VOID FRUITCAKE: #4 Keep Your Big Mouth Shut

0 Conversations

This episode is fourth in the VF series. To read the third episode click
on to VF #3: Poets are Born, That's the Trouble

Keep Your Big Mouth Shut
Mandami (plural for mandamus) intelligence was limited. Though they
varied from 29.95 ON to 99.95 ON (again, ON is Overt Noetics, a unite to measure
intelligence), they were limited (and would eternally be so, though the mandami
didn't know that). All mandami thought that their kind possed EHP (or Extra
Hypersensory Perception), or some Hypernatural Power, but had never got the
intelligence to believe all other species on Terrarium did. Some mandami could
even walk through walls, some could predict the future, some could make things
happen another continent - but to the mandami, only they could do it. The fact
was, all this (and more) had been practiced by a certain species called the
'Chicken'. Pathetically enough, the mandami enjoyed devouring the intellect
species.


Aboard the Gravel X42 spaceship, it's occupants were furiously racing their
minds in a common ground trying to summarize what went wrong and who was to
blame. An one hand, it was totally unnecessary. On the other, it was a tradition
for the mandami to do things that were totally unncecessary. Among all the
mandami (excluding The Oblivious Machine, or TOM - the totally in-your-
face computer), Herald Fehrald was the most supreme by intelligence. His was a
whooping 66.6 ON. But ofcourse, his intelligence was apocalyptic. It coincided
with the Number of the Beast (Where the beast would be anyone deemed as
President, anywhere). Herald would be generally a positive thinker...
that is, of course, if he generally thought. His senses were not very active,
except his one golden sense - the one he got when he landed accidently on a
planet around the vicinity of Humora - the sense of humor!


"I'm hungry... anyone got fish and chips?" he announced an excitement only a
four-year-old presented with a gun could have.
Others gave him a puzzled
and a we've-got-bigger-problem look. He ignored it. After an awkward pause
(onsided though), someone spoke up.

"You want fish and chips?" Gabriel asked in a sataric tone.

"Holy Halogen! YES!" the excited puppy replied.

"Go to Hell! Maybe they'll feed you some there if you shut up!"

Herald had a puzzled look on his face, but he shook it off and said, "I don't
like Satan very much. He doesn't like the color blue, you know. I told him you
could never have too much of blue but, I don't know..."

"It's his ego..." suggested The Oblivious Machine, now comfortably placed in
the spaceship's Additional Proccessing Switchboard (APS).

"Umm..." Herald didn't quite know how to talk to computers, "Yes. Absolutely.
He's Mr. Ego. He's the one that takes me down!" Bad reply...

Due to an unconditional electric shock he got while trying to 'play around'
with the power plug, Herald started stammering. For some reason, he didn't seem
to like it.

"H-H-Hey G-G-G-G-Guys... M-My V-V-V-Voice..." he stuttered.

"What the... How the... WHAT HAPPENED!!??" everyone said in chorus (yes, they
do this quite often).

"Whatever did you do to my master power plug?" TOM had to ask ask individually.


"I j-just t-t-t-touched it a-an-an-and th-th-this ha-ha-ha-ha-penned!" Herald
exclaimed in a dysphoric sort of way.

"Holy Hallucinations!! Your voice!" chorused everyone together (don't tell me,
they really do that often).


It had been sometime after Herald got fried, everything was normal. Of course,
the stammering was still there, but that could be considered normal now. The
ship had 20 hyperminutes to reach the GATES or rather the Great Accrual of
Electronic Systems
. It really was great. It had everything from
master drives to master drives(a 360 turn), or rather - everything electronic!
Coming back to the ship, things were somewhat normal.

"H-H-Hey Birk, W-W-What-Ch-ch-chya d-d-doing?" inquired the stutterer.
"Feeding the duck," joked Cats, largely unsuccessful. "Nah... just trying to
repair this old Automatic Suspension System (ASS). The wires are all jumbled
up," he explained.

"Th-Th-Th-The r-r-r-red one m-m-meets the g-green w-w-w-while th-th-the b-b-b-b-
blue m-m-meets th-th-th-the y-y-y-yellow," Herald tried to joke, when ZWOOP!
Someone forgot to laucg. Cats was propelled twenty yards back, allowing him to
slam to the rock-hard wall! He had genuinely followed what Herald said, and upon
doing so, thought an ingenious cure to Herald's stammering.

"Herald... I know how to cure your stuttering," he said, and tried to keep his
cool.

"Wow... Really? HOW!?" inquired the aspirant Herald.

"KEEP YOUR BIG MOUTH SHUT!" snapped Birks.
This hit Herald where it
mattered.


Inside the ship, things were pretty much the same as it was about 19 minutes
ago. Herald was still stuttering, and with the childish smile that didn't quite
go along. TOM was now playing a song he'd just composed. It was Black-Metal, and
quite satanic for a computer. The guitar solo it symthesized was excellent, with
every peak and base it could have. At the end of the song, (and like the end of
all of its songs), a radiosignature was heard, and it seemed to say 'Major
Thomas', in a soft but deeply majestic voice. In a while, that too went away.



