Broccli_Head
Explorer
Cool! I come back from vaction and I get another update!
Nice...dig the Code Names...
Nice...dig the Code Names...
We were like gods once... BIG UPDATE Friday Nov 5!
- Thread starter ledded
- Start date
Ledded, are you trying to get me fired! I laughed so very loud - loud enough that my boss came down the hall to see what was so funny.
I said something about former future French figures and she just shook her head and said something about tech-heads.
Still, I envy you. The ideas you folks have, the way you folks play, and the stories you folks write. I'm green with envy.
Anyways, thanks for the peek ahead.
Peterson
see, still green with envy
Pierce
First Post
ledded said:Smitty: "Whoa! Does a 34 hit him? That'd be 27 points of damage. Cycle the bolt, KA-SHINK. I take my second shot... booh-yah! Take some more!".
GM: "Both rounds strike true, he falls to his hands and knees, blood fountaining from his wounds and open mouth. He struggles to speak..."
Smitty: "Still? Well, I shoot him again." KA-SHINK. BLAM.
GM: "Um, okay, hold on a second... 'Yes, you stupid Americans... blah blah blah our evil plan to bring about...' "
Smitty: "He's still moving. I. Shoot. Him. Again. Does a 36 hit him?" KA-SHINK. BLAM.
GM: "Yeeaaaah... ok... 'Argh! I die, but in dying would like to reveal part of the huge nazi conspiracy and set up a future plot poi...' "
Smitty: "Jesus. Are you *still* talking?" KA-SHINK. BLAM.
GM: "Um...."
Smitty: "Ooh look, he flinched!". CLICK. "Whoops, gotta reload." KA-SHINK. BLAM. KA-SHINK. BLAM.
Gm: <wonders what to do with a mook who is now at -98 wound points> "Uhhhh.... yeah. He's dead. Yup. Even his blood has stopped moving."
Hank: "Ding-dang ol' swell then, it's time ta leave. Hey thar, I'm gonna search what's left of the body fer anythin' *useful* "
GM:
Man, he was speakin' German. Smitty don't speak German. I was just putting him outta my misery.
ledded
Herder of monkies
I'm lucky to be in a *very* creative group... it's one of the only groups that a GM will actually feed off of the players as they interpret his scene/idea, then incorporate their imaginings into the actual scene/moment. Kinda like doing improv with a campaign outline sometimesPeterson said:
, except OldDrewId is much better at it than I am.Again, a room full of creative nuts constantly trying to original, creative, and one-up the other...
For me, the stories often kind of write themselves, except that it's sometimes hard to incorporate all of the good stuff that happens either because I can't remember all the funny lines, or that they are a little bit too, um, 'out of bounds' for a public forum.
Better than being pink with envy. Cuz that would not only be weird, but kind of annoying also.
...
I'm glad you found it entertaining... that part is always the hardest for me to write, even though this group makes it a lot easier because it's like hanging out with the cast of Whose Line Is It Anyway. The action sometimes just literally spills out of my writing mind faster than I can type it; turning the CRASH BOOM POW into imaginary comic frames and then interpreting those as text in such a way that it still feels sort of like a comic is not only fun, but it just seems to roll out of me sometimes. Not always good or even palatable stuff comes out, mind you, but it does come easier. I have several times gotten *really* inspired and just cranked out about 8-10 pages and jubilantly printed it, reviewed it, and then thought "Wow. That was incredibly *bad* considering how good it felt when I wrote it". Moments like that really take the wind out of me too... when there is a long break between posts it's usually when I've done something like that and just crushed my silly little writing egoRel said:
. There are still parts in the story that I have to fight myself not to go back, take down, re-write, and then re-post. One day I might just do that, but for now it's all part of the fun just seeing what I can put down, edit quickly, and toss up for general consumption, like the short-order cook of Story Hours .It's the good in-between stuff, the stuff that makes you really get invested in a character, that is very hard for me, and often will hold me up for weeks until I can frame up something that I feel is appropriate, especially since I don't want to write all-action, because that would just get boring.
Yes, after watching OldDrewId for months and then deciding I wanted to do my own Story Hour, I realized that he was only making it *look* easy, and that it really wasnt. At. All. So Drew, if you're catching this, sorry if I ever read your Story Hour at the great funny parts and even thought for a second "Wow, this is *great*. I can do this! How hard could it be?".
...
Hey, if I can get jonrog1 by here sometime maybe we can do something about thatragboy said:
. Seriously though, his Pulp Spycraft story hour (one of the best *ever*, and the funniest I've ever read) partly inspired me when initially putting this one together. If you've never read it, try and find it somewhere... that was classic, action-comedy pulp story hour for you.Thanks to all for stopping by.
ledded
Herder of monkies
We were like gods once... [The wages of war]
……
England, several days later…
“Right. Well then, boys, I hope the tests weren’t too, um… invasive… for you. Now I have some new things to show you”, Dr Z prattled on, oblivious to the rolled eyes and whispered complaining of the newest SPAARTANS team.
“Dingdang ol’ just ‘bout stuck a tube in every dad-gummed hole I dingdang ol’ got sheeeeoot”, Hank mumbled as they walked along behind the doctor.
“Aw hell Hank, you know you liked it”, John grinned at Hank.
“Yeah, I heard that about you Hank”, rejoined Smitty, making a wing-like motion with his hands and skipping.
Hank replied defensively, “Hey thar now dingdangit I aint one ‘o them thar y’know, light inna loafer, dingdang ol’ I aint like them thar, ya know, gol-darnit I ain’t one ‘o dem fairy boys, an’ you knows it”.
Frogbot turned from examining the hanger. “Ha. Ha. Ha.”
Moose just smiled and shook his head, not quite sure what they were talking about. But after two days of being hooked up to all kinds of strange machines and worse, he was a bit tired of it. And hungry. Now this fancy-pants limey feller, even though he was nice enough, was boring the heck out of him. Sure could go for a big plate o’ dat bangers and mash. And a pint. Or two maybe, Moose thought, his 4-year old’s attention span stretched thin already.
The doctor stopped next to a large hanger door and turned to address them again.
“Well. You see, we’ve had a bloody time trying to keep our work from the Jerry’s, what with his spying little buggers crawling ‘round all over the place, so we have kept our operation as mobile as possible.”
