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Post By The Hooded Hood's double-sized convention special Sat May 28, 2005 at 10:01:26 am EDT |
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#213: Untold Tales of WeirdSciCon 2005: Unconventional Behaviour | |
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| #213: Untold Tales of WeirdSciCon 2005: Unconventional Behaviour Previously: Al B. Harper and his partners in Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises have been excluded from the guest list at WeirdSciCon 2005 as part of a plan by business rivals Interdimensional Transportation Corporation (ITC) to put them out of business. ITC also plans to slaughter the convention-goers and use captured telepath Ruby Waver to transfer their dying brain-patterns into a new Supreme Interference computer gestalt. Cyborg PI Yuki Shiro and werewolf Tanner’s investigations into ITC are hampered when the ITC building is shifted into the interdimensional vortex and they are discovered by ITC’s new head of security, the killer robot Ultizon. Previous chapters at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Cast Lists at Who's Who in the Parodyverse Location Descriptions at Where's Where in the Parodyverse Conference Programme at WeirdSciCon Events (UT#211) “Is there a problem here?” WeirdSciCon organiser Albert Dweeber asked the guy on door security. “These people want to come in,” the worried doorkeeper answered. “And you said…” “We have tickets,” Miss Framlicker objected, waving the conference folders under the organiser’s nose. “We paid for them.” “Ah yes, but if you read the small print on the back you’ll see that the conference reserves the right to refuse admission to any undesirables,” Dweeber explained with a little smirk. “Dude,” called a fat youth in line directly behind Amy Aston. “No way is she undesirable.” The staff at Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises had insisted that Amy couldn’t go to the convention wearing only her old oily dungarees; so Amy was wearing only clean new dungarees instead. “Have you met my adjustable socket wrench?” Amy asked the fat youth behind her is a sweet voice. Dweeber shuddered. “You’re prone to cause trouble. It’d be better if you moved along.” “You’re saying we’re undesirable?” Nats checked with the conference organiser. “You’re making slanderous allegations against us? Hold on right there. I’ve got Lisa on speed dial. She’s gonna love this one.” “Be sure to tell her that Interdimensional Transportation Corporation is sponsoring the Con,” Miss F instructed him. “ITC has lots of money, so the lawsuit should name them too.” “The what?” Albert Dweeber panicked. “Hey, hold on…” “Too late, Albert,” Amy hissed at him. “We’re traumatised now. Emotionally scarred. I’m feeling violent tendencies coming on caused by the emotional scarring.” “I can’t let you in,” Dweeber pleaded. “At least not Al B. Harper. That’s a dealbreaker.” And a bonebreaker, he thought to himself, remembering a conversation with his sponsors earlier. “So you’ll let everyone else in if I go home?” Al B. asked quietly. Nats paused with his finger over the dial button of his mobile phone. “I… I guess so,” Dweeber offered desperately. “I’m sorry Al, but our sponsors…” “Oh we know all about your sponsors,” Miss Framlicker growled wrathfully. “It’s okay,” sighed Al B. “You go in and do what you can. I need to recheck the intransigence modification grids on the interstitial vortice furnace anyhow.” “This is so not fair,” Nats complained. “That’s life,” Albert Dweeber replied, his smirk returning now he could see a way past the awkwardness. An old man in Albert Einstein whiskers touched Al B. on the arm. “Go home, young man,” he advised the realistic robot double of the Lair Legion’s archscientist. “There’s nothing more you can do here.” “Let me help you up these stairs, frail old whiskery man,” Amy Aston offered the mysterious stranger. “You can go round the conference with us if you like.” “Why thank you, young woman,” the bewhiskered visitor grinned back at the EEE engineer. “That would be very helpful.” “Right chaps,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton told the Lair Legion. “Now remember we’re here as a favour to young Harper. So no major incidents, what? Obviously if you find a bounder blatantly doing evil them you smite him as Saul smote the Girgasites, but otherwise try and keep a low profile, don’t you know?” “Girgasites?” Dancer worried. “Did you fight them that time the Hole Man kidnapped Ohio?” “Yo is thinking that is to be fun at cute convention,” Yo noted with a happy smile. “Rabito is to be excited too.” “Just… don’t bring him too near any Geiger counters,” Visionary advised. “Okay,” said Lisa with a killer smile. “Let’s go mingle.” The floor of the Vonnegut Hotel was crowded with convention-goes milling past registration towards the main hall where the programme would begin with a keynote speech by Paradopolis University’s Brock P. Lyedekker. This