Sweet Puma of Yuma!

“Ever notice how transporter malfunctions always make more mayhem instead of less?”

The Monkeyboy elder didn’t return my goofy smile. Clearly diplomatic relations were breaking down.

“So, what exactly makes you an ‘elder?’ I thought all the Monkeyboys here were basically copies...”

Barry Goldwater tapped my arm, a subtle hint that the conversation was already over for today. Almost on cue, the obstinate elder and his cadre of duplicate guards bounced briskly out the room. I distinctly heard a scoff as the doors shut; nervously I slipped my negotiating pen back into my pocket protector. Sweet Grouse of Laos!

“What went wrong, Goldy?”

The senator wiped his glasses, sprayed them with Windex, then wiped them again. “You called him a Monkeyboy.”

“So?”

“Elders prefer to be called ‘Monkeymen.’”

“Now how was I supposed to know that?! They don’t exactly make their internal customs public knowledge!” I spat indignantly. Wringing hands, still-stinging hands, I shuffled past the bust of Pallas perched above my chamber door and spread the curtains. “Nevermore. I say we go back to bombarding the surface world with atomics!”

“Sputniks of Phoenix! Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know. You’ll have the Monkeyboys eating out of your hands like a hungry cat in a fishery in no time.”

“Your enthusiasm is like candy to me,” I whispered, peering over the windowsill. At this altitude the topography of Hacknor looked just like a bumpy globe, but with no clearly marked lines of latitude or longitude. “Bitter, hard candy. Is the elder comfy in his quarters?”

It was a stroke of brilliance on Goldwater’s part to have the negotiations take place aboard his personal dirigible; it’s pretty hard to walk out on peace talks at 20,000 leagues in the air (although my engineering corps still hasn’t released a conclusive report on the limits of Monkeyboy pogo-stick technology). The best part was watching the Zeppelin crash and burn after the talks had completed, a tradition started by German President Paul von Hindenburg.

“I’ve spoken to the royal guards and they threw some banana pudding on me, which is their way of saying they’re happy.”

My nose twitched. “Tell me the truth. When do you think we’ll be able to get our hands on that teleporter?”

“Tough to say,” Goldwater said. “It’s like putting a hungry cat in a maze with cheese at the end.”

“Are we the cat, or are they?”

But Goldwater just looked on. The sky is so tranquil this time of night...

***

“Then we have a deal.”

Darl’s lips curled. He was, by far, the most-recommended freelance mercenary in these here parts. The sheer number of testimonials on his website is itself a testimonial to his overall greatness; I at first thought him overqualified.

“I still think you might be dangerously underqualified,” I lied, hoping to trick him into working for free. “What proof do you have that you and your band of renegade Novans can reach that teleporter machine? How do I know I’m not just wastin’ my precious time on you and yours?”

“While you were asking that I surgically removed your heart,” he perambulated, holding my still-beating heart up to the heavens.
Glossy Gnu of Timbuktu!

“Glossy- I mean, Sweet Vole of Sol! If you can perambulate like that again, we might just win this challenge!” I laughed before collapsing from blood loss.

***

“...And by the second article of paragraph five, the aforementioned party agrees to cede control of the state legislatures to parliament.”

I buried my face in my muscular arms. The gentle hum of the rear propeller almost made me drift off to sleep, but the disgusting smell of burnt rubber and the constant, incessant hollering by the Monkeyboys kept me as alert as a hungry cat in a dog kennel.

“I’m glad we were able to spend so much time together,” the Monkeyboy elder wept. “Few people have been able to understand Monkeyboy culture as well as you have-”

“Aw, shucks. I’d say it t’weren’t nothin’, but that phrase is probably copyrighted,” I smiled.

“-Barry Goldwater.”

“Sir, it’s been an honor to see the seeds of fiscal conservatism take root in the soil of an alien world, among a race of comical man-apes,” Goldwater said as he shook the elder’s hand.

“Yes... he’s made some serious inroads... now, can we get our hands on that teleporter?”

Goldwater ran his hands through his wispy hair, then shook his head back and forth like a rock star. “We never agreed to that.”

“Dryad of Hyderabad! What game are you playing at, Barlow?!” I bellowed. “Pinochle? Yahtzee?!”

“Calm down...”

“Nuts to that! You sank my battleship!”

“The Monkey Elders and I reached a... compromise.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “What kind of compromise?”

