Intergalactic Terrorist (New Dimension Book 1) (8 page)

    Charlie watched in grotesque horror as Geoffrey George, King George of King George’s Electrical Repairs, began to melt before his eyes. Thick blobs of Geoffrey slopped onto the floor, dripping like fat from a burger. Soon all that was left of the once successful businessman was a quivering mass of fluid on the floor, bubbling and steaming. Charlie’s mouth hung open in the shock of what he had just witnessed. It was like putting a child’s plastic doll in a microwave… or a playboy bunny.

    “What the hell was that?” Charlie shouted as Greebol picked out a large shovel from the small drawer and began to scoop up the remains of the man. “What did you do to him?”

    “I have turned him into fuel!” beamed Greebol.

    “Fuel?” Charlie screamed. “He was a man! A man Greebol… not bloody fuel!”

    “One person’s pet pig is another person’s Sunday dinner.”

    “What?” Charlie continued. “What do pigs have to do with anything? True Geoffrey George was a bit of a pig both in looks and attitude but he was still a man! And you didn’t eat him… you melted him! I could understand it more if you ate him!”

    “Please,” chuckled Greebol, “I am a vegetarian.” The grey skinned alien opened the tube at the side of the room and poured the liquefied remains of Geoffrey inside. At once they merged with the green liquid within and power returned to the electrical. The lights all flashed and the room lit up like that bright light the dentist uses to stare inside your mouth.

    Charlie covered his eyes from the lights and headed towards the door.

    “Let me out!” he shouted. “Let me out of here right now you crazy, sick, cycle short wearing freak!”

    Greebol was stunned. The last time anyone had spoken to him like that was his ex-wife. She called him sick as well. Greebol never really understood why. He thought the things he was doing with Lousina the one-eyed prostitute
were quite beautiful and moving. Some would call it art. However his ex-wife was a May’orn, a species that didn’t believe in the joys of love making. It is said that they conceive at opposite sides of the room when the male shouts ‘catch!’

    “You cannot leave Charlie,” Greebol almost begged, “we are friends! I thought you might… you know… stay!”

    Charlie tried to hold back a choke but failed and choked. “Stay?” he gagged. “Stay here? On this pile of junk ship? With you? There are too many reasons to mention why that is so not a good idea! The main one being that you are an alien!”

    “I don’t appreciate being called an alien Charlie.”

    “Another reason… you just killed a man!”

    “The word
alien
really hurts my feelings Charlie. You have to understand… I am an emotional being.”

    “And then there are those three frozen people in the back!” Charlie stopped. He had said too much.

    “So… you have been snooping?” asked Greebol.

    Charlie panicked. “Not snooping,” he said, his voice shaky, “I just got lost.”

    “Ah yes… when you were looking for the
bathroom
.”

    “That’s right,” Charlie lied. The guilt was written all over his face. Obviously not literally as that would have been a foolish thing for a liar to do.

    Greebol stepped over to Charlie and leaned in, until his large nostril almost touched Charlie’s nose. “If you wanted a tour of my electrical,” he said, “all you needed to do was ask.”

    “I’ll remember that… for next time,” the scruffy haired man stuttered. The curious side of his nature took over him once again. “Greebol… why
are
there three frozen people in the back?”

    “It is my job,” he answered proudly.

    “It’s your job to… freeze people?”

    “Oh no! I only freeze them for transportation.”

    “I see.” Charlie nodded and tapped his fingers on his leg for a brief moment. “Actually I don’t see. What is your job exactly?”

    “I am a bounty hunter.”

    Charlie knew bounty hunters of course. There were bounty hunters on Earth. He enjoyed watching a popular television programme about them. He also remembered his mother once telling him (one of the only times she ever spoke to him) that bounty hunters had hunted his father for many years. She had told him that he owed someone a lot of money and that the hunters had been sent to find him and retrieve the cash. When his father had refused to pay them, the bounty hunters had killed him, hanging him with a telephone wire and dental floss.

    Of course in later years Charlie discovered this to be a complete lie. His father had actually died due to a factory accident, falling into a vat of lard. He had become trapped inside and was forced to eat his way out. It took him five days, masses of saturated fat and the remains of at least five hundred pigs to escape. He died a day later of massive heart failure.