was a last-minute substitution from former speaker Al B. Harper, but Lyedekker had done some interesting and definitely weird work a couple of years back and people were keen to hear what he had to say. The EEE crowd were quite distinctive-looking – Miss Framlicker in her formal lab-coat over a two-piece business suit, Amy in her tight dungarees, Nats in his orange spandex with a leather flight jacket that had a darker patch on the shoulder where an ITC badge had been removed, and Al B. himself in his rent-an-Einstein costume. But the other guests made them seem quite normal. Swarming amongst the mad scientists (hunchbacked assistants were back in again this year), the silver-body-suited femme fatales (the Ziles look was popular right now), the men in black (mostly there for Mr Epitome this time, although some were watching men in different shades of black), the computer nerds, the science geeks, the folks who go to any kind of convention dressed as Klingons, the proud-to-be-androids robot pride demonstrators, the trade press, and the autograph equation hunters were the more unusual guests: aliens like Dr Blargelslarch, the reptiloid from Frammistat Eight hawking his new travelogue, or Shazana Pel, exile of the Pigeon-People, shaking her mace threateningly at a male who had dared say hi to her; the superheroes that Al B. had dragged along to add to the confusion: De Brown Streak chatting with a crowd of bikinied booth hostesses, Yo talking to a convention-goer who had gone dressed in a Yo outfit, Darth Vader wheezing between the crowds with a day-glo orange and green silly suit beneath his black armour; the supervillains: Elizabeth von Zemo having a way cleared through the throng by Silicone Sally, Jethro Screwdriver watching the proceedings behind his security screen of hired mutates, Camellia of the Faye flirting with a mortal at the bar; and the weirder yet: Dr Honoria Sesselby and the Manga Shoggoth in his Invisible Man get-up enjoying mint juleps (and in one case, the glass), or the Abyssal Greye shrouded in a ragged black cloak over his usual shabby red dressing down trying not to shed rotting body parts. “This is going to be cool,” breathed Al B. through his fake whiskers as he looked around the convention. “They look like ants from up here,” Rikka Ulz Hagan considered as she watched the milling convention crowds from the luxury of the directors’ suite above. “They are ants,” Joshua Parkson told her. “Compared to us, all of humanity is. And we shall harness them to our treadmill and make them perform in our circus.” “I like a confident man.” Parkson shrugged. “It’s really the simplicity of the project that makes it so likely to succeed. The walls of the hotel are lined with engram transference circuitry – shielded so that buffoons like Epitome and Amazing Guy and von Zemo are unlikely to detect it – designed to capture the brain patterns of those inside the building at the moment of their deaths. We enslave those engrams inside the new Supreme Interference and use the massive gestalt intellect to take forward each of our mutual agenda. Death, power, revenge, the plot has something for everyone.” “Sex?” suggested Ulz Hagen. “Perhaps later,” answered the villain once known as Blackbird. “For now I am enjoying the view.” Professor Brock P. Lyedekker looked just like a young genius should, with a kind of handsome absent-mindedness that worked well on the cover of his books, and an easy presentational style that made the difficult sound simple. He enthralled his audience from the start, drawling them with him into the world of high physics and pausing occasionally to drop in a bon mot or witty anecdote for the slower geniuses in his audience. “Fifteen Everyday Applications for Metadimensional Biophysics for the Busy Inventor,” Brock had begun, “And which of us isn’t busy changing the world, eh?” “You’re not,” muttered an Albert Einstein lookalike from the ninth row. “You’re too busy plagiarising my work.” “Al, you’re monologing again,” Miss F warned him. The trouble started ten minutes in. Brock Lyedekker was just flicking up the slide that showed a steady state resonant dimensional interface as applied to kitchen cool-boxes when a voice from the audience said, “But that calculation is wrong.” The speaker ignored the interruption and went on with the words on the autocue. “p and f can’t be the coefficient of root z-1,” the voice continued. “Not when you factor in the harmonics of the Day-Vincent-Wrichards scale in a descending cascade and compare the coefficients of a Cartesian interpretation of the waveform.” “There’ll be time for questions at the end,” Lyedekker assured his audience. “Actually, that’s right,” came a different voice from the bar area. People turned as they recognised Dr Leonard Day-Vincent as the new speaker. “The problem, I mean. You just can’t reconcile the mapping of transfinite codices through a simple conversion from the equiprobable to the probable. Bertrand’s Paradox…” “You could