Intergalactic Terrorist (New Dimension Book 1) (12 page)

    “Well,” Greebol began but did not have to finish. Amirous was already at the porthole looking out.

    “The stars are all wrong… planets are wrong. Space is wrong!” the professor said excitedly, like a young boy with a new toy. It was strange to see such an old man acting like a child. It was somewhat disturbing.

    “Do you know why?” Greebol asked.

    “And can I get back home?” Charlie asked.

    “If you ask me, and I note that you have, this is to do with the one word that we scientists have baffled over for years.”

    “Why?” said Charlie. And he laughed.

    “Why what?” questioned the professor.

    “Why!” chuckled Charlie. Still Amirous and, Charlie now noticed, Greebol, stood with blank faces. “Erm… why? You said the one word scientists have baffled over for years… and I said why. Because why is a question that you baffle over… oh forget it!”

    “As I was saying,” Amirous continued, ignoring Charlie’s attempts at humour, “dimensions. We have never fully proved the existence of them… but I for one always believed. And this…” he pointed to the new stars, “is the proof I will need!”

    “Explain,” said Greebol.

    “I cannot. But it seems that for reasons unknown, other dimensions may have leaked into ours.”

    “Charlie here is from one of these
other
dimensions,” said Greebol. “I am sure of it! But he did not seem to
leak
into anywhere. I went there. There was this golden glow you see…”

    “Then… perhaps our dimensions have… combined in some way,” said the professor. “Collided maybe. But why? Who knows?”

    “We had hoped you,” Greebol grumbled.

    Charlie did not understand. There were too many things he did not understand. He wondered how much terribly confusing information the Human brain could store before it turned into a quivering mass of jelly. He wondered if that is what jelly really was? The remains of melted brain, served with custard and eaten at childrens’ parties. You could say it was brain food.

    “Will I be able to get home?” Charlie asked. He hated jelly.

    Greebol explained to the scientist that Charlie’s world had vanished when the electrical had passed through the golden glow for the second time and that it no longer showed up on any sensors.

    “This golden glow you speak of must be what has caused these dimensions to collide,” said Amirous, more to himself than anyone else. “Charlie is it? Charlie… I do not know if you can return home. I do not know if this new dimension that has been created with mixed up parts of other dimensions will last. Only time will tell.”

    The three stood in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Charlie thought of Earth and began to seriously consider the fact that he may never go back there again. Ever. Professor Amirous thought of dimensions and if his theory could be true. Greebol thought of the money he was going to collect when he handed Amirous to the people who had hired him.

    With his large, sickening smile, Greebol hit the professor over the back of the head who dropped to the floor unconscious.

    Charlie didn’t even need to question the Gumthar’s motives. It seemed Greebol already knew what he was about to say.

    “He is this week’s wages,” the grey skinned, yellow eyed one said, “I still have a job to do, new dimension or no new dimension.”

    Charlie sat on the floor and hugged his knees. “Where to now then?” he asked.

    “Professor Amirous has defrosted. Putting him back into stasis is terribly unpredictable now,” said Greebol. Charlie’s heart beat quicker. Not so long ago
he
had accidentally defrosted the other two and then frosted them again. What did Greebol mean by terribly unpredictable?

    “We head towards Baggus’Regious,” continued Greebol, “the best planet in the galaxy!”

    “And what is there?”

    “Not what… but who! The people who hired me to kidnap the scientist live there. We shall take Amirous to them!”

    “And what of this collision of dimensions? What of getting me back home?”

    “You heard the professor,” said Greebol, “only time will tell now! Besides… if what he says is correct and we are living in a new dimension full of new species… life is going to get a lot more interesting!”

    ‘More interesting than this?’ thought Charlie. His brain really
was
going to turn to jelly. He didn’t know how much more he could cope with.

    A Human being was not meant to have any more excitement than a hot cup of cocoa and watching the deterioration of someone else's family in a depressingly entertaining soap opera. This, that Charlie Pinwright the most uninteresting of all the Human beings, was doing was just plain insanity.

    Charlie Pinwright wanted to curl up and die. But he expected that Greebol would even have a little gadget to stop that from happening as well. He just had to face it. For now at least, uninteresting Charlie Pinwright, was an apprentice bounty hunter.

