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Chapter 13 - With Madness Comes A Certain Peace

"You know, evil comes in many forms, be it a man-eating cow or Joseph Stalin. But you can't let the package hide the pudding. Evil is just plain bad! You don't cotton to it! You gotta smack it on the nose with the rolled up newspaper of goodness! Bad dog! Bad dog!" - The Tick

From his vantage point, amidst the robotic rubble, Hargrove could only pick out a blur of movement past the billowing haze of head trauma and smoke.  The sharp smell of burning gasketing mixed with hot oil and charred flesh, reminding the Marxist detective of a happier misspent youth; the dancing, the Sultan, the wide empty plains, the resulting carnage.  Almost it was all worth it, almost.  A happy sigh escaped him, and if you had been looking closely, ignoring the bloody stains and shattered flesh, you might have seen a small contented smile cross Hargrove’s face.  Five percent.

Under that happy façade, Hargrove’s unconscious was split; portions of neurons had rededicated themselves purely to thoughts of Frieda – the sheets, the laughter, the careless abandon that had defined that magical time, trapped in a carousel of memory.  Spinning, music cheerfully blaring against the backdrop of his throbbing head, happy thoughts dancing up and down past his unthinking vantage point, visualized in garish high definition three dimensional colour.

Ten percent.  Absolute maximum.

Beside this portion of oblivious abandon, buried deep in the center of Hargrove’s subconscious, a full thirty eight percent of the detective’s copious mental capacity occupied itself with the problems at hand.   Alien plots resulting in wrecked spacecraft, bombed leaking ships, rampaging submarine captains, political subterfuge, rampaging wrenches wielded by large angry frothing Scots, captains wasting away in cryogenic chambers.  Numbers churned through Hargrove’s mind as he solved the complex formulas governing the loyalties of quadruple agents, mental gymnastics which guided him through the twists of logic woven on the parallel bars of mystery.  In the front row of his mind, his mother stood, raised her placard, and awarded him a perfect ten.

His subconscious laid its plans and left its directives in the usual places for his unsuspecting conscious mind to trip over when it least expected it.

As with most humans, the majority of Hargrove’s remaining neurons spent their time randomly firing and enjoying the effect this had on his mental state.  BOOM!  Did I leave the stove on when I left?  BOOM!  Look at that seagull.  BOOM!  Capitalism is the cancer eating away at the prostate of socialism.  BOOM!   Itch, in that hard to reach spot between the shoulder blades. 

A small percentage, dedicated to things humans don’t realize they can do, slept through this trauma in much the same way they had always slept.

This left a mere three percent of his mental capacity; three percent dedicated to the sole pursuit of racking the memory core into giving up information on ticks.   Arachnids.  Dermacentor variabilis, a carrier of spotted fever; Ixodes scapulari, the carrier of Lyme disease.  But did they have jaws?

Hargrove blinked and time resumed.  Shaking his head free of the mental fog he surged to his feet.  “They don’t” he announced, and a portion of the android continuing its last resounding bounce off the wall lanced through his shoulder, temporarily pinning him to the wall.

“Aaargh,” He continued.   With an agonizing wrench, he tore free of the wall and the metallic sliver.

The mayhem paused as the smoke began to clear.  Hargrove, one hand supporting him against the wall;  MacGuiness, still giving Serapion the occasional kick, glaring menacingly about.  Serapion practicing his ‘sack of lumpy gifts at the monastery Christmas party’ impression.  Brashnikov lying beneath android rubble, stunned, missing an arm, a nose, an ear, and more recently, one leg below the knee.  Frieda bravely sitting on Trotsov’s large but unconsciously prone body.  Tobormorrey beneath the wreckage of the lifeboat.  The android captain’s parts, many of them with an odd glow, littering the deck, and last (but not least) Luis Santiago, floating in pieces in the water.

Hargrove took it all in instantly.  His mouth opened of its own volition as the Derringer appeared again in his hands, this time sweeping over the fallen conspirators.  “They don’t have jaws,” he said “Ticks, I mean.  They’re arachnids – they have mandibles.”  His quiet, confident words carried into the smoking stillness, sharp contrast to the recent chaos, yelling and percussive noise.

Thud.   MacGuiness absent-mindedly added another.  Thud.  “What the bloody hell are you on about nae, you sad gimpy git?”

Brashnikov nodded his agreement, and sat up.

Frieda simply looked at him, the same question apparent in her eyes.   Trotsov stirred, and Frieda cautiously lifted up, allowing her to sit, her lobster outfit awkwardly splayed out around her.

