Scurvy Goonda (15 page)

Carolina walked away, breathing deeply to prevent herself from dry heaving. She pushed her way through the swinging doors, looked to make sure nobody was around, hung a quick left, and there it was—the Crusher.

Carolina could see straight to the bottom of the Crusher, which appeared to be made of overlapping sheets of steel. Those jaws, the idea of Ted caught in them … And then she spotted something that made her heart sink.

In the back corner of the Crusher, there was a gap between the wall and one of the steel plates. A small amount of light seemed to be pouring through this crack, and hanging over the lip of the fissure was something that looked like
meat
.

It can’t be
, thought Carolina.

She climbed down into the Crusher and crawled over to the steel panel until she was nose to slab with the meat.

Is this a cut of Ted’s thigh, a piece of his shoulder?
thought Carolina.
Or could it be … bacon
? She wrapped her fingers around the edge of the panel and slid it open, revealing a narrow compartment underneath.

“Huh?” said Carolina.

She lowered herself into the slot.

It appeared that she was in a vent of some sort, and at the end of the narrow passage, she could make out a faint light.

“Where are you, pretty?” she heard the creepy guy say above her. “Breaking promises gets you a bad reputation.”

Carolina slid the steel panel closed above her.

There was just enough light coming from the end of the passage for her to see where she was going. She could hear muffled sounds up ahead—hammers and drills.

“I’m coming, Ted,” she said to herself, and followed the light.

THUD! THUD! THUD!
KA-SHOOM! KA-SHOOM!
RRR-CLUNK! RRR-CLUNK!

A bottle was placed against Ted’s lips.

“Drink,” he heard Dr. Narwhal saying. He did what he was told, drinking deeply of whatever had been offered. The liquid burned his throat and shot him to a sitting position, making him spit and hack.

“What is that?” yelled Ted.

“Vango’s persssonal tonic,” said Dr. Narwhal.

FZZZ-BOOM!
FZZZ-BOOM!

Looking around, Ted saw that they were in an office of some kind. There were a desk, a bookshelf, a halogen lamp, and a thick metal door.

“What happened?” said Ted.

“It seems that we are being kept prisoner,” said Dwack.

“Where are we?”

“Ever wondered where ab-coms come from?” said Dwack.

Ted walked to a long window that was built into the wall behind him. Below was some sort of a chaotic workshop. There were tubes everywhere, clear gelatinous cylinders that hung down from the ceiling over conveyor belts and work-stations like tentacles. Ted could see what looked like light
blue clouds moving down through the tubes. When the clouds reached the ends of the tubes, they were shot into enormous steel vats. Then workers in yellow suits marked WATCH-OUT! examined them and took furious notes on serious-looking clipboards.

Dwack pointed to one of the clear tentacles hanging from the ceiling.

“Those,”
said Dwack, “are idea tubes. You can’t tell from here, but see the way they punch out through the ceiling? They extend to the edge of the atmosphere. Factories like this use the tubes to capture kids’ ideas that have floated out into space. That’s what those little blue clouds are.”

“Ideas?”

“Those light blue clouds are their ideas for friends,” said Dwack. “When kids generate ideas, the ideas fly from their brains—there is nothing in the universe that moves faster than the ideas of children, not even light—and those ideas find their way here, like flocks of geese.”

“What do those guys in the suits do?”

“They read the orders and start the building process. Their WATCHOUT! suits are standard protective equipment.”

On the factory floor, some of the vats were filled with what looked like sculpting clay, others with various parts of ab-coms—hooves, antlers, legs, bodies, hats, coats, wigs, and paws. A WATCHOUT! worker stared down at an order and then sifted through the spare parts inside a vat until he found a raccoon tail and a baseball helmet. The worker placed these pieces on a conveyor belt, where they glided toward another group of workers, one of whom shook his head and put the pieces aside, dissatisfied for some reason.

“Where do the spare parts come from?” said Ted.

“That’s a bit of a morbid topic. Look over there,” said Dwack, pointing to a queue of depressed-looking abstract companions who were lined up outside a steel door, where two WATCHOUT! workers seemed to be collecting the ab-coms’ personal information on their serious-looking clipboards.

“Everybody in the line looks miserable,” said Ted.

