The Bloated One
Well-Known Member
Dear All,
A little bit of anarchic fun from my opus. Any views, thoughts, brickbats or bouquets gratefully received....
This is set in the year 2340.
TJ & The Porta LOO
"Welcome to the worm hole Cathedral of Tuerpicon," said Jules.
"Goodness gracious!" gasped Alice.
"Holy moley," said Tarquin, "We’re inside a Cathedral! Is it St Paul’s?"
"Yep, dead on TJ," said Jules, leading them down the nave toward the dome. "Chris and I did a deal over the plans when I visited the construction site some years ago." He opened his arms as if to preach, " It’s a perfect copy, though the dome is a mile higher than the original." Jules’s face took on his trademark anarchic expression.
"Occasionally, I get asked back to play ‘Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor’." He said wiggling a finger in the air. "It helps the BRONCO machinery keep time and allows the spotters to listen to their favourite music while working…"
The Cathedral was cool and dark, filled with the tangy zest of freshly squeezed oranges and antiseptic mouthwash. At the apse end, rising several hundred feet from the floor was an illuminated 3D map of every canal in the UK. Each one was colour coded and shown in great detail with locks, tunnels, boats and lock keepers’ cottages. Tarquin remembered seeing a 2D map in Alice’s book.
They followed Jules toward a transparent dodecahedron, partially buried in the floor under the dome. Jules stopped them beside a deep moat encircling the structure and pointed inside.
"This is where we monitor the UK’s space time relationship, wormholes, alien probes and abnormal activity. We call it Portal Link to Ocular Observation—or Porta LOO for short"
Tarquin looked into the transparent sphere. Sitting on 1950s leather and chrome barber chairs and positioned in a wide circle around a large hole in the floor were thirty, humanoid females. Thick red straps held what looked like coloured ten pin bowling balls to their heads. Each ball helmet sprouted a transparent cafetiere, filled with a bubbling, fluorescing green liquid. Attached to each cafetiere plunger, was a tube that led down the back of each chair and into a box. Flying goggles protected the humanoids eyes. But, instead of flat glass in the goggles, it was conical, yellow, and extended six inches from the goggles frame. From inside the large boxes positioned under each chair, several cables the size of a blagburter’s thigh disappeared into the floor. In front of each humanoid, hovering silently at eye level was a three-dimensional tennis ball sized world that radiated light and a myriad of colours.
Jules pointed at the humanoids.
"We call these wonderful ladies ‘spotters’. They sit and monitor the canals through the vortex sphere floating above them. When they come on duty, they take over a vortex and observe through adapted Look-See goggles." Jules pointed to the galleries on each side of the Porta LOO, rising thousands of metres above them. "If we need a closer look, we fire up the supercharged BRONCO."
"BRONCO?" asked Alice
.
"Yeah, Brangleweed’s Retrobuccled Ocular Neutrocclusical Cementoblastoma Oligos We fire it up and observe intruders and chase them down if necessary. Each gallery in the north and south transcript covers one canal."
They looked up. Inside one gallery named the Llangollen Canal, a dozen people wearing scuba gear were preparing a BRONCO cage. They worked so quickly that it reminded Tarquin of a pit stop at a F1 Grand Prix.
A woman inside the dome waved at Jules.
"We may have an incident, follow me." Jules led them across a small bridge and before crossing, he pointed to the moat. "That’s liquid nitrogen, keeps the vortex and the crypt machinery cool. Not advisable to swim in it."
They carefully trooped across the bridge, went through the Porta LOO entrance, down a set of steps and fanned out around the circle of barber chairs. A slender, humanoid woman with black hair wearing military style fatigues walked toward them. Tarquin couldn’t help noticing that her mouth was centred in her face, her eyes were shaped like eggs and she lacked both a nose and ears.
"We have a Griddleback incursion in Wales. Shall I explain it to your guests?"
Jules nodded.
"My name is Estriusa Trangledome, today’s BRONCO Operations Shift Manager. It’s a bit of a mouthful so just call me E.T. Please collect some headsets and goggles from the shelves over there, and follow me."
They did as she asked and followed her to a chair.
"Would one of you like to put on your goggles? Perhaps the human girl would like to?"
Alice stepped forward and gingerly put on the conical glasses.
"Wow!" she exclaimed, "It’s…it’s my canal… it’s the Llangollen!"
Alice stretched out her arms, as though teetering on the edge of a canal bank.
"That’s a good enough place to start," said Estriusa, gently guiding Alice toward the chair in front of her. "Okay everyone, goggles on and gather round."
They put on the goggles and joined Alice walking in summer sunshine by a canal lock.