render an approximate mapping if you use Euclid’s algorithm. Or consider a hypercycloid with (n+1) cusps…” chipped in Dr Weed Wrichards from the back of the hall. “The curve is the envelope of a family of hypercycloids, of course, the penosculants if you will…” “But back to what I was saying about cool-boxes…” Lyedekker attempted. “The calculations up there are from a Parrondo’s Paradox sequence that was discredited months ago,” the first voice pointed out. It was, of course, an old man in whiskers on the ninth row. “Most of the current thinking would never hold that Vecten’s Colinearity has any effect on transfinite identities.” Lyedekker focussed into the darkened hall and spotted the seemingly-old man nestled between Miss Framlicker and Amy Aston. “Harper!” “Yes, he published something on this a couple of months back, didn’t he?” Day-Vincent remembered. “Chap there’s right. It was a brilliant paper. Those equations have been disproved because of the Cauchy Inequality. Fascinating argument.” “Oh yes!” Dr Muturius Scone called from the floor. “Lyedekker, how do you resolve the absolute error always being exactly the same? Hmm?” “How…?” Brock Lydekker began to panic. “Isn’t there a way we can use the k-th Fibbonaci number to…?” suggested Dr Blargelslarch from the floor. The crowd exploded with suggestions and debate. “…Sierpinski gasket as a fractal set…” “…assimilation illusions… “…if the dihedral symmetry is maintained…” “…epicycloids…” “…prime number decomposition…” “…quasigroups and block designs from a triangular grid…” “…Sprague-Grundy function…” “Help!” called Nats. “I’m drowning in geekery!” “That man is Al B. Harper!” screamed Professor Lyedekker, pointing accusingly at the ninth row. “What?” yelped Albert Dweeber, rushing onto the stage. But the convention had another reaction: “Al B?” “Al B. Harper?” “Okay Al, what’s the right answer?” Al B Harper dragged off his whiskers and joined Lyedekker and Dweeber on the platform. “Hi,” he said. He stabbed his bubble pipe between his lips, dragged a magic marker out of his pocket to draw on the conference projection screen, and started to write. “Okay, we have this descending scale of tangentially attached infinite vectors, right…?” He jostled Lyedekker out of the way and started scrawling. Nats scratched his head. “Did we just see Showdown at the Nerd Coral?” “Ultizon,” Yuki Shiro played for time. “A killer computer programme based on the engrams of a genocidal madman, wrapped in an adamantine war machine body to pursue its agenda of wiping out organic life on Earth.” “The same,” agreed the ITC security chief. Half of his synthetic face was torn away to show the dull gold sheen of his robotic countenance. “You’ve picked the wrong side, Ms Lee. Or… wait, I’m getting some better data now… Ms Yuki.” Yuki realised that Ultizon has the ability to probe and even control other computer systems. He had to be drawing this knowledge from her own internal databases. She quickly hammered up every firewall she possessed. “Ouch,” quipped Ultizon. “Do you really think those little defences will keep me out for long?” “Long enough,” the cyborg PI replied. She circled warily, trying to keep her distance from the killer robot. Ultizon’s specs were far superior in terms of strength and firepower, and possibly in speed. “I know what you are now,” Ultizon told her. “A quivering little human brain in a beautiful android shell. How long do you think it will take me to suborn your online systems to shut down life support to that pathetic organic component, and then replace it with some programming more to my liking?” His probes were becoming more intense and painful. Yuki felt molested. “I don’t need to keep you out forever, Ultizon. Just long enough for me to sidle round to… here!” And she plunged her hand through the console of ITC’s main computer bank and yanked a comms wire out to jack into the universal node at the nape of her neck. “What?” Ultizon was programmed with the finest battle moves any computer could have. Nobody had anticipated this kind of trick. “ITC moved their building dimensionally, right?” Yuki reasoned out loud, and fast. “Machines that keep it here need computer guidance. Tricky business, balancing dimensional forces. Computers go down, bad things happen.” Ultizon lunged at her. Yuki wiped the ITC dimensional stabilisation database. The whole building tumbled ninety degrees as it was dropped into the dimensional vortex. Tanner stopped pretending unconsciousness and caught Yuki as she fell, wrapping her in one arm as he swelled and grew. He growled as he slashed through the outer wall and leaped off into the transplanar maelstrom. Ultizon fired a series of lethal energy bolts at the fleeing wolf as he vanished into the electric purple haze, but he couldn’t follow because the alarm sirens were sounding to warn of impending structural failure of the whole ITC building. The robot swore and took command of the ITC computers to stabilise the facility he required