Thursday, September 18, 2008

Have Ray Gun! Will Travel! Please Pay Me! (part 5)

Antarus IV has a problem. Aside from being terminally overcrowded, and smelling of rancid yak butter, apparently some maniac has been reducing citizens to radiant light. But never fear, faithful Antarian Fourians! Clint Corona, freshly laundered space man of space action, is on the case!

My initial attempts at discovering the culprit have not gone well. My initial questions were met with resistance. This resistance was, in turn, met with my foot. I have only one suspect. He will answer my questions once he has found his teeth. He is being assisted by the Friendly Peanut. Its alliance with my pocket lint fell apart. Religious reasons.

Having recovered his teeth, my sole witness has begun reinserting them into his nostrils. Antarian fourians keep their teeth in their nostrils. Antarus IV once had a major problem with airborn insects. A whole ecosystem evolved in the mucus membrane of its dominant life forms. It is best not to think that my sandwiches were made to be consumed nasally. The edge of the space drugs has begun to wear off. I am not sure my stomach could bear the thought of nose food.

The witness can now speak. He does not need nostril teeth for this, but I am a polite man. My boots are tipped with steel, my ray gun is in my hand. I am dangerous, and freshly laundered. And polite. I must not forget polite. Forgetting to be polite is a sign of space madness.

While I write this he is telling me about what he saw. A raving maniac in leather chaps began shooting anyone who looked dangerous. He claimed that they were trying to steal his kidneys. This is sad. By the description, I do not believe that his species has kidneys. Trans-speciesism is a terrible mental illness. What kind of universe must we live in where a perfectly rational being might forget which set of internal organs he is in possession of?

This is puzzling. I did not arrive on Antarus IV before this morning. And even the combined effects of rocket liquor, space drugs, and talking sandwiches cannot have sent me back in time. Thus the only conclusion is that someoneelse on Antarus IV has a ray gun with a "Purify" setting. This is dangerous. It can only be one man...whose name I have forgotten. The Man With No Name is a dangerous and canny foe. He makes Kaz look like a milk deliveryman (...which he actually was, before he won the space lottery and changed his last name to "The Conquerer"). He is not, of course, on par with Dirk Gradient. But Dirk Gradient is a special kind of evil who cannot be described in terms of leather chaps and misplaced kidneys.

This makes my job very easy. The Man With No Name has obviously procured very powerful space drugs. He is seeing imaginary kidney thieving prostitutes. I have had similar visions, mainly while engaged in coitus with actual kidney thieving prostitutes. He will attempt to remedy this by stripping to his underwear and hiding in a small cave with only his ray gun and a bottle of rocket liquor. It is exactly what I would do. Eventually he will ride out the space drug high, and will emerge with bleary eyes and jumbled thoughts. Then I will strike.

My plan hinges on one crucial factor: The slim hope that my ray gun has a setting other than "Purify". I am uncomfortable testing this theory on nearby garbage cans. I do not wish to cause undue property damage. That would be illegal. Nor will I test it on the witness. That would be murder which, while not technically illegal, would be in bad taste. But testing it on the Man With No Name is space justice. So say the space police!

The witness has given me all his space drugs in return for me not kicking his nose teeth out again. I am sure that I am grinning. My face would not hurt this much otherwise. The Friendly Peanut has returned to my pocket with one of the witness' molars as a little crown. It has reentered negotiations with my pocket lint from this superior point of diplomatic authority.

Now I need only find a rocket shuttle to take me to the smallest, darkest, dankest cave on Antarus IV. Then I shall acquire the Man With No Name's ray gun. Then I shall be twice as likely as to kill Dirk Gradient when I find him!

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