Chapter 13

Dimensions
had
collided. That is the truth. Why they had done this was still a mystery. Like the mystery of Earth’s Bermuda Triangle, Leyton 3’s upside down atmosphere or whatever happened to that man who put chocolate on raisins.

    However, for those now existing in this new dimension, created by the collision of multiple ones, life seemed normal. Yet different. They knew that something was wrong, only not what it was. It was a similar feeling to when you have been lying on your arm for too long and it is completely dead. For a moment it doesn’t actually feel like your arm, more like a deceased limb had been attached to you. It is in that moment, when you can feel that something is wrong but not sure what, that these people were feeling right now. Except of course for Charlie, Greebol and Professor Amirous who were just beginning to figure out what was happening. Well, not Professor Amirous. He was currently fast asleep once again, blissfully ignorant of the strange events unfolding around him. He dreamt of puppies and kittens and highly electrified, radioactive and ultimately dangerous experiments involving those puppies and kittens.

    Other than people inside Greebol’s electrical, a slight confusion filled the air. Something was wrong yet everything felt the same. Something was different yet no differences could be noticed. Therefore, for now at least, life continued as normal. Except for on a large, dirty vessel, floating in orbit of a small planet, waiting for a cube-shaped ship to dock with it.

Chapter 14

    “Open the main hanger doors.”

    Slowly the large doors began to swing outwards, creaking and crunching as they moved. Their opening ended with a large
bang
that sent vibrations throughout the ship.

    “Now… bring it in. Carefully now.”

    A large grappling hook was fired from the ship, the hook hurtled past the large door and through space towards the small cube-shaped ship. The hook hit the ship with tremendous force, attaching itself it its hull, almost splitting it in two.

    The Dwarf, stockier than most, who had been speaking, slapped the firer of that grappling hook across the head and bellowed, “Careful I said you useless pile of dung! Careful!”

    “I
was
being careful!” replied the other Dwarf.

    The first clenched his fists, raised his axe and ran at him, shouting curses as he went. The grappling hook Dwarf almost squealed and sped off in the opposite direction.

    “Amateur,” guffawed the first Dwarf as he grasped the rope that the hook was attached to. “Let a professional show you how it’s done. Let Lord Shagbag show you how it’s done!”

    Lord Shagbag gripped the rope tight and began to pull it hard, slowly dragging the cube-shaped ship towards him until it had passed through the large doors and settled comfortably on the ground.

    Lord Shagbag slapped his red hands together and blew on them. “That was a grip of champions!” he growled happily to himself.

    Shagbag was a typical Dwarf, short, large framed, long haired, bearded man with a large bulbous nose and equally large ears. His attire, although similar to most Dwarfs, was grander in design. He wore a thick, fur overcoat made of some sort of dead beast he had slain with his own hands and chunky golden jewellery around his neck and fingers. He was lord of the Dwarves, the honour passed down from generations of lords. His great grandfather had built the seven pillars of Dwarf on their home planet. His grandfather had dug out the pits of Lava with his own hands. True, his father had been a lazy slob who ate pies and drank beer all day, but one useless generation amongst at least a hundred brilliant generations was not too bad.

    Lord Shagbag thought of himself as from one of the brilliant generations. He just hadn’t had the opportunity to show it yet. Until now.

    He was to be the lord of the Dwarves that finally managed to beat their most bitter rivals in the greatest of championships.

    The hatch of the cube-shaped ship opened outwards and a number of small, rickety, steps folded down to the ground. Another Dwarf exited the ship. He stomped his large, leather boots down the steps, burping and rubbing his braided beard. He flung his axe over his shoulder and stared around the room.

    He was met with a hundred pairs of eyes, similar to his own, staring back. Small, dark eyes, shadowed by large, lumpy foreheads. A hundred bearded faces, with large pock covered noses and great round ears. Every Dwarf in the room was around the same size and build, except for a few who were slightly rounder. They all stared patiently, excitedly waiting for something to happen.

    “It is I, Giblet, son of Goblet,” the Dwarf shouted in his deep, rich voice, “the champion of all champions.”

    Slowly he raised his hand into the air and opened his fingers. A purple glow shone from his palm, lighting the faces of the onlookers. They gasped in unison sounding like a steam train slowly beginning to move.