Inside the Porta LOO, six wooden puppets walked gingerly about the floor.
Estriusa and Jules moved to the Llangollen Canal’s spotter console screen.
"We have an intruder in an unmarked ship travelling down Wormhole 99-1a/yyy/was/Llangollen," said the humanoid spotter.
Estriusa turned to Jules. " May be harmlessly passing through Wales, so a useful training exercise, we’ll track it. Do you fancy playing it in?" she said, in a matter of fact, two pints of lager and a packet of crisps barman, please, sort of way.
Jules nodded, "I haven’t played for a while," he said, bashfully.
"Don’t be so modest, you have perfect pitch and timing," said Estriusa with a smile.
She looked up at gallery in the north transept and spoke into her microphone.
"Scramble BRONCO Bill."
Jules left the group and made his way to the Grand Organ.
Estriusa took a step backward. "Goggles off everyone."
Alice was the last to remove her goggles, reluctant to leave her favourite canal on a lovely summer’s day.
"And stand back."
Estriusa moved Alice gently back from the machinery just as arms extended from the barber’s chair. The female operator pulled hard on the seat harness, wriggled in the seat and gripped the arms.
"Possible incursion through the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct worm hole, in 5-4-3-2-1…"
The orb in front of the spotter spun and took off, accelerating upward into the centre of the dome. The operator’s chair dipped forward and flew silently into the air, trailing an umbilical cord of wires and tubes from the box under the seat, before spinning 360 degrees, and pursuing the fast moving orb, now a hundred metres in the air. The remaining operators, unconcerned with their colleague’s crazed amusement ride, stayed focused on their orbs.
"It can get pretty hectic in here when we are dealing with simultaneous incursions," said Estriusa, as they watched the spotter rise and fall in pursuit of the oscillating orb.
A pirouette, a dive and with a slow, banking curve the spotter gained on the orb and caught it between her goggle cones.
"Okay, she’s caught the worm opening."
The spotter descended slowly and retook her position amidst the circle of chairs.
"Time for BRONCO Bill."
High above their heads, Jules had taken his seat at the Grand Organ. Above him, a large digital clock began a count down. Tarquin recognised the sequence from Jethro’s manic BRONCO ride in the caravan by the canal.
With preparations inside the north transept gallery completed, the pit crew disappeared and a hexagon shaped metallic cage the size of a small truck appeared at the gallery entrance. Inside the cage, suspended on huge pneumatic springs was an egg shaped seat. Strapped to the seat and wearing what looked like a turn of the century deep-sea divers rubber suit was another, humanoid female.
"That’s Rielda ‘Hawkwind’" Crapriggle. She’s a Horosa Bronco Mistress, third class. Just started with the programme. This will be her second trip. She’s learning to silent tag intruders," said Estruisa. Her face lit up. "Reddy has great potential and simply adores earth’s 1970’s heavy rock!"She winked and gleefully rubbed her hands. This will be one hell of a ride for her!"
"Hell and Reddy," said the professor with a chortle, causing Estruisa to laugh loudly. Everyone else just looked puzzled.
The screen numbers reached a thousand and Rielda pulled on the Look-See’s, took the hairdryer hood from a member of the pit crew and fastened it securely to her head. Estriusa leant forward and pressed a couple of buttons on the console ahead of her.
All eyes moved to the cage. A tingle ran the length of Tarquin’s spine.
"Let’s hear what she’s listening to…ahhhh, a nice bit of Ba-Rock Cathedral music to accompany her ride." A thudding four-four beat filled their headsets, followed by chugging power chords and a chainsaw voice like a thousand harpies, screamed inside their heads.
The Professor suddenly leapt to his right and began a manic air guitar routine, oblivious to all around him. Tarquin watched the disjointed, uncoordinated display and wondered whether, if an infinite number of Specky Drams were given an infinite amount of time, could they ever play air guitar convincingly?
The numbers dropped below a hundred and a spotlight opened on Jules.
"Interlocking BRONCO descent with Organ…in… 5-4-3-2-1"
Jules raised his arms elaborately above his head and crashed them onto the organ keys on the 1. The peeling sound of Bach’s Toccata filled the cathedral and the hexagon rolled off the gallery edge, dropping like a stone. Archie, Alice and Tarquin dived for cover, but instead of the hexagon crashing through the dodecahedron ceiling, it slowed, as if pushing against an elasticised force field. The BRONCO hexagon halted several feet above the ceiling and, pulling incredible ‘G’, pinged upward and out if sight.
Estriusa pulled down her microphone.