“The Monkeyboys will begin accepting aid from the United States government and begin transitioning to a capitalist economy.”

“How does codling those primitive sub-apes help us get our hands on-”

“The treaty is off,” the Monkeyboy elder (who hadn’t left the room) said, grinding his teeth. “And we’re leaving. Ready the pogo-sticks!”

“Th- my engineering corps will hear of this!” I called half-heartedly as the Monkeyboys stormed out, closing the door unreasonably lightly for someone so offended.

“Sweet Goat Calf of Flagstaff! You’ve just handed Hacknor over to the Soviets!” Goldwater said passionately, shaking his bare knuckles for added effect.

“Bah! You’re still running on a pre-Reagan mindset.” I shoved the old man. “What Soviets?”

“Micro-Soviets! They remade the entire Soviet Union to scale after it fell! They’re almost microscopic by now. And you’ve just given them a vibrant young economy of Monkeyboy go-getters!”

“Yes... or have I?” Looking out over the bough of the dirigible we saw a pack of Monkeyboys gliding gently to the ground on some top-secret pogo-sticks. As we watched, blue light shot up from the surface and splashed over them; seconds later there were a few pogo-sticks falling to the ground, but nobody was riding them. Phantom Pogo-sticks!

“Vulture of Horror! What did you do to those Monkeyboys?”

“I hired Darl the Bloody and his band of Novans to break into the Monkeyboy capital and reset the teleporter,” I admitted. “All the Monkeyboys are now dissipated, thanks to me!”

“Sweet Toucan of Tucson! You just sold your soul for a quick fix. I like that. Come by my office.” He handed me a business card with his 1964 campaign headquarters’ address on it.

“I’ll have to sleep on it,” I lied, tossing the card into the nearest garbage bin. It was on the other side of the room, and I’m sure he must have seen me throw it in because he winced when I spit my gum onto the card prior to disposal.

Non Sequitur!

As I stood stalwartly beside the entrance to the Colonial Marine’s spring-themed obstacle course, all I could think about was... Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

“Why?” I asked one of the entrance guards, “Why isn’t he here for me now?”

But all I got was an indifferent shrug and a gesture that could be interpreted as either “go on” or “I want to hit your face with the back of my hand.”

The doors creaked shut as I passed the Romanesque pillars. Everything within the simulation — at least I’m assuming the obstacle course was a simulation — was so vibrant and supersaturated that I had the strongest urge to just find a degaussing button and hit it.

Sweet Squid of Madrid! Under a field of flagellating cornstalks I could see numerous reptiles with orange scales, dark red eyes, and protruding horns scurrying around in a futile attempt to climb the surreal stalks. Above me the sky was a low cyan fading to black, but the stars were arranged in such perfect geometric patterns that Plato himself would have broken down and wept in their presence. Beside me a spectral being stamped his foot impatiently. After thirty seconds of unresponsiveness on my part, he cleared his throat repeatedly while tapping the back of my neck with a sharpened spork.

“Is there something I can help you with, sir?” I asked uncharacteristically politely as spork fragments worked themselves out of my neck flap. The old ghost was, after all, more familiar with the course than I was. Better to get on his good side than risk falling behind with my pride intact.

Instead of responding in kind, he shoved a pamphlet into my arms. I cradled it tenderly, looking up as if to say “why? Why have you given me the greatest gift of all, the gift of literature?”

“I been bwiefed already on ya, ya fawl!” He spat. It was as if every tooth had been removed from his head, it was! I bent down, trying to get a good look at the inside of the old man’s mouth, but he pushed me away. Just like the Romney campaign...

“Is... is there anything I can do to make your death a little more bearable?” Brown-nosing is only one of my skills, but it’s one that I find I need to use more and more these days, what with the wireless Internet and all.

“Naw, ya...”

“I can get you into heaven. I know people.”

He seemed to consider it, but flickered out of existence a second later. There was a loud click-popping noise, and from the depths of the sky came the voice of Hudson: “Obstruction courses aren’t about bribes! They’re all about the obstruction! Don’t ever forget that, or it’s game over!”

I felt shame. Shame that I’d been caught, shame that the easy way out was gone, shame that I’d crashed a funeral last month dressed as a clown. Patch Adams is a misleading movie...

“Okay.” I took a few deep breaths. “I can do this. I’m an American, and I have diplomatic immunity here.”