    “Behold,” Giblet continued, “the Crystal of Mount Orc! Yes… I climbed that monstrosity and yes… I defeated every Orc who stood in my way! Victory to the Dwarves!”

    As one, the hoard of Dwarves erupted into cheers of jubilation. Shouts of ‘Way to go Giblet’, ‘Get in there my son’, and ‘The Orcs ain’t singing anymore’ spread through the room like wildfire. Just without the flames. And the burning.

    Giblet jumped down into the praising crowd and frowned. He was at least a foot shorter than the rest of the Dwarves around him. A problem he had had to cope with his entire life but had never actually been able to.

    Before he knew it, he had been joisted up onto a number of shoulders and was paraded around the room like a trophy. Giblet raised the crystal high above his head (at least as high as his stumpy arms could reach) and wailed in victory.

    At once the beer barrels were cracked open and the goblets filled. Great songs about victory and glory of battles rang throughout the ship. ‘The Tale of Gimpo and the Seven Headed Beaver’ was one of the favourites. As was ‘Gretchan Defeats the Itchy Crack’. 

    “Congratulations Giblet,” Lord Shagbag praised, slapping the smaller Dwarf on the back, forcing him to splutter into his beer.

    “Thank you sir,” Giblet responded, his moustache covered in foam. He licked it quickly and was pleased to find a lump of chicken still there from dinner. He gobbled it up.

    “You have done us proud,” Lord Shagbag continued, staring at the food in Giblet’s beard. Most would believe that he eyed it in disgust, but in reality he was jealous. He wished he could find a tasty treat lodged in his own beard but he had already eaten the slither of pork, string of fat and slab of beef that he found in there earlier that day.

    “Another point for our kind,” he continued, “but first we must discover the authenticity of that crystal you hold me lad! Bring in the Wizard!”

    As the door to the room opened the celebrations seized. Through the door a tall, lanky and hunched figure entered. He wore a pointed hat that was slightly crooked at the end and long, shabby robes hung from his skinny body. He was almost skeletal.

    Slowly he scurried through the throng of little Dwarves, seeming like a giant amongst them. He moved in erratic bursts, twitching and nervously looking about him. Finally he arrived before Lord Shagbag.

    “Sh… Shagbag,” he stuttered, looking down his long pointed nose at him. He stroked a long white beard that was tatty and came out in clumps as he rubbed it. The half-moon spectacles on the bridge of his nose began to slip and he poked them back up with a thin, bony, long nailed finger.

    “Greetings Fungus!” bellowed Shagbag, slapping the Wizard on the back, almost snapping him in half. In fact a little harder and he would have been snapped in half. If the Wizard stood amongst a pile of sticks he would be virtually invisible.

    “It… It… It’s Fungust,” he responded, his voice squeaky and nervous.

    “Indeed. This young Dwarf has done it! He has retrieved the Crystal of Orc Mountain!”

    Fungust scoffed and raised his nose up at the Dwarf. “It is called the Mystophogus Crystal,” he snapped. “Please use the correct designation!”

    Shagbag chuckled and rolled his eyes. Dwarves had brilliant senses of humour. They took most things with a pinch of salt. Sometimes they took a pinch of pepper and on occasion a pinch of thyme. Never basil. Never ever basil.

    Of course Dwarves were not always cheerful. In fact when angry, they could be really, really angry. Fuming one could say. Nowhere near as angry as one particular Human who had just been abducted by an alien could be, but angry still. They took pride in their anger. In fact they enjoyed their anger. It gave them strength.

    But most of the time they were rather jovial.

    “Whatever you say Fungus, whatever you say,” the Dwarf lord chuckled.

    Fungust grimaced. His wrinkled forehead furrowed. “Just show me the damn crystal,” he barked.

    Unlike Dwarves, Wizards did not share their courageous confidence. Wizards were in general considered to be ‘scatty’. Not brave in any sense of the word. In fact when faced with a potentially dangerous situation, some Wizards had been known to transform themselves into cockroaches just to make sure they survived. Everyone knows that cockroaches can survive anything.

    They rarely showed any emotion to others, as most Wizards rarely acknowledged others. They were so lost in their own little bubble of a world that sometimes they would literally bump into another being and, believing it to be a door, would simply push it out of their way. Many took this as ignorance. Possibly they were correct.