"Sorry everyone, I should have mentioned the LRC’s proctecto safety sheath that floats unseen inside the dome. We are all safe inside here. There hasn’t been an accident for years."
Alice looked at the Professor. "What’s the LRC?"
"London Rubber Company…No call for their products these days, unless you are into historical re-enactment. I had them custom build a number of clear, protective coats, so our BRONCO’s could fly safely within the Cathedral. Bloody clever really. And they come in different flavours!"
Static crackled over the intercom and Jules’s voice interjected. "He made up the flavour bit. Whoever heard of an edible mackintosh in 1980?"
Estruisa grinned and moved toward the dentist chair in front of them. "Would you like to see what Rielda is seeing?" she asked. Everyone nodded enthusiastically. She flicked a couple of switches on the console.
"Okay, now find a space on the floor over there and get yourselves comfortable." She watched as everyone found a space.
"Lay flat, bend your knees and put on the goggles. If you feel sick, just press the big red button on the side of your goggles, It’ll take you out of the BRONCO and back here to the Porta LOO."
Tarquin pulled on the goggles and let out a mournful cry. He was on the edge of a cliff and falling down a brightly-lit tunnel, following a stream of radiating particles coming from something in the distance. He felt like the figurehead, on the prow of ship in the middle of a turbulent storm, unable to influence the tossing and turning of the BRONCO as Rielda manoeuvred it closer to the intruder.
After spinning 360 degrees he felt horribly ill and automatically reached for the red button, but a voice stayed his hand. With gritted teeth he fought back his nausea and thankfully, just as he was about to hurl, the tunnel widened and burst into light. He gasped in awe as he flew at speed across green fields and small villages following a thin blue line of water below.
The intruder had disappeared. His nausea was overtaken by a sense of incredulity, as his senses were bombarded with the incredible. It was then that he saw the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct coming rapidly toward him. Something felt wrong. The BRONCO jolted and veered abruptly to the right, before descending rapidly and hedge hopping its way back along the course of the River Dee, straight for the aqueduct. The shrill sound of a terrified voice seared through his head,
"Help! I’ve been hit, I’ve lost control!"
Tarquin’s stomach flipped and he felt it drop a hundred feet. His mouth was as dry as a Shagganat’s humour. With the aqueduct columns fast approaching, the BRONCO started to wobble and roll from left to right. He had to act.
TBO
A little bit of anarchic fun from my opus. Any views, thoughts, brickbats or bouquets gratefully received....
This is set in the year 2340.
TJ & The Porta LOO
"Welcome to the worm hole Cathedral of Tuerpicon," said Jules.
"Goodness gracious!" gasped Alice.
"Holy moley," said Tarquin, "We’re inside a Cathedral! Is it St Paul’s?"
"Yep, dead on TJ," said Jules, leading them down the nave toward the dome. "Chris and I did a deal over the plans when I visited the construction site some years ago." He opened his arms as if to preach, " It’s a perfect copy, though the dome is a mile higher than the original." Jules’s face took on his trademark anarchic expression.
"Occasionally, I get asked back to play ‘Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor’." He said wiggling a finger in the air. "It helps the BRONCO machinery keep time and allows the spotters to listen to their favourite music while working…"
The Cathedral was cool and dark, filled with the tangy zest of freshly squeezed oranges and antiseptic mouthwash. At the apse end, rising several hundred feet from the floor was an illuminated 3D map of every canal in the UK. Each one was colour coded and shown in great detail with locks, tunnels, boats and lock keepers’ cottages. Tarquin remembered seeing a 2D map in Alice’s book.
They followed Jules toward a transparent dodecahedron, partially buried in the floor under the dome. Jules stopped them beside a deep moat encircling the structure and pointed inside.
"This is where we monitor the UK’s space time relationship, wormholes, alien probes and abnormal activity. We call it Portal Link to Ocular Observation—or Porta LOO for short"
Tarquin looked into the transparent sphere. Sitting on 1950s leather and chrome barber chairs and positioned in a wide circle around a large hole in the floor were thirty, humanoid females. Thick red straps held what looked like coloured ten pin bowling balls to their heads. Each ball helmet sprouted a transparent cafetiere, filled with a bubbling, fluorescing green liquid. Attached to each cafetiere plunger, was a tube that led down the back of each chair and into a box. Flying goggles protected the humanoids eyes. But, instead of flat glass in the goggles, it was conical, yellow, and extended six inches from the goggles frame. From inside the large boxes positioned under each chair, several cables the size of a blagburter’s thigh disappeared into the floor. In front of each humanoid, hovering silently at eye level was a three-dimensional tennis ball sized world that radiated light and a myriad of colours.