Opening the pamphlet, I turned to page one. Copyright 2007. Dedicated to...

“Great Stork of New York! I’ll never make it through this alive!” I crumpled the pamphlet angrily and tossed it into a Scruff McGruff-brand waste disposal receptacle on the way back out.

***

A slick slide rule slid down the wall,
Slid slightly south, but didn’t fall.

“Can you see it yet? Does it come in clear?
Can you see broadcasts from yesteryear?”

Deep within the darkened cave
A band of rouge protectors raged,
For years on end to try and save
Unlicensed art of another age.

From radio waves to the televised,
Each stray thought was mass archived.

“The picture’s in! Let’s thank ourselves-
Sweet Space-Age Elves of B-6-12!”

Whipping ’cross the viewing port
Electric bolts from outer space
Made half the images contort,
And spliced new footage in their place.

Due to the nature of the time transcoder,
All the changes to the show
Cascaded backwards, out of order,
Breaking swiftly time’s sweet flow.

“Well, we had a good run!” the chief rogue laughed.
“We even broke history! That’s no easy task.
If we must go down, let’s go down without fright!
Obliteration to all, and to all a good night!”

***

“Sweet-a Moose-a of Tuscaloosa! Gyrobo, that was amazing!”

Using only my mind, I blasted another hole through the gigantic slide. Green slime squirted everywhere as the concrete base collapsed, and as it fell scores of children cheered me on.

“I owe it all to you, Mitt. I doubt I could’ve gotten past the flamethrowers without the meditation techniques you taught me last week.”

The former governor took a bow, unabashedly patting his large gut. “It’s the least I could do after you donated that large kidney balloon to my campaign. Now people will know how I stand on the kidney issue!”

“I’m done having this conversation with you, Mitt. The challenge is over, and I’d like to go back to the hotel and relax now.”

My sudden mood swing left him a little shaken. “But I- I didn’t prepare for the debate, just so I could help you-”

“And that’s why Giuliani and McCain are serious contenders and you’re just a third wheel. Go back to Kansas, hippie!”

My shoulder collided with his arm as I brushed past him. It’s not that I like making presidential candidates cry in public, but nothing cuts into my free time. Nothing. Sorry, Mitt.

Great Robotic Suit of Western Beirut!

“This suit smells like this diner I went to two years ago and refused to go back to because it was filthy,” I whined. Then I spritzed my face with a That 70’s Show brand water-bottle and squeegeed it dry. Curse this Hacknorian heatwave!

“You can either blame the heatwave and move on with your life,” the laundromat owner said as if reading my thoughts, “or I can clean it again for double the fee.”

“Hey...” Turning the suit over, I pointed to a large dark red spot on the leg. “Your sign says you take care of things like this. How am I supposed to fight a bunch of Japanese people with filthy clothes?”

She gave me a funny look. “The T.V. ad said that you guys were fighting Japanese movie monsters this week.”

“Really?” I looked her over. She seemed honest, being overweight and all. The more someone weighs, the more honesty they can hold. It’s something I learned during my time at Weight Watchers... those skinny, skinny propagandists...

She looked shocked. “You thought you were supposed to fight Japanese people? With a robotic suit?”

“Yeah... I even called up my friend Alan to see if he’d take a dive on this one...”

“You- you honestly didn’t know what the challenge was about?”

“Well obviously I didn’t, or I wouldn’t have steam-cleaned a robotic suit! And if you knew, why didn’t you tell me before you ironed it?!”

“I’ve got my money on Team Pokemybootie,” she shrugged.

***

“No, no... what, you saw the ad too?! Am I the only one who-” I dodged as a dumpster crashed into the tree five feet from me, shattering the trunk and spraying the road with garbage. “Alan, I’m going to have to get back to you. Tell Seamus I said hello.”

Normally, clicking the “end” button would only shut off a phone, but I wasn’t using a mere phone here. I pressed the red-studded “End Call” button and the cellular mobile telephonic devicicle almost instantly retracted into my robotic armor. Sweet Fly of Versailles! It still worked, despite the stringent laundering!

“That’s a lot of monsters.”

Tens- no, dozens of colorful creatures both big and gigantic lumbered through the streets. Their papier-mâché faces and claws... completely, indescribably incredible. Words alone cannot express the full scope of their kitschy hideousness.

“I’ve got to stop them or they might find a bus of nuns and attack it!”

