Tales of the Parodyverse

The Journal of Sir Mumphrey Wilton: The Affair of the American Johnnie and the Fishy Case


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Sir Mumphrey Wilton
Tue Oct 14, 2003 at 07:17:15 pm EDT
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The Journal of Sir Mumphrey Wilton: The Affair of the American Johnnie and the Fishy Case

    Was pottering around at the Combined Services Club, muttering about the decline of standards and threatening to write to the Times about it, when I was corner by old Tadger Torrington. I suppose these days we should call him Sir Norris Torrington, head of MI5, but it’s hard to do that when you remember him as a snotty-nosed infant shoutin’ “Wanna go potty” at the old King’s garden party back in ’38.
    Anyway, Sir Tadger pulled out the usual mumbo-jumbo about good of the nation, hmm, hmm, personal favour to Her Majesty, savin’ the commonwealth etc. In the end I had to threaten him with the tapioca to start making sense and get to the point of whatever he was askin’ for before the start of the cricket season.
    So that was how I ended up in Strathvaclairie, on the north coast of Scotland, babysitting and native-guiding the American security johnnie who was investigating some kind of international terrorist threat that felt the need to base itself in a sleepy fishin’ village to threaten world peace.
    I’d heard about this Mr Epitome, of course. Seen him a few times on the BBC news. He’s one of this new-fangled breed of superheroes that one can’t walk three paces without trippin’ over these days, and he works for another of those shadowy agencies made up of letters. At least this one didn’t have an acronym that formed some clever word or other. He was from CPR or somesuch. Anyway, seemed a nice enough young chap, although he’s have benefited from a slightly better razor in my opinion. He’d brought his dog along with him too, and a very nice bitch she was.
    “How’d you get through customs, then, girl?” I asked her, making a bit of a fuss of the creature.
    The dog made some kind of woofing and paw-gesturing. Very Lassie, I thought. “Glory says she’s scientifically verified as immune to rabies and has diplomatic dispensation,” Epitome tells me. “She’s metagenically enhanced, understands human speech in seventeen languages so far, and has an IQ in excess of 200.”
    Jolly good for her, I say. But I never met a doggie yet that doesn’t like a rub behind the ears and a bit of a scratch on the belly, so that’s what I did.
    Epitome explained the mission to me. Seems there’s some nasty chappie called Factor X who’s been doing lots of naughties on the global terrorist stage. He was behind that unpleasantness in the middle east a few weeks back, and some killings in Italy. Thoroughly bad egg. Anyway, the chain of evidence suggests that he’s been taking an interest in Strathvaclairie for some reason, so Epitome had decided to have a wander out and see what was going on. I was just there to keep the MI5 protocol boys happy.
    “Are these people speaking English?” Epitome asked after ten minutes in the village.
    “No,” I answered. “That’s a Scots burr, designed to remind you that these are heathen Celts placed by God in the highlands, and any resemblance to the civilised usage of common English is purely coincidental,” I declared loudly. Can’t stand people bein’ uncivil to foreigners, even if they are American.
    “An what’re ye doin’ here in Strrrrathvaclairrriee, ye soft southerrrrn nancy?” demanded one jovial fellow in the local hostelry. He’d clearly decided that he had too many teeth. Told him as much.
    Mr Epitome stepped in to calm the situation down and buy everyone drinks. Just what I hoped, really. Soon the colonial and the aboriginals were getting’ along like a house on fire. After a while I took Glory for a walk and left ‘em to it. Hope the chappie’s super-powers include a high tolerance for a case of Scotch Whiskey that no-one told Customs and Excise about.
    Wandered down to the shore. Glory smelled something interesting down at the waterline. Turned out to be a dead fish.
    “Leave it, girl,” I told her, but she seemed pretty interested in it. She picked it up in her mouth and blurred back to Epitome faster than I could see.
    Found another similar fish further along the shoreline. Took a closer look this time. Was not happy to see what appeared to be traces of circuitry round the fish’s eyes and fins. Don’t hold with all this new technology, but cyborg fish definitely beyond the pale. Couldn’t think off-hand why anyone would actually want a cyborg fish.