“No jaws.  It’s obvious.”  Hargrove continued, looking directly at Trotsov, who returned his look blankly.  “Ticks.  Your pathetic group aren’t TICKS, anyway – you are Small Reds with Small Minds.”  He verbally capitalized the words, no easy feat with his broken face and swollen lips.  “Chiggers, that’s what you are; mites.  The only resemblance you have to ticks is your penchant for carrying disease.”

Trotsov’s mouth opened, as if to respond. 

“Hargrove?” Frieda interrupted, a worried look chasing across her face.  “Hargrove, France wasn’t only business…”  She trailed off plaintively.

“I know,” said Hargrove, “I understand.   Gather them together.”  He indicated with the Derringer and MacGuiness obligingly dragged Serapion over to Trotsov.  Serapion, cloned Bishop of Thmuis, groaned an aching displeasure.

“You won’t be getting away with this,” Trotsov warned, “you will all be stopped, like fish at an....er.... Like mice, through a...   It won’t go well for you, anyway.”  There was a temporary confused silence, as these words were digested.

With a great splash and a tremendous roar, the stillness was suddenly shattered, as Captain Borisovitch’s submarine swelled to the surface a hundred yards from where they stood spoiling the surface of the dead calm evening water.  All heads spun towards this new threat, and Hargrove stumbled to where Frieda stood and handed her the Derringer.  He clumsily reloaded the Webley and together with MacGuiness they took cover behind some rigging.

Their eyes boggled as, after a brief pause, the submarine continued its surge past the waterline, hovering close to thirty feet above the ocean surface.  Ports opened in the hull, and gear rotated out of hidden pockets, transforming the craft into a science fiction writer’s nightmare.  Beams of light appeared, lighting up the HMS Hoobe-Entwhistle and surrounding water.  The craft continued hovering for a mere heartbeat, and then, before you could say “October Revolution” it was upon them.  Above the main deck it loomed, its downward thrusters incinerating a group of passengers trying to organize themselves into teams for a game of shuffleboard on the dying ships’ slanted deck.

A beam of sparkling light stabbed out in front of them, the flash momentarily searing their eyes.  When vision returned, there was a strange knobby creature there, dressed in a white suit with sparkling rhinestone trim.  Various protruding stalks blinked and gaped, and its purple and green skin glistened; perhaps more importantly at the moment, two of its larger protuberances held a menacing device

It was tough to describe the menace.  It was either menacing, or an extremely effective cleaning device.  Hargrove was taking no chances; his Webley was trained on the thing behind the menace, which had appeared between them and their captives, and he never wavered.  They were frozen like this for what seemed like an eternity before the thing spoke.

When it spoke, it had Captain Borisovitch’s voice, but in perfect English.

“You were always a loose end, detective.  We could never trust that you would stay ignorant – damn your leaps of intuition!  By Lenin’s gray wig, you’ll be the death of all of us.”  The thing’s expression was unreadable without quite a bit more knowledge of alien biology than Hargrove currently boasted.

“You…” Hargrove began.

“Yes, detective Hargrove, yes.” The thing admitted, reluctantly, “I’m responsible for this; agents Santiago, Trotsov and Serapion report to me.  And Frieda, despite what you’d clearly like to believe.  Well, technically I work for the French, but let’s face it: they think Jerry Lewis is funny.  I’m in charge here.  I must admit, your work in the dismantling of both Santiago and the android captain has raised my blood pressure.  Well, okay, it would have, if I had any.”

“So…” Hargrove continued.

“Clever monkey.  So our attempt to control the Armenian separatists by killing that half man Brashnikov is temporarily interrupted.  We will return, for the moment, to our home base in Yerevan, at the US Embassy.  But you are too late, and too far to do any good, pathetic Marxist riddle guesser!  Accept your loss, that’s my advice.”  The alien chuckle threw shudders up the length of Hargrove’s spine.

“Frieda…”

“Stays here, yes.  I will take these two, and the carnage here is over.”  The chuckle grew to a full blown alien cackle, causing bile to begin to claw its way up Hargrove’s digestive tract.  “Don’t think you can relax, though.  Frieda may still surprise you.  Triple agents are like that, particularly when they are half machine.”  At that, the alien with Borisovitch’s voice glided to where Trotsov and Serapion lay in heaps on the deck.  The sparkling light flashed again, playing over the HMS Hoobe-Entwhistle where there was now just an empty deck, and when the brilliance faded from the retina the sky was clear.

A very brief stunned silence was shattered by a cracking groaning sound from deep within the core of the ship.  Hargrove, Frieda and Brashnikov all turned to MacGuiness with the same question in their eyes.