“Every so often we pack up the whole bloody circus, and then move it to a small village with a suitable airfield nearby, all as quiet and subtle as you please. It is quite inconvenient, and not exactly conducive to proper research, but it has been quite effective so far. Allied Command is supposed to be building us a more permanent station, but it’s so hush-hush and all that that not even I am privy to its location. Bit of a rub, that.”
Dr Z managed to sound somewhat hurt at that last admission, while still maintaining his cheery exterior.
“Well then, what we have is one of our latest operations here. You see, we’ve liberated a certain quantity of this new metal from the Jerry’s, something they’ve been toying with for a while. It has the most amazing qualities. It is somewhat malleable, almost like a very light form of lead, until certain pressures are applied in the proper manner. During this process, it can be remolded into a variety of shapes before it changes molecular structure, after which it weighs not much more than aircraft aluminum, but is almost twice as hard as steel, and somewhat resistant to magnetic fields, heat, and all kinds of energy. Amazing stuff, really.”
The mechanic in Hank was piqued at this pronouncement.
“Dingdang ol’ really? Jus’ what kinda pressure ya’ll puttin’ on that thar stuff? Ya make them thangs inna molds, or roll it out, or somethin’ like that?”
Dr Z smiled broadly, nearly bouncing on his toes with the thought that someone else might actually be interested in the subject.
“Oh no, dear boy, nothing that… mundane. See, this material is extremely resistant to heat, and tends to crumble under heavy material stress in raw form. No, we have, ah, let’s say a ‘different’ way of dealing with it that we’ve been exploring.” Dr Z let a smug smile slip onto his face, obviously proud of their cleverness.
“And we’re making the most amazing things with it, just wait, it bloody well may win the war for us! Here, lets go in.”
With that, he turned and entered the hanger and a small vestibule just inside the door. Several guards and one man with ESS insignia, team TITAAN, gave the group a long look that set prickles on their skin before nodding at the MP’s. One soldier saluted and opened the door leading into the hanger proper.
Inside, it was a concrete floor with the metal-framed ceiling rising ahead. There were various researchers, soldiers, and civilians milling about, and plenty of unfamiliar machinery. There was a pale, slight youth, dressed in the jacket and shorts of a schoolboy, thick glasses and mussed hair that glanced at the group before staring back at an odd lump of whitish metal sitting in the center of the room.
Hank extended his senses towards the lump, feeling the magnetic waves and currents that surround everything eddy and flow around it. It felt almost… oily, in a way, the waves of magnetism he gently pushed and probed around the lump of metal. It seemingly resisted his prodding of its particles, while still holding some attraction to the metal in general.
“Dingdang ol’ greased pig, that thang is thar. Mighty funny stuff. So what’re ya danged ol’ doin’ now?” Hank mumbled to Z as the other team members shifted around, already bored with the lump of inert metal.
“Oh well, here, watch this.”
At that point he nodded, and several researchers moved around and took stations next to machines that seemed to be set up for taking some kinds of measurements, like large metal detectors of a sort.
Hank was getting confused, not seeing any obvious ways of working metal in use, when the lump suddenly lifted several feet into the air and began to rotate slowly.
There was a babble of excitement as several men ran forward with hand-held instruments and waved them about in what Moose thought was a very sciencey manner. It still failed to impress him. Mmmm… bangers and mash. Maybe some good warm bread. And cheese. He glances at Frogbot. Well, maybe I can skip the cheese.
Hank’s perception rode along the magnetic waves, feeling, probing, and finally slightly gripping the metal a bit as it spun. There was no manipulation of the metal that he could feel in the ambient magnetism.
Let go of that. You might get hurt.
The words came to Hank like someone had spoken them softly next to him, but loudly enough that it came clearly over the background noise and babble in the room. He glanced around, but Moose was staring off into space, talking to himself under his breath and making rumbling noises with his stomach, while John and Smitty were talking softly to each other and lighting up a smoke. Frogbot merely stood stock-still, that creepy not-smile plastered to his face, looking to Hank a lot like someone had just struck him in the back of the head with a large board. He suddenly began slowly scanning the room, an odd flicker of light in his not-quite-real eyes.
Leggo.
Hank could feel the metal turn nearly liquid, felt the flows of magnestism he was bending towards it start to fold in and wrap like wires against the mercurial quality of the now-smooth sphere of metal.
“Danged ol’ alrighty then, I dingdang gotcha.” He released his hold on the magnetic fields and the ‘ends’ snapped back towards him a bit, somewhat painfully, like a rubber band snapping against the inside of his brain.
“Youch! Dang if I’ll get used ta that kinda thang there…” Hank mumbled, rubbing his temple.
I tried to tell you.
The metal spun faster, and faster, then suddenly resolved itself into the shape of some kind of shield, like a knight’s shield, strangely shaped. It held there, rotating for a moment as if to allow the onlookers to admire its graceful curves, and then promptly fell flat to the floor with a high-pitched cling!
Several of the onlookers clapped and their babble rose to a crescendo as they cautiously approached the object, protective suits and various strange clicking instruments held out in front of them.
Hank calmly walked over, and to a sudden hissing intake of breath from the researchers, picked up the shield and started turning it over and examining it.
It was cool to the touch, perfectly curved and rounded, with sharp edges here and there, and even small mounts for attaching straps or something. Its balance was incredible. All in all, extremely good work, he thought.
Thanks. It’s kinda hard.
The voice made him jump, and he dropped the shield clattering like silver to the floor and glanced around wildly, thinking for a moment that messing around with magnetic waves had finally scrambled up something in his head.
Sheepishly grinning, he picked up the shield and handed it to Dr Z, who merely stood looking at him smiling.
Hank looked at him dubiously. “How in the… dingdang ol’… well if that ain’t the damnedest thang…”
Dr Z rocked back and forth from his heels to the balls of his feet, looking for the entire world like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary.
Hank began to open his mouth again when Frogbot softly tapped his arm.
“Monsieur? Oui? Yes.” Frogbot pointed to a gaggle of sweater and fatigue-clad men with instruments.
“Huh? Whatcha… huh?” Hank mumbled, confused.
Frogbot reached back, grabbed Hank by the back of his skull, and quickly turned his head so that he looked directly at the young boy they had seen earlier, now surrounded by a host of instrument and thermometer wielding men. He glumly sat in a chair as they took his temperature, drew blood, waved several strange devices around him and essentially talked excitedly about him like he wasn’t even there.
