Tagged: tune in next time

“Evasive Maneuvers!”

  • by jenWilliam’s fifth wife
  • (or tethered goats — whatever you’re into)
  • beige comfort food at its best
  • delivery man for the morgue
  • performing a flourish

Tune in next time part 349      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Evasive maneuvers!” Fleur shouted.

“Yes ma’am,” came Jim’s reply. Fleur and I stumbled into the counters as our zeppelin suddenly lurched to starboard. We looked like we were on the bridge of the Enterprise as Jim quickly dodged to port and we stumbled again.

Picking up the mic once more, Fleur said calmly, “The traitorous acts of the Pentagonal Party will be punished most harshly.”

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Pentagonal Party. Everyone has. But since things are so convoluted I’ll give a brief refresher. Fleur’s father, the Contrarian Warlord and Supreme Calligrapher William Penn XI has, per Contrarian tradition, eleven wives (one for each of the previous warlords who bore his name, and one for himself). Fleur is William’s firstborn child, born to his sixth wife, Agnes Rose, a full minute before her brother was delivered to William’s fifth wife (and Agnes Rose’s older sister) Rose Agnes. The other nine siblings from the first “brood,” as it is called, arrived over the next several hours. This is how it has always been done in Contraria, with the marriages all taking place at once and the pregnancies all conceived to run concurrently, and may the best man win. Fleur was the first time in recorded history that the firstborn was female. William, to his credit, was pleased to have his daughter as heir. Rose Agnes was not. To her, Fleur’s arrival a mere minute too early was an insult. Her sense of outrage was likely enhanced by long-simmering sibling rivalry between the sisters. Rose Agnes and her bodyguard/lover rebelled and formed the Pentagonal Party, and have spent the past several decades plotting to put William XII on the throne in Fleur’s place.

The warlord tried over the years to placate Rose Agnes. I’ve seen the letters he wrote in his impeccable script. “If you will only cease your hostilities and come home, I will be pleased to provide you with several ponies (or tethered goats — whatever you’re into). Our son will be a duke and will enjoy beige comfort food at its best, as prepared by the palace chefs.” It goes on and on in that vein, but Rose Agnes would not hear of reconciliation. In one of her replies she says that if her son can’t be warlord he might as well be a delivery man for the morgue. Her writings are very melodramatic.

Fleur turned to me and said, “I’m going to man the top harpoon.” Performing a flourishing gesture toward a trapdoor in the floor she added, “You take the one in the keel. We’ll blast those bastards out of the sky.”

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In The Past, You Know

  • by Kent“In the past, you know,
  • arrived at the unwelcome conclusion
  • She’s a lyin’-ass bitch.
  • might well have been considered winged sharks
  • couldn’t believe anyone would want to

Tune in next time part 350      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“In the past, you know, aerial combat was among the courtly arts taught in Contrarian finishing schools.” Fleur’s voice carried to me as she ascended to her gunner’s seat and I clambered down to mine. When I reached my perch I also arrived at the unwelcome conclusion that the harpoon gun I was about to employ hadn’t been maintained properly.

“Isolde assured me, before we departed from the carrier, that the zeppelin’s weaponry was in top condition.”

I didn’t bother shouting a reply to Fleur, but if I had it would have been, “She’s a lyin’-ass bitch.” The sights were crooked, the trigger felt like someone had used it as a place to hold chewing gum, and the gun wasn’t loaded. The harpoon rolled around in the gunnery compartment, flung this way and that by Jim’s desperate flight path.

Jim was buying us time, but it seemed to be at the expense of altitude. I hoped the topside gun was in better condition, because our adversary wasn’t likely to present itself to me down here. We were skimming the whitecaps.

Grabbing the harpoon before it impaled me, I worked on getting it loaded. Suddenly we veered so hard to starboard that the force of the turn tipped our vessel sideways. Thus my seat became the perfect vantage to observe as a school of ferocious looking flying fish — they might well have been considered winged sharks, only bigger — burst forth from the ocean. They were the reason Jim heeled us over so drastically. The huge creatures arced over us and sank their serrated teeth into the not-so-armored envelope of the Pentagonal faction’s airship.