before it was destroyed. It took even him some time to restabilise the tumbling building as it fell through interstitial non-space. He was sorry the cyborg had been lost in the void. He would have enjoyed reprogramming her. “Okay, management has agreed that Al B. is allowed into the convention,” Miss Framlicker reported after her debate with Dweeber and Roni Y Avis. “Mainly because they don’t want two thousand mad scientists smashing up the hotel if Al B. gets thrown out after his ubergeekery earlier.” “Great,” Amy Aston grinned. “So now we can set up our entry for the Inventathon contest tomorrow night.” “Now we can sit in on the seminars,” Al B enthused. “I already missed Brosemen’s ‘Why the supernatural does not exist’ and Harley on ‘mutate profiling and gene realignment’…” “Now I can grab a burger,” suggested Nats. “You might have missed those seminars but others certainly didn’t,” Miss F assured Al B. “The front row of Dr Broseman’s no-supernatural seminar included the Manga Shoggoth, the Abyssal Greye, Camellia of the Fey, and Xander the Improbable. They say there was a gnome, a gargoyle, and a Dead Boy in the audience too, but ten minutes into his speech Dr Broseman broke off, scrabbled away from the lectern pointing to the air above it, and wouldn’t stop screaming for two hours.” “And I missed it,” mourned Al B. “There was a disruption at Isobel Harley’s talk on Gene Realignment to ‘cure’ mutates as well,” Amy Aston reported. “Who’d have thought De Brown Streak’s fan-club was that big, or had such very strong fingernails?” “That wasn’t his fan club,” sighed Nats. “Those were his girlfriends.” “It’s a good job Mr Epitome was there or things might have got ugly,” Miss F admitted. “Sure, trust Epitome to break up a really great chick fight before everybody’s clothes got ripped off,” complained Trickshot as he trudged past wearing an ‘I-heart-desperate nerdy science chicks’ t-shirt. “If we hurry,” Nats pointed out, “we might be able to cram into the panel on Alien Breeding Programmes before Dancer strangles Dr Mango and the Shoggoth manifests to Evil Monkey as the legendary deity the Versalian apes consider him to be.” “You cover that,” Al suggested. “I agreed to meet up with Wrichards and Day-Vincent at Blargelslarch’s slide show about the Queasy Area of the Negativity Zone. It’ll be like old times, with all the holiday snaps.” “Okay, but we all meet back to watch Xander’s exorcism of Dr Trenchcoat in the Occult Transmogrification 101 talk at four, okay?” Amy told EEE. “I heard there might be vomited ectoplasm.” “Probably why Xander wanted Nitz the Bloody there,” Nats considered. “As a shield.” “You don’t seem very happy,” Amazing Guy observed to Mr Epitome. “That’s because I’m not very happy,” answered the paragon of power. “All these people here, using science for… whatever stupid, mad ends they want to use it for, without any discipline or control…” “Science without boundaries is pretty exciting,” the protector of the universe suggested. “It’s dangerous and a waste of resources,” Epitome answered. “Is that why you had your people arrest Dr Lazlo Reevis, former HERPES weapons designer?” “We didn’t arrest him, Turns out he’s here with the Black Pantzer on a diplomatic passport,” Epitome said sourly. “Same defence Thighmaster has.” “Don’t worry about Thighmaster,” AG advised. “ManMan slipped some extra-strong laxative in his coffee. He’ll be staying in his room for the rest of the convention.” “We shouldn’t be using laxative against these people,” Mr Epitome argued. “We should be using a flamethrower.” “Gotcha,” said Kerry Shepherdson in passing. “Message received and understood.” “No, wait…” called the man of might. “Kerry…!” “Hello Al,” Hallie greeted the archscientist as he wandered down to the Kubric Annex bar where the first evening was concluding with a disco and drinkathon. “I thought you might have sneaked off with some of the others to the videos in the main hall.” “I’ll leave it to Hatman and CSFB! to comment on the Transworlds Challenge Was a Hoax thing. It was so weird I’m starting to think it was an hallucination myself. Besides, CSFB! has a much better vocabulary for this kind off thing, although I have no idea what an assclown is. What’s happening in the bar?” “There’s a strange kind of Russian roulette game going on amongst the younger delegates,” Hallie reported. “They offer to buy Amy a drink, or they ask Shazana Pel for a dance, and then see what kind of injury they get. And that crowd over there is gathered round Visionary.” “Visionary has that many fans?” “Visionary’s wheelchair is being pushed by Miiri the Caphan.” “Ah. Have you seen Nats or Miss F?” “Nats was dancing with Uhuna earlier but I think they slipped under a trade stand to rest and recover. That one over there that’s shuddering every so often. And Miss Framlicker was talking with the King of Wakandybar I think. They seemed to be getting on very well.” Al B. frowned. “I hope she’s careful. T’Chako has quite a reputation.” “I