The Case of the Christmas Card Caper - Part 3
Part One's just a little way down the board
Part Two is "Special Delivery" by WGMY 104.1
Birthday Bandit slicked back his hair, making sure it covered the thin patch at the back, held a hand to his mouth to smell his breath, then assumed a victorious strut across the cloister. "So, ladies," he purred, "I guess you heard about my little victory?"
VelcroVixen, Mary Prankstar, and HuntingJustice DeathMarrow looked at the career supervillain with the ability to channel anyone's power providing it was their birthday. "Little victory?" Mary echoed, glancing south of BB's expanding waistline. "Is that what you call it? Really?"
"I imagine the little part is accurate," VelcroVixen admitted, "although I really don't want to know who could have done the primary research. I thought Dollar Date had retired to daytime TV shows."
"No," Nathan Nashua objected, backing away slightly as the three intimidating ladies eyed his lower costume parts. "That's not what I meant. I mean you know by now how I triumphed over... well, everybody! The Lair Legion is crushed! I am triumphant."
HuntingJustice DeathMarrow hefted a Tachyon Warp Resonance Cannon that could shoot you yesterday and asked him the time.
"The time? It's two fifteen. Why?"
"Not the time on the clock. How long since you did that thing with the Christmas Cards and zapped the heroes into the pictures on them?"
"Whenever the post delivered the letters and they opened them," BB answered. "Call it about an hour ago. Why?"
"Well, I called it one hour fifteen before the roof fell in on your plan and the Legion spanked your candy-striped butt, Bandy," Mary Prankstar explained. "I think VV had an hour twenty-two in the pool, right?"
"It was an unlucky draw," grumbled Vicki Vee.
"No, you don't understand," objected Birthday Bandit. "I won! Definitively. Trapped the Legion and all those other interfering do-gooders away forever. Let the bad times roll!" he wiggled his eyebrows in what he thought was an attractive manner. "Any of you ladies want to roll with me?"
"I only date within my own species," HJDM explained scornfully.
"I don't date guys who interfere with my clients," Mary Prankstar told him. "That's my job."
"And I only date archvillains and goody-goody hero types," VelcroVixen noted. "Not usually at the same time, although that was that one day with Jarvis and Psychic Mastermind..."
"I am an archvillain!" BB argued. "C'mon. I took down the whole freaking Lair Legion! I turned the power of Christmas against them!"
"So now you're on Santa's hit lost?" suggested Mary. "I hear he's got some bad-ass elves on call 24-7."
"No! Look, you know what I did. You have to. I'm using this power amplification stone I found in that ancient sunken many-angled shopping mall in the Pacific. It was tough - I'm still having sushi flashbacks - but now I'm able to extend my power to the whole Christmas anniversary concept and do the Christmas card trick. I'm big league and you ladies had better realise you need to get some of the Birthday Bandit..."
"Before Donar uses you as a bowling ball?" suggested HJDM.
Mary Prankster held her hand up. "I have a kind of a question, Bandy. This power amplification stone. How did you know where to find it?"
"It was a test. A test of my worthiness from... the Hooded Hood!"
The women exchanged significant glances. "Ah. Right. That explains a lot.," VV admitted. "Like how you got this far before your plot collapsed."
"I impressed the Hood. I expect to be asked to join the Purveyors of Peril any day now."
Mary shrugged. "It's not all that much. One minute you're ruling the world and the next your own team-mates are trying to murderise you because of some minor explosive charges you might have sewn into their costume gussets."
VelcroVixen shook her head. "Look, Mary, we were working for the Baroness back then. That's a lot of gusset to explode. She wanted you gone and we're the pros so we tried to make it happen. You know it wasn't personal. Anyway, we're back with Ioldabaoth now, and he's really big on loyalty. If he wants you dead he'll arrange for you to cause your own end in some massively complicated multi-continuity plotline." She smiled brightly at Birthday Bandit.
"I am not going to die!" Nathan argued. "There's no way anyone can get out of my cards of doom. Nothing can stop me now!"
***
"You've got to stop escaping," Ebony of Nubilia told the Manga Shoggoth.