And then we yawed back to level flight, and I could see only spume. For those few seconds, that cramped keel-mounted gunner’s nest was the best place to obtain a view of such a singular spectacle, but having gone through it I couldn’t believe anyone would want to.

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Below Me in the Churning Water

  • by jentending to her quarrelsome husband
  • transmissions will resume
  • accused of murdering his roommate
  • circuit breakers?
  • hands moving upwards

Tune in next time part 351      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Below me in the churning water, the crew of the Pentagonal Party’s airship clung desperately to the gondola, barely afloat, and tried to fend off the voracious fish. They were doomed, the lot of them, unless Fleur decided to intervene. I knew she would not.

The chances that her half-brother William was actually aboard the vessel were slim, which meant that we needed to be cautious. If he had managed to gain a foothold on the islands we were quickly approaching, we were floating straight into trouble.

“Fleur! Fleur!” I heard Isolde cry from the galley above me. “Where the hell can she be?”

“No doubt tending to her quarrelsome husband,” came Jim’s drawling reply. I wished he would stay at the zeppelin’s controls. We were still flying low across the waves. Too low, in my opinion.

I climbed the ladder out of my harpoonery seat and reached the galley just as Fleur descended from her upper perch.

“Who knows when those traitor’s transmissions will resume,” she said. “We need  to retake the archipelago before they have time to call for reinforcements.”

My brother Jim had been accused of murdering his roommates in both 9th and 11th grades at the Academy, and again later in culinary school. Someone that ruthless and slippery would be an asset in a situation like this, if I thought I could trust him.

Isolde bounced my children in her arms, looking puzzled. “But how can they radio anyone?” she asked. “Wouldn’t those things get all wet? What are they called, the electric thingies — circuit breakers?”

“We can’t take any chances,” Fleur snapped. “Jim, get back to flying this thing.”

She followed him out of the galley and kept an eagle eye on him until he was once again seated in the copilot’s seat, hands moving upwards to grasp the controls.

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Jim Increased Our Altitude

  • by Kentvanquished them
  • professor of extravehicular activities and space suit design
  • begged very hard
  • with their burning eyes and saliva-spun lips
  • looking forward to getting loaded at lunch

Tune in next time part 352      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Jim increased our altitude and resumed our heading for the Inimical Archipelago. I was relieved to be making speed toward our unknown reception in the islands, rather than hanging around to witness what became of the Pentagonistsas as the huge fish vanquished them.

The babies were crying again, no matter what Isolde tried to soothe them. Fleur picked up the radio mic and held it close to their wailing mouths. “My great-uncle Benjamin,” she said loudly over the babes’ noises, “who was a professor of extravehicular activities and space suit design, taught me many ways to jam radio communications. This is in his top five.”

“Did he know any quieter methods?” I asked.

“Please take them!” Isolde begged, begged very hard, but the infants must have learned their disregard for her wishes from their mother because Fleur seemed not to even hear. She gazed with detached fascination at her own offspring, writhing and shrieking in their aunt’s arms, with their burning eyes and saliva-spun lips. She stayed that way for a full ear-splitting minute, so I went to the radio controls and found a way to record a message and replay it on a loop.

“Here,” I said, collecting my twins from Isolde. Their cries faded into a decrescendo of delicate hiccups as I swayed and shusshed.

“I see the islands,” Jim announced. “We should arrive at the docking spire shortly.”

Fleur said, “The top of the spire is said to have the finest restaurant in the islands. I just adore Inimical cuisine.”

“You’re buying, then,” I said, looking forward to getting loaded at lunch.

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“I Must Make Myself Beautiful for Harry”

  • by jenblocked nearly all the sunlight
  • very well-defined chin
  • annoyed at the tone taken by anthropologists
  • “Bingo.”
  • stirred his volcanic, untamed heart

Tune in next time part 353      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“I must make myself beautiful for Harry,” Isolde announced. “He is waiting at the docking spire.” She fluttered off to the bathroom on her toes like a ballerina.

Jim continued to steer the zeppelin, and I handed the infants to Fleur so that she could feed them before we made fast. Ten minutes later Isolde burst from the loo. With her hair freshly brushed she looked quite lovely, but what made her stunning was the fire in her eyes. She thrust a plastic pregnancy test at me and said, “It’s positive! Harry and I conceived our wedding night baby! The auguries are quite auspicious!”