“Ze boy. He did eet. You could not see it, no? Eet was heem, mon ami. Frogbot could see ze emanations of his pow-air, you see, for I am built for such things by my creator. You see, mon ami, I was created by ze greatest scien-teest is ze world, from ze greatest country in ze world, may her shores ever be beautiful, her fields bountiful, her…”
Smitty rolled his eyes, his attention garnered by Frogbot’s latest diatribe. “Jesus Hank, thanks for setting *that* off again… “
But Hank had wandered away from Frogbot and his exultations, shouldering a few of protesting academics and military men out of the way to come to stand in front of the boy.
“You do that?” he asked, kneeling down to look the young man in the face. He was a plain boy, pale and thin, maybe 8 years old, and his eyes were a soft, sad brown. He had the look of a child that didn’t get outside much.
Yes. Yes sir.
The boy looked right at him, mouth never moving, looking sad but unusually patient with the prodding and poking going on all around him. The voice sounded like a typical Londoner child’s voice. Hank continued his questions. “You always talkin’ in folks’s heads like ‘at? Can everyone har ya when ya do that?”
Easier this way. They can’t keep interrupting me. Only the ones I want to hear me can hear me. Easier that way too. It’s not like they listen very well anyway. You’re very strong.
“Oh, that makes sum sense, ah guess.”
Hank looked at his skinny arms and legs, smiling. “But I ain’t ‘xactly strong.”
The boy shook his head, slowly pointing at his own thin arms, then at his head.
Not here. Here. You know, where it counts. He smiled with the last thought.
I like you. You’re not like them.
Hank laughed out loud and slapped his knee, bringing some strange looks from the assembled scientists as they hooked more wires and strange probes up all around the boy.
“I guess ya ‘bout hit the nail on the dingdang ol’ head, thar. What’s yer name?” Hank asked.
“His name is Psi-meld, well, for obvious reasons”, replied Dr Z, standing at Hank’s shoulder. “You see, the metal responds to psychic energy and not much else. Psi-meld can mold it like, well, child’s clay. He quite fabulously talented, an amazing resource for us. This most talented psycho-kinetic we’ve ever seen. The metal is called Tibranium, aheheh, yes, quite clever I thought. Actually, we were wondering if you would work with us on the project, maybe use your particular penchant for magnetism and electronics to help Psi-meld with some finer points…”
Hank held up his hand to Dr Z, who slowly trailed off and stared at Hank, mouth making a little ‘o’.
“I ding-dang asked him, feller. You is inner-ruptin’ folks when they’s havin’ a con-ver-sa-shun”, Hank said to Z slowly.
There was a giggling sound in Hanks mind. The boy smiled at him.
My name’s Danny. You’re Hank. I know because I could see it, Danny said proudly into Hank’s head.
“You kin see inna my haid? Like, uh, like my thoughts wuz all spelled out or somethin’ like that?” Hank asked, incredulous.
Danny looked down shyly at his clasped hands, his smile suddenly gone.
Yeah. Something like that. I’m sorry Hank. They tell me it’s rude, that I shouldn’t. I tell *them* they shouldn’t think so loud, but they don’t listen. They never listen. You’re the first to listen to me since my mom.
He bit his lower lip, looking up at Hank through eyes filled with moisture. Filled with desperation.
I won’t do it again Hank. I promise. I won’t. Don’t be mad. Don’t… leave.
Hank leaned in and patted Danny on his shoulder gently, smiling broadly.
“Dingdang ol’ hell, boy, ‘at ain’t no problem, I ain’t got nuthin’ much up here anyway” Hank said, smiling and knocking on his head with his knuckles like a door. “Sure as hell ain’t gots nuthin’ secret or all that manure, so taint no reason ta git all twisted up or nuthin’, I ain’t vexed atcha. I jes taint never met nobody that ken do ‘at, ‘at’s all”.
Danny sniffed, and rubbed his nose. He looked at Hank, obviously skeptical, but with something akin to hope.
Really?
“Yup”, Hank countered, shaking his head and banging his hands on the sides as he shook it. “Ahm sure there ain’t a danged ol’ thang in thar”
Danny looked at him, so serious for such a small boy.
You’re not mad?
“Nope, son, I tain’t mad atcha.”
Are you sure? Most people don’t like me looking at their minds. I really can’t help it, you know. It’s like telling you not to see the color red, then painting *everything* red, and then making you hold your eyes open all the time and do things with stuff that is red, even when you sleep and take baths and eat and try to read a comic even though they don’t let you have comics because they say they’re bad for your brain but what do they know their brains are all so little and gray and dull and squishy and don’t have much in them to start with. Do you understand, Hank?
Hank laughed again, throwing his head back to guffaw loudly, and clapped Danny’s shoulder again. “I think so, Danny-boy. Ding-dang ol’ these har fella’s will prod ya and poke ya like a floppin’ fish on a riverbank, wont dey? An’ I aint got no secrets anyhow, I told ya.”
*Everybody’s* got secrets Hank, Danny thought into Hanks mind, somehow giving Hank the impression that he was rolling his eyes at him in mock exasperation.
“Not everybody, Danny”, Hank replied comfortingly.
Danny looked at Hank, smiling an oh-really-there little boy’s wicked smile.
You mean like you and Carol Dupree right before you went in the army, that day you went up into the barn together on her father’s place, and she pulled up her knickers and showed you her…
“Ho! Hey! Ho-ho-whoa there… heh heh, dang ‘ol, sheeee-oot, well, ahem, uh, heh heh, we might not ought ta be um, well see, we wuz, um, ya know, she fell and I was examinin’ her, to ah, well, ah, make sure she wuddn’t, um, hurt, see…”, Hank stuttered, turning red and fidgeting.
Danny giggled, this time out loud, and Hank joined in with guffaws.
I like you Hank, you’re funny.
“Oh boy, sheeeooot, dingdang ol’ ya got me thar boy, oh boy, ya dingdang ol’ rascal ya...” Hank laughed, then trailed off when he noticed everyone had gotten quiet except for his laughing and Danny’s soft giggling.
Hank looked around, slightly uncomfortable.
“Hey, what’sa problem boys, ya ain’t never seen nobody havin’ a laugh or nothin’. Dingdang ol’ stiff-neck limey-boys…”
Dr Z spoke up.
“No Hank. It’s just that, well, Danny hasn’t made a sound out loud in, well, at least since he was 6. That was three years ago, when he manifested fully, when his mother… well there was an air raid, and… well, you know. What… what did you… how?”
Hank just looked at Danny, still smiling, and shrugged his shoulders.