Exhaling slowly, I gripped my ultra-belt. Time to see if all that dry cleaning didn’t wash away the magic!

The visual monitor over my left eye indicated nominal power output with increasing potential, but I didn’t feel any happier or more fulfilled. “Hey, monsters! Prepare to feel the awesome might of my robotic arm-”

Before I could tell the monsters of my impending attack and give them enough time to adequately defend themselves, the power indicator turned red and my arm sheaths began vibrating wildly. Sweet Reindeer of Zaire!

“Um... can I get a little help here?!” The monsters, as if sensing my predicament, went about their pillaging. “Ingrates! My tax money payed for your education!”

Think, you handsome devil! How can you break free and save the day yet again?

Suddenly, the immortal words of Bing Crosby popped into my head: “if you’re ever in a vibrating robotic suit gone amok, don’t move or you could explode. Instead-”

“Hey, a penny! Hyuck hyuck!” Bending down to pick up the shiny coin, I heard a weird crunching sound and my knees locked in place. Then with a snap, the lower back plating cracked open and sparks shot off the exposed wires. “Electric Eel of Bastille! I’m gonna lose my deposit!”

Breaking the stuck leggular latches, I ran headlong toward the monster mash as the flames quickly engulfed my suit. “I need some salve! Salve and moxie!”

Now, as any first-year marine biologist can tell you, papier-mâché and electrical fire doesn’t mix very well. Scorching streams of searing smoke spread swiftly, sending the monsters into a fire-induced frenzy. The property damage was great by the time the flames subsided, but I’m pretty confident that Hacknor’s economy will be able to take one for the team. Still, they’ve been teetering on the edge of a recession since Administrator Landen and his crackpot “Dimes for Nickels” scheme...

“That’s so refreshing,” I gushed as a nearby firefighter sprayed me with flame retardant foam. “I feel a hundred times more retardant!”

“You also look more retardant, too.”

I froze, and almost snapped the firefighter in half for attempting ventriloquism before I realized the sound was coming from my suit’s cellular mobile telephonic devicicle. “Who goes thar?”

“This is the fantastic Mister Bennet. I regret to inform you that your paper reams will be a tad late this week-”

“Just a tad?”

“Just a tad. Unless...”

“Unless?”

“Our team needs you and your robotic suit to morph into a single giant robot and defeat-”

“Can you hold on? I really shouldn’t be discussing this over an open line.”

“Certainly.”

*click*

I held a Dixie™ Cup with a taut string attached to it up to my mouth.

“Just tell me where and when.”

The Soviet-Odontophile Conspiracy

“We’re here to see Grandpa. Any Grandpa. Your Grandpa.”

The unibrowed orderly glanced up from his monster truck magazine and grunted, pointing to a large bound volume in front of us on the desk. Then he ran his gigantic right hand (with odd child-sized fingers) through his scalp-beard, returning to his mental realm of go-cars and automotrons.

“Is this the registry?” Kon-El asked. I’ve only been working with the Kryptonian lad for a handful of hours, but already I sense the force is strong in this one. Centripetal force, that is. I’ve got a feeling he could last for days in a centrifuge.

“Not only is it a registry, it’s the heart and soul of rock and roll!” Boomed a tiny six foot tall woman in an off-white lab coat. The ID card pinned to her lapel said she was a doctor: A. Normal, M.D.

I was a little concerned that her name was printed in Comic Sans (90% of real doctors break for Helvetica), but I suppose the attendants here don’t get their choice of font. Someone higher up must be asleep at the switch...

“Are you a... doctor? Or are you just a 90 pound weakling?!”

“Ah hah hah!” She snorted, crunching her nose like a Bajoran pepper merchant. “I’m the curator of the Old Gladiator’s Home. Call me Abbey.”

“I shall call you ‘Abbot’ if I so choose,” I bellowed. “Now tell me where I- where we,” I motioned at Kon-El, “can find a set o’ chompers ’round here.”

“What my... associate is askin’, ma’am,” Kon-El paraphrased with a southern drawl while snapping his suspenders, “is where two vagabonds such as we can procure us some false teeth.”

“Science has proved that old people have false teeth,” I super-stated matter-of-factly. “And we’d like a set. For charity.”

Abbey bit her hand-painted upper lip. “I don’t think-”

“You lo-o-o-o-ok like you’ve got some false teeth,” I undulated rhythmically at a small man with killer jowls and what may have been some tapioca rolling by in a wicker wheelchair.