Ted watched an old robot hug a fat ninja, hang its head, and walk heavily through the steel door. It looked like it was going off to meet a firing squad.

“Many ab-coms have a hard time adjusting to their new lives in Middlemost without their friends. For these individuals, there’s a donation program, you could call it—they give themselves to future generations.”

Moments later, a different WATCHOUT! worker emerged from the back room, pushing a wheelbarrow full of robot parts.

“Is that…?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Dwack. “You’d be surprised how many companions choose that way out. It keeps the population down to some degree, but I’ve always found it all a bit distasteful.”

The remains of the robot coasted along the conveyor belt to the WATCHOUT! worker who had put aside the baseball helmet and the raccoon tail. The worker nodded. Putting everything together with sculpting clay, he quickly assembled a baseball-playing robot raccoon, after which he placed the new abstract companion on another conveyor belt, which dead-ended above a tank of viscous maroon liquid.

“Activator solution,” explained Dwack.

“What’s it made of?” said Ted.

“There’s some sunshine in there, some chocolate, some music, a little bit of campfire, some old stories, some snow, a little bit of the ocean. If it brings imagination to life, it goes in the pot.”

The robot raccoon splashed down into the maroon solution. A mechanical arm fastened a lid on top of the tank, which immediately started to vibrate rapidly—
VZZZZ
. After a few seconds, the shaking abruptly stopped, the liquid drained from the tank, the mechanical arm removed the lid, and the whole vat FLIPPED on its edge, dumping the hacking and sputtering robot raccoon onto an inflatable cushion surrounded by padded walls.

“It’s alive,” said Ted.

“That’s how it happens,” said Dwack.

A pair of WATCHOUT! workers came out with sponges and towels to clean the new ab-com, which was blinking into the light, trying to figure out what had just happened. The WATCHOUT! workers scooped up the robot raccoon and carried it on a gurney to the end of the thickest tentacle-tube in the room.

And then …
SLURP!
The robot raccoon was sucked into the wide tube and disappeared.

“That tube would normally take the new ab-com to a vent like the one you passed through, and from there it would be delivered to Earth,” said Dwack. “But because of the call to arms, I’m not sure where all the new companions are going. Directly into the army, if I had to guess.”

“Wait a minute,” said Ted. “When Scurvy Goonda showed up in my life, he’d already had
tons
of experiences before me. How is that possible if he was created for me here?”

“Lots of kids want pirates as their ab-coms,” explained Dwack. “If there is a perfectly adequate one out in the world—like Scurvy, for instance—they’re often used again and again. Whenever Scurvy was cast off by one child, he would probably just find another. He must have liked his job. But at some point, he was made here, the same as everybody else.”

And then came a voice from behind Ted and Dwack.

“Ah … er … AHEM. You’re in trouble. I think. I mean, I know that you are. I think that I know. Ahem.”

Ted, Dwack, Vango, and Dr. Narwhal turned around and saw a swimsuit-wearing Swamster standing in the doorway, chewing nervously on a piece of cardboard.

Dwack recognized the intruder as a Swamster because he had known others—visiting Denmark, he had once met an entire team of water polo Swamsters—but there was something
different
about this one. Behind his gold medals,
this
Swamster didn’t seem the least bit confident.

“You should really, uh, well I’m not sure what you should do,” said Swamster. “Hold on. I need to think about it.”

“Who are you?” said Dr. Narwhal.

“I’m your worst… nightmare?” Swamster said, and then slumped his shoulders, not quite sure his prisoners would believe him.

They didn’t.

“Bah-hah-hah!” laughed Vango.

“Har-har-har!” laughed Dr. Narwhal.

When Ted saw Dwack smile, he couldn’t stop himself from chuckling, and pretty soon, everybody was laughing at the Swamster.

Who suddenly looked terribly sad.

“Fine then, laugh,” said Swamster. “It’s not just me here, you know, but I figured I’d introduce myself to you first to be polite. But clearly you don’t care about any of that. So, GUARDS!”

“Okay, my lovely-bubbly,” said Persephone, “which of these invitations do you like?”

Scurvy was wearing a cable-knit sweater and sensible khaki pants, and he was holding a martini glass. His hair was parted neatly on the side, and his beard had been deloused. A fire roared in the hearth, and the den was filled with tasteful leather furniture. Taxidermied animal heads hung on the wall.