think that’s probably why she’s talking to him, Al. Anyway, I thought you and Miss Framlicker were history years ago? Didn’t I hear about you and Amy? Or is that you and Yuki?” “We’re just friends. Me and all of them, I mean.” “Okay,” Hallie replied sceptically. “Then you can probably ask me for a dance, Al B. Harper.” “Hey, are you Gloria?” The slightly punkish teenager looked the youth in the convention fancy dress up and down. “Who wants to know?” “Um, I’m Ham Boy,” answered Fred Harris. “All the heroes on the planet, and you pick to dress up as Ham Boy?” Gloria asked. “No, I mean I really an Ham Boy. The real Ham Boy.” “Sure. And I’m Princess Leia.” “Look, Lisette sent me to find you, that’s all. She’s a bit delayed on account of Hacker Nine trying to use the internet booths to breach the FBI mainframe to find where they put his girlfriend in the Witness Relocation Programme.” “They caught Hacker Nine hacking?” “Actually H9 bumped into MODEM hacking the FBI at the same time. The two had an electronic tussle that blacked out the Western seaboard. But that’s not important right now.” “So Lisette sent you to stop me getting into trouble.” “I guess. She said to make sure you weren’t sneaking to the bar.” “And you don’t want to get me into trouble yourself?” “Erm…” “I thought so. C’mon.” Before lunch on day two of the conference, Nats and Uhuna found time to browse the trade stands. They passed the ZOXXON concession where Arnie J. Armbruster was handing out business cards to everybody who was signing up for the energy giant’s corporate sponsorship deal, “because you’ll need a lawyer later”, then past Dr Spankenstein’s Spare Organic Components stall (“every part guaranteed graveyard fresh”), and followed the main concourse towards the ITC stand. “Do we have to do this?” Nats asked. “I’m famished, and the fish from the Willingham Fisheries smells really good.” “You promised Miss Framlicker you’d talk to the people at the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation,” the Abhuman princess reminded him. “Try to set up a meeting between EEE and ITC’s mysterious new director to bury this feud that’s choking your business.” “I think driving us to bankruptcy the whole point of what ITC is doing,” Nats pointed out. “Besides, I didn’t get lunch yesterday.” “Nobody got lunch yesterday, on account of Visionary calling in SPUD to have the entire dairy product in the dining hall confiscated for bioweapons testing.” Nats remembered the outraged cries of Waltz Dairy Products, but they were nothing compared to the anger of two thousand hungry conference delegates. Fortunately Lisa had given them Vizh’s personal mobile phone number. The chatter brought them past the new Tomorrow Enterprises recruiting stand and the Icarus Innovations showroom to the ITC float. A smiling Roni Y. Avis, Director of Public Relations for the transportation giant, waited to greet them. “Well well, Mr Reed and the lovely Princess Uhunalura Amalandriana Excelsior! How delightful to see you both. Have some complimentary champagne.” “We’re not here to drink with you, Avis,” Nats warned. “We’re here to talk about the way you’re trying to squeeze EEE out of business.” “Champagne tickles my nose and makes me giggly,” Uhuna warned. “Um, do you have any more?” “Business is business, Mr Reed,” Roni Y Avis admitted. “If ITC has a better product at a more competitive price that’s hardly something we should apologise for. But I do believe the company has made some mistakes in the past that we should do our best to rectify.” “You’ll arrange a meet for us to talk to your mysterious new MD?” Nats asked. “I’ll offer you a job as head of our Deliveries and Schedules Department, starting at $600,000 a year plus bonuses, benefits, expenses, and profit sharing,” countered Roni Y Avis. “Champagne?” “I like how she screams,” Blackbird noted reflectively as he looked down at the writhing Ruby Waver. “She has such perfect pitch.” “I hadn’t noticed,” Rikki Ulz Hagen said sourly. “At least Dr Moo’s psychotropic telepathy enhancers seem to be doing their job. The subject is showing 210% more psionic capacity than at baseline.” “She’s a real trouper, I told you,” Roni Y Avis said proudly. “If she’d stuck with me she could have been a star.” “This is irrelevant,” Ultizon told his annoying fleshly allies. He needed them to create the Supreme Interference, so he had to refrain from slaughtering them that long at least. “I have checked the damage caused by the fall into the transdimensional vortex. There is some structural damage and a number of irrelevant staff casualties but the timetable should not be impeded.” “Ingenious little intruders,” Blackbird admired. “The heroes are getting far more proactive these days. We’ll have to start watching out for that.” “Yuki Shiro was hired to snoop on us by Sir Mumphrey Wilton,” Ultizon reported. “I read that much in her database before she cut me out. The Lair Legion continue to be our primary threat.” “Until tonight, my friends,” the