“Back off, junior!” He barked. “I didn’t spend fitty years in the tubes to get m’teeth shanghaied.”

“Stop bothering Senator Stevens,” my old pal the orderly... ordered. Kon-El eyed the old man’s pudding hungrily, but Kryptonian religion specifically forbids the consumption of pudding. Only before sundown, my inner Kryptonian reminded me.

A ringing sound momentarily distracted us, and the unhelpful orderly reached with his left hand (which was child-sized, but had enormous fingers) for the landline. Bored, I ran my eyes across the waiting room: coat racks covered with mink stoles, old chairs with ragged upholstery, stacks of sticky magazines, flaming portal to the abyss... just like every other waiting room I’ve ever been in. Except most hospitals have at least four portals.

“we take pride in our exceptionally high tooth-to-patient ratio,” Abbey beamed. “our policy is to encourage flossing.”

“Surely there are patients here who decided to follow the dental precedent set by George Washington,” I said nonchalantly, “and also, you should start your sentences with capital letters. What you’ve just done is very unprofessional.”

She balked, unaware of just what in the Sam Hill I was talking about. I’d have to show her a transcript of our conversation.

“Why exactly do you need-”

“CODE BLUE!”

I nearly jumped out of my skin as the brutish orderly (the one with the weird hands) slammed down the desk phone and stood up screaming. Kon-El did me one better, and smashed his head through the ceiling tile. Dr. Normal actually seemed sleepier.

“What room?” She groaned, rolling up her sleeves. “And don’t ever- ever? Bleh! Even. Don’t even bother telling me if it’s Glitterman again. That man needs to get over himself.”

“It’s Iron Joe Bone Grinder.” The orderly said ominously. I’ve heard people say things ominously before, so often in fact that I’ve assembled a numerical system of grading ominosity. And this guy was in the Kissinger Range.

A steamroller of trepidation kowtowed the good doctor, her freckly forehead follicles flagellating fearfully. “Nurse Sunshine, get me a syringe of maple syrup.”

“Yes Doctor,” the asymmetrical orderly replied as he aimed his desk-axe at the emergency breakfast cabinet. “Will we need the jaws of life this time?”

“We might,” she whispered, picking up the syrup. “Joe’s orthodontist isn’t in today, so we...”

Tuning out the conclusion of that sentence, I instantly began connecting the dots. Joe has an orthodontist... orthodontists always give their patients candy... candy leads to tooth decay...

“I’m an orthodontist!” I announced, ripping off my shirt to reveal a white lab coat and stethoscope. “Take me to Joe Iron!”

***

“How’s my favorite patient doing today?” I giggled, giving Joe’s belly a little rub. He started wheezing and squirted soy milk out of his nose, like the Mighty Mississippi. “So... I hear you need an emergency...” I scanned his chart. Then I held it upside down and shook it. Why are they still using Etch-A-Sketches?! Are Post-Its that expensive?!

“All I need is some new cleansing tablets,” the old man rasped. He held up an box of Baking Soda. “I don’t trust the ammonia process what makes these...”

“We can get you just so many tablets,” Kon-El told him, “but you just have to do something for us, señor.”

“Enough of this tomfoolery!” I grabbed Joe and stared into his very soul. “Give us the teeth!”

“They’re putting... they’re putting Fluoride in the bicarbonate, you know.” Joe’s eyes flickered. “They’ve got Fluoride in everything... didn’t used to. They told me everything would be... stronger.” His eyes teared up. “And I believed them.”

“Yes, yes. Fluorite is great-”

“FLUORIDE! IDE!” By now he was rocking back and forth like a screwloose waterboy. “It’s my fault! They told me I would be helping the People’s Revolution, they said. They said nobody would get hurt, they said. Look what Fluoride has done to me!” The cellulite danced on his bony arms.

I drew the blinds and slapped the ceiling light so it would swing over the hysterical old gladiator. “Where are your teeth, comrade?”

Crying, he pointed weakly out the barred window. “I buried them weeks ago, when I couldn’t get pure tablets.”

Kon-El shoved me out of the way and got all up in the bedridden crybaby’s grill. “WHERE?!”

I was a little surprised by Kon-El’s forceful monosyllabic command, but to each his own.