"But I am not enjoying being trapped in two dimensions," the loathsome elder being told his high priestess. "It pinches in private angles."
"Yes, but when you start to ooze out of the card we're trapped in you bleed through everybody's Christmas cards across the planet. And frankly that's not exactly the kind of thing people want coming down their chimney tonight. Or ever."
"I thought I covered very nicely. I said 'Ho ho ho.'"
"And that's one roomful of pre-schoolers who'll never visit a Santa grotto again," admitted Ebony. "And could you stop opening your Christmas cards in here? Opening two-dimensional objects in a different two-dimensional space, some of which have been laced with whatever conceptual trap landed us in here, is doing enough bad things to the local continuum to make it get up a written petition to Al B. Harper."
"But I want to see my cards. So far I've opened about thirty-two of them and so far I haven't really got a grasp on the continuity."
"The... continuity?"
"Yes. It's very non-linear storytelling. I think there are three wizards with magic headgear that allow them to combine into a giant robin and fight to prevent a rogue supernova causing a new ice age, but so far the dialogue has been sorely lacking. I think it's a translation problem, because 'Season's Greetings and Cheer' is a really bad dub of what I suspect should be 'Wonder Crown Powers Activate!'"
Ebony rubbed her temples (not the ones where mad high priests tended to regret trying to summon ancient elder forces when a miffed Shoggoth showed up to explain the rules to them, just the ones that were throbbing now with the sustained requirements of following a conversation with a protoplasmic polygenius with the worldview of an autistic three year old). "Look, we just need to wait for a while. Until the Christmas star is right. Somebody's going to figure out what's happened and sort it out. Do not seep into every sock on the planet as a means of escape."
The Shoggoth made a sulky bubbling sound.
"And do not open that Christmas card from Lisa!" Ebony called just in time.
***
Chiaki Bushido wiped the blood off her blade. "You are telling me that this is not the first time you have been attacked by killer sheep," she observed.
Visionary shook his head. "No. I think this is probably the third occasion. After a while it all blurs together. Maybe number two assault was zombie sheep? I blame spiffy."
The Psychic Samurai looked around the bleak mountain snowscape. The Shepherds of Entropy were gone for now, but they would be back later with reinforcements. "How many times have you been trapped inside a Christmas card?"
"I think this is my first Christmas card," the possibly-fake man mused. "I was caught in a TV once, and some fairy tales of course, and who the hell knows where those weird Space Ghost episodes took place, but Christmas cards are new. I thought the biggest Yuletide hazard was handling crackers that Kerry had decided weren't exciting enough."
Chiaki sighed. "So I can sense that there's a trap that the Lair Legion is going to fall into but not that I'll get caught up in it too if I go warn their leader. Now I'm caught in one of the Legion's zany Yuletide adventures."
"Did I ever tell you about the time we first met Zebulon and Pegasus dated one of Santa's reindeer?" Vizh asked her brightly.
"You have told everyone about that," the Psychic Samurai warned the possibly-fake raconteur. "Several times. Perhaps that is why some enemy is trying to destroy you?"
Visionary tried to get his mind back on business. He wished he'd thought to get out of his pyjamas and into his day clothes before opening his cards. That way his clothing might have shifted into something other than a Wee Willie Winkie striped nightshirt. His slippers were leaking.
"You said you thought you knew who was behind this?" he prompted, stamping to try and keep feeling in his toes and wishing Wee Willie Winkie was more into underwear.
"Birthday Bandit," Chiaki answered promptly. She at least looked good in the angel costume. Vizh had been very impressed how creatively she had used papier mache wings and a plastic halo to cripple killer ovines. "Can't you feel how he's twisting the Christmas anniversary to power his assault?"
"I can't feel anything bellow my knees," Vizh admitted.
"He must have acquired some was of amplifying his abilities. Usually he can psychically duplicate the powers of anyone whose birthday it is. Did the Legion ever discover how?"