"We're almost there... so get yourselves ready for land!" announced TOM.

"We're ready as hell!" everybody shouted in chorus (they're musicians, they
need to to that).

"Gizmos, Ammunition and Technical Electronics Shop approaching..." Tommy
sighed, he didn't like travelling.

"Alright! We're at the GATES!" Birk happily announced the obvious.

"Okay, so we need the MAD, anything else?" Sigmund had to inquire.

"Yes... another APS would be good. This one's not comfortable," Major Thomas
complained.

"Ok, the Master Amulet Drive and an Advanced Processing
Switchboard
," Sig confirmed, "is that all?"

"Y-Y-Yes th-that is all," Herald said, trying to minimize his stuttering.

"Good..." Sigmund smiled.


They landed at the entrance of the GATES, or rather, the gates of the GATES
perfectly. GATES was actually a small planet orbiting Terrarium at a distance a
little more than 67 hypermeters. GATES was the one stop solution for all your
electronic or ammunition needs. Contract killers came, mad scientists came,
electricians came, metalheads who sometimes get fried by electricity came and
superheroes that ride on superduper cars came. So, it was a totally groovy
place.

Gabriel walked up to the only lifeform on sight, which happened to be a mop. Or
for confusion's sake - the morph-galbulus (having 20 ON intelligence).


"How's business?" he inquired, stirring up a conversation.

"Not bad. The same. Good, actually" answered the mop named Bond - Grames
Bond.

Gabriel couldn't make out which of the three answers he provided was true. He
took the middle path, "Ahh... So we were looking for some equipment."

"That I have, what is it you want?" smiled Grames. Actually, mop-smiles are not
what you'd want to look at frequently, but for once, it was fine.

"Ahem..." Sigmund came in, clearing his throat which apparently had nothing
wrong with it, "We're looking for a Master Amulet Drive."

"Hmmm..." Mops like doing this. They put their one and only finger at the top
of their heads to signal it was acually thinking, "Well, here's the problem." It
started. "We had it two hyperdays ago, but uhm, yes, we don't have it now.
But..." Grames stopped, "but there's a way to get it back." He gave those mop-
smiels again, which seemed to be loosing its magic now.

"Th-Th-The R-R-R-at-ts?" inquired Herald, his stuttering at its peak.

"No, actually, I was think more of the RATS" answered Grames. Herald decided it
was worthless trying to explain.

"We have to use the Reverse Automated Time System?" Gabriel asked, excitement
showing in his eyed.
"Yes. We can do that using credit cards," Grames showed no expression on his
face.

"Wow! I've always wante... WHAT!?? Credit cards!?"
"Yes, it's a little slip of paper that says it actually is me from the future
allowing me from the past to give you the MAD," explained Grames.

"Oh... alright" Gabriel didn't know what to say.

"So, we were also wondering if you had the APS," Sigmund came in.
"That we do..." The mop looked back, opened a closet, and brought forth an APS.
He handed it to Sigmund.

"Put it on the credit..." he happily said upon recieving the APS system. "Hey,
is that a...?"

"Yes, an Automatic Suspension System circuitboard, it's comes free" smiled the
mop, a lame one this time.

"Great... we needed this!" Sigmund got excited.

"But you didn't ask," the mop seemed to start.

"Forget it, how can go do the RATS?" Sig seemed to end.

"Glide your spaceship in the lot marked MOUSE. It's a mistag, but go there
anyway. I'll send you back two hyperdays," assured the mop.


All the metalheads got back into the Gravel X2 ship. They placed their newly
acquired gizmos where it belonged as their ship entered the blue-lit chambered
with a big sign that read 'MOUSE'. The entrance closed, and the light below them
grew brighter. A voice was heard yelling out to the crew of the ship, which
happend to the The Oblivious Machine.


"Ground Control to onboard computer Major Tom," it said. "You're ready for
blast off!" After this, all was silence, which was promptly destroyed by the
tremendous light and sound outside - they were blasting off to the past with an
explosion...

This has been the fourth episode of the Void Fruitcake series titled
VF #4: Keep Your Big Mouth Shut
. For a list of all episodes, go to Darkwin's Personal Space.To read the next episode, click
on to VF #5: Blast from the Past.

Bookmark on your Personal Space


Conversations About This Entry

There are no Conversations for this Entry

Entry

A1020781

Infinite Improbability Drive

Infinite Improbability Drive

Read a random Edited Entry


Disclaimer

h2g2 is created by h2g2's users, who are members of the public. The views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated are not those of the Not Panicking Ltd. Unlike Edited Entries, Entries have not been checked by an Editor. If you consider any Entry to be in breach of the site's House Rules, please register a complaint. For any other comments, please visit the Feedback page.

Write an Entry

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."

Write an entry
Read more