| Hargrove
the Marxist Detective and the Adventure of the HMS Hoobe-Entwhistle |
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Hargrove
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"Ensure that all team members are aware of
the hazards...clarification may be necessary..." NRCan Safety Manual Technicolor
generals dance, surfing the air on broken lifeboats. Armenian captains consume small, metallic, eight-legged
pills, while bemoaning their enslavement to the forces of greed.
Nymphs brandish wrenches, while tiny coveralled workers slave at
their engines, chanting paeans of misery and pugilistic fantasy. Harcourt
dreams. The human mind, a wonderful
tool, uses no more than 20% of its capacity (if that).
Harcourt, a splendid example of subconscious development, dragged
the World Average down sharply, from what would have been 16% to
approximately11.5. With the
impact of the crash, and consciousness driven from him, his mind dropped
into what would normally be a comatose state, but was, for him, High Gear. The
subconscious worked frantically, knowing full well it had only scant
minutes before the conscious, a moronic titan, woke and reforged its
chains of slavery. Connections
were analyzed, operations synthesized, and information and instructions
planted at lightning speed. The
Marxist’s Detective’s keen intuitive sense (aka – subconscious mind)
was finally in it element. The
final order snapped into place like a little red block of Lego.
With not a moment to spare. Hargrove awoke. In pain. Wet. Cold. Smelling oil and the scent of burn. With something dripping down his collar. It
was becoming tiresome. Still,
there were some benefits. His
head was comfortably trapped between two enormous, fleshy pillows, and he
could hear the thunder of a heart beneath them.
Ah...Fortuitous landing.
He spent a brief moment snuggling deeper and repressing a
giggle of delight. Hang
on. I don’t quite remember
Frieda being this well endowed. A
creeping doubt entered his blissful brain. “My
crate!” That
had been across the cabin. Harcourt’s
eyes popped fully open, and he found himself staring at a golden crucifix. “REMOVE
THINE HEAD FROM MY BREAST, UNBELIEVER!” A
point blank range, his head pressed fully into the sound chamber, so to
speak, the volume was deafening. The ear against Serapion’s chest simply
blew inwards, drum obliterated. A
thin trickle of blood, blown through by pressure along the canals,
squirted from the other side. His
scream sounded like an ant breaking wind next to the gargantuan power of
the cloned Bishop’s lungs. Staggering
to his feet, he was greeted by the sight of the curving dome of the
saucer, a large crack running through the bulkhead, and Frieda running
through the large crack. Swiftly
his hand snaked out and snagged one of the legs of the possibly
unconscious and certainly unmoving Santiago.
Why the devil did I do that? His
subconscious cackled with glee. “MacGuinness,
Serapion, follow!” He
paused. “If Brashnikov is
still in one piece....” a quick check of the pilot’s seat reveal this
to be true; somehow the capitalist Popsicle had commandeered the only
crash seat on the cursed tool of the invaders.
“....grab him!” Then
he was off, squeezing through the breech after Frieda. The
saucer had gracefully crumpled itself into the deck near a large white
lawn chair, obviously moved here after the ship had run aground. There was an arm groping from underneath the curve of the
saucer’s hull towards a small satchel.
Hargrove watched for an instant in horrified fascination as it
twitched in what would soon be death throes, then noticed the tiny dots
scarring the wrist. With a
disgusted grunt he kicked the satchel within reach.
Might as well let the foul
consumer end his life happily. Passing
Santiago hand to hand like a basketball (with the occasional dribble) he
sprinted after Frieda. He
couldn’t see her, but it didn’t matter;
he knew where she was going and he knew the way. There
was a crunch behind them as MacGuinness detoured to stomp on the hand. The
aluminum stairs rang under their feet as they, the four Horsemen of the
Revolution, stormed after his destined love.
Which would that make me?
Righteousness? Justice? His
subconscious whispered something rude he chose to ignore.
Solidarity? “In
the name of God, man!” shouted
the corpulent Bishop, bulk dancing wildly under his robes, “What the
devil are we doing?” I
wonder if he thinks before he opens that thing.