    Fortunately, Mr Epitome quicker on the uptake. No flies on that young chap, I can tell you. Soon as he saw what Glory had found he worked out that the local fish formed the basis of the village food chain. Fish get infected by techno-virus. Humans eat fish. Humans infected. Humans package fish off to retail chains. And so on. Turns out that Factor X was runnin’ a test on this modified technology from some nasty alien machine species called the Mynadrine Host. Remember the League of Improbable Gentleman havin’ real trouble with them back in the Martian Invasion a good hundred and fifty years or so back!
    Main problem with Epitome reasoning this out was he was suddenly in village of infected subjects, who now felt it was time to rip him to pieces and feed him back to the fishes. Epitome’s difficulty was that he couldn’t really fight back because the chappies trying to decapitate him were ordinary folk who happened to have eaten the wrong fish. Add in that the techno-virus gave them enhanced strength and speed and it suddenly became a pretty nasty fight.
    Noted something rum was going on as I hurried back to town. Decided to leave the young chap to do the fisticuffs. Seemed to know what he was doing, and seemed churlish to cut in. Besides, we’d only uncovered half the dastardly plot so far, eh? Knew what Factor X was tryin’ with the virus. Didn’t know how the virus was getting into the fish. And maybe whoever was behind the fish-infecting had some kind of antidote or override in case things got out of hand?
    “Glory, can you hear me?” I whispered at the edge of the village. “Could you come here and give me a hand, old girl?”
    The bitch was there in an instant. I do like a well-trained animal. “Sorry to drag you from fighting beside the master an all that,” I told her, “but I need that nose of yours. Now you’ve smelled the virus-thingie, d’you think you could find a greater concentration of it? Maybe a breedin’ vat or somesuch?”
    Glory yipped and sped away again; but this time I used my temporal pocketwatch to cheat and keep up with her. Still arrived wheezing and panting at the newest of the fishing boats down in the harbour. Dog has stamina.
    Glory burst through the side of the vessel, then rolled backwards yelping and shivering. Poor creature had run right into a booby trap and was covered in the virus, eatin’ her alive. Grabbed my Chronometer, reversed the last fifteen seconds, then called her to heel so she didn’t do the same thing this time. “Go fetch your master,” I told her, and she blurred off.
    So, we had a booby-trapped boat, and maybe a Factor X agent. Decided the world would be a lot better without that techno-virus stuff in the boat. Calibrated my pocketwatch and shifted it all ten minutes into the future. Should be enough, I reasoned.
    Then Epitome was there, looking a little bit hacked but basically intact. Glory had obviously filled him in on the centre of ungodliness. I didn’t feel the need to mention I’d timeshifted the nastiness. He and the dog went in.
    Chap in the boat was Dr Argus MacFarlan, sometime lab technician to Dr Moo and former flunky of B.A.L.D. an’ Peter von Doom. He had two big cyborgs chappies as bodyguards, but they weren’t a match for Epitome and Glory without their techno-virus backup. MacFarlan was a local, and I suppose infecting Strathvaclairie was some kind of payback for an unhappy childhood or something. Oik.
    MacFarlan had been impregnated with a kind of suicide circuit even he didn’t know about. When it activated I reversed time three seconds and shifted it forward enough that when it reappeared he wouldn’t be standing there. Shifted him by dinging him on the nose. Seemed the thing to do.
    Dashed off note to Tadger Norrington explaining infected fish problem and dropping infected fish firmly on his lap. Imagine the whole thing can be dealt with now, given the shutdown codes we retrieved from the boat. Epitome and his UPS organisation seem able to cope with that kind of thing anyway.
    All in all rather bracing trip to Northern climes. Presented our American cousin with a tam-o-shanter in case he ever feels the need to look a bloody fool and gave him some good advice from an old timer in government service – never trust the bastards but do the right thing anyway. Found a nice juicy steak for Glory. IQ of two hundred plus all very well, but give me a juicy steak any day. Found her extremely useful in solving Times crossword puzzle on way back to London.
    Note to cook: avoid fish dishes for the next few weeks.



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