“She canna hold much longer,” MacGuiness said, “She’s been blown up, run aground, shot and pounded by alien spacecraft!  She’s not built for this!  We canna stay here.”

All eyes but one snapped to Hargrove.  Brashnikov murmured apologetically and pocketed the eye that had just popped from its socket.  Hargrove’s mind raced; they had to get to Yerevan and expose the conspiracy, for the good of communism and the workers revolution – but how?  He opened his mouth to speak.

“Pssst!  Hey!”  A small deep voice interrupted, from the vicinity of a nearby air vent opening.  “Over here!”

Frieda lifted the grill, reached in, and with one hand helped what seemed to be a four foot tall red headed man from the vent, the other hand steadily holding the Derringer.

The Webley was less steady, but still menacing.  The small man glanced around nervously, returning his gaze to Hargrove.  “Patrick O’Lan, at your service,” he said, in a lilting Irish accent.  “Don’t shoot me, you’ll be needing my help.”

“Help?”  Hargrove prompted.  He was too tired to sort through the dozens of Leprechaun jokes which had leapt to mind.

“Tobormorrey was with me,” the little Irishman said, “he died on his way to bringing me something.  I suspect that you know what that is, and I am prepared to help you.”  He allowed this information to sink in.  “I have a craft,”  he said, “I can get you to Yerevan.”

“And why should we bother trusting you?” Brashnikov asked from behind.

Paddy O’Lan turned.  “I am a Canadian double agent, planted in the ranks of the Irish to keep tabs on their operations in Armenia.  Tobormorrey and I, as part of the British MI2 and Canadian secret service Commonwealth co-operative, suspected foul play, particularly when we learned that France was involved.”  He paused, taking a moment to spit at the base of the vent from which he’d come.  “I think we can confirm that now, but I suspect that your brilliant detective friend knows more – in exchange for this knowledge, I am prepared to help you.  This ship is on its last legs, you need me.”

Weak with hunger, his bladder full to bursting, Hargrove was in no mood to argue details, and it didn’t take mental gymnastics to extrapolate his state to the others.  A quick glance around at the faces of the group confirmed his suspicions.  “All right, O’Lan, off we go then.  I warn you: no sudden moves, capitalist pig.” he waved vaguely with the Webley, causing rockets of pain to shoot up his arm from his wrist, “Or you’ll regret it.”

“Just a bloody minute, then,” MacGuiness said, ducking into one of the storage sheds that were scattered strategically about the deck.  He emerged seconds later with a large adjustable wrench, which upon close examination would prove to have also been proudly emblazoned with the ‘Home Hardware’ name.  He grinned, a horrible display of rotting black teeth.  “One size fits all,” he explained.

A couple of practice swings bore out this concept, as he inadvertently connected with the face of a passenger, who had suddenly appeared from around a corner with a group dancing to one of the roving Mariachi bands.  He looked momentarily concerned, but as the wrench seemed okay that quickly passed.

Paddy O’Lan led them to what seemed like a tool shed, the others trailing dutifully behind, MacGuiness dragging Brashnikov delicately by his remaining leg.  It was no ordinary shed, though, and when opened revealed a long slide which disappeared into its gaping black maw.

The group hesitated, the Irishman doing his best to look trustworthy.

Creaking sounds and a lifting of the deck causing distraught passengers to slide screaming off the ship into the waiting ocean left little room for hesitation.

“You first, O’Lan.  MacGuiness can keep you company.”  Hargrove instructed. 

MacGuiness snarled at him briefly, then grinned an ugly grin at the Irishman.  “There had better be naught to be surprising me, Irish filth, or you’ll regret that too.”  The wrench twitched suggestively in his hands.

The ship groaned, the deck lifted higher and they quickly disappeared.  On the Irishman’s instructions they waited a moment, then slid Brashnikov down the chute, with instructions to try to relax and think resilient thoughts. 

There was another brief pause, and Hargrove and Frieda slid together, enjoying every moment of contact as they rocketed through the passage to their unknown destination.

I wonder which parts are still Frieda, Hargrove thought, his hands racing to check as many as possible in the time available.  As they disappeared into the opening, the HMS Hoobe-Entwhistle sighed, shuddered, and slid quietly under the surface. 

 Will anyone else do the research and discover that Phenylcyclidine is a psychedelic drug used as an incapacitating agent in crowd control?  Is Frieda going to turn on our hero?  Will they ever eat?  Will their bladders burst?  Will Trotsov be angry now that she’s learned that the aliens are also working with the capitalists?  Will that goddamn stupid Hoobe-Entwhistle stay dead this time?!

On to Chapter 14