“In... in your pocket!” Jabbing a skeletal finger in my general direction, he cackled mercilessly before collapsing into a heap.

Reaching into the pocket I’d sewn onto my sweat pants, I closed my eyes and pulled out a set of hand-crafted dentures. Great Dugong of Hong Kong!

“How did you do that?” Kon-El asked, quite amazed.

“Old people are always giving me things,” I shrugged. “I keep shoveling them in my pockets.”

“Shoveling? Not shoving?” He snickered, latching onto my verbal gaffe. “You opening a coal plant? Gonna shovel coal?”

“Funny how you would associate shovels with coal. Have you actually seen a shovel? Ever? In your life?”

“I... of course I have. We used to grow them, on Grandpa’s farm.”

We stood over Bone Grinder’s unconscious body for what seemed like hours as my realization of Kon-El’s sheltered life sank in. Then the door — and believe me when I say this — opened.

“Sunshine!” I beamed.

The orderly frowned. “I’d prefer to be addressed titularly.”

“Nurse Sunshine?” Kon-El guessed. But it wasn’t enough to placate the oaf.

“Nurse Gumdrop Jacob Sunshine, RN.”

The urge to laugh was almost unbearable. Jacob!

“Nurse, it’s been a pleasure to deal with you.” I reached first for the large hand with tiny fingers, then for the tiny hand with large fingers. Giving up, I placed one hand on the hilt of my sword and the other on my hat. At least someone around here is following in Washington’s footsteps.

Just as we were turning to leave, Gumdrop noticed Iron Joe bent up like a hot pretzel. “Hey! What’d you do to him?!”

“That was like that when we got here,” my Kryptonian cohort coughed, creeping ’cross the colloquially-colored carpet. Sweet Cockatoo of Kathmandu!

“He’s probably like that because of the asbestos guy.”

“What?!” Sunshine gasped, almost inhaling half the furniture in the room.

“There was this guy leaving when we came in. He was in a razzmatazz Hazmat suit, and I distinctly remember him saying he put some asbestos into the walls.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a chunk of flame-retardant, life-giving asbestos. “Here you go. I popped this out of the ceiling panel.”

“OMG! That is totally asbestos!” Kon-El chimed in.

Sunshine practically tore Bone Grinder’s room phone from its slender, ergonomic casing. “I NEED HOSPICE SECURITY! INTRUDER ALERT!”

“This is the part where we slink away,” I whispered to a nodding Kon-El. “Move slowly toward the door, but after the frame we can move at normal speed. Once we hit the parking lot, you run. You run ’til your legs give out, you understand me, boy?”

“You shall not pass!”

Kon-El and I froze. Jowls flapping in the breeze, Old Man Stevens came barreling down the hallway directly at us in his wicker wheelchairmobile. Hot Turkey of Turkey!

“GET BACK TO YOUR ROOM! INTRUDER ON PREMISES!”

Shoveling past us, Nurse Sunshine scooped the unhappy gladiator up over his boulder-like shoulder (the left one. The right one looked like it was missing a joint). As the duo vanished into the fluorescent moonlight I could hear the sound of pudding splashing against a hard surface.

“Hey, Kon-El?” I whispered once the coast seemed clear.

“Yeah?”

“Did you see an exit sign when we came in here?”

Bees! Trying To Kill Me!

“So... how long you been in the colonial marines?” I asked crewman... aw snap, what was that guy’s name?

“Couple of years.” Double-checking his heading, he turned over to face me. “I used to work for a bagging company, but once the bucket industry crushed us, I realized I had no other skills, so...”

Man, this guy was dumb! “And now you’re in the remedial marines?”

He patted his stomach thoughtfully. “Well, I couldn’t get past the physical requirements, so they-”

“Oh my God, we’re about to hit the space station!”

“Ahhh!” He snapped his head back, looking frantically for a looming chunk of titanium and rubber bands while fondling the control display with his pudgy remedial fingers.

“Oh man, I totally got you,” I chuckled. “That’s what you get for not paying attention to the road. Another car could’ve hit us while you were conversating.”

“We’re in orbit!”

“Yeah, so you know the road rage is gonna be worse ’cause of the low oxygen.”

After he settled down and the turbulence leveled off, I decided to take another crack at civilizing the fool. But before I could open my mouth, I spied with my evil eye a syringe poking out from his back pocket. It was full (probably with liquid).