“I guess you feller’s just ain’t that ding-dang funny, are ye? Huh? Aint that right Danny? Huh? Danny? Huh?” Danny giggled as Hank nudged him with an elbow.
Hank stood up and took a step towards Z, all mirth gone from his face. He spoke to him quietly through clenched teeth.
“Least, you ain’t never really tried, has ya?”
Z swallowed and began speaking rapidly.
“Well, you see, I’m not really very good with children, and, well, oh bollocks Hank there’s a war on and we really, really need to figure this out, and we need your help with this, we don’t have any other magnetically talented ESSes of your strength, and, look I’m very sorry if things aren’t always as they should be, well… please Hank?”
Hank stood quietly for a moment, and looked over to where Moose, Smitty, and John stood, arms folded and looking somewhat irritated at the lot of scientists, who in turn looked somewhat nervous that a group of extremely talented and dangerous ESSes were looking at them in a way that said ‘Now you boys have been bad, very bad see, and we’re not at all happy about it…’
“Whaddaya think, fellers? Didja hear all ‘at?”
“Yup” Moose rumbled. Smitty nodded his head and lit another smoke, his glowing red left eye whirring as it focused on individual scientists, one at the time.
“You have some fun Hank, we’re gonna go and take a look at some of the good Doctor’s new toys, ain’t that right Z?” John said. Several of the researchers swallowed audibly under the white-toothed, ice-eyed grin that John gave them. A wolf’s grin. In the hen house. And he was wearing the farmer’s clothes.
“Oh, very well then, thank you Hank. Gentlemen, if you would follow me…” Z called to the other SPARTAANS and led them off to another hanger, babbling about new technology and special gizmos and all kinds of things that just made Moose get hungrier and hungrier.
Hank looked around at the silent and stunned researchers.
“Alrighty then, me an’ ol’ Danny-boy here’s gonna get some stuff done…”
“Well sir, the protocols for application of our scientific method…”, one of them piped up; a soft, doughy-looking academic who spoke as if he was being prodded somewhere uncomfortable as he snapped pages on his officious-looking clipboard.
Hank continued without missing a beat.
“…an’ you feller’s is just gonna git fer a while. Alrighty? Good.”
Danny crossed his arms and nodded his head for emphasis.
“Um, ‘git’? Excuse me, what exactly do you mean by ‘git’?” the same academic asked Hank.
“Dingdang you know, git. Go. Git the hell oughtta har”, Hank explained impatiently.
“Sir, I just don’t know that…”
“Git.”
“Sir, I don’t think…”
“GIT.”
“Look, yank, I don’t know who…”
With that, Hank spotted an open crate of small ball-bearings nearby. He calmly picked up several large groups with his mind, and floated them nearby, grinning evilly.
“I said… GIT!”, and punctuated it by flinging mental handfuls of ball bearings at the scientists. Hard.
“Ouch! Ow! That hurts! If you’ll just wait one bloody…”
“Git! Git! Git! Git!”, each pronouncement followed by a stinging barrage of ball bearings and the yowls and cries of the scientists as they put up clipboards for cover and scrambled, slipping and stumbling to and fro over the accumulated ball bearings underfoot.
Danny giggled in Hank’s mind, a child’s giggle of pure enjoyment, of liberation.
Hank glanced at him, smiled, pulled up his pants in a comical manner, then took a step towards the doughy scientist that had spoken up.
“I… said… Git!” Hank grunted as he aimed a kick at the man’s rear end, sending him sprawling comically, arms wind-milling. Hank himself slipped on some of the ball bearings, feet shooting up sky-high and landing on his back with a grunt.
Danny giggled, and Hank joined him as the scientists fled the scene.
Hank propped himself up on an elbow and looked at the boy.
Danny got control of his giggling, returning to his normal somber self. He sighed once, and pushed up his glasses where they had slid to the end of his nose.
Um, yes, back to work. I guess we should try to re-isolate the dynamic tetrameters, then re-work stress coefficients…
Hank smiled and interrupted him as he stood up and brushed off his fatigues.
“Hey, I gots a better i-dear”, he said as he pushed mentally, gathering the ball bearings up into a tight sphere rotating over his head.
“Say Danny, ya ever play ball?”
…
Elsewhere nearby...
Dr Z showed them an array of gadgets and weapons laid out on a table. He held little of his former liveliness now.
“So, you see, we have fashioned several weapons of this metal Tibranium, they hold a much greater edge and are much stronger and resistant to damage. Quite nice. Even have made these shirts of mail, and shields, and pretty much anything we can get Psi-m… ahem, D-Danny, to imagine”
“You sure you should be treatin’ him like such a lab rat?” Smitty spoke, challenge in his tone.
“I’m not sure what you mean…”, said Z, without turning to look at them.
John spoke up.
“Just like us. I mean, we’re big boys, we can handle it. He’s a child.”
“I’ve… tried. I know it seems bad, and I’ve brought him some child’s toys, but he’s so different, and it’s just… well…”, Z said haltingly.
John shot back. “You don’t have anything in common? He isn’t an Oxford man, or something like that? Ya know, I’m getting a little sick of this. I bet if you had a boy of your own, or even a wife for that matter…”
Z interrupted, his voice low and controlled as he stared off, out of the window over the green landscape. His eyes were looking out, but from a place far distant from that hanger.
“We do have… things… in common. I was married once. We had a baby boy, and I worked for the government. Late. Always late. One night I, well, I was quite late, and I had rung her to say I would be right home. She always understood, she was that kind of girl. You see, it was her birthday, and our son’s first birthday also, quite a wonderful coincidence, we always thought.”
“Then the sirens lit. I told her, I said ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can’. I promised. I could hear our son crying as the anti-aircraft thundered in the distance, I could hear the fear in her voice as she bravely told me ‘Oh, no hurry love, just a bit of rain, nothing to be worked up about. Just Jerry puttering about making a muss. Get here when you can’. Then the phone lines went out.”
I tried to leave, but the security teams grabbed me. Said I was too important to risk, and they took me to the bunker and locked me in with the others. I made my old sergeant, O’Malley was his name, big Scottish fellow, promise that he would go in my stead, that he would keep my promise for me, that he would go get her and bring her here. He told me ‘I got six young ones o’ me own, doc, I unnerstand ye, I’ll go get them and bring them safe on me honor sir’ and saluted and dashed off. It wasn’t far, only a few miles, and he was a solid man who’d never let me down. I told myself it would all be fine. We had tea, and joked about what we were going to do after the war.”
“And I waited.”
