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The Journal of Sir Mumphrey Wilton, Extract Two: In which some uncouth chaps are unsporting and the ungodly therefore require smiting Sunday, 22-Aug-1999 10:01:25
The Journal of Sir Mumphrey Wilton, Extract Two In which some uncouth chaps are unsporting and the ungodly therefore require smiting Not been to the Philippines before, so I was rather interested to have a look around. Seems like a country of many contrasts, but was impressed with how polite people are. Good manners always sign of good people. Remember old Bautista snr. as being rather a nice chap. Curious how that car accident happened. Heard his boy had a similar crash a few years later – deucedest coincidence, think they were Kennedies or something (poor Johnny was another nice chap), but when young Jaimie met me at the airport he seemed perfectly alright. Brought young lady with him too, very nice gal called Tina, to whom he seems to be somewhat attached. Must be quite a bright lassie too. We’d been driving out of town towards the Bautista Plant when Tina warned young Jaimie that there was somebody following them. Can’t work out how she knew. Anyway, junior Bautista pushes some button on his dashboard (more buttons on his car dash than in my entire wardrobe of waistcoats – and that’s a lot of waistcoats) and this sort of James Bond radar-thingie starts bleeping. “Two cars,” he says, and suddenly his voice has changed a bit and he’s looking rather older and more responsible, a bit like if a mask has dropped away. “And a couple of helicopter gunships.” Well, I knew that that cad Zemo wanted to get his hands on the papers I was carrying, but this seemed a little bit excessive and I said so. I mean, there was a young lady present in the vehicle who might have been injured. “Going to stealth mode,” says young Jaimie. Not quite sure why that involved hammering the dashboard with his shoe, presumably some security measure, but it worked anyway. There was a sort of rippling outside the vehicle, and when Jaimie swung the wheel round and took us off the track into some vegetation the two cars completely failed to spot us and zoomed off away. Noticed that Tina and her young chap were exchanging glances. “You’d, you’d better go and summon your bodyguard,” Tina told young Bautista. I enquired about this. Turns out that Jaimie designed this top-flight armoured tin can suit which can fly and zap things and so on, and he’s equipped his bodyguard with it. All sounds very exciting. If it had been me able to make a suit like that though you’d not be catching me giving it away to somebody else to wear, nosireee. The suit’s called the NTU-150. Not sure what NTU stands for though. Probably something very macho. Not sure what happened to the 149 before it either. “Better stay here with the car in stealth mode,” Jaimie tells Tina and I. I started to protest that I don’t need coddling but then it occurred to me that the young fellow probably hoped to impress the girl by going off and doing something brave. Can’t say I blame him, we all go through that. I remember some of the daft things I did to get Madge’s attention back in my glory days. Anyway, Jaimie vanished off into the undergrowth with only his briefcase so I stayed and chatted with Tina while those black helicopters were spiralling overhead trying to locate us. “I wonder why Zemo wants these so badly?” Tina wondered. “You know Zemo?” I asked, because from the tone of her voice it’s pretty clear that she’s come across the blaggard. She gave me a funny look and shrugged. “He’s the most persistent archcriminal on the planet,” she told me. Explains a lot. Knew he wasn’t tickety-boo when he bugged my London office and then sent his thugs to get what he couldn’t convince me to sell to him. Just then lots of chappies in black pyjamas jumped out of the trees and landed on the car. I warned them to mind the paintwork. They had black masks too and were carrying a curved sword in each hand. Orientals, I’d hazard. Then suddenly there’s this blur of red and gold and things start exploding. Small trees, rocks, that sort of thing. And these black-pyjama wallahs are getting blown head over heels by the detonations. There was a sound like a jet engine and this most remarkable metal fellow actually zoomed down from the skies and landed between the baddies and the car we were in. “You chose the wrong car to ninj on,” NTU-150 (for it was he) told the malefactors. “Put down the weapons and surrender.” Well I could have told NTU that no villain in the history of villaindom has ever responded to that line with “Oh, very well. Sorry, guv’nor. It’s a fair