“No wonder you can’t get past those ‘requirements,’” I yelled, picking up the syringe and waving it in his face. “You on the moon rocks?! Screwloose? Got a belly o’ jelly?”

“That’s my insulin!”

A likely story! I thought, twisting the needle with my forefingers. “And why should I believe you? You never mentioned having the Diabetes before.”

“Well, I have it.”

Suddenly it was all coming into focus; the huge stomach, the diabetic salami on rye that he’d packed for lunch (what? I was hungry), the copy of Diabetics Fancy he had been reading when I first met him... looking into his eyes, I knew that he was telling me the Dog’s honest truth: the man was a diabetic.

“What’s your name, son?” I choked.

“Daniel Carpenter.”

Lame.

***

“I don’t negotiate.”

“With who? I’m station personnel.”

“With anyone,” I spat, shoving the officer. “Now let me into the launch tubes on deck 12.”

“It seems a little suspicious, you know. You just got here, now you want to leave...” he stroked his goatee and squinted like a madman. “It’s almost as if you’ve sabotaged the station somehow.” Two guards, as if on cue (and they probably were on cue. Hacknorian society is notoriously choreographed) stepped out from behind the nearest bulkhead. Sweet crawdad of Baghdad!

“Look... I wasn’t supposed to be here!” I shouted with a mock rage. I’m a really good actor, and it shows. “I was scheduled to go to... you know, that city on Hacknor!”

“Lotanden City?”

“Yeah! But my pilot, Daniel Carpenter, insisted we come here first,” I said, scratching my arm. “Big guy, about 350 pounds. He had a syringe on him, too. And a bottle.”

“Was it full of liquid?”

“I think so. He also said something about working for some... organization...”

“The anarchist group, Ch’erin fo?” The guards glanced at each other.

I nodded. “Yeah, he said something about...”

“The Minister of Mining?”

“Yeah. Can I go to the launch-”

Before I could finish, the guards shoved me to the wall as they ran screaming down the hall (not physically screaming, but their moods said it all). I dusted myself off and opened the Jefferies Tube hatch. Reginald, you genius!

Why I called myself Reginald just then, I suppose I’ll never know.

***

They call this an asteroid belt?

I stared out over the rim of the moon, looking in vain for a single asteroid. I’ve been bamboozled!

“Computer, where are the asteroids?”

My racing pod’s inboard vocal chords chimed. “The Hacknor Belt consists of 2×10⁴ km³ matter, spread out sporadically across an spheric area several tens of millions of km³.”

“Wow!” I slapped my face and looked directly at the camera. “So in real life, an asteroid belt isn’t completely full of space rocks that constantly crash into each other?”

The computer beeped. “Affirmative. The media often depicts asteroid belts as being so densely populated that they are unnavigable. But this is only true of proto-planets and planetary rings.”

“Hot possum of Belgium!” I slapped the other side of my face. “Okay. So we’re past the moon... let’s follow the slalom course through those buoys...”

“Course set.”

Leaning back, I plugged my flash drive into the pod’s front USB port. Now for a little web surfing... bless you, Portable Firefox!

***

“Hey, Jon, how’s the wife ampersand kids?”

“Fine...” The gladiator stumbled around the crash site, using his mighty boot to put out some of the smaller flames. “Nice crater.”

I scratched my arm furiously. “There was this bee in the cockpit. It almost stung me, and you can’t prove otherwise. Kind of weird how the bee just appeared out of nowhere,” I added. “Almost like someone was sabotaging me.”

“Really...” Jon said slowly, leering at Henchy, who was just sort of standing there. The henchman shrugged as if to say “I have no idea what’s going on, and I find eye contact threatening. Dr. Polaris rules.”

“Maybe that Ch’erin fo had something to do with it,” a nearby firefighter added, spraying the tarmac with what looked like silly string. It wasn’t putting out the fire, but it sure looked nice. “They just had an assassination attempt on Space Station Alpha.”

“I heard about that!” Henchy exclaimed, trying to deflect attention from the fact that people thought he sabotaged my pod. The cad. “Didn’t three security guards wail on some unarmed diabetic, dental for all?”

“Diabetics have the strength of ten hulks,” I stated adamantly. “Because artificial insulin contains over a thousand millibars of gamma rays per microgram.”

“WOW!” Jon, Henchy, and the firefighter screamed, slapping their faces simultaneously.