“How long have we been on this zeppelin?” I asked in astonishment, but was roundly ignored.

“When I told Harry on Facetime just now,” Isolde continued, “it stirred his volcanic, untamed heart so much I thought he was having a coronary. His face got so red! But it was simply unbridled joy.” She unclasped the gold chain about her neck and fed it through a slot in the end of the plastic test strip, then hooked it again so that the thing hung between her breasts like a pendant. “Bingo.” She sighed happily. “Now everyone will know my good news!”

“Congratulations,” Fleur said with a glare at me. “It took my husband several years to get me pregnant. Your Harry must be much more ardent.”

You know how everyone gets annoyed at the tone taken by anthropologists at museums when they tell you to stay out of the caveman dioramas? Well Fleur’s tone was even more annoying than that. And where did she get off complaining? She only had the children because her father insisted it was her duty. And it was her idea to make me Harry’s proxy for Isolde’s wedding. And wedding night. This was all on her. I blew her a kiss.

“Hey big brother,” Jim drawled. “You need to take the controls for the landing. I need to put my Panda suit back on before we dock. Can’t have the general public knowing I’m here.”

The women watched unhappily as my brother hid his bare torso away inside the blue furry costume. They each gave a sad little cry when his very well-defined chin disappeared into the headpiece.

I had to turn off the signal jammer to talk to the control tower, but we docked without incident. Fleur strapped both children to Jim’s panda chest, and then the four of us paraded down the gangway and into the spire’s rotating restaurant.

Waiting there was the toad-like Harry, Isolde’s legal husband, and the legal father of her unborn child. His face was still alarmingly red, and to my eye it looked more like fury than joy. Isolde squealed and ran to slather him with kisses. I turned to walk the other way and ran right into an immense figure who blocked nearly all the sunlight. It was Heinrich Hunter.

Heinrich was larger than I’d ever seen him, and then I remembered that he made a habit of carrying Svetlana around under his clothes. And then I remembered that Svetlana was pregnant. With my child.

“We need to talk,” said Heinrich. “Now. In the bathroom.”

Wanting to avoid the irate Harry, I followed the Heinrich/Svetlana/baby turducken into the men’s room.

“I’m in labor!” Heinrich’s belly said in Svetlana’s voice.

“She think’s it’s twins,” Heinrich’s mouth said in Heinrich’s voice. He began to unbutton his shirt.

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I Shrugged

  • by KentMexican viagra. Just in case.
  • “GOOD BYE,” she whispered.
  • the sound of many feet
  • finally decided to cooperate
  • even the ugliest moments in life can still contain poetry

Tune in next time part 354      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I shrugged. Of course it was probably twins, and helping to deliver them was preferable by far to being in Harry’s presence at the moment.

Svetlana unrolled from within Heinrich’s shirt and started pacing with her hands on her back. Her rounded abdomen was very impressive, as was the scorching hostility in her eyes. I was about to apologize for putting her in this predicament when Heinrich tapped me on the shoulder. He handed me a small vial.

“Mexican viagra. Just in case.”

“Um, no thanks,” I said. But he thrust the little bottle in my face, so I took it and tucked it into my jacket pocket.

“How do you want me to help?” I asked Svetlana. She waddled over to me and whispered in my ear. I could tell that she really wanted to scream, could feel the warm rush of her fierce exhalation. “TAKE THE BLOODY PILLS,” she whispered.

I glanced at Heinrich, who folded his arms and glared back. So, with another shrug, I palmed two of the blue pills. His glare intensified, so I took the pills for real. I knew I wouldn’t fool him. (Pharmacological subterfuge was an elective at the Academy and my schedule had been full.)

Svetlana swung around to my other ear and did the bizarre yell-whisper again. “GOOD BYE,” she whispered.

And I felt dizzy. Dammit, that wasn’t just viagra, which I should have realized. (Maybe that pharmacological subterfuge course is available via continuing education?)

I came to in a bright place, my eyes painfully overloaded and my ears filled with the sound of many feet splashing in shallow water. I blinked and turned my head away from the sun, and my retinas finally decided to cooperate and grant me a sense of my surroundings.

