The Reality Drudge Part 1
A story Written by Scott Taylor.
'What're we going to do?' exclaimed Dirk Gumbo.
The sea was calm for miles and miles, and there was no wind to fill the sails. The two rafts were mackled together with tied bits of vine and old bits of wood.
The others just stared blankly at the two rafts they were meant to escape on.
'Well' added Commander Trash, scratching his head, 'we'll just have to wait for the right moment.'
'Oh, man! If I have to wait any longer my wheel is going to rust up!' Malloy complained.
'And then what?' Danny Mult chimed in. 'Do you really imagine normal looking people are going to accept us the way we look at the moment? I mean, take a look in the mirror to see who's who in freak's gallery.'
There was a long drawn out silence.
'Well, we can't stay here!' Cinderella argued.
Somewhere, beyond the barrier, far beyond reality, a lone watcher sat panicking at his station. Upon the view screen high above his workstation, the image of the milky way began to dissipate as the image was magnified, first a hundred times, then a thousand, and then a million. The huge blue/green planet emerged on the viewer. It was the Earth.
'Oh no, no, no!' yelled the watcher, rotating in his swivel chair. 'Tell me this isn't happening! First week on the job and already I've messed things up. The supreme overlord of creation will have my giblets for this! Oh dear! Oh my!'
'Ford!!!' came a voice seemingly from out of nowhere.
The strange creature turned round slowly on his chair. Behind him, towering like a mammoth, was The Reality Manager (the RM for shot).
'What is your game?' he bellowed down at the creature, Ford, cowering beneath him. 'We leave you for 7 cycles and you end up mutating an entire world!'
'P-p-please, sir' Ford stuttered. I didn't mean to...'
'Silence!' bellowed the RM with a wave of his nightstick. 'You were put here to keep watch on reality, not to allow things to subside, and definitely not to meddle!'
'I'm sorry.'
'Oh, you'll be sorry alright. You're fired. Terminated! Not only that, but you are banished. As stipulated in your contract, you will be sent to the reality where you messed up. There you'll spend the remainder of your existence, endeavouring to put right that which you put wrong. Do I make myself clear?'
'Yes, sir. Clear as galactic glass, sir.'
'Good' spoke the other, pressing an app on his iPad. Suddenly there was a hum, and a thrum as the tiny little employee disappeared from sight...
And then, a split second later, he reappeared a few metres up the beach where the Trash Commandos were contemplating their dilemma.
The little man looked worried. It was understandable. He'd been exiled and beamed to a strange world, filled with strange people. He had every right to be worried!
He bent low to the ground as he inched closer to the five mutants in the distance.
'Owch!!!' he cried.
A crab was suspended from his foot as he raised it from the ground, hanging by a single claw. What manner of creature was this, he thought as he tried to extract himself from its grip?
Picking the crustacean free of his person, the ex employee decided to let the creature go merrily on its way. No hard feelings, an' all. Quickly he was made aware of the presence behind him. He looked up and noticed that his cover had been blown.
'What is he?' asked Gumbo.
'He must be a mutant like us' replied Malloy.
'I wonder what his mutant ability is' Commander Trash followed with the line of questioning.
'He has a crab' Cinderella speculated.
'And I'm not afraid to use it!' the frightened ex employee shouted as he held the crustacean at arm's length, as if prepared to use it as a weapon. The crab however simply gasped, its stalk-like eyes went wild with panic, and disappeared back into the shell.
'Okay, Bub, you gonna hit us with that thing or what?' Malloy asked, looking unimpressed.
The little man looked at the shell in his hands, puzzled.
'Okay, safeties must be on' he muttered to himself, rolling the shell over in his hands. 'Now how does this thing work?'
'Beats me' replied Gumbo. 'Maybe you're not holding it right.'
'It'll need closer analysis' the ex employee asserted as he placed the crab into his utility pouch.
'So would you mind telling us who you are and what you're doing here?' probed Commander Trash.
'Oh I'm Ford and I am a Reality Officer for the Department of Fact and Reality...Well, I used to be' the odd creature responded a little sheepishly. 'I was sent here by my superiors because...well, I sort of screwed up.'
'You screwed up?' Commander Trash repeated with a hint of incredulity.
'Yes. I kind of lost track of reality and as a result this world was...well, mutated. I know, I know, it happened on my watch and I dropped the ball on this one, I'm sorry. Really I am.'
'Hold on! Hold on!' Malloy interrupted. 'The Department of Fact and Reality? Never heard of it!'
'Its an agency that exists outside of normal space and time' the one who called himself Ford elaborated. 'We keep a close eye on things, on the workings of the universe, and make sure nothing falls out of line. We basically maintain and sometimes manipulate reality from time to time.'
'Funny' Malloy chimed in. 'I thought that was Kellyanne Conway's job!'
Commander Trash jabbed the cocky little speed demon in the ribs to shut him up.
'But when I overlooked this situation that allowed Harold Zarkmann to transform reality as he did, and mutate you' continued Ford, 'I was exiled as punishment and sent here to try and put things right again.'
'How?' asked the commander.
Ford reached into his other utility pouch and pulled out a thin, cylindrical device about 17 centre meters in length, and had a small blue glowing dish attached to one end.
'This' Ford explained, 'gives me limited abilities, but it can change things back to the way things were.'
'You mean, I can be human again?' Commander Trash beamed with delight.
'Yes' Ford answered. 'All it requires is...'
But before Ford could finish his sentence he was grabbed from behind by what looked like a metal pincer attached to a flying drone. The pincer was clamped around poor Ford's torso and suddenly yanked him backwards off his feet.
The Trash Commandos merely looked stunned. It took only a matter of seconds and already Ford and his reality device were but a small speck in the distance. Spirited away by an unknown assailant!'Come on!' ordered the Trash Commando's leader. 'We have to get him back!'
To Be Continued...
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