"The Bandit's a really old villain of ours. Back in the day we didn't wait to wonder about origins or motivations. Donar had already whomped them into Thursday by then, and Foom sat on 'em. I think Sersi said something about it once but really be were all just admiring her costume. Later we were trying to detach Rocket Racoon from it. Then we were trying to retrieve Rocket Racoon from near-Earth orbit."
"It's something to do with celestial alignments," Chiaki sensed. "The Birthday Bandit's power, I mean. There's no logical explanation for Rocket Racoon at all. The Bandit has some kind of mutation, natural or otherwise, that lets him tap into the narrative weft at the conceptual time when there's an anniversary event. That much is obvious."
Vizh thought about that. "Okay. Can we assume that BB's caught pretty much all the good guys with the Christmas card thing? And if so is there any way we can get to them in whatever cards they're inside?"
"I'm sensing that he managed to get everybody, which is as extraordinary in its way as the fact he was able to transport us here. It's massively unlikely that he'd be able to get absolutely all the heroes at once, but he did it. As to how we could reach the others..."
"Just try," Vizh asked the Psychic Samurai. "There's a whole bunch of people that its not easy to trap like this. You talked about how improbable it was for him to succeed. So find me Dancer, or Yo, or Lisa, or Xander, or Liu Xi, or Space Ghost, or the Shoggoth, or any of those guys. Find the ones who are likely to be pushing the walls of this reality anyhow."
Chiaki heard the howls of the next assault wave of the Shepherds of Entropy. "I can try," she promised. "Which one do we hunt?"
Vizh made a snap decision. "We need to really shake up BB's plans. Find me CrazySugarFreakBoy!"
***
The seven foot high orange and green Transformer robot sat down on a giant candy cane and cradled her head in her hands. "This can't be happening," she told herself. "Maybe it's a critical systems failure. A late incarnation of the Millennium Bug or something. Maybe I'm just terminally malfunctioning. That would be okay. I could handle that."
April Alice Apple knelt down before the worried automaton and knocked gently on her cranium. "Are you okay there, Glitch? Only you're worrying the hell out of us."
"Okay?" the CrazySugarRobot! objected. "How can I be okay? How can I be okay here?"
Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove bounded across the carpet with a huge doll's head in one hand and a vast wooden moustache in the other. "I saw the clockwork soldiers off for now, and the vampire dolly's pretty much out of the picture," he reported. "There's a pretty mean teddy trying to stir up some chocolate frogs to come after us but I think it'll take a while. We should take the chance to get to higher ground, maybe climb the cloth onto that dinner table and - hey, what's wrong with Glitch?"
The robot looked up miserably. "Don't you understand? I've lost the signal!"
April didn't understand. "What signal?"
CSFB! caught on though. He'd found his Walkie-Talkie Wrist Radio had gone dead too. "Glitch is a communications autobot," he explained. "She's jacked into pretty much every signal anywhere in the electromagnetic spectrum. It's as natural to her as sight and touch are to us. And here there's no broadcasts at all. Nothing but dead air."
"Not even a background crackle from the Van Allen Belt," Glitch added. "I've never... it's not right. It's too lonely without the signals."
April laid a comforting hand on the robot's chassis. "Honey, it's only for a while. And you do have signals. We're talking to you right now."
CSFB! agreed. "And there's another thing, kiddo. This is a great time to develop another human-type trait. What you need is an internal monologue and a play-track going in your head 24-7." He grinned. "Maybe a dozen play-tracks or more."
"Only when you do your internal monologue, perhaps you could try and keep it internal?" April suggested to Glitch.
Dream objected. "Hey, I can internalise my monologue, hot red-headed busty chick I so want to roll in the snow right now with some birch twigs!"
Glitch tried to implement CSFB!s advice. "What sort of play-track?" she worried.
"Your call," Dream told her. "It's your head space. You get to decorate it like you want."
Glitch considered this. She started with each Christmas song she'd ever heard. She added a collection of classic movies. She framed every hot human that had ever made her interfaces tingle. "Okay," she admitted. "Not so bad."
"Great stuff," CSFB! encouraged her. "Now, jack my Walkie-talkie into your communications rack because that's given me an idea."