    Then there was the magic. Experts in it and highly protective of it. They did not understand others that were either;

a)
     
ignorant of it

b)
     
in no way understood it

    And most fell into one of those two categories.

    Giblet stepped forward, slightly intimidated by the gangly Wizard before him. He did not like ‘taller’ folk. He had a mistrust of them. He always believed that up where their heads sat, the air must be thinner. With the lack of oxygen they must have some sort of mental problems. Usually he was correct. This was probably due to the seedy places Giblet was used to hanging out in where most
did
indeed have mental problems.

    He presented the Crystal with pride.

    Fungust examined it for a moment, the rock still glowing in the Dwarf’s hand. He reached into his leather satchel and removed a small eyeglass that he attached onto his spectacles, making his left eye three times bigger than the right.

    Giblet felt dizzy when he looked at him.

    “Surface is smooth… the size is correct,” Fungust tapped the Crystal with the end of a long fingernail, “hmm… density seems accurate. It is glowing slightly more than expected… now to check the magic!”

    Fungust extended the eyeglass making his left eye now five times the size.

    Giblet was forced to hold onto a railing to steady himself. His stomach told him that its contents wanted to escape back the way they had entered.

    “The Mystophogus Specks seem in place,” the Wizard continued.

    Specks, for the uninformed, was a magical term. It referred to microscopic particles that fixed themselves to every single object/creature in the universe. The more Specks on the item, the more magical it was. Fungust himself discovered these Specks many, many years previously and named them after his pet sea monkey as their shapes were very similar.

    Fungust was covered in over twenty billion Specks, which was considered to be quite a lot. The most number Specks ever found on any one being was on the great Merline, considered to be the most powerful Wizard of all time. He had over eighty trillion Specks!

    The Mystophogus Specks that Fungust had spoken of were just one form of Speck that could be found. For each Speck represented a different form of magic and was represented by various colours of the two rainbows. Mystophogus Specks were one of the strongest and could provide the answers to many of the universe's most complex questions.

    Confused? Most were, including many Wizards.

    “This, I believe,” Fungust continued, “is the real deal! Congratulations! You have succeeded!”

    Once again a rip roaring cheer filled the room, forcing Fungust to cover his ears and cower down in fear. He was not the greatest fan of Dwarves. They were far too unpredictable. Like rabid dogs only without the foaming mouths. Fungust corrected that. Some of these Dwarves mouths
were
foaming! He was unsure if it was drool or just the beer. Or a mixture of the two.

    “Let us proceed with the scoring!” Lord Shagbag shouted above the din.

    On the far wall a large white board was lowered. It had, crudely scrawled onto it, a table. On one side it said
US
, on the other it said
OPPONENTS
. It was of course a scoreboard. At the moment the Dwarves had four points and their opponents had six.

    “Fungus, if you would do the honours?” Shagbag said, gesturing the Wizard towards the screen.

    Fungust glared at him before drawing a long, thin wooden stick from his leather bag. It was twisted in places and had a number of knots on it. It was his magic wand. Common belief was that the first ever wand was sculpted after the shape of a Wizard’s personals. However, as Wizards always wore their long robes and no one had seen a female Wizard in years there was no proof of this.

    “Gibberish!” Fungust shouted, flicking the wand towards the screen. For a second nothing happened. Then at once a bright spark flew from the tip of the wand covering the screen in dazzling sprinkles. The numbers began to blur, twist and contort. Then, with everyone in the room watching, the number four began to change shape. It parted into one long line, then, wriggling like a worm searching for the soil, it slithered back on itself until it formed a happy number five.

    The cheering increased. The Dwarves were now just one point away from drawing level with their opponents.

    Fungust blew the end of his wand. It was steaming.

    Lord Shagbag raised an eyebrow. “A flamboyant way of updating the scoreboard. Usually we just use a black marker pen.”

    Glory was almost upon them. Every year they battled in the tournament, numerous challenges to discover who the better race were. Unfortunately, for the Dwarves, they usually failed. Never in the history of the tournament had it been this close. The Dwarves could almost taste victory. All they needed were two more points and they would be in the lead!