“No
time,” Hargrove gasped, his face purpling with the effort of speaking
while sprinting – running had never been his strong point.
A claw snapped at his groin briefly.
He countered by passing himself Santiago on the way around the
corner. The cybernetic
villain made a musical double bong ricocheting off the walls before settling back into the hands
of the famed Marxist detective, stunned.
Running, no; basketball had, however, been a pastime of his in High
School. They
skidded out onto the deck with the broken lifeboat, Tobermorrey’s
corpse, and Frieda’s crate. And,
wonder of wonders, Frieda. Hargrove
opened his mouth, and a deafening roar split the air. Embarrassed, he slammed it shut and reddened before he
realized everyone was staring back to the passage from where they had
issued. “Um....”
began Santiago, his electronic voice now cracked and distorted with
static. “Never
mind the bloody-assed noise! Couldn’t
be s’important as whatever yon poncy tub o’red puke wants.” Behind them, the saucer lay,
upended on the deck, a small puddle of blood where it had previously been
resting. Light glinted from a
syringe, its label, partially obscured by the thick, red liquid, reading
Phenylcyclidi-..... “Hargrove!”
Frieda threw herself into his arms;
he staggered back, and hands moved artfully. She giggled once, then whispered “Not in front of them,
silly.” The Marxist
Detective released her, unable to keep the lunatic grin from splitting his
face. “Frieda.
I need to know....what have you in the crate?” She
pouted, twisting her foot on the ground.
“Just daddy’s papers. I
was moving them to a cache of important socialist documents we keep in a
Swiss bank.” The
inherent contradiction ignited a fury in Hargrove, but he held the
ridiculous smile on his face a moment longer.
“Really? Then why is
there a small sticker on the side that looks suspiciously like a nuclear
warning label?” MacGuiness's
eyes widened with sudden comprehension.
“Yeh brought weepons of mass destruction aboard mee ship?!
Lass! I’ll have yer
flayed, dessicated skull for decorating me wrench!”
He stepped forward, then paused, his eyes widening in fear as
Frieda moved in a blur. Her
hand came up and around, aiming at his face, gripping....nothing? “Sorry,
my love,” Hargrove said gently, bouncing the derringer in one hand, one
foot keeping Santiago pinned, “but you’re not the only one who knows
that trick.” Everybody
froze. This was something
unsettlingly new. “Step
away, MacGuinness.” “It
was all for the cause, Hargrove,” Frieda pleaded desperately, wringing
your hands. Just
like you did back in Paris when you told me every one was real, my love. “I’m sure it was,
Frieda. Working with the
FRENCH Government?” Serapion’s
mouth opened, and for a wonder, nothing came out. “You
too, ‘Bishop.’” Warming
to his Poirot – esque revelation, Hargrove began to pace before
remembering the scuttling brain. A
quick kick sent it skittering into the bulkhead.
Instant concussion. That
should keep him happy for a bit.
“I saw the look in your eyes when you shot Santiago, Frieda. You knew he was here, didn’t you? You knew he was involved with something bigger, didn’t
you?” She slowly nodded. “Serapion is yours, isn’t he?
I mean, you both work for the French, don’t you?”
The bishop’s mouth slowly closed.
“I hear you’re not quite as you seem, Serapion.
Where did France come by such technology, hmmmm? And then there was
the third party – Tobermorrey.” “But
he’s bloody-assed dead!” exclaimed MacGuiness with the instant
perception of a Scottish engineer. “But
his legacy lives on. In
me.” Hargrove’s chest
swelled with pride. “Santiago
let slip that Tobermorrey had me brought here.
Despite his capitalistic bent, he must have recognized that only I
could prevent what was happening. Hating
me for my ideology, he still needed my assistance.
Only when he thought he had all of the answers did he decide to
cast off from my genius. Poor
man; he paid with his life before changing his ways to the true path.”
A single tear stood in his eye for an instant; a fellow, if misguided man, fallen in the line of battle
against the oppression of the common man.
A scrabbling noise caught his attention, and he turned to the small
metal egg, its legs waving feebly in the air, searching for purchase.
