Greegs & Ladders (35 page)

“What are all these mechanical tracks
running along the floors, walls and roof?” I asked. There were
strange things going on that were obvious and yet still eluded
us.

“I'm not sure,” said Wilx.

“Over there!” I shouted. “Something moved
along the tracks!”

“Where?” asked Rip.

“There! It happened again!”

We all began to catch glimpses of small
robots zipping along the tracks.

“They look like tiny train-carts,” I said.
“And they're all filled with tapes.”

“The archivists are robotic,” said Rip.
“They must exist in a constant state of mixing and
categorizing.”

Suddenly an intricate robotic arm passed
through the room.

“Look at that hand-thing!” said Rip. “It
grabbed one of the tapes. Let's follow it!”

We ran as fast as we could. We finally
reached an uninhabited sound-booth. A door opened and the robotic
arm went inside. We quickly followed before the door closed.

An old-fashioned cassette player was
positioned in the middle of the booth. The robotic arm took out the
current tape and placed in the new one.

“This must be like a 24-hour Best-Of mix
that plays in the archives as an interesting attraction,” said
Rip.

“No, I don't think so,” said Wilx. “This is
the live radio feed.”

“What do you mean?” asked Rip, even though
it was painfully obvious.

“Isn't it painfully obvious,” I said. “There
is no Johnny Guitar, except on tape.”

“No, that can't be true!” argued Rip.
“Johnny Guitar is one of my heroes!”

“This is indeed very shocking news,” stated
Wilx solemnly.

If space/time-travelers didn't have such
difficulty in knowing which current events are actually current,
then many radio-listeners would have figured out years ago that
Johnny Guitar's news updates are always ludicrously random and
out-of-date.

“So you figured out our secret,” said the
funny little scary man who suddenly materialized beside us. The
jolt of his appearance was enough to shock Rip's displaced stomach
back into proper positioning.

“Who are you?” asked Wilx.

“I am Chancellor Groomfleg. I own this Radio
station.”

“What's going on here?” demanded Rip. “What
have you done with Johnny Guitar?”

“Johnny Guitar died several centuries ago.
Sit down, I'll explain everything.”

The Chancellor went into great detail about
the history of Johnny Guitar.

It went like this:

Groomfleg's ancient ancestors built for
themselves a small-time radio station. They hadn't expected to make
much with it. Johnny Guitar was hired simply because he was willing
to work early in the morning at half the price. The Groomfleg's
were unaware they had hired the greatest Radio DJ who would ever
grace the microphone. Johnny's amusing freestyle wit paired with
perfect articulation projected so powerfully and charismatically
that he made you believe you'd be missing out on the greatest
moments in life when you weren't listening to the show. Overnight
he became the most popular program anywhere in space. Advertisement
prices during Johnny's show went for millions per second. It was
obvious he should be the only show on the station. Out of
greediness to have Johnny on air as much as possible, he was bribed
with exorbitant amounts of money to broadcast all day and all
night; despite the irreversible havoc wreaked on his health and
mental state by such a perpetually rigorous schedule. He often
suffered extreme mental breakdowns caused by a denial of bathroom
breaks and a total lack of sleep, going into maniacal,
improvisatory rants for hours at a time while popping speed
capsules like one-cent candies and banging objects against the wall
in what he thought was musical rhythm but was actually a deafening
cacophonous racket. He was frequently the subject of so many
neighborhood noise complaints that eventually there were only two
choices: end the Johnny Guitar show, or demolish every house within
earshot of the station. Someone then suggested a third option,
remove Johnny's ability to make noise by removing all items from
the sound-booth. Without dishes or guitars or any other object to
hurl, Johnny's percussive participation was limited to the much
less noisy banging of his fists against the wall, which was only
audible within a few surrounding floors of the building. Some
listeners considered these drug-infused episodes to be his most
organically inspired moments of broadcasting, a fascinating
anarchic view into the twisted depths of a genius mind, while
others said the show had grown intolerable, just another sad case
of a great talent having been usurped and burned out too quickly by
greed-dominated corporations. Soon enough, Johnny Guitar died of an
overdose.
Radio Cygnus
was intensely fearful of the
bankrupting backlash his death would cause, for at this point the
entirety of their business was based on Johnny. They could never
hope to replace him. A cover-up was essential. His spent corpse was
quietly and briskly taken from the sound-booth and cremated in the
basement furnace. Only a small handful of top executives were aware
of his death. They quickly set in motion a plan to make sure Johnny
Guitar never really stopped broadcasting. For awhile bits of old
tapes of Johnny's show were spliced together to create the illusion
of a new show, however it was apparent this would not fool everyone
forever. A top-secret organization of brilliant scientists and
inventors were then employed to invent a translator-machine that
not only replicated the voice of Johnny Guitar, but captured his
essence and originality as well. After countless hours of analyzing
the tapes of Johnny's voice, they finally perfected a machine in
which any person could say anything into a microphone and it would
be altered into sounding like a brand-new Johnny Guitar broadcast.
With this machine you could literally monotonously read from a dull
book about tax audits and it would be translated into an exciting
new album review by Johnny. Most of the tapes in the archive were
not even original Johnny broadcasts, but rather these fake
recordings. Johnny Guitar, whom everyone assumes is immortal, has
been heard broadcasting on
Radio Cygnus
for about 426 years,
despite the fact that he died at the tender age of 32.