Managing Director of ITC pointed out. “I think they’ll be a lot less troublesome after the Inventathon.” “Point,” agreed Rikki Ulz Hagen. “Unstoppable Ultizon,” the Blackbird smiled coldly, “you shall go to the ball.” Fleabot and Hallie met to compare notes after Dr Letitia Gahagan’s talk via satellite link in the Kubric Lobby. Hallie signed the last of the autographs from enthusiastic computer graphics designers and code writers and turned back to the robot flea. “I was going to ask why everyone wants your autograph and nobody wants mine,” Fleabot commented, “but then I remembered the amount of testosterone the adolescent male human produces.” The green-skinned artificial intelligence in the hologram body shrugged. “It’s nice to meet people in person that I’ve only corresponded with via e-mail. Although an awful lot of the teenage girls seem to actually look a lot more like fat middle aged men.” “So, have you picked anything up? Anything I want to know about, I mean? Software or hardware-wise?” Hallie frowned. “I’m being a bit careful where I project my consciousness today. There are some applications running on some of the machines here that have code I don’t recognise.” “You want me to take a look?” offered the robot flea. “No. Not just yet,” Hallie frowned. “I’m not sure there isn’t something nasty concealed there. Malware.” She sighed. “Ever since that thing with Rikka Ulz Hagan I’ve become absolutely paranoid.” Fleabot shrugged. “That’s because they’re out to get you,” he comforted his friend. “So how are we doing?” Al B. Harper asked Miss Framlicker as she met with him for a hurried coffee before the presentation on Interpreting Narrometric Shear on Trans-Finite Coded Potentions in Dynamic Parasequentiual Chains at 5.30. “Any new orders?” “Not really,” Miss F swallowed. “I’m sorry Al. ITC has got this thing locked up. I thought we could win clients over with a better, more personalised service, but Avis and his goons have bribed or threatened or lied their way through nearly all our customer base. I’ve let you down.” “Hey, it’s not over yet,” Al B. encouraged her. “When we win the Inventathon…” “Al, we’re not going to win the Inventathon. ITC has appointed the judges. We’ll be lucky if we don’t get disqualified for something.” “We have friends here,” the archscientist pointed out. “They’ll stand up for us.” “Most of our ‘friends’ are kind of occupied,” Miss F responded. “There was that fracas this morning where Greg Burch bit Jonah Jerkson, and that disturbance where Nitz was thrown out of Camellia of the Faye’s seminar for that thing with the pumpkin, and having to vacuum all the Shoggoth-goo out of the ventilation system after that argument at the Desmond Djinn lecture, not to mention hunting down all the escaped rag-and-bone pixies, and the nude butterfly girls riot, and CSFB! at the Deceased Metahuman Cellular Material argument and what he did to Garrick with the egg whisk, and…” “I must have missed that,” sighed Al B. Harper. “I was too busy listening to the Q and A where Xander was asking questions to Sage Grimpenghast at the Extradimensional Faith Beings Trade Agreements panel. How they’re going to get the stench of brimstone out in time for the next speaker I do not know.” “My point is that while there’s lots going on there’s not much anyone can do to stop ITC legitimately putting us out of the weird science business,” Miss Framlicker pointed out. “There is,” Al B frowned, chewing on his bubble pipe. “We just have to get weirder.” And he began to sketch circuit diagrams on the tablecloth. “Amazing the people you meet here,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! enthused to Hatman as they met by the concession stands. “I’ve been threatened by half my rogues gallery.” He tossed Jay Boaz an Odyssey Enterprises hospitality pack and pointed out enemies in the crowd. “I can’t believe the number of security risks they let just walk around in here,” Hatman admitted. “But there’s a pretty high percentage of good guys too. I bumped into Semi-Transparent Lad at the Destiny Carnival watching the contest to lift Enormous Irma.” “I take it you checked that…” “Colonel Destiny was playing nice, yeah. He pointed out there’s no actual proof that he and his band once kidnapped Paradopolis. But I know AG was patrolling there and I think I spotted the Dark Knight lurking in the fortune-teller’s tent behind that false wig and lace shawl, so I guess that end’s well covered.” “You ever think maybe DK likes dressing up as old women?” “Had a chat with Dr Whitwell after the Manyarms talk,” Hatman continued. “He introduced me to his colleague Professor Garrett Gale and we shot the breeze for a while about ways of stopping that planned legislation that makes all dead metahumans the property of the government.” “Try selling that law to Dead Boy,” snorted CSFB! The two of them walked off towards the Overview of Robotic Life on Earth. Lee Bookman was wandering out of the display stands area with the happy look