Jules pointed at the humanoids.
"We call these wonderful ladies ‘spotters’. They sit and monitor the canals through the vortex sphere floating above them. When they come on duty, they take over a vortex and observe through adapted Look-See goggles." Jules pointed to the galleries on each side of the Porta LOO, rising thousands of metres above them. "If we need a closer look, we fire up the supercharged BRONCO."
"BRONCO?" asked Alice
.
"Yeah, Brangleweed’s Retrobuccled Ocular Neutrocclusical Cementoblastoma Oligos We fire it up and observe intruders and chase them down if necessary. Each gallery in the north and south transcript covers one canal."
They looked up. Inside one gallery named the Llangollen Canal, a dozen people wearing scuba gear were preparing a BRONCO cage. They worked so quickly that it reminded Tarquin of a pit stop at a F1 Grand Prix.
A woman inside the dome waved at Jules.
"We may have an incident, follow me." Jules led them across a small bridge and before crossing, he pointed to the moat. "That’s liquid nitrogen, keeps the vortex and the crypt machinery cool. Not advisable to swim in it."
They carefully trooped across the bridge, went through the Porta LOO entrance, down a set of steps and fanned out around the circle of barber chairs. A slender, humanoid woman with black hair wearing military style fatigues walked toward them. Tarquin couldn’t help noticing that her mouth was centred in her face, her eyes were shaped like eggs and she lacked both a nose and ears.
"We have a Griddleback incursion in Wales. Shall I explain it to your guests?"
Jules nodded.
"My name is Estriusa Trangledome, today’s BRONCO Operations Shift Manager. It’s a bit of a mouthful so just call me E.T. Please collect some headsets and goggles from the shelves over there, and follow me."
They did as she asked and followed her to a chair.
"Would one of you like to put on your goggles? Perhaps the human girl would like to?"
Alice stepped forward and gingerly put on the conical glasses.
"Wow!" she exclaimed, "It’s…it’s my canal… it’s the Llangollen!"
Alice stretched out her arms, as though teetering on the edge of a canal bank.
"That’s a good enough place to start," said Estriusa, gently guiding Alice toward the chair in front of her. "Okay everyone, goggles on and gather round."
They put on the goggles and joined Alice walking in summer sunshine by a canal lock.
Inside the Porta LOO, six wooden puppets walked gingerly about the floor.
Estriusa and Jules moved to the Llangollen Canal’s spotter console screen.
"We have an intruder in an unmarked ship travelling down Wormhole 99-1a/yyy/was/Llangollen," said the humanoid spotter.
Estriusa turned to Jules. " May be harmlessly passing through Wales, so a useful training exercise, we’ll track it. Do you fancy playing it in?" she said, in a matter of fact, two pints of lager and a packet of crisps barman, please, sort of way.
Jules nodded, "I haven’t played for a while," he said, bashfully.
"Don’t be so modest, you have perfect pitch and timing," said Estriusa with a smile.
She looked up at gallery in the north transept and spoke into her microphone.
"Scramble BRONCO Bill."
Jules left the group and made his way to the Grand Organ.
Estriusa took a step backward. "Goggles off everyone."
Alice was the last to remove her goggles, reluctant to leave her favourite canal on a lovely summer’s day.
"And stand back."
Estriusa moved Alice gently back from the machinery just as arms extended from the barber’s chair. The female operator pulled hard on the seat harness, wriggled in the seat and gripped the arms.
"Possible incursion through the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct worm hole, in 5-4-3-2-1…"
The orb in front of the spotter spun and took off, accelerating upward into the centre of the dome. The operator’s chair dipped forward and flew silently into the air, trailing an umbilical cord of wires and tubes from the box under the seat, before spinning 360 degrees, and pursuing the fast moving orb, now a hundred metres in the air. The remaining operators, unconcerned with their colleague’s crazed amusement ride, stayed focused on their orbs.
"It can get pretty hectic in here when we are dealing with simultaneous incursions," said Estriusa, as they watched the spotter rise and fall in pursuit of the oscillating orb.
A pirouette, a dive and with a slow, banking curve the spotter gained on the orb and caught it between her goggle cones.
"Okay, she’s caught the worm opening."
The spotter descended slowly and retook her position amidst the circle of chairs.
"Time for BRONCO Bill."
High above their heads, Jules had taken his seat at the Grand Organ. Above him, a large digital clock began a count down. Tarquin recognised the sequence from Jethro’s manic BRONCO ride in the caravan by the canal.