“They told me later that when our flat collapsed, that Mary and Timothy only had about an hour, maybe two of air.”
“It was four hours before I could get there. O’Malley had never come back.”
“I cursed O’Malley as I drove, cursed him for a big stinking, hairy, drunken Scotsman, two of our first ESS men with me, big strapping lads I knew could help.”
“But it was no use. We dug, and dug, the ESSes flinging huge sections of building aside, I kept telling myself they would be fine… good stout English brick, it was, but...”
Z stared off for several quiet moments, no indication that he was anything more than a statue, except for one muscle in his jaw tightening and clenching.
“She was holding him, you know, at the last. My son. They looked so peaceful, like they had just gone to sleep. But when I called her, she didn’t, ahem, she didn’t wake.”
“When I went outside, the men said they had found O’Malley. I was bloody well prepared to give him a piece, to lash out at anything. A half-block away, a bomb had hit next to his lorry and flipped it, killed the corporal who was driving. There was a trail of blood all the way from the truck to the front stoop of our building, where we assumed he drug himself after being wounded badly in the explosion.”
“Apparently, it was then that the building was hit, and the whole thing came down. No way he could avoid it. He was crushed like an egg.”
"Danny's mother died in the same raid. His father was a pilot, and had died over the channel the year before."
“I… I tell myself I couldn’t do anything, but I know different. Now I’ve made a different kind of promise, one that I’ll not pass on to another. I promised Hitler that I’d have tea and cake on his grave for their birthday one day. And I’d by-God wear a kilt when I did.”
“So I create, and I test, and I do what I can, and I damn all the consequences. Maybe it will make a difference. Maybe not. Maybe nothing will.”
Z continued to stare off into the landscape, eyes moist with unshed tears. John and Smitty stood, John shaking his head, Smitty holding a new rifle calmly, but his mechanical hand gripped the wood so hard it creaked.
After several moments, Dr Z felt Moose put a large, gentle hand on his shaking shoulder.
“Hey dere, um, Doc? Doc, I need you ta show me how dis jetpack works again dere. Doc, we need you.”
“Ahem. Yes”, the doctor sniffed, and shook his head to clear it, and coughed a couple times, regaining his composure.
“Well, ahem, you see, you access the throttle line so, but wait! No no no, don’t touch *that* red button right now, see the helmet works like a vane…”
And Moose nodded his head in understanding the whole time, even though he didn’t get a word of it.
……
England, several days later…
“Right. Well then, boys, I hope the tests weren’t too, um… invasive… for you. Now I have some new things to show you”, Dr Z prattled on, oblivious to the rolled eyes and whispered complaining of the newest SPAARTANS team.
“Dingdang ol’ just ‘bout stuck a tube in every dad-gummed hole I dingdang ol’ got sheeeeoot”, Hank mumbled as they walked along behind the doctor.
“Aw hell Hank, you know you liked it”, John grinned at Hank.
“Yeah, I heard that about you Hank”, rejoined Smitty, making a wing-like motion with his hands and skipping.
Hank replied defensively, “Hey thar now dingdangit I aint one ‘o them thar y’know, light inna loafer, dingdang ol’ I aint like them thar, ya know, gol-darnit I ain’t one ‘o dem fairy boys, an’ you knows it”.
Frogbot turned from examining the hanger. “Ha. Ha. Ha.”
Moose just smiled and shook his head, not quite sure what they were talking about. But after two days of being hooked up to all kinds of strange machines and worse, he was a bit tired of it. And hungry. Now this fancy-pants limey feller, even though he was nice enough, was boring the heck out of him. Sure could go for a big plate o’ dat bangers and mash. And a pint. Or two maybe, Moose thought, his 4-year old’s attention span stretched thin already.
The doctor stopped next to a large hanger door and turned to address them again.
“Well. You see, we’ve had a bloody time trying to keep our work from the Jerry’s, what with his spying little buggers crawling ‘round all over the place, so we have kept our operation as mobile as possible.”
“Every so often we pack up the whole bloody circus, and then move it to a small village with a suitable airfield nearby, all as quiet and subtle as you please. It is quite inconvenient, and not exactly conducive to proper research, but it has been quite effective so far. Allied Command is supposed to be building us a more permanent station, but it’s so hush-hush and all that that not even I am privy to its location. Bit of a rub, that.”
Dr Z managed to sound somewhat hurt at that last admission, while still maintaining his cheery exterior.
“Well then, what we have is one of our latest operations here. You see, we’ve liberated a certain quantity of this new metal from the Jerry’s, something they’ve been toying with for a while. It has the most amazing qualities. It is somewhat malleable, almost like a very light form of lead, until certain pressures are applied in the proper manner. During this process, it can be remolded into a variety of shapes before it changes molecular structure, after which it weighs not much more than aircraft aluminum, but is almost twice as hard as steel, and somewhat resistant to magnetic fields, heat, and all kinds of energy. Amazing stuff, really.”
The mechanic in Hank was piqued at this pronouncement.
“Dingdang ol’ really? Jus’ what kinda pressure ya’ll puttin’ on that thar stuff? Ya make them thangs inna molds, or roll it out, or somethin’ like that?”
Dr Z smiled broadly, nearly bouncing on his toes with the thought that someone else might actually be interested in the subject.
“Oh no, dear boy, nothing that… mundane. See, this material is extremely resistant to heat, and tends to crumble under heavy material stress in raw form. No, we have, ah, let’s say a ‘different’ way of dealing with it that we’ve been exploring.” Dr Z let a smug smile slip onto his face, obviously proud of their cleverness.
“And we’re making the most amazing things with it, just wait, it bloody well may win the war for us! Here, lets go in.”
With that, he turned and entered the hanger and a small vestibule just inside the door. Several guards and one man with ESS insignia, team TITAAN, gave the group a long look that set prickles on their skin before nodding at the MP’s. One soldier saluted and opened the door leading into the hanger proper.
Inside, it was a concrete floor with the metal-framed ceiling rising ahead. There were various researchers, soldiers, and civilians milling about, and plenty of unfamiliar machinery. There was a pale, slight youth, dressed in the jacket and shorts of a schoolboy, thick glasses and mussed hair that glanced at the group before staring back at an odd lump of whitish metal sitting in the center of the room.
Hank extended his senses towards the lump, feeling the magnetic waves and currents that surround everything eddy and flow around it. It felt almost… oily, in a way, the waves of magnetism he gently pushed and probed around the lump of metal. It seemingly resisted his prodding of its particles, while still holding some attraction to the metal in general.