"Do I need to find birch twigs?" April asked, looking around.
"Maybe later. Right now I want Glitch to stop internalising her monologue. She said there was no signal, but she's not just a radio tuner. She's the most sophisticated broadcasting interface on the whole damn planet. No signal? We are the signal."
"You want to go live!" the Autobot realised.
"CrazySugarFreakRadio! WHAM 213.4 is on the air!" Dreamcatcher Foxglove announced. "We might be trapped in Christmas cards but nobody said they weren't singing Christmas cards! Pump up the volume, Glitchy! Let's do a shout out for the Lair Legion!"
Glitch rose up, grinning too. Around her the parcels and candy canes began to vibrate.
"Going live!"
***
Sniiqattaaq looked up from his gory work. "This is good," the Inuit God of Things Best Done When The Narrative Is Elsewhere told his companions as he stood knee-deep in assassin reindeer entrails. "Now we have the basic building blocks of civilisation. Wait there while I stitch these skins into a small native village and develop agriculture. Let me know if you see a killer whale."
Harmanda Barriere backed away from the splash zone of Inuit industry. "I know that survival is our first priority, but did you have to drink the yellow snow?"
"That's the best bit," Sniiqattaaq assured her. "I feel much better now I've had breakfast."
"And who hasn't drunk yellow snow before?" Warren Kennedy-Rockefeller-Hearst-De Sade IV argued. "Recreationally, I mean."
"Stay away from me."
Fetish Lad rummaged somewhere in the rubbery parts of his costume and produced straps of leather linked by chains. "If we can catch the next assassin reindeer alive we could harness them up and try to fly them out of here. I'm pretty sure we could steer them with properly applied genital clamps."
Sniiqattaaq's blast zone was looking better. "There may be other people trapped in here," Harmanda said hopefully. "People with ways of getting us out. Or of getting restraining orders. We should find them."
"I'll construct a kayak," Sniiqattaaq promised. "Find me a walrus, polar bear, or fairly fat French-Canadian."
"Hold on," Fetish Lad called. "I'm getting something!" He reached down into his shorts and pulled out a long black buzzing object."
Harmanda didn't want to know where he'd got it from. She was more interested in the noises it made when the tuning ring was twisted at its base. "Is that CrazySugarFreakBoy! singing along to Fairytale of New York?" she puzzled. Her day was not improving.
"It certainly felt like it," Fetish Lad admitted. "And listen!"
"Yeah, that was another oldie but goodie," Dream's voice came from the device in tinny tones. "And now its time for our next caller. Hello, caller, you're live on WHAM 213.4. Do you have a request?"
"Yes," Visionary said. "I'd like to get the hell out of here, please."
"Sounds good to us here at CrazySugarFreakRadio! Is there something you want to suggest? Maybe some kind of competition?"
"I have a suggestion for a competition!" Fetish Lad offered.
"No," said Harmanda Barriere.
"Phone them and see if they know where the nearest seal colony is," Sniiqattaaq asked. "And find me a heavy lump of wood."
"We need to do something to disrupt Birthday Bandit's power," came the voice of Chiaki Bushido. "We need to stop the cosmic alignment enabling him to imprison us all."
"Or find some more yellow snow," added Sniiqattaaq.
"Hold on, caller," CSFB! said. "We're getting another call on line two. Put her through, Glitch."
"Ebony here," came the new voice, liquid and sensual. "Has anyone located the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity?"
"Who can shift time and stop it being today!" Vizh realised. "Yeah, that's who we need. Dream, try and locate Sir Mumphrey Wilton!"
"On it right now, Vizhster! Okay listeners. You hard the possibly-fake caller. Get out there and locate a walrus-moustached Englishman and deploy him immediately."
"Walrus moustached," noted Sniiqattaaq.
"Do not go there," Harmanda warned him. "Start planning a search vector for Wilton. Fetish Lad, why has CrazySugarFreakBoy's voice suddenly got so muffled?"
Fetish Lad smirked and winked.
***
To be concluded... on New Year's Day! (so it's still not too late to do a tie-in)
***
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Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2011 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2011 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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