Persephone had taken Scurvy on a weekend out to the country—or rather, out to this exclusive spa and lodge located in the forest just outside Ab-Com City. Persephone liked to come here periodically to relax and have her bones bleached and lengthened.

Scurvy stared down at three sample wedding invitations. All of them looked ridiculously fancy—one the color of crushed eggshells and made of velvet; another effervescent, with an almost gauzy feel to it; the third wrapped in a pink bow, with different cards for “directions,” “response,” and “reception.”

He couldn’t believe he was getting married again. But it was marry or die, and he had been in relationships that felt like death before, so he decided to cut his losses and make Persephone an honest skeleton.

“I don’t know, honey,” said Scurvy.

“I want your pet name for me to be Ploopsie,” said Persephone.

“Of course ya do,” said Scurvy. “As I was saying, I’m not sure
which
of them tah choose. They’re all so
magnificent.”

Scurvy looked around the room, searching for possible escape paths. Persephone had stationed her guards outside all the main doorways, but he thought that if he could tie Persephone to a chair, he might be able to extinguish the fire in the fireplace and crawl up and out through the chimney, like a reverse Santa.

“Magnificent like me?” said Persephone.

Scurvy paused.

“Exactly like ya, Pooprie,” said Scurvy, lying.

“Ploopsie.”

“Rightie-o.”

Persephone was content. Everything was working out exactly the way she wanted. She had her man. She was planning her wedding. She was about to attack Earth. Life was beautiful.

“We’ll take the sea-green invitations,” said Persephone to the wedding planner standing on the other side of the table.

“An excellent choice, President Skeleton,” said the planner. “Very elegant.”

“But still fun!” said Persephone.

“Very
fun. I’ll have them printed up
immediately
. I love brief engagements—looks like the pressure is on for yours truly!”

Scurvy didn’t like the planner, who was organizing the wedding and everything else that would make Persephone’s life easier until the big day. He was the one who had purchased Scurvy’s new cable-knit sweater.

The planner skittered away with the invitations. Scurvy watched him scoot past Persephone’s guards, and Scurvy considered snapping a leg off the table and using it as a club as he
made a break for freedom. If that didn’t work, he could use it to beat himself unconscious. Maybe Persephone wouldn’t marry him if he was in a coma?

Persephone exhaled and put her wing bones around Scurvy’s shoulders. She pecked him with her beak, which was the way she kissed. Scurvy could feel his upper lip starting to bleed through his mustache.

“The invitations are perfect,” said Persephone.

She waited.

“And so … are you?” said Scurvy.

Persephone smiled. Scurvy noticed a loose floorboard near the hearth. Could he dig his way out of here?

“Can you believe it?” she said. “After
three hundred years
we’re finally getting
married!”

“I really
can’t
believe it,” said Scurvy. “But don’t ya think that maybe we should wait a wee bit longer? Have some time tah, uh,
enjoy
our engagement? Maybe take some time off, go on one of them luxury cruises instead of waging war against humankind.”

“Oh, Scurvy, you’re so
silly,”
said Persephone. “We’re both just two silly kids in love.”

Persephone patted Scurvy on his bottom and giggled.

“So what should we look at next?” said Persephone. “The silverware or the centerpiece arrangements?”

Scurvy looked around, sweating. The walls of the room didn’t seem
too
thick. Could he get enough space to work up a good head of steam? Could he then just crash through the wall and keep on running?

“Let’s go with tha centerpieces,” he said.

“FLORAL CENTERPIECES!” screeched Persephone.

With a staff of assistants carrying dozens of flower arrangements, the wedding planner breezed into the room, smiling hugely.

“It’s flower time for our blushing bridal rose!” said the planner.

“This is so much
fun
!” said Persephone. “Isn’t it, Scurby-Durby Bo-Burby?”

“Yes, Ploppy,” said Scurvy.

“Ploopsie,” said Persephone.

“Now, as you can see, this is a gorgeous
variety
of blooms,” said the planner. “Peonies, sweet peas, orange-tipped leucadendrons.”

Scurvy wondered if it would be possible to recontract the Greenies and melt into a puddle of sludge. Would it really be so bad?