Baron Zemo's Lair. - The Journal of Sir Mumphrey Wilton, Extract Six: In which we explore the splendour of the Savage Park but unfortunately lose our sandwiches

Baron Zemo's Lair

The Journal of Sir Mumphrey Wilton, Extract Six: In which we explore the splendour of the Savage Park but unfortunately lose our sandwiches
Thursday, 26-Aug-1999 06:21:35
195.92.194.42 writes:

The Journal of Sir Mumphrey Wilton, Extract Six
In which we explore the splendour of the Savage Park but unfortunately lose our sandwiches

This is a quite remarkable place. One flies due south towards the Antarctic, pops over this unmapped mountain range through some mists, and lo and behold one’s in this little tropical jungle surrounded by volcanoes. Nearly crashed into a pterodactyl landing, which made the pilot a bit unhappy, but have since fed him two and a half bottles of best Scotch so don’t expect him to be causing any difficulty until he wakes up sometime tomorrow afternoon.
Asked our guide what this place was and how it came to be. Mr Caveguy waggled his club expressively and answered, “Hooga!”, which his translator, a Greek gentleman called Mr Elsqueevio, kindly interpreted as “How the hell should I know, it’s the first time I’ve been here. But it looks as if those fire-mountains provide a micro-climate suitable for the Jurassic vegetation manifested here and might possibly explain the pre-Cretacious indigenous lifeforms which we have so far observed.” It was clearly a very expressive Hooga.
Asil, who had decided at the last minute to tear herself away from Visionary, appeared from the back of the plane in a very fetching tropical outfit. She had wiped away the tears she’d been shedding for almost the entire journey and had a notebook at the ready. I’ve hired Ms Asil as my amanuensis for the duration of our little voyage. So far she is both more intelligent and more decorative than Miss Dawkins. Wish Patricia was a bit more lively like this. Certainly don’t see Asil marrying herself off to a chinless wonder like What-his-name.
Had a bit of a look round. Within twenty minutes Caveguy had pounded to death seven giant snakes, two small feral predators, a Jurassic squirrel, three trees, and a rock that looked at him a bit funny. I consulted with Mr Elsqueevio on the map which we had got from Lo-Blo, the Chinese chappie (who apparently works for some fiendish Devil Doctor), which shows where the Vibratium that young Jaimie Bautista’s going to need to construct a gadget for us is to be found. Mr Elsqueevio suggested that we follow a small stream into the interior; seemed convinced that this would get us where we were going.
Left Lo-Blo’s pilot dozing happily safe in aircraft and started to hack through jungle. Surreptitiously checked pocketwatch to see if there was any kind of temporal disturbance here, but there wasn’t. These old dinosaur thingies seem to be from this time period. Wondered why they hadn’t evolved further in all the hundreds of thousands of years they must have been living here. Ah well, that’s probably a question for the scientist boffins.
All was going pretty well until realised that hadn’t remembered to put chutney on sandwiches. Can’t be having a picnic in a Savage Park without sandwiches. Can’t have cheese and cucumber without pickle. Told others that I’d pop back in just a few minutes. Retraced path through hacked undergrowth, using pocketwatch to speed me up so as not to keep the other waiting. Properly modified sandwiches from essential supplies. Returned to find others.
Found signs of struggle and others missing. Discovered Mr Elsqueevio’s hat. Looked bad.
Fiddled with pocketwatch to arrange replay of events. Net dropped on Mr Elsqueevio and Asil as they walked through clearing. Many apelike creatures fell on them. Mr Caveguy, a little ahead of the others, turned round, mouthed something (presumably Hooga! But the watch doesn’t do sound) and got into fight with twenty or so of them. Little hairy chap doing quite well against monkey-things until their leader, a bigger monkey-thing wearing a chain of skulls round it’s neck (and a strategically placed one on it’s lower regions) pointed a strange silvery wand thingie at Mr Caveguy and zapped him.
By this time Mr Elsqueevio had somehow snapped the ropes and was coming to help. He got zapped too. Then young Asil somehow managed to shrink herself down to the appearance and size of a toddler and wriggle free through the net mesh. By the time she’d resumed her form of a teenager she too was zapped. Must remember to ask Asil about that little trick. Clearly more to what Dr Moo did to her than meets the eye.
I kept the temporal images running as the three fallen people were carted off by the ape-chappies. In this way I was able to discover the hidden path that led to their dormant volcano base. Spotted actual monkey-blokes with their prisoners. Bit surprised to find a big silvery tower there, not in keeping with the rest of the local décor. They banged on the door (with Caveguy’s head) until it was answered by this tall fellow with armour and a silvery facemask answered. They returned the silvery zapping wand to him and showed off their captives. Noticed the name of the tower was written on a little plaque next to the letter box: Dunmutatin.
Well, the tall silvery chappie pulls out some kind of sensor device and starts running it over Caveguy and Mr Elsqueevio. He gets quite excited. “Yes, yes, this is just the sort of material I need for my work! Well done!” But he wasn’t as happy about Asil, “Pfah! Corrupted clonal genetic material! Take it away! Do what you want with it.”