on his face of a Librarian in an area where people were giving away free literature for his collection. He had so much paper in his alms that he almost bumped in to Liu Xi. “Oops, sorry,” the Librarian told the young elementalist. “Thinking about other things.” “No problem, Mr Bookman,” Liu Xi assured him. “I was just waiting for Ebony to finish talking with the new Voodoo Vicaress.” “There’s a new Voodoo Vicaress?” the Librarian worried. “Does she have any literature?” “LeVeau M’Tumbe,” Liu Xi explained. “And when I say Ebony is talking to her, that’s a euphemism for threatening to turn her into mincemeat if she doesn’t stop raising zombies.” Lee Bookman considered this. “So no pamphlets then?” “So far the standard of presentation in these talks has been very variable,” Honoria Sesselby lectured her ex-fiancée Michael (Alcheman) Wooster as she guided him and the heavy cases he carried containing her audiovisual equipment and slides through the conference crowds. “As a teacher you must surely understand the need for proper communication techniques in imparting information to an audience?” “I don’t think English was Muturius Scone’s first language,” Micheal answered, swerving round a man dressed as Robbie the Robot (or possibly Robbie the Robot dressed as a movie nerd). “He sounded as if he had his cheeks full of nuts,” Honoria objected. “And as for Ms Lindstrom’s overview of cybernetic organisms, she completely failed to discuss the Silicone Lions or the Abhuman Robot Boars. If that mechanical flea hadn’t hogged question time with his sarcastic remarks I would have pointed out the omissions.” “It’s a shame you didn’t have a chance to correct her,” sighed Alcheman. “Still, tomorrow I intend to show what a well-ordered lecture should go like. This way please, Michael…” “Willkomen, Bienvenue, Welcome!” boomed Splendiferous Stuart over the main hall tannoy system as the WeirdSciCon Inventathon 2005 began. For many this was the high spot of the convention, an opportunity to strut one’s weird stuff before a crowd of peers. Reputations were made and ruined at the Inventathon, and the competition was never keener. Harlagaz Donarson had a different concern though. “Heilsa, foul Splendiferous Stuart,” the demihemigod called to the evening’s compeer. “Ist true that thou art a fell creature of Dark Thugos’ bred midst the slime of Apuffylips and kin to the scumeth of the galaxy?” Splendiferous Stuart brought a charming smile to bear on the young thunder godling. “No,” he denied. “Case of mistaken identity. That happens a lot.” “Oh. Sorry,” apologised Harlagaz. “Then I shalt not smite thee into next week for the nonce.” “Thank you,” Splendiferous Stuart answered. “Now if you’ll excuse me…” “You won’t be knocked into next week,” Dr Timelo assured the host. “I’ve been and checked.” Amy hurried back to the table where the EEE staff and friends huddled round Al’s new invention. “I’ve been checking out the competition,” she told them. “While they were checking out you,” Uhuna grinned. “Amazing how easy men are to distract in the outer world.” “Not that you’re interested in distracting anybody but me, right babe?” Nats checked. “No, of course not. Darling.” “What are we up against?” Miss Framlicker demanded. She had a very strong competitive streak in her. “A few genetics experiments,” Amy summarised. “That Dr Muturius Scone who we aren’t supposed to notice is a biomutated hamster from the Low Evolutionary’s stable has these singing wheat stalks. He’s seeing it as a whole new breakfast cereal experience.” “As if domestic violence rates aren’t high enough already,” shuddered Nats. “Dr Spankenstein’s got a new self-assembly golem kit to show off,” Amy continued. “The spare parts are always a problem,” Al B. said dismissively. “Baroness Zemo has some kind of unbreakable glue, and she’s demonstrated it on the judges until after the scoring,” went on Amy. “But the Shoggoth has helped out by shifting the judges’ clothes through some parallel dimensions.” “I wondered what all the hooting was about,” Miss F admitted. “I thought Professor Pervo must have arrived with his next generation Nymphbots.” CrazySugarFreakBoy!, Yo, and Dancer gravitated to the table. “Okay, Thighmaster has some kind of transmutation device, gold to lead,” CSFB! reported. “And I think ZOXXON’s demonstrating some kind of anti-tank drone.” “Con Johnstantine has some kind of mind control ray,” blushed Dancer. “That’s the only possible explanation.” And she would say no more. “Yo is to be liking of virtual reality helmet from New Tomorrow Industries, but is to be having fault where is to be writing over brain functions of wearer. Do not be to be worrying though, because Yo has fixed it for them. They were to be very happy when Yo was to be telling them, and jumping up and down in glee.” “What about Brock Lyedekker?” Al B. demanded. “Any idea what he’s entering?” “You won’t flip?” Miss Framlicker checked. “Only I heard he might be showing off a new patented dimensional wrap