The Machine That Goes Ping
Part 8
Posted Mon, Sep 5 2005 6:25 pm
There are two exciting episodes left after this one
Isn’t it exciting?
We drifted though a dark Cambridge street at something approaching
two O’Clock in the morning about a week and a half into Project
Gretel. It was just the two of us – safety in obscurity – following
Rose’s sixth sense of narrative as we attempted to track down the
source of all this mess. I was attempting to remain professional, under
somewhat strenuous circumstances. Not being a trained field agent, I’m
not sure whether falling for your pet spy is actually Rule One, but I
suspect either way it’s somewhere in the top five. She’s witty, smart,
blisteringly intelegent and drop dead beautiful to boot. She is also Rose
Red, fictional heroine of a long-lost fairy story, and I should keep my
ducks in order. We have to stop whatever’s after Gretel from breaking
though before reality falls to pieces, and if that means reigning in my
under-exercised libedo, this is merely the price I shall pay. This will
not stop me complaining bitterly, though.
“Down here” she says, and we go from pitifully lit streets into pitch
black alley-ways. “I can feel her”.
We walk quietly past back gardens and sheds until we reach a house that
looks decades abandoned. “It’s there” says Rose. “She’s in there.”
We back up to the streets and I radio HQ for backup.
“Not a possibility, Sir”
“Mm?”
“Fairy attack, sir. Everyone’s on Peter Pan detail.”
The fairy wars have escalated somewhat in the past couple of weeks, and I
have been remiss in documenting them here. We sped back towards HQ, not
quick enough to get inside before the entire base was locked down. The rift
opened once more, and once more hundreds of winged midgets flooded the city.
Within seconds my teams were in action. A few weeks of fevered research had
given us a small edge. Cassette tapes. We had recorded a few hundred people
saying the magic words (“I Don’t Belive In Fairies!”) and digitised them.
Nothing.
It was only after we tried playing the original tapes instead of the digital
waves we discovered that recordings do work, but they have to be analog.
We had, therefore, commandered every single working tape player in Cambridge,
and for a few days we were able to keep back the tide.
That, unfortunately, didn’t last. A few days ago, prior to the main attack,
a series of unarmed Fairies dressed in black brought out a series of weird
devices. They appeared to be black boxes in which some bright spark had
installed gloves on sticks. They were, in fact, gloves on sticks stuck
into black boxes. These were the Clappers, the fairies next line of defence.
Now, as fast as we could knock them out of the sky they were reanimated
by the clappers. We managed to take some of them out (The traditional way,
grenades) and they started covering them with mesh cages. We were, just
about, able to hold them off by shipping in more people, more tape players.
This wasn’t going to last.
As we watch, the main attack begins. A thousand fey attacked and ARE
knock down by the wave of sound from the speakers (Sped up, to kill
quicker. Estimations had shown we could go about 3x speed before
it stopped working), and immediately the clappers kick in.
The noise down there must have been awful, with the tapes, the clappers,
the guns and the swords (They had swords, so so did we. It’s hard to
defend against a sword with a gun that doesn’t stop the sword welder).
Even back a ways, as we are, it was loud enough for us not to hear
someone creeping up behind us.
“Good Evening. Who are you?” it asked, something sharp to my back.
“I am Simon Darque, DOX General. I command the troops down there”.
“Ah. I’ve wanted to meet you for a while. My name is Aragon Bond,
Likewise. Except I command the ones who are winning. We should talk.”
“Talk?! Your troops are attacking us!”
“You started it. You shot an unarmed messanger.”
“We did? They didn’t admit to firing first. Anyway, it’s not as if we could
harm him”.
“Her. And it’s the thought that counts. And you hurt her feelings.
We still should talk.”
“Don’t you think we should stop the battle first?”
“Why? It’s not as if anyone’s getting hurt.”
“Yours may not be. My men are dying down there.”
“Oh don’t be silly. You’re not using weapons that can kill us, so we’re
not using weapons that can kill you. Fairy Steel can’t hurt humans, not
permenantly. Anything else would be dishonourable, that’s how it works“
I am speechless.
“Dust! You wouldn’t know that, would you? You’re real. We thought you
understood. Never even considered…”
“Er, If out men aren’t being killed, where are the bodies going?”
“Back with us, obviously. We have to get them back up to fitness,
those are the rules. That’s what the gold’s for, to show you we
mean to bring them back. Isn’t it obvious?”
After I fail to answer for a moment or two, Rose assists.
“I’m not sure your rules of honour have been communicated to them.”
I found my voice, eventually.
“Does your organisation have a First Contact division?”
“I expect I’m the closest to it.”
“Likewise. And yes, we do need to talk. But we should stop the
battle first.”
“Why stop them while they’re having fun?”
“I suspect your side is having significantly more fun than mine is.
At least let me bring my side up to speed?”
“Fine. I’ll meet you back here in a little while. Give me five minutes
to tell my troops not to attack you.”
Bond vanished back into the shadows, and after a little while the shouting
stopped, and I went back to HQ to tell my small army that the war was over,
and to prepare for a pretend one.
The War of the Fey was over, for the moment, but we still didn’t know what
they wanted.
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