Nasty moment here. Clearly Messers Caveguy and Elsqueevio were in need of help, facing who-knows-what sinister torments at the fiendish hands of the silvery blighter; on the other hand can’t leave a fair young damsel at the mercy of hairy man-beasts under any circumstances, what? Therefore used rest of remaining chronal charge in timepiece to accelerate the two fellows’ return to consciousness and followed the hairy hunters and Asil, relying on own wits to rescue the lady. No option really.
Bit tough keeping up with them. Not as young as I used to be. Finally caught up after they’d lashed young Asil to this big stone pillar, just as they were sounding this really huge gong. Wandered out there and called to them. Warned them in all fairness that I was an Englishman and had been pretty good at boxing back in my Eton days. Played Rugby for Oxford. Better step away from the lady before I gave them all a damn good thrashing.
They all fled away into the jungle.
Was just congratulating myself on showing them what’s what when a seventy foot high ape loomed overhead and reached down for Asil.
In the meantime the silvery chap, whom we later found out was called Maximess, from some strange hidden people called the Abhumans, was intending to strap Caveguy into this genetic-tinkering device he’d cobbled together and perform nameless experiments on him. So it was a bit of a surprise when Caveguy woke up too soon, picked up a Klystron Generator, and clobbered the bounder with it.
Turns out however that Maximess is something of a hypnotist. Recovering from the unexpected blow he turned his mesmerising eyes on the hairy little chap and paralysed him with a glance. Just then however Mr Elsqueevio also awoke. Unbeknownst to me Mr Elsqueevio has a little trick as well, of controlling small waters. So he used it on Maximess. The silver-clad villain suddenly found he’d lost all bladder control, which is awkward in those all-body armour suits. And that was enough to distract him from Caveguy long enough for Caveguy to break free from his mesmeric trance and hit him over the head again.
After that it was just a matter of Caveguy going outside, retrieving his club, and having a word with the man-apes. He took on their big leader last of all, and from what I hear he bashed his skull in. Not the one on his head, either.
Pretty clear from the notes that Mr Elsqueevio found that this whole Savage Park was an experiment from long ago by these Abhumans, and that Maximess was still pottering around with it in the hopes of rediscovering techniques which his people have long since outlawed. Meanwhile Caveguy dealt with the problem of what to do with the unconscious Maximess by dropping him into one of the volcanoes. Not exactly my own solution, had I been there, but nobody can say he wasn’t firm but fair.
Which just left me with the giant ape problem. As it hoisted young Asil up in it’s massive fist I checked the chronal charge on the timepiece. It was pretty low, certainly not enough to stop time around something that big. I had just about enough temporal energy to make one little change and that was all.
Asil was screaming, not so much out of terror as because she felt it was traditional, and also because she’d spotted me on the ground was trying to distract the monkey while I climbed up a ridge to get more or less to eye level with it. Anyway, when I was in position, I called to it. “Hoy! Big monkey-chappie! Over here!”
When the ape saw me it turned round, waving Asil like a doll, and snarled at me. Bad breath. While it’s mouth was open I bowled my sandwiches down it’s throat with a googly like I haven’t used since that Gentlemen vs Players testimonial match at Lords. It hardly noticed them, of course, until the rapidly-ageing chutney began to do terrible things to its digestive system. Fortunately it put Asil down on a ledge as it doubled over with wind. That was worse than the bad breath.
I scrambled over to ensure that the lady was alright, but Asil is nimbler and faster than I am so he actually helped me down the rocks. The big ape was hiccuping and fartin’ like a Crown Judge after a big meal, and it was going to get worse before it got better. The chronal charge on the chutney was set to corrupt any semi-digested matter it came into contact with, and the ape had eaten a lot of stuff recently.
Still felt a bit sorry when it keeled over though. Hadn’t expected to give it terminal heartburn. Asil was sad too. “Why did it have to die?” she asked tearfully.
“It couldn’t be helped,” I assured her, giving her a comforting hug. “T’was chutney that killed the beast.”
Found a big store of vibratium in Maximess’ workshop, which we packed up and loaded back on the plane. Caveguy and Elsqueevio didn’t come back with us. Mr Caveguy wanted to stay for a while and try and find a sabre-toothed tiger cub for some reason, Mr Elsqueevio explained. Asil and I flew back with Lo-Blo’s pilot. It was dark so we didn’t notice that we’d actually landed in a different destination to the one we were supposed to be at – at least not until we were surrounded by piratical-looking fellows with pigtails pointing weapons at us and telling us that the Devil Doctor wanted to see us.
Possibly wants to apologise for the boorish behaviour of his minions?

Mumphrey