    “I get paid to deliver people,” Greebol continued, “sometimes alive… sometimes dead. Sometimes somewhere in-between.”

    “And you are proud of this fact?” Charlie gasped.

    “It pays,” came the answer, “and money keeps me alive! Stay with me Charlie! I need a new partner after my last one came to a fishy end.”

    A thousand voices shouted in Charlie’s head and he was surprised at what the majority told him. They told him to go, to leave Earth, to travel the stars, go where no man had gone before. But how could he justify travelling with a bounty hunter, travelling with a murderer?

    “I’m sorry Greebol,” he said eventually in a calm tone, “I can’t come with you. Please… allow me to leave.”

    Sadness was in the alien’s eyes as he finally nodded his big grey head, the antennae bobbing up and down. “Very well,” he said, “I am saddened to see you leave Charlie Pinwright. It would have been fun to have you around.”

    “In some strange way… I’ll miss you too Greebol,” said Charlie. And it shocked him to realise that he was telling the truth.

    “Safe travels,” Greebol beamed as he unlocked the main door and it slowly slid open. Charlie nodded and turned to leave the electrical, making sure he remembered the steps this time.

    He took a deep breath, inhaling the crisp autumn night’s air and smiled. He was going home.

Chapter 9

ZZZAAAPPP!!!

    A blast of orange light flashed by Charlie’s face, singeing the end of his nose. He fell backwards, his nose smoking, into the arms of Greebol who pulled him back inside the electrical.

    Another blast sped dangerously close to Greebol’s antennae. He ducked down behind the table in the centre and dragged a startled Charlie down with him. Then they heard the voice.

“YOU… ARE… THE… UNWELCOMED… YOU… ARE… IN… BREACH… OF… LAW… 717… YOU… WILL… BE… DISMANTLED.”

    “Oh balls!” Greebol gasped from behind the table. Loud, clanging footsteps were heard as whatever approached began to climb the steps to the electrical.

    “Do you know what that thing is?” asked Charlie, his voice high-pitched like a little girls.

    “Not really,” Greebol responded. “It attacked me just after my electrical was hit by that strange golden light in space. That thing is the whole reason I crashed on Earth in the first place! I had no idea it had followed me here!”

    Charlie and Greebol slowly peered over the top of the table and saw their attacker approaching the door.

    “My God,” whispered Charlie, “that’s a robot!”

    “A what now?”

    “Robot… a machine! Surely you have robots where you come from don’t you?”

    Greebol paused to think. “No,” he answered, “we do not have anything like that in our galaxy. How confusing… you and your planet appear where there was nothing previously as does this strange machine! There is some unnatural force at work here!”

    The robot had almost reached the door. Greebol jumped forward, closing and locking it. Instantly the robot began to smash into the electrical’s hull. It even began to shoot at the metal ship, causing everything inside to rattle and shake terribly. Charlie almost threw up. It felt like his stomach was going to shake out of his mouth.
This
was the reason he never went on rides at fair grounds. It wasn’t because he was scared like everyone said as they laughed in his face calling him a coward. He was showing them now! It
was
because he was sick! Who was having the last laugh now?

    Them probably as he was about to be killed by a giant robot.

    There was an almighty
CRASH
as part of the outside hull tore and the robot began to rip and slash at it.

    “What are we going to do?” Charlie screamed.

    “Lift off!” shouted Greebol, jumping to his feet and flicking a number of switches.

    “Lift off?” yelled Charlie as he too got to his feet, although almost toppling back over again. His nose stung. “I don’t want to lift off anywhere with you! I want to go home!”

    “That robot will get inside this electrical and do the same thing it did to my old partner!”

    “You mean the one that came to a ‘fishy’ end?” Charlie questioned. “Are you saying the robot killed him?”

    “Not killed exactly.”

    “Then what?” Charlie glared.

    Greebol opened a hatch. “It turned him into a fish,” he said with a frightened laugh. The fish in the hatch gulped and head butted the glass tank. It blinked then did the same thing all over again. And again.

    Charlie did not want to be a fish. Of all the things in the world that he would not like to be, a fish was at the top of his list. Or at least near the top. He wouldn’t like to be a snail or a slug. Thinking about it, he also wouldn’t like to be a rat or a pigeon or a hamster stuck in a cage. The thought of being any form of insect disturbed him. And small furry animals. They brought him out in rashes. He wouldn’t want to be anything that he was allergic to. That would just be unfortunate. Actually properly thinking about it, a fish wouldn’t be quite so bad after all but he still didn’t want to be one.