cop.” On the other hand, it’s nice to see the traditional forms being upheld. So they all charged and the chappie in the armour game them a damn good trouncing. Meanwhile, it seemed that my lovely companion had also recognised these marauders. “They’re Yakusa assassins,” she breathed, “working for Akiko Masamune!” Well it turns out that this Masamune woman is head of a clan or a tong or a ping or something like that, and is the oriental delegate to the International Organised Crime Cartel which runs the rackets planetwide. In short, another lady who’s clearly misguided in life. “But if they’re from Masamune they might have come prepared to face NTU-150!” Before I could ask Tina what she meant and before she could warn the johnny in the armour-plating, the final hidden assassin popped out of the bushes and fired some sort of elaborate ray-gun device at NTU-150. Jaimie explained later that this was an EMP gun, which apparently fires, well, presumably EMPs at people. But EMPs, whatever they might be, certainly played havoc with that armour that NTU-150 was wearing and for added badness took down the stealth shield around the car. That meant that the two black helicopters spotted us and started approaching until we could see their gunports looming. Tina is a very brave young woman. She was out of the car and hovering over the fallen NTU-150 even though there was this fellow with the big sword and the EMP gun approaching. She frowned at him but he just touched a rather elaborate and mechanical looking headband he was wearing and kept coming. Well clearly it was time to do something. Can’t have brave young women cut down just for tryin’ to rescue the fallen hero, can we? And those approaching gunships were looking distinctly menacing. So I popped out the old pocketwatch, dialled it for timestopping, stepped outside time for a spot, and borrowed the pyjama-chappie’s EMP thingie. Then I let time slip forward just enough so he could feel the impact of a left uppercut. He might have been a whizz at kung-fu or whatever they do these days but he’d clearly never met the Marquis of Queensbury. Crumpled like a yuppie in Wolverhampton. Been a while since I hefted a rifle as well but this thing didn’t even have a recoil. So I just pointed it at the helicopters to find out what would happen. Turned out they just stopped heli-ing and crashed into the trees. Dropped the EMP-gun safely in the bushes, resumed normal time before all the watch’s chronal charge was exhausted, and went to assist young Tina to jump start NTU-150 from the automobile’s battery. She and NTU-150 were both a bit puzzled by what had just happened. I suggested perhaps the EMP gun had somehow hit the gunships and they decided that must be it. No point confusing the youngsters with explanations about chronal pocketwatches, is there? Eventually got to the plant, met up with Jaimie again (who had somehow managed to make it back in time to debrief NTU-150) and finally got young Bautista’s take on the plans and patents that Baron Zemo, and now it seems Akiko Masamune, were interested in. Turns out to be some kind of energy converter, does something with ions apparently, and requires some incredibly rare substances to make it work. Whole thing was patented by an American inventor twenty years ago and I picked it up for a song after he passed away a few years back. Just a speculation. Never got round to following it up. Jaimie was pretty keen to have a go at making the converter, just to see what it did. Tina was less keen. I said we’d better try, although getting some of the bits might prove a little daunting. Still, it’s better than another dreary day in that big City office pushing paper, or in that cold empty house without Madge. Next step while young Bautista’s making a list is to get somebody to chase up the original patent filing. Tina suggested an American lawyer she knows, so I’m flying up to meet Ms Waltz in New Orleans where the patent was filed. According to her answering machine no client leaves unsatisfied. On the whole there’s something to be said for being chased around the world by exotic villains. Almost as stimulating as the Times crossword. Probably got more chasing to be done yet, I shouldn’t wonder. Better take precautions to ensure Ms Waltz’s safety. Mumphrey; many versions of part one may be discovered further down the board |
| The Journal of Sir Mumphrey Wilton, Extract Two: In which some uncouth chaps are unsporting and the ungodly therefore require smiting (Mumphrey; many versions of part one may be discovered further down the board) (22-Aug-1999 10:01:25) |
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