I was reclining against the rocky side of a tide pool, across from Svetlana, who had evidently opted for a water birth. A beach volleyball tournament was taking place just a few yards away, each incoming wave washing the competitors’ ankles. The zeppelin tethered to the spire loomed on the opposite side of the lagoon.

“Why did you drug me?” I complained, shading my eyes with my hand while Svetlana panted. “I would have come along gladly!” My skull throbbed and my mouth was dry and sour, the hangover from the “Mexican viagra” they’d forced on me. This was feeling like a rather ugly moment.

And then, rather than answering me, Svetlana gave a cry and reached into the still, clear water to lift out a baby. She barely had time to catch her breath before she did it again.

Even the ugliest moments in life can still contain poetry.

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Before I Could Collect Myself to Congratulate Her

  • by jenpack up its ovaries and flee
  • pulled out a whimpering dog
  • an easy matter, Olga,
  • find much more comfortable quarters
  • multi-jurisdictional nightmare

Tune in next time part 355      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Before I could collect myself to congratulate her, Svetlana gave another cry and produced another baby. And then a fourth. I was stunned. Any lesser uterus, when faced with quadruplets, would pack up its ovaries and flee. But Svetlana was a contortionist, and so apparently was her womb. At that point I wouldn’t have been surprised if she pulled out a whimpering dog, or another dozen babies, but she seemed to be done. The babies were all robust and plump.

“Four boys,” I stammered.

“I told you they would be remarkable when I tricked you into impregnating me,” Svetlana said. “They must have inherited my contortionist genes, otherwise there’s no way so many of them would have fit.”

Our awkward family moment was interrupted by Heinrich’s arrival. He shouldered past the gawking volleyball players. He had John with him, and Olga, too. I hadn’t seen Svetlana’s youngest sister in years, but here she was, just in time to be an aunt. It occurred to me then that John was my children’s uncle, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

John and Olga stared at their sister and her four newborn sons. Finally Olga said, “You were simply supposed to get a sample of his semen, Svetlana!” She jerked her thumb at me.

“I did!” She nodded at the infants. “How else do you think this happened?”

Olga shook her head sadly. “It’s not his genetic material we need, but the exotic chemical compound surrounding it.”

“You should have been more specific. It would have saved a good deal of discomfort. Now what am I supposed to do with all these babies?” Svetlana asked. “It won’t be an easy matter, Olga, to hide all of us under Heinrich’s shirt.”

John sniffed. “I’m sure we can find much more comfortable quarters for the infants.” He hauled Svetlana to her feet and took the children from her. She twisted and did a complicated backbend maneuver, then stood up straight, all signs of her recent pregnancy eradicated. She kissed each baby on the head and then gracefully coiled herself back into the harness on Heinrich’s chest.

“Hurry up and get a sample from him, Olga,” John said. “Then he can take the babies back to Contraria and we can get off this damn island. Xylona’s waiting at the biplane, and our scientists really need that exotic compound.”

“Wait!” I said. “You want me to take these kids home to my wife? That would be a multi-jurisdictional nightmare!” I was both American and part Indian, Svetlana was both a Contortionist and part Russian, and Fleur was as Contrarian as they come. There was precedent for adoptions such as this, to increase a warlady’s brood, but it required so much paperwork.

Meanwhile, Olga was stripping off her bikini.

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I Just Helped Deliver Quadruplets

  • by Kentand since his leaving Disco Island there has been no news
  • dating her husband’s sister
  • “It sounds like an alien.”
  • this is a confirmed story
  • as double-jointed as a trained mime

Tune in next time part 356      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“I just helped deliver quadruplets,” I said to the suddenly nude Olga. “Your sister’s quadruplets, my quadruplets. It’s all too much right now. Also, your brother is watching.” (Not to mention all the volleyball players.)

Olga didn’t seem to hear any of my protests, and to my own surprise my body began to actively disagree with all those objections. Olga wasn’t the loveliest of John’s sisters, but she was still a knockout in — and even more so, out of — a bikini. The next thing I learned about her was that she was as double-jointed as a trained mime, a discovery that raised questions about her affiliations. Soon she had the exotic compound, whatever it was, and I had completely forgotten my concerns, whatever they’d been.