“And all these robots,” concluded Groomfleg,
“are perpetually sifting through the tapes, always perfecting the
translation machine.”

We sat in stunned silence before Wilx
remembered our original intent for being here.

“That's an interesting story,” he said to
Groomfleg. “Now I apologize for doing this,” he added as he shot
him in the chest. Groomfleg collapsed to the floor, not dead, only
stunned.

“You two tie him up in case he wakes up
early,” Wilx said to us. “I've got a broadcast to make.”

“Are you going to tell everyone that Johnny
is dead?” asked Rip.

“Nah, let's let them continue enjoying their
show. We came here to find some life for Jupiter.”

“When you talk through the microphone, won't
it come out in different words, because of the translation?” asked
Rip.

“There must be a setting so that you can
continue to sound like Johnny Guitar without having the actual
words being altered,” I suggested.

“Yep, here it is,” said Wilx as he switched
around a few of the programmings on the translation machine. He
clicked off the current tape and spoke into the microphone. We all
marveled as Wilx talked with the voice and enthusiasm of Johnny
Guitar.

“
Ok everyone, I apologize for
interrupting the crescendo of that fourteen hour song, but we have
an emergency broadcast. It seems there is a very nice gas giant
planet named Jupiter that is suffering from continual
disappearances due to being completely uninhabited. That's right
folks, the Life-to-Planet Totality Quotient is real and in full
effect. I have decided to make it a mission of mine to save this
planet from its terrible state of limbo, so I'm urging some
life-forms to begin colonizing this planet. Jupiter is primarily
hydrogen and helium, and it is likely the best suited life-forms
would be ammonia-based. If any of you faithful listeners out there
are made of ammonia and are in need of a home, please swing by
Jupiter and have a look. I'm going to broadcast the location
coordinates now.”

Wilx programmed in the coordinates and set
the whole thing to loop for several hours before returning to the
regular Johnny Guitar broadcast.

“That should do it,” he said satisfyingly.
“Now let's get out of this mad place.”

“What about him?” I asked, pointing to the
lump on the floor that was Chancellor Groomfleg.

“Leave him. He'll wake up in a few hours
with no memory of us or of having spilled the secret about
Johnny.”

We got in the elevator.

“Everyone jump!” said Rip just as the
elevator was about to stop at the Lobby floor. We all jumped and
experienced a pleasant moment of weightlessness. Nobody had their
stomach displaced at all. It was just the sort of tranquil
experience we were due for, especially since the Layer of
Transcendental Levitation on Lincra had been destroyed. I made a
note to spend more time in the Zero-Gravity room once we got back
on the ship.