coil that creates warp-folding fields with 40% less energy cost. He’s just licensed the technology to ITC.” “He what?” Al B. fumed. “I worked out that stuff, and he ransacked it out of my files while I was lost in a time wrinkle!” “I still say we just beat him to a pulp with heavy tools,” Amy offered. Then the lights went down and Splendiferous Stuart began the show. “Are we ready?” Blackbird asked the writhing Ruby. “It’s time for your big debut?” Ulz Hagen injected more of the neurological stimulator into the girl. “I think she’s ready.” “And what have you got for us today, Professor Lyedekker?” asked Splendiferous Stuart, holding the microphone out. “Let’s hope it doesn’t involve hypercycloids with (n+1) cusps,” called a wag from the floor. Brock Lyedekker allowed the crowd their titter. He knew that he was going to win. The prize had already been promised to him by ITC’s public relations consultant. “I’ve got something a little different tonight, Stuart. We’ve seen a few homemade androids and badly-stitched revenants. But I want to present to you a little homage I like to call…” And he pulled back the cloth on his exhibit: “Ultizon II.” Yo’s eyes narrowed. “Is to be looking rather much like Ultizon I,” the pure thought being warned Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “Hmm,” frowned the eccentric Englishman. He thumbed his pocketwatch for a moment and spoke into his commcard while time was paused. “A robot?” Splendiferous Stuart asked, looking at the forbidding metal bulk that stood motionless in the room. The Manga Shoggoth suddenly erupted. “Beware!” it gurgled. “Dimensional anomalies all around us!” “A planar shift!” agreed Shazana Pel, drawing her mace from nowhere and taking to the air. “We’re being transferred into the Vortex,” warned Liu Xi. Attuned as she was to the world around her the sudden shift made her feel somewhat dizzy. “Exotic transfer apparatus in the very walls!” Mr Epitome warned, staring round with X-ray vision. But then the Vonnegut Hotel was gone, shifted into the trans-dimensional maelstrom where few could escape. And Ultizon reached out and snapped Splendiferous Stuart’s neck. “Ladies and gentlemen, if I may have your attention please,” the killer robot called. “I would like to announce the end of the human race, beginning with the annihilation of every one of you present here tonight. Feel at liberty to plead, scream, or fight. I’ve been looking forward to this occasion for some time, so don’t let me down.” “Uh oh,” worried Visionary. “Miiri, get behind my wheelchair.” “Who would like to die first?” enquired Ultron of the screaming conference crowd. “Actually, old chap, we’d prefer that was you,” Sir Mumphrey announced. “Lair Legion… scrobble that bounder!” Then the second stage of the plan cut in and the neural chaff transmitters around the hotel interrupted the higher brain functions of almost everyone there. Yo screamed and fell to the floor, disintegrating. And Ultizon attacked. “I like the neural disruptor gambit,” Blackbird admired, watching on the monitor screen from the ITC tower. “It makes the slaughter so much more interesting when the heroes are flailing around helplessly.” “I’m not leaving anything to chance this time,” the Managing Director of ITC explained. “I’ve know the Lair Legion for a very long time, and I’ve spent years calculating the exact best way to destroy them. Now my time has come!” “Looks like,” gloated Rikki Ulz Hagen. “Oh yes, my dear,” the Managing Director told her, stepping forward to gloat into the viewscreen. “Peter von Doom was the Lair Legion’s first mortal foe… and now he shall be their last!” Next time: EEE vs ITC. Yuki and Tanner vs Blackbird, Ulz Hagen, Roni Y Avis and Peter von Doom. The Lair Legion and friends vs Ultizon, for all the marbles. And the science gets especially weird. That’s in Untold Tales of Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises: Narrative Causality, or the Big Story E=MFootnote2 Pretty much all of the characters here were either footnoted two issues back or appear in the regular Who’s Who, so let’s just confine ourselves to… Rabito is Yo’s purple thought bunny, as originally thought up by Visionary as a birthday present for the pure thought being. Blackbird (Joshua Parkson) is a villainous genius last seen doing anything actually criminal in Fin Fang Foom #10-12 and Annual #1. He’s been confined in the Safe ever since, declining all offers to leave – until now. The Destiny Carnival arranged for the kidnap of Paradopolis back in UT#46: Send in the Clowns. There, that was nice and simple, wasn’t it? Sorry if your favourite character’s favourite interaction wasn’t included in this chapter for space reasons, but feel free to offer additional scenes and outtakes if you want to. Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2005 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2005 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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