“Dingdang ol’ greased pig, that thang is thar. Mighty funny stuff. So what’re ya danged ol’ doin’ now?” Hank mumbled to Z as the other team members shifted around, already bored with the lump of inert metal.
“Oh well, here, watch this.”
At that point he nodded, and several researchers moved around and took stations next to machines that seemed to be set up for taking some kinds of measurements, like large metal detectors of a sort.
Hank was getting confused, not seeing any obvious ways of working metal in use, when the lump suddenly lifted several feet into the air and began to rotate slowly.
There was a babble of excitement as several men ran forward with hand-held instruments and waved them about in what Moose thought was a very sciencey manner. It still failed to impress him. Mmmm… bangers and mash. Maybe some good warm bread. And cheese. He glances at Frogbot. Well, maybe I can skip the cheese.
Hank’s perception rode along the magnetic waves, feeling, probing, and finally slightly gripping the metal a bit as it spun. There was no manipulation of the metal that he could feel in the ambient magnetism.
Let go of that. You might get hurt.
The words came to Hank like someone had spoken them softly next to him, but loudly enough that it came clearly over the background noise and babble in the room. He glanced around, but Moose was staring off into space, talking to himself under his breath and making rumbling noises with his stomach, while John and Smitty were talking softly to each other and lighting up a smoke. Frogbot merely stood stock-still, that creepy not-smile plastered to his face, looking to Hank a lot like someone had just struck him in the back of the head with a large board. He suddenly began slowly scanning the room, an odd flicker of light in his not-quite-real eyes.
Leggo.
Hank could feel the metal turn nearly liquid, felt the flows of magnestism he was bending towards it start to fold in and wrap like wires against the mercurial quality of the now-smooth sphere of metal.
“Danged ol’ alrighty then, I dingdang gotcha.” He released his hold on the magnetic fields and the ‘ends’ snapped back towards him a bit, somewhat painfully, like a rubber band snapping against the inside of his brain.
“Youch! Dang if I’ll get used ta that kinda thang there…” Hank mumbled, rubbing his temple.
I tried to tell you.
The metal spun faster, and faster, then suddenly resolved itself into the shape of some kind of shield, like a knight’s shield, strangely shaped. It held there, rotating for a moment as if to allow the onlookers to admire its graceful curves, and then promptly fell flat to the floor with a high-pitched cling!
Several of the onlookers clapped and their babble rose to a crescendo as they cautiously approached the object, protective suits and various strange clicking instruments held out in front of them.
Hank calmly walked over, and to a sudden hissing intake of breath from the researchers, picked up the shield and started turning it over and examining it.
It was cool to the touch, perfectly curved and rounded, with sharp edges here and there, and even small mounts for attaching straps or something. Its balance was incredible. All in all, extremely good work, he thought.
Thanks. It’s kinda hard.
The voice made him jump, and he dropped the shield clattering like silver to the floor and glanced around wildly, thinking for a moment that messing around with magnetic waves had finally scrambled up something in his head.
Sheepishly grinning, he picked up the shield and handed it to Dr Z, who merely stood looking at him smiling.
Hank looked at him dubiously. “How in the… dingdang ol’… well if that ain’t the damnedest thang…”
Dr Z rocked back and forth from his heels to the balls of his feet, looking for the entire world like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary.
Hank began to open his mouth again when Frogbot softly tapped his arm.
“Monsieur? Oui? Yes.” Frogbot pointed to a gaggle of sweater and fatigue-clad men with instruments.
“Huh? Whatcha… huh?” Hank mumbled, confused.
Frogbot reached back, grabbed Hank by the back of his skull, and quickly turned his head so that he looked directly at the young boy they had seen earlier, now surrounded by a host of instrument and thermometer wielding men. He glumly sat in a chair as they took his temperature, drew blood, waved several strange devices around him and essentially talked excitedly about him like he wasn’t even there.
“Ze boy. He did eet. You could not see it, no? Eet was heem, mon ami. Frogbot could see ze emanations of his pow-air, you see, for I am built for such things by my creator. You see, mon ami, I was created by ze greatest scien-teest is ze world, from ze greatest country in ze world, may her shores ever be beautiful, her fields bountiful, her…”
Smitty rolled his eyes, his attention garnered by Frogbot’s latest diatribe. “Jesus Hank, thanks for setting *that* off again… “
But Hank had wandered away from Frogbot and his exultations, shouldering a few of protesting academics and military men out of the way to come to stand in front of the boy.
“You do that?” he asked, kneeling down to look the young man in the face. He was a plain boy, pale and thin, maybe 8 years old, and his eyes were a soft, sad brown. He had the look of a child that didn’t get outside much.
Yes. Yes sir.
The boy looked right at him, mouth never moving, looking sad but unusually patient with the prodding and poking going on all around him. The voice sounded like a typical Londoner child’s voice. Hank continued his questions. “You always talkin’ in folks’s heads like ‘at? Can everyone har ya when ya do that?”
Easier this way. They can’t keep interrupting me. Only the ones I want to hear me can hear me. Easier that way too. It’s not like they listen very well anyway. You’re very strong.
“Oh, that makes sum sense, ah guess.”
Hank looked at his skinny arms and legs, smiling. “But I ain’t ‘xactly strong.”
The boy shook his head, slowly pointing at his own thin arms, then at his head.
Not here. Here. You know, where it counts. He smiled with the last thought.
I like you. You’re not like them.
Hank laughed out loud and slapped his knee, bringing some strange looks from the assembled scientists as they hooked more wires and strange probes up all around the boy.
“I guess ya ‘bout hit the nail on the dingdang ol’ head, thar. What’s yer name?” Hank asked.
“His name is Psi-meld, well, for obvious reasons”, replied Dr Z, standing at Hank’s shoulder. “You see, the metal responds to psychic energy and not much else. Psi-meld can mold it like, well, child’s clay. He quite fabulously talented, an amazing resource for us. This most talented psycho-kinetic we’ve ever seen. The metal is called Tibranium, aheheh, yes, quite clever I thought. Actually, we were wondering if you would work with us on the project, maybe use your particular penchant for magnetism and electronics to help Psi-meld with some finer points…”
Hank held up his hand to Dr Z, who slowly trailed off and stared at Hank, mouth making a little ‘o’.
“I ding-dang asked him, feller. You is inner-ruptin’ folks when they’s havin’ a con-ver-sa-shun”, Hank said to Z slowly.