    Actually properly, properly thinking about it, he realised that this was the wrong time and place to be thinking about it at all.

    “I don’t want to be a fish!” Charlie bawled. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

    Greebol went to work instantly. He hit a number of buttons and something similar to a steering wheel, although it was square in shape, emerged from the wall. Also emerging from the wall were several large levers and a number of foot pedals. Greebol jumped onto the pedals as the electrical rocked once again. The robot was determined.

    Greebol pulled on one the levers and inserted a key pulled from his tight shorts into a keyhole under the steering square. At once the engines began to roar and the electrical shook again – this time from the ship beginning to rise.

    It got no more than five feet into the air when the electrical fell back to the ground with a thump! Charlie was once again reminded of those fairground rides. His stomach actually
did
leave his mouth for a second but he managed to swallow it back down. Tasted like chicken.

    Greebol screamed. “The engines have cut out!” he shouted. “Useless pile of junk… wait until I get hold of my brother...” He checked a number of dials then turned and grabbed Charlie by the shoulders. The large, grey, three fingered hands were clammy and moisture seeped into Charlie’s stained and creased shirt. The alien smelt slightly of cheese.

    “You will have to get down to the engine room Charlie,” Greebol said slowly and carefully, staring into his eyes, “you need to restart the engines.”

    “What? Me? How?”

    “You need to go through that door,” he pointed at the door with the nipple button, “the engine room is through there. Once inside follow the largest of all the pipes on the ceiling. It will lead you to a panel on the wall, which you must open. Inside there is a large red button. Don’t press it. Press the small yellow one. Have you got that?”

    Charlie had not. But Charlie said he had.

    He rushed over to the door as the robot, now on top of the electrical, began to bounce up and down; it’s solid, heavy feet bending deep dints into the roof.

    “This door leads to that… other room,” said Charlie. He glanced around to see if there were any doors he may have missed but could see none.

    “Press the button twice!” said Greebol as he tried to repair a hatch that had fallen open, spilling wires like intestines from a gutted woman in a horror film. Only without the fake blood.

    “Are you sure?” Charlie cried over the noise.

    “Press it twice now!”

    Charlie rubbed the tip of the nipple button with his finger and pressed it twice. The door slowly slid open. He expected the dark room with the three sleeping aliens to be revealed to him. It never came. Instead there was a large room, full of smoke. It was dirty, very dirty, with oil on the walls and the floor. The main bulk of the room was taken up by a huge engine that coughed and spluttered as though it had a cold.

    This seemed impossible to Charlie. This room had not been behind this door. His mind was baffled. Tonight his mind was constantly baffled.

    What had Greebol said? Follow the large pipe on the ceiling. Charlie found the large pipe and reached up, touching it to enable him to follow it through the smoke. He withdrew his hands quickly as the pipe was scolding hot! He checked his fingertips, which were red raw.

    As quickly as he could, but slower then he should, he stumbled through the room, following the pipe with his eyes, which stung with the smoke. He eventually arrived at the panel on the wall and painfully pulled it open. Two buttons… there were two buttons. A red one and a yellow one. Which had Greebol said to push?

    The yellow one!

    No… the red one. Definitely the red one!

    Charlie pushed it. Instantly the electrical groaned. The lights went out. All of the flickering lights died. Every electrical item onboard the ship shut down. Including the lock on the main door! Charlie could hear it opening. Charlie could hear the robot beginning to ascend the steps once again.

    Shit!

    It was the yellow button. Charlie slapped himself on the forehead. How could he have been so stupid? Why did he have to ruin everything? He felt rage boiling up inside him. Anger filled his mind. Charlie Pinwright saw red.

    He was annoyed at Greebol for kidnapping him. He was annoyed at Geoffrey George for getting himself killed. He was annoyed at this stupid electrical for being such a God damn pain. He was annoyed at the robot for wanting to turn him into a fish. Most of all though, he was mad at himself for being such a stupid idiot! He was going to blow… he could feel it.

    Luckily for Charlie, if you could call someone in his current position lucky, Greebol was even angrier than him.