With preparations inside the north transept gallery completed, the pit crew disappeared and a hexagon shaped metallic cage the size of a small truck appeared at the gallery entrance. Inside the cage, suspended on huge pneumatic springs was an egg shaped seat. Strapped to the seat and wearing what looked like a turn of the century deep-sea divers rubber suit was another, humanoid female.
"That’s Rielda ‘Hawkwind’" Crapriggle. She’s a Horosa Bronco Mistress, third class. Just started with the programme. This will be her second trip. She’s learning to silent tag intruders," said Estruisa. Her face lit up. "Reddy has great potential and simply adores earth’s 1970’s heavy rock!"She winked and gleefully rubbed her hands. This will be one hell of a ride for her!"
"Hell and Reddy," said the professor with a chortle, causing Estruisa to laugh loudly. Everyone else just looked puzzled.
The screen numbers reached a thousand and Rielda pulled on the Look-See’s, took the hairdryer hood from a member of the pit crew and fastened it securely to her head. Estriusa leant forward and pressed a couple of buttons on the console ahead of her.
All eyes moved to the cage. A tingle ran the length of Tarquin’s spine.
"Let’s hear what she’s listening to…ahhhh, a nice bit of Ba-Rock Cathedral music to accompany her ride." A thudding four-four beat filled their headsets, followed by chugging power chords and a chainsaw voice like a thousand harpies, screamed inside their heads.
The Professor suddenly leapt to his right and began a manic air guitar routine, oblivious to all around him. Tarquin watched the disjointed, uncoordinated display and wondered whether, if an infinite number of Specky Drams were given an infinite amount of time, could they ever play air guitar convincingly?
The numbers dropped below a hundred and a spotlight opened on Jules.
"Interlocking BRONCO descent with Organ…in… 5-4-3-2-1"
Jules raised his arms elaborately above his head and crashed them onto the organ keys on the 1. The peeling sound of Bach’s Toccata filled the cathedral and the hexagon rolled off the gallery edge, dropping like a stone. Archie, Alice and Tarquin dived for cover, but instead of the hexagon crashing through the dodecahedron ceiling, it slowed, as if pushing against an elasticised force field. The BRONCO hexagon halted several feet above the ceiling and, pulling incredible ‘G’, pinged upward and out if sight.
Estriusa pulled down her microphone.
"Sorry everyone, I should have mentioned the LRC’s proctecto safety sheath that floats unseen inside the dome. We are all safe inside here. There hasn’t been an accident for years."
Alice looked at the Professor. "What’s the LRC?"
"London Rubber Company…No call for their products these days, unless you are into historical re-enactment. I had them custom build a number of clear, protective coats, so our BRONCO’s could fly safely within the Cathedral. Bloody clever really. And they come in different flavours!"
Static crackled over the intercom and Jules’s voice interjected. "He made up the flavour bit. Whoever heard of an edible mackintosh in 1980?"
Estruisa grinned and moved toward the dentist chair in front of them. "Would you like to see what Rielda is seeing?" she asked. Everyone nodded enthusiastically. She flicked a couple of switches on the console.
"Okay, now find a space on the floor over there and get yourselves comfortable." She watched as everyone found a space.
"Lay flat, bend your knees and put on the goggles. If you feel sick, just press the big red button on the side of your goggles, It’ll take you out of the BRONCO and back here to the Porta LOO."
* * *
Tarquin pulled on the goggles and let out a mournful cry. He was on the edge of a cliff and falling down a brightly-lit tunnel, following a stream of radiating particles coming from something in the distance. He felt like the figurehead, on the prow of ship in the middle of a turbulent storm, unable to influence the tossing and turning of the BRONCO as Rielda manoeuvred it closer to the intruder.
After spinning 360 degrees he felt horribly ill and automatically reached for the red button, but a voice stayed his hand. With gritted teeth he fought back his nausea and thankfully, just as he was about to hurl, the tunnel widened and burst into light. He gasped in awe as he flew at speed across green fields and small villages following a thin blue line of water below.
The intruder had disappeared. His nausea was overtaken by a sense of incredulity, as his senses were bombarded with the incredible. It was then that he saw the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct coming rapidly toward him. Something felt wrong. The BRONCO jolted and veered abruptly to the right, before descending rapidly and hedge hopping its way back along the course of the River Dee, straight for the aqueduct. The shrill sound of a terrified voice seared through his head,
"Help! I’ve been hit, I’ve lost control!"
Tarquin’s stomach flipped and he felt it drop a hundred feet. His mouth was as dry as a Shagganat’s humour. With the aqueduct columns fast approaching, the BRONCO started to wobble and roll from left to right. He had to act.
TBO
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