John gave us a light round of applause, handing the infants to Heinrich so he could clap. Olga held up a test tube which appeared to be full of semen. I tried, but failed, to picture how she’d accomplished the sample collection. “The compound we’re interested in degrades rapidly unless it’s kept cold. This is a confirmed story from several of our operatives, and accounts for why our stockpile of the chemical is so small.”

She hid the test tube in her bikini top. “No one is really sure what this substance is, or where it originated. Hearing our biochemists describe the stuff, it doesn’t sound like it comes from any known living thing.” She flicked an eyebrow my way. “It sounds like an alien.”

“You weren’t complaining a minute ago.”

“Who’s complaining? I just need to get this sample on ice for transport.”

“And then take it directly to Xylona,” John admonished. “She will then fly it to Rolf, who happens to be dating her husband’s sister. He supervises the lab, which is located right here in the Inimical Archipelago.”

“Not anymore,” came Svetlana’s muffled voice. “The lab is still here, but Rolf hasn’t been running things for a year. He waded into the surf, and since his leaving Disco Island there has been no news.”

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Olga Slipped Between Heinrich and John

  • by jenI’m no good at math
  • , hands in his pockets,
  • the second best killer that I ever have seen
  • consider them to be murderous badasses
  • Holy hell

Tune in next time part 357      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Olga slipped between Heinrich and John, heading toward the silent volleyball players. I’m no good at math, but there’s no way a group that size could stay quiet during what they’d just witnessed. I hadn’t heard a peep out of them this whole time. Nor had I seen a ball.

“Mimes,” I muttered. “Why did it have to be mimes?”

John just stood there, hands in his pockets, acting like he didn’t know we were surrounded by mimes. Like his own sister, with her marvelous double-jointedness, wasn’t in league with them. John may be the second best killer that I ever have seen, but he’s always underestimated mimes. It’s like he doesn’t consider them to be murderous badasses. I lurched forward and snagged Olga by the elbow. I couldn’t let her hand over the test tube of my semen, whether or not it truly contained the exotic compound everyone claimed.

“Holy hell, Jason!” she shouted. “Let me go!”

“I can’t do that, Olga,” I said. “Disco Island is at the far end of the Archipelago, and we all know that’s dangerously close to White Faces territory. It’s clear where your loyalties lie.”

“And anyway,” said Heinrich. “That’s not Jason.” He handed my four sons to John and waddled off down the beach, taking Svetlana with him.

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I Said, “Hand Over The Tube, Olga”

  • by Kentunnaturally taxing their bodily energies
  • how much interaction your son has with the housekeeper
  • captured later that night
  • in more ways than one
  • rebellious but still very poised

Tune in next time part 358      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I said, “Hand over the tube, Olga.”

She sneered. “We’re surrounded by my allies. Let go of me before you get yourself killed. Embarrassingly.”

My own lips curled in a wicked parody of a grin. “Your allies are no threat. All this sun and feigned volleyball has been unnaturally taxing their bodily energies.” It was true. Most of the mimes were still on their feet, technically, but they were bent over and panting with exhaustion.

“Then you leave me no choice,” Olga retorted. “If you continue to interfere, our sleeper agents among the Contrarian nobility will exact revenge upon your children.”

“I hate to admit this,” I said steadily, “but Fleur is more than capable of neutralizing your operatives.” Fleur’s competence was fearsome, but still I was bluffing. I paused dramatically, then said, “I almost feel sorry for them.”

Shrugging, Olga said, “Ultimately it depends on how much interaction your son has with the housekeeper.” Now I knew she was bluffing, too. Housekeeping is banned in Contraria. Although, warlords have been known to flout such regulations. But not Fleur’s father. No, he was a traditionalist, and if he learned of illicit domestic laborers under his roof they and their patrons would be captured later that night.

I tightened my grip on her elbow, and felt the bones shifting in her arm. I flinched, thinking I was injuring her, but it was just her double-jointedness. Soon she gave me the slip in more ways than one, first slipping her arm out of my grasp and then running off up the beach, zig-zagging among the panting mimes and disappearing.

John scuffed his toes through the sand and stared off into the waves. “She’ll get it to Xylona,” he said. “My sister is rebellious but still very poised to see her mission through.”

I slogged over to him in the hot, dry sand. “You sound insane,” was all I had time to say before I made an unnerving discovery. The mimes had caught their breath.

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