There was a giggling sound in Hanks mind. The boy smiled at him.
My name’s Danny. You’re Hank. I know because I could see it, Danny said proudly into Hank’s head.
“You kin see inna my haid? Like, uh, like my thoughts wuz all spelled out or somethin’ like that?” Hank asked, incredulous.
Danny looked down shyly at his clasped hands, his smile suddenly gone.
Yeah. Something like that. I’m sorry Hank. They tell me it’s rude, that I shouldn’t. I tell *them* they shouldn’t think so loud, but they don’t listen. They never listen. You’re the first to listen to me since my mom.
He bit his lower lip, looking up at Hank through eyes filled with moisture. Filled with desperation.
I won’t do it again Hank. I promise. I won’t. Don’t be mad. Don’t… leave.
Hank leaned in and patted Danny on his shoulder gently, smiling broadly.
“Dingdang ol’ hell, boy, ‘at ain’t no problem, I ain’t got nuthin’ much up here anyway” Hank said, smiling and knocking on his head with his knuckles like a door. “Sure as hell ain’t gots nuthin’ secret or all that manure, so taint no reason ta git all twisted up or nuthin’, I ain’t vexed atcha. I jes taint never met nobody that ken do ‘at, ‘at’s all”.
Danny sniffed, and rubbed his nose. He looked at Hank, obviously skeptical, but with something akin to hope.
Really?
“Yup”, Hank countered, shaking his head and banging his hands on the sides as he shook it. “Ahm sure there ain’t a danged ol’ thang in thar”
Danny looked at him, so serious for such a small boy.
You’re not mad?
“Nope, son, I tain’t mad atcha.”
Are you sure? Most people don’t like me looking at their minds. I really can’t help it, you know. It’s like telling you not to see the color red, then painting *everything* red, and then making you hold your eyes open all the time and do things with stuff that is red, even when you sleep and take baths and eat and try to read a comic even though they don’t let you have comics because they say they’re bad for your brain but what do they know their brains are all so little and gray and dull and squishy and don’t have much in them to start with. Do you understand, Hank?
Hank laughed again, throwing his head back to guffaw loudly, and clapped Danny’s shoulder again. “I think so, Danny-boy. Ding-dang ol’ these har fella’s will prod ya and poke ya like a floppin’ fish on a riverbank, wont dey? An’ I aint got no secrets anyhow, I told ya.”
*Everybody’s* got secrets Hank, Danny thought into Hanks mind, somehow giving Hank the impression that he was rolling his eyes at him in mock exasperation.
“Not everybody, Danny”, Hank replied comfortingly.
Danny looked at Hank, smiling an oh-really-there little boy’s wicked smile.
You mean like you and Carol Dupree right before you went in the army, that day you went up into the barn together on her father’s place, and she pulled up her knickers and showed you her…
“Ho! Hey! Ho-ho-whoa there… heh heh, dang ‘ol, sheeee-oot, well, ahem, uh, heh heh, we might not ought ta be um, well see, we wuz, um, ya know, she fell and I was examinin’ her, to ah, well, ah, make sure she wuddn’t, um, hurt, see…”, Hank stuttered, turning red and fidgeting.
Danny giggled, this time out loud, and Hank joined in with guffaws.
I like you Hank, you’re funny.
“Oh boy, sheeeooot, dingdang ol’ ya got me thar boy, oh boy, ya dingdang ol’ rascal ya...” Hank laughed, then trailed off when he noticed everyone had gotten quiet except for his laughing and Danny’s soft giggling.
Hank looked around, slightly uncomfortable.
“Hey, what’sa problem boys, ya ain’t never seen nobody havin’ a laugh or nothin’. Dingdang ol’ stiff-neck limey-boys…”
Dr Z spoke up.
“No Hank. It’s just that, well, Danny hasn’t made a sound out loud in, well, at least since he was 6. That was three years ago, when he manifested fully, when his mother… well there was an air raid, and… well, you know. What… what did you… how?”
Hank just looked at Danny, still smiling, and shrugged his shoulders.
“I guess you feller’s just ain’t that ding-dang funny, are ye? Huh? Aint that right Danny? Huh? Danny? Huh?” Danny giggled as Hank nudged him with an elbow.
Hank stood up and took a step towards Z, all mirth gone from his face. He spoke to him quietly through clenched teeth.
“Least, you ain’t never really tried, has ya?”
Z swallowed and began speaking rapidly.
“Well, you see, I’m not really very good with children, and, well, oh bollocks Hank there’s a war on and we really, really need to figure this out, and we need your help with this, we don’t have any other magnetically talented ESSes of your strength, and, look I’m very sorry if things aren’t always as they should be, well… please Hank?”
Hank stood quietly for a moment, and looked over to where Moose, Smitty, and John stood, arms folded and looking somewhat irritated at the lot of scientists, who in turn looked somewhat nervous that a group of extremely talented and dangerous ESSes were looking at them in a way that said ‘Now you boys have been bad, very bad see, and we’re not at all happy about it…’
“Whaddaya think, fellers? Didja hear all ‘at?”
“Yup” Moose rumbled. Smitty nodded his head and lit another smoke, his glowing red left eye whirring as it focused on individual scientists, one at the time.
“You have some fun Hank, we’re gonna go and take a look at some of the good Doctor’s new toys, ain’t that right Z?” John said. Several of the researchers swallowed audibly under the white-toothed, ice-eyed grin that John gave them. A wolf’s grin. In the hen house. And he was wearing the farmer’s clothes.
“Oh, very well then, thank you Hank. Gentlemen, if you would follow me…” Z called to the other SPARTAANS and led them off to another hanger, babbling about new technology and special gizmos and all kinds of things that just made Moose get hungrier and hungrier.
Hank looked around at the silent and stunned researchers.
“Alrighty then, me an’ ol’ Danny-boy here’s gonna get some stuff done…”
“Well sir, the protocols for application of our scientific method…”, one of them piped up; a soft, doughy-looking academic who spoke as if he was being prodded somewhere uncomfortable as he snapped pages on his officious-looking clipboard.
Hank continued without missing a beat.
“…an’ you feller’s is just gonna git fer a while. Alrighty? Good.”
Danny crossed his arms and nodded his head for emphasis.
“Um, ‘git’? Excuse me, what exactly do you mean by ‘git’?” the same academic asked Hank.
“Dingdang you know, git. Go. Git the hell oughtta har”, Hank explained impatiently.