    “What have you done?” the grey skinned alien shouted. “The yellow button! I said not to press the red button but to press the yellow button! Are you colour blind man?”

    Greebol’s anger calmed Charlie down. He never fully understood it but he could never be angry at the same time as someone else. Like the time the burglar had broken into his flat and tried to steal his television. His ex-girlfriend had been so fuming that Charlie couldn’t feel angry in the slightest. In fact he was so calm that he actually
gave
the burglar the television.

    “Sorry,” said Charlie, with a very sheepish face. Charlie never understood that expression. Did sheep look like they were apologising all of the time? He didn’t think so.

    “Sorry? Sorry is not going to help us right now! Pull that lever Charlie… the one with the green handle.”

    Charlie grabbed a lever and began to pull.

    “The green one Charlie!” Greebol screamed. “Green! Not brown! Green!”

    Charlie pulled the green lever. He looked like a sheep again.

    “I have to reboot the entire system!” Greebol said, panic filling his voice. “Get into the main compartment… when I tell you, turn the ignition key, hit the right foot pedal, that’s the
right
one now, and pull up sharp on the steering square! Have you got that?”

    Charlie nodded.

    “You had better,” Greebol continued, “for if you make a mistake this time we will be in as much trouble as fish out of water. Literally.”

The main compartment was unusually quiet. The lights were all out. The main door was open and the wind that whipped through the forest trees blew into the room. Charlie shivered. He felt uncomfortable. He could no longer hear the sound of the robot.

    He carefully stepped up to the main control panel and searched for the ignition key. It was no longer in the key hole!

    Charlie turned to look for the key and saw it dangling before his eyes, held in the tight grip of the robot! The other hand reached up quicker then Charlie could see, grasping him by the throat.

    “No…” Charlie gagged, “please… you’ve got the wrong man! It’s… it’s Greebol you want… not me!”

    The robot cocked its small round head and the red eyes dimmed slightly.

  “PERHAPS…
”
it boomed in its metallic, emotionless voice
,
“YOU… ARE… STILL… IN… VIOLATION!”

    “Violation of what? Who are you?”

  “MY… DESIGNATION… IS… X7421… WHAT… IS… YOUR… DESIGNATION?”

    “I have a
name
,” cried the strangled man, “and it’s Charlie! Charlie Pinwright!”

    The robot, apparently designated X7421, seemed to be thinking, at least Charlie thought it was. It could have fallen asleep… or possibly doing some sort of robot poo.

  
 
“THERE… IS… NO… CHARLIE… PINWRIGHT… ON… FILE… THAT… DESIGNATION… IS… NOT… MECHANOID!”

    “Of course it’s not,” Charlie squirmed, “that’s because I am not a…Mechanoid! I am a Human being!” Without even realising he was doing it, Charlie stretched out his hand and grabbed a small metal wire that stuck from under the robot’s round head. He pulled at it as hard as he could and it snapped! The robot instantly let go of Charlie’s throat. He fell to the floor in a heap.

    Sparks flew from the robot’s neck like a sparkler at bonfire night, although sparklers don’t make the sound of an electrified shrew or burn holes into solid metal. Except for the one Charlie had as a child. He really was quite an unlucky fellow. However at this exact moment he felt like the luckiest man alive. Although he knew it wasn’t just luck. He knew that, even on this high-tech alien robot, pulling out a wire causes any electrical item to break. Something Geoffrey George had told him during his training.

    The robot was already beginning to recover. Tiny, thin metal rods with fingers were reaching up out of its neck and beginning to repair the broken wire.

    Charlie had to do something and quick. He grabbed the key from the robot’s grip and stared around for something… anything he could use to smack the robot, pushing it back out of the door.

  
 
“YOU… ARE… NOW… IN… VIOLATION… OF… LAW… 002… PUNISHABLE… BY… NOTHING… LESS… THAN… DEACTIVATION!”

   
This thing thought that Charlie was a robot too! Charlie felt a little disgruntled. It was not the first time he had been called a robot. Only earlier today before he had been fired, Geoffrey George had called him a robot. His ex-girlfriend used to call him a robot all of the time. Said he was unemotional and stiff. Charlie liked to think of himself as collected and calm. Perhaps he was wrong. Still… he was nothing like
this
robot.