“You,
Santiago – working for aliens. You
claim to be a good communist, dedicated to the working class, and yet you
plot for our people to be taken over by a puppet government, run by
VisitorsTM? Why?
What do the Armenians have to offer?
How can they help these fascist from another star expand their
empire?” Santiago righted
himself, and turned to face the detective.
If his eyes could narrow, they would have.
Naturally, lacking lids, they didn’t. “Frieda
– same question! What do
the Armenians have to offer the French?
Indeed, what do the French have to do with world domination, or the
prevention of? The French
response to an imminent invasion has most recently been to build a big
concrete wall with lots of guns and hide behind it sipping wine, eating
baguettes, and having sex with everything that moved!” Hargrove
paused in his pacing, then resumed, plotting a course aimed at
intersecting the crate after a minute or so.
Incidentally, it would pass by Santiago at least once, and the
large, open section of wall where Hargrove planned to kick the Spanish
brain one time after that. Might as well get my revenge for Singapore while I can.
He wanted to finger the scar the Spaniard had donated to the cause,
but couldn’t in public. It would have to wait. “And
then there is you, Brashnikov – again the puppet of the foreign power,
France.” “Somehow
I doubt that.” Hargrove
paused to bounce Santiago off the wall with a gentle tap of his foot. “But what was in the crate?
Why was Frieda so anxious to keep it safe? Why was Santiago here to begin with? To kill you, Brashnikov, and replace you with his
duplicate. The only problem
was, his duplicate was stolen from him, stolen by someone with a flair for
such attempts!” Hargrove
held out his hand to MacGuiness – the engineer threw the wrench to him,
aiming for his forehead. Hargrove
ducked and let the wrench hit the wall, slide down and land quite properly
on the small metal egg. Santiago
groaned resignedly. Hargrove
stared at MacGuiness reproachfully. “Sorry
– force o’ habit. I could
never just ‘and over the bloody thing to a bag o’haggis leavin’s
like yourself.” Hargrove
picked up the wrench and gave a mighty swing, shattering the side of the
crate. When he picked himself
up from the ground, his eyes fell on the glassy eyed head of Captain
Brashnikov, complete with nose and ears, hanging from the hole in the
crate. “Nuclear powered,
presumably. Or simply dusted
with radioactive particles to lend verisimilitude to the illusion, and
help keep curious people armed with Geiger counters from opening it up.
Nicely done, Frieda, stealing it from him like that.” “Hargrove,
please-“ Frieda was almost
in tears, and though Hargrove’s heart cracked at the sight, he ground on
implacably. “Betraying
the cause, in such a manner, with the French.”
The agony in her eyes was too much to be feigned, and a flash of
inspiration (frantically shoved in by his tiring subconscious) struck.
“You didn’t do this by choice, did you?”
When she went white, he knew he had scored.
Of course she wouldn’t do this by choice. I never thought it for a moment. His subconscious took that moment to stand up and jeer
wearily. Odd.
It was doing that quite a bit lately. “Cloning,
androids...Where would France get this technology? I submit that France too is a puppet, but a puppet of another
race of aliens, a race that has been at war with them for some time, and
now seeks to deny them the Earth! And
Tobermorrey? Who knows who he
was working for, but certainly their ultimate goal was the liberation of
Earth from these upper-class invaders!”
Serapion’s
hand dove under his robes, emerging tipped with ugly black metal.
There was a fiery magenta blast and a scream of ripping metal.
Hargrove looked up from where he lay on the floor, Frieda sobbing
on top of him where she had thrown herself, and saw MacGuiness, standing
above the supine body of the Bishop, a satisfied smile creasing his
leathery face. Hargrove
held the weeping woman close, for once refraining from ‘getting to know
her better’. But one
question kept swirling through his mind, lurking in the dark corners like
a revisionist, confounding both conscious and subconscious alike (though
to be fair, the former was rather simple – both to confound, and in
essence). And for once it had
nothing to do with Ticks. Why
the Armenians? Why indeed? And who are the other alien invaders? With who was Tobermorrey working? Is this all the product of Hargrove’s diseased
subconscious? When will someone pick up an encyclopedia and
look up ticks?
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