“Sir, I just don’t know that…”
“Git.”
“Sir, I don’t think…”
“GIT.”
“Look, yank, I don’t know who…”
With that, Hank spotted an open crate of small ball-bearings nearby. He calmly picked up several large groups with his mind, and floated them nearby, grinning evilly.
“I said… GIT!”, and punctuated it by flinging mental handfuls of ball bearings at the scientists. Hard.
“Ouch! Ow! That hurts! If you’ll just wait one bloody…”
“Git! Git! Git! Git!”, each pronouncement followed by a stinging barrage of ball bearings and the yowls and cries of the scientists as they put up clipboards for cover and scrambled, slipping and stumbling to and fro over the accumulated ball bearings underfoot.
Danny giggled in Hank’s mind, a child’s giggle of pure enjoyment, of liberation.
Hank glanced at him, smiled, pulled up his pants in a comical manner, then took a step towards the doughy scientist that had spoken up.
“I… said… Git!” Hank grunted as he aimed a kick at the man’s rear end, sending him sprawling comically, arms wind-milling. Hank himself slipped on some of the ball bearings, feet shooting up sky-high and landing on his back with a grunt.
Danny giggled, and Hank joined him as the scientists fled the scene.
Hank propped himself up on an elbow and looked at the boy.
Danny got control of his giggling, returning to his normal somber self. He sighed once, and pushed up his glasses where they had slid to the end of his nose.
Um, yes, back to work. I guess we should try to re-isolate the dynamic tetrameters, then re-work stress coefficients…
Hank smiled and interrupted him as he stood up and brushed off his fatigues.
“Hey, I gots a better i-dear”, he said as he pushed mentally, gathering the ball bearings up into a tight sphere rotating over his head.
“Say Danny, ya ever play ball?”
…
Elsewhere nearby...
Dr Z showed them an array of gadgets and weapons laid out on a table. He held little of his former liveliness now.
“So, you see, we have fashioned several weapons of this metal Tibranium, they hold a much greater edge and are much stronger and resistant to damage. Quite nice. Even have made these shirts of mail, and shields, and pretty much anything we can get Psi-m… ahem, D-Danny, to imagine”
“You sure you should be treatin’ him like such a lab rat?” Smitty spoke, challenge in his tone.
“I’m not sure what you mean…”, said Z, without turning to look at them.
John spoke up.
“Just like us. I mean, we’re big boys, we can handle it. He’s a child.”
“I’ve… tried. I know it seems bad, and I’ve brought him some child’s toys, but he’s so different, and it’s just… well…”, Z said haltingly.
John shot back. “You don’t have anything in common? He isn’t an Oxford man, or something like that? Ya know, I’m getting a little sick of this. I bet if you had a boy of your own, or even a wife for that matter…”
Z interrupted, his voice low and controlled as he stared off, out of the window over the green landscape. His eyes were looking out, but from a place far distant from that hanger.
“We do have… things… in common. I was married once. We had a baby boy, and I worked for the government. Late. Always late. One night I, well, I was quite late, and I had rung her to say I would be right home. She always understood, she was that kind of girl. You see, it was her birthday, and our son’s first birthday also, quite a wonderful coincidence, we always thought.”
“Then the sirens lit. I told her, I said ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can’. I promised. I could hear our son crying as the anti-aircraft thundered in the distance, I could hear the fear in her voice as she bravely told me ‘Oh, no hurry love, just a bit of rain, nothing to be worked up about. Just Jerry puttering about making a muss. Get here when you can’. Then the phone lines went out.”
I tried to leave, but the security teams grabbed me. Said I was too important to risk, and they took me to the bunker and locked me in with the others. I made my old sergeant, O’Malley was his name, big Scottish fellow, promise that he would go in my stead, that he would keep my promise for me, that he would go get her and bring her here. He told me ‘I got six young ones o’ me own, doc, I unnerstand ye, I’ll go get them and bring them safe on me honor sir’ and saluted and dashed off. It wasn’t far, only a few miles, and he was a solid man who’d never let me down. I told myself it would all be fine. We had tea, and joked about what we were going to do after the war.”
“And I waited.”
“They told me later that when our flat collapsed, that Mary and Timothy only had about an hour, maybe two of air.”
“It was four hours before I could get there. O’Malley had never come back.”
“I cursed O’Malley as I drove, cursed him for a big stinking, hairy, drunken Scotsman, two of our first ESS men with me, big strapping lads I knew could help.”
“But it was no use. We dug, and dug, the ESSes flinging huge sections of building aside, I kept telling myself they would be fine… good stout English brick, it was, but...”
Z stared off for several quiet moments, no indication that he was anything more than a statue, except for one muscle in his jaw tightening and clenching.
“She was holding him, you know, at the last. My son. They looked so peaceful, like they had just gone to sleep. But when I called her, she didn’t, ahem, she didn’t wake.”
“When I went outside, the men said they had found O’Malley. I was bloody well prepared to give him a piece, to lash out at anything. A half-block away, a bomb had hit next to his lorry and flipped it, killed the corporal who was driving. There was a trail of blood all the way from the truck to the front stoop of our building, where we assumed he drug himself after being wounded badly in the explosion.”
“Apparently, it was then that the building was hit, and the whole thing came down. No way he could avoid it. He was crushed like an egg.”
"Danny's mother died in the same raid. His father was a pilot, and had died over the channel the year before."
“I… I tell myself I couldn’t do anything, but I know different. Now I’ve made a different kind of promise, one that I’ll not pass on to another. I promised Hitler that I’d have tea and cake on his grave for their birthday one day. And I’d by-God wear a kilt when I did.”
“So I create, and I test, and I do what I can, and I damn all the consequences. Maybe it will make a difference. Maybe not. Maybe nothing will.”
Z continued to stare off into the landscape, eyes moist with unshed tears. John and Smitty stood, John shaking his head, Smitty holding a new rifle calmly, but his mechanical hand gripped the wood so hard it creaked.
After several moments, Dr Z felt Moose put a large, gentle hand on his shaking shoulder.
“Hey dere, um, Doc? Doc, I need you ta show me how dis jetpack works again dere. Doc, we need you.”
“Ahem. Yes”, the doctor sniffed, and shook his head to clear it, and coughed a couple times, regaining his composure.
“Well, ahem, you see, you access the throttle line so, but wait! No no no, don’t touch *that* red button right now, see the helmet works like a vane…”
And Moose nodded his head in understanding the whole time, even though he didn’t get a word of it.
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