled my upper complex nerve plexus. “He must be bigger than U.S. Steel.”
“Oh he is,” the kid said nodding his head with a vigor that sent his trunk swaying. “Underwear Supporting Steel is only a small subdivision of Amalgamated Gravity.”
I did some quick math. This kid’s sister was worth a lot more than I thought. Maybe I could play an angle here. “All right junior, follow me.”
“Where we goin’?”
“To the Horsehead nebula, but first we’re going back to my office. And you can grab me another coffee, black this time.”
I laid the maps out on my desk and plotted a course while I waited for Randolph. We would need to rent a vehicle and since it was on the old man’s dime it was going to be one sweet ride, no Volkswagen Betelgeuse this time, I’d get me a Wormholes Royce with real human-skin interior and antimatter brakes.
I was practically salivating when I heard Randolph enter the room. “Just put it on the desk kid.”
Something didn’t smell right, or should I say strong enough. I cracked open my rear eye and caught a shape bobbing closer. I spun around, drawing weapons.
A Radioactive Lunar Jellyfish loomed over me brandishing a switchblaster—a nasty weapon favored by thugs and bullies. I owned two. I could tell by his leather jacket, turned up collar, and the cigarette pack rolled up in his sleeve that this guy was a tough customer. My left lower had the tuba blaster aimed and firing before I even thought about it, but the jelly was faster. He switched opened the blaster and hit me with a several thousand volt blade. The room flickered with blue light, the air crackled and filled with smoke and the stench of burnt hair and cauterized bug.
I dropped the blaster, and my arm, on the floor.
I watched the lost limb mindlessly twitching on the scalp-hair rug. But I wasn’t alone, the jelly was watching too. He must have heard that us bugs can maintain control of lost limbs for several hours.
My antenna connected and I raised the middle claw his way.
But he should have been watching me too, simple-eyed dope. I clenched one of his sticky tendrils in a claw and took a bite. Man, I do love seafood. My razor-sharp mandibles snipped it off. “Delicious,” I said chewing with my mandibles wide open, I let the rest of the tendril drop to the floor beside my own severed appendage.
I spun around, drawing aim with the three remaining weapons, but too late. The Jelly floated up, paddling toward the ceiling with those feathery little fingers partially concealed under its translucent hood. These things were softer than soft, and could expand their size many times over. It extended its tendrils, filling the room with deadly, wavering poisonous barbs. It grabbed my arms and pinned them to my sides. In a free tendril the switch blaster danced a deadly dance.
I set my claw-feet and began to pry. Even a jelly is only so stretchable and I was strong, especially when I was mad, and right then I was totally frassing pissed off. But a tendril snaked around and tapped me on the shoulder. No way I was falling for that old trick. I wrenched around to the opposite side just in time to catch a barb in the eye.
Double feint! This jelly was a true pro.
Blind in a couple hundred retinas and feeling the poison beginning to take effect, I began spinning myself around, my exoskeleton blocking most of the barbs, rolling up his tendrils like a forkful of armpit hair pasta. He tried pulling back but I had him tangled tight and threw myself at his switch-blaster. As he tried to draw the electric blade away it severed the taught tendrils. I was free and fighting mad.
I raised all three weapons, the wallaby wacker, my Drilling antique shotgun/rifle, and the Hogswalla toad sticker, and drew aim. At this range the sticker would probably take us both out, but I’d rather die with him then let some translucent lunar blob get credit for taking out the galaxy’s deadliest bounty hunter.
Dozens of tacky tendrils snapped out and grabbed my arms, the barbs injecting poison between my joints. The wallaby wacker and the toad sticker were wrenched from my claws as I continued to loose strength. I tugged at the tendrils with all of my weight and yanked the luminous blob directly in the sights of the drilling. He grabbed the gun’s triple barrels and wrenched it out of my claws just as I pulled the triggers. His ugly, unshaven mug switched from an expression of cool contempt to surprise. Then the gun went off directly in his radioactive lunar face. Its battle cry was as loud as thunder. It spit black smoke and lead shot, overwriting the room’s fishy stench with burnt sulfur.
The jelly never even had time to scream.
Iridescent goo splattered all over Randolph, who was standing in the doorway holding my coffee cup, which was leaking larvae from a pellet hole. He had a chipped tusk and the propeller on his beanie was spinning out of balance due to a now missing blade.
“Mr
. 3?”
I held up a single pincher. “Give me a minute, kid,” I said to the three pachydwerps swirling in all of my functioning retinas. I lurched to the left, then back to the right. I reached for the pachydwerp closest to me and hit the wall. Weakening, I slid down to the floor.
“Mr. 3?” I heard a deep, slow, garbled voice say. I dropped on claws and knees and felt my stomachs churn. The poison was full in effect and I wouldn’t last much longer. My stomach, and the room, lurched. I cried out in searing abdominal pain and my stomachs rolled into a painful knot, then I opened my mandibles wide and belched long, loud, wretchedly, and wonderfully relieving.
I leapt to my feet and brushed myself off with the three claws I still had; at least until my next molt could replace the one I’d lost. Kacekan’s blood is a toxic acid. Few poisons can do much worse than give us a good case of bad gas.
“Mr. 3?”
“What is it, kid?”
“Mr. 3, some guy was lookin’ for you downstairs.”
“Let me guess, a jellyfish?”
“I guess so. I told him you were here, I hope that’s OK. Here’s your splatte’.” He held out the cup as the last drops of coffee and larvae dripped to the floor.
“Mr. 3?”
“What?”
“Before we go to the Horseface nebula can I clean this dead jellyfish off me?”
“We’re not going to the Horsehead nebula, Randolph.”`
His giant black eyebrows arced up in confusion. “How come?”
“Cause I just killed your sister’s boyfriend and I’ve got a hunch she’s nearby.”
“Not very far, she’s down at the coffee shop.”
Now my exoskeleton isn’t capable of expression, but I sure felt frustrated. This is one reason I never spent much time around kids aside from meals. “She’s down in the coffee shop? Why didn’t you say so?”
“Well, I was concentrating on your coffee order and then I got lost and Ziggy said if I told you she was there he would cut my ears off.”
“Who’s Ziggy?”
“That Jellyfish you just killed.”
“You mean your sister’s boyfriend?”
“Ziggy’s not my sister’s boyfriend, he’s her bodyguard.”
“Your sister has a bodyguard?” I slurped down into my jelly-sticky chair.