As soon as we stepped off the elevator a
series of whooping alarms sounded.

“
INTRUDER! INTRUDER!
” shouted yet
another disembodied voice.

None of us were aware our Illusion Bubbles
had long since worn off. Now we were just a bizarre group of aliens
standing unwanted in a corporate environment protecting itself from
bankruptcy with murderous inclinations. It was at this moment, as
we successfully ran out the front door and onto our ship, that I
realized most of the armed guards we tended to find ourselves
running away from would have a much easier time of catching us if
they weren't burdened down with the excessive weight of armor. As
it were, none of the warrior-clone guards could move much faster
than the average Romero zombie. They also couldn't shoot due to
terrible aim and eyesight, having not been cloned from the perfect
warrior but rather from some regular dweeb with poor vision.

“I hope this works,” said Wilx as we fled
from the
Radio Cygnus
Planet.

the Fourth and Final Whizzling-Firebeam
Asteroid Shower

Just as we had planned, on our way back to
Jupiter we stopped in to have a look at the success of Garbotron.
In our brief absence the Quiggs had completely transformed the
planet. At first we thought we had arrived at the wrong system.
There was no trace of garbage. The dense smog barrier encasing the
planet had fully dissipated, allowing vital sunlight to resurrect
the dormant core of life. The once dead land had already begun to
heal itself in profound ways, sprouting miles of lush forestry and
flowing rivers. The Great Salted Desert-Land of Garbotron, dried-up
seemingly beyond repair from ages of having been used as the
primary dump-site for potato chip crumbs, was now a paradisaical
oasis. We spotted a new evolution of mammal-creatures peacefully
drinking from freshly formed pools of the purest crystalline
water.

It was evident that bringing a Quigg to
Garbotron was one of our great triumphs amidst multitudes of
disastrous decisions. In our mission to save one world we
inadvertently saved another.

Arrival at Jupiter was an incredible sight.
Thousands of ships belonging to Investment Banker Protests were
forming a message with their classic hand drawn signs held up
against windows, this time reading:

Everyone had heard about the mysterious
looping broadcast that had interrupted Johnny Guitar's show.
Legions of ammonia-based vapor-beings crawled from the wood-works
of space and placed calls to uninterested receptionists at
Radio
Cygnus
, requesting to know about Jupiter. It seems they had
been having a hard time finding a suitable uninhabited planet,
being just a bunch of toxic clouds that couldn't go to most places
without destroying the atmosphere and killing whatever life
happened to already be living there. As a result, the Vapors found
themselves endlessly drifting through space, homeless. They were
incredibly happy with the news of Jupiter and announced they were
on their way to the new world.

Word spread about the selfless good deed
Johnny Guitar had performed. A wealthy family had been so moved by
the story that they decided to spend a little money on a
house-warming present for the Vapors. They employed the sign-making
skills of the Investment Banker Preservationists to display a
positive message as the Vapors arrived. The IBP had long ago put
aside their protest movement. They were undeniably brilliant at
coordinating space-messages, getting so many offers for their
service that it eventually left them little time for protests. They
were a now a full-time sign-making business, but hadn't bothered to
change their name. For the right price any message can be displayed
prominently enough to be seen by the naked eye from up to 17 light
years away. The wealthy family in question weren't against giving
out the occasional gift, but they were still extraordinarily cheap,
and being that IBP messages are steeply charged by the letter, it
was decided the message should simply be the affordable word 'yes,'
the most succinct positive message anyone could think of. One of
the cheapest members of the family did try to lobby for the word
'n,' which in Lincran dialect can sometimes mean 'peace,' but it
was decided the word 'n' is too easily mistranslated into something
offensive in a thousand other alien languages.

“All those years ago humans thought the
voice of Johnny Guitar was a race of Vapor-Beings,” I said. “Now
we've used that voice to bring such life here. One can't deny that
as a premonition.”