CURRENT STATUS: EPISODE 7
All
is spinning, unfocussed madness. The Professor lies slumped, the half finished
sp-rocket glistening sharply in his artificial hand. Looming over the console,
Rasputa Delgratos clenches his teeth, the squeak ringing out loud across the
transit chamber.
“A
little luck and….”
Kerr-Kush!
The orifice slides off at an impossible angle.
“Wha…”
Eyes
beady, sweating, Delgratos scans the room. Nothing. Again. Vast tentacular
features. Again. Nothing. There are no prima donnas here tonight. His attention
returns to the console, hands blurring in the over familiar routine. In the
corner, the megaphonic address device crackles, sputters and dies. Then once
more a crackle and the mid-range nickel voice rings out, bouncing off the flimsy
papier mache walls,
“..dlevripper
03 calling bass. Vrindlevri…….….bass…”
and
now life becomes a living hell for the astronaut candidates.
“Tutra,
is that you? Tutra? Tutra?”
Delgratos
cannot keep the vibrations from his voice…wavering..now high…now low. In his
pocket the tranquilliser pills shift meaningfully. Now is not the time.
Meanwhile
on the oblate hemispheroid, a self-satisfied Ethecres observes the robot slave
as it taps out the call sign. Help he does not need. Uniform fabric, tactile,
but evasive, stretches across a full chest as the mini-lung takes effect. A
smirk, then across the ether, the words of Mrs.Olippastein return to him. Yours
for the taking, yours for the taking…. A quick note in his memoirs….
3am
The fox calls the goose and the fox grows wings. Soon my body will become a
refuge for the world, a place of worship for the heretics.
It
is important that they know. Afterwards. Now is not the time.
Through
the lens, The Observer watches as the Observer does. The Observer sees all,
distorted, true, but all. Monochrome waves radiate from the Chrome mandible.
Black, white, bLack white.. the very stuff of existence. Soon he will contact
the Controller to manipulate the uniformed mannequins, but for now he will place
bets with himself on the elaborate ivory gaming framework. The shifting sludge
will coagulate and the Observations cease. Later. Now is not the time.
To
be continued…