Disclaimer: I don't own The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Or the song Space Oddity, by David Bowie
It was only a week or so after the so-called Denton Affair when they returned.
Brad Majors and his fiancée Janet Weiss were staying with their friend Dr. Everett Scott. This was well enough. The local police had already questioned Brad and Dr. Scott, the local hospital had deemed all three of them fine.
The scandal of it all still hadn't died down when our tale begins. So Janet was almost glad when she saw the strange metal thing land in Dr. Scott's back garden. She'd been sitting on the porch for a little fresh air. It looked very spacey, that contraption, and clearly belonged to some sort of alien.
Moments after the thing appeared a hatch opened up. Out stepped a very familiar redheaded woman. They stared at each other for a moment.
"Ah! Janet Viess," said Magenta. "It's good to see you. We nearly thought we'd ended up in the wrong place, you know."
"Oh…?" was Janet's soft reply, soon followed by a dead faint.
At least she fell into the flowerbed. Far more comfortable than falling onto the flagstone patio, I can assure you. Though none of this mattered to Magenta.
Without even taking much notice of Janet, she marched her way into the house. The door had been left ajar by poor little Janet. After entering the house Magenta paused. Now she didn't know what to do. The room she'd ended up in seemed to be a living room of some kind. The walls were prettily papered, the furniture made of expensive wood, and the whole place reeked of something floral. Half-wilted roses, though Magenta never bothered figuring that out.
None of that mattered. There was something – well, someone – she needed. If that someone wasn't captured and brought back to the palace there would be trouble for everyone. Especially Magenta's darling brother. Queen Dulcibella sure knew Magenta's greatest weakness…
So, still clad in her shiny space uniform, Magenta carefully crept around the house. After a while she finally found the study. Surely that would be a good place to look for the person she needed to find. Yes, professors like studies.
Magenta opened the door as quickly as possible. There, at the desk, Dr. Scott sat scribbling away. Somehow he didn't notice Magenta's presence until she pointedly cleared her throat.
"By order of ze Queen Dulcibella, you are to be taken to the capital city to be tried. We have evidence that you'd been spying on our Prince. You are also suspected in aiding his murder. Your planet has given us permission to hold you prisoner. It would be in your best interest to hurry up," she declared, smirking slightly.
For some reason Dr. Scott didn't protest to this. Yes, she'd told him not to… but still. He should've said something.
But he didn't. He just stared lazily at her for a moment. Then he set his pen down and held his hands up. And she hadn't even gotten her laser out!
"Come on, then," she said.
Then he did something surprising. He stood up… but refused to move from behind the desk. Like a deer in a car's headlights, Dr. Scott stood there frozen and stared at the alien woman.
"Vhat is vrong?" Magenta asked.
"I vill go vere you vant me to if I'm alloved to bring Brad Majors und Janet Veiss," he explained.
Magenta chuckled. "Stubborn, aren't ve? Though I see nothing vrong with such a request. If they hurry up I'll allow it."
Still looked a bit shocked, Dr. Scott nodded quickly. Then he walked towards the door. Before he could leave, Magenta stepped into his way. Being an older man who wasn't very strong he couldn't exactly push her away. They both knew it.
"Now, Scotty… I vill go with you to find Mr. Majors. I've already found Miss Weiss, she passed out in the garden when my ship landed."
Not much later all three Earthlings and their Transylvanian escort were squished into the little starship. Ironically the 'captive' Dr. Scott was most comfortable, being in the ship's small prison. Everyone else was in the main compartment.
Janet somehow managed to be still unconscious when Magenta piloted the ship away from Earth. Though this didn't last too long…
"Oh! Where are we?" Janet muttered, her eyelids fluttering prettily. "Only a moment ago I was standing on the porch. Then that fearful woman – from the castle, that horrid castle! – just appeared out of nowhere. Why, she gave me quite a scare!"
"Hello, Janet," Magenta said.
This startled poor Janet. She hid behind Brad, and he put her arm around her protectively. Since the Denton Affair she'd reverted into even more of a mousy little thing and he'd be glad to keep filling the role of protector. It gave them both something to live for. Instead of wasting away while brooding about what had happened to him that terrible night, Brad had the task of looking after Janet all the time. Janet herself had it a bit easier – all she needed to do was constantly behave like a victim. It was a little system that worked far too well.
"Vhy are you so afraid?" Magenta asked, prodding Janet with one of her red-lacquered fingernails.
The girl winced slightly. Crouching in this cramped little ship wasn't very nice. Not only was Brad – who she hadn't married yet – indecently near to her, it meant that escaping that redheaded fiend was impossible.
The so-called 'redheaded fiend' found Janet very interesting to observe. How funny all this cowering she did was! All that shivering in the corner, the burying of her pretty little face in Brad's jacket. The way she clung to the Earthling-man seemed very odd to Magenta. It didn't do either of them much good. If anything, it just made the both of them even more uncomfortable. Not to mention it was far from sexual. Why bother being so close if nothing was going to happen? This Magenta couldn't figure out. At least it mean they weren't in her way as she attempted to pilot the ship. At TimeWarp-11 they wouldn't reach for a few more hours. Anything faster would compromise passenger safety, so Magenta didn't try it.
The earthlings were too shocked by it all to do much. Though soon they were very bored. Brad, feeling both sentimental and cynical, decided to sing.
"Ground Control to Major Tom. Ground Control to Major Tom… Take your protein pills and put your helmet on… Ground Control to Major Tom. Ground Control to Major Tom…"
Janet knew the song too. It'd played on the radios a lot in their last year of high school – 1969. So she sang along: "This is Ground Control to Major Tom. You've really made the grain. And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear. Not it's time to leave the capsule if you dare!"
"This is Major Tom to Ground Control. I'm stepping through the door. And I'm floating in the most peculiar way. And the stars look very different today… For here… I am sitting in a tin can. Far above the world... Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can doooo," Brad sang, in strange response.
It seemed that, somehow, the couple had decided that Brad was Major Tom and Janet Ground Control. Magenta found this strangely entertaining. Especially the extremely serious expressions on both faces. Thanks to that odd creature Columbia's love of such things, Magenta knew of the alien-in-hiding called David Bowie. So she'd heard the song before. But never performed in such a way. It sounded oddly mournful.
Even Dr. Scott in his little prison hummed along with it.
"Though I've passed one hundred thousand miles…. I'm feeling very still! And I think I know what way my spaceship to go from. Tell my wife I love her very much...
"Sheknows…" Janet sang with a sad laugh. "Ground Control to Major Tom, your circuits dead… there's something wrong! Can you hear me Major Tom? Can you hear me Major Tom?"
Her voice grew oddly panicked by the end. As if Major Tom – well, Brad Majors – was really gone all of a sudden. This almost made Magenta laugh. Though something about it was very sad. The song itself was very sad, very ominous.
"And I'm floating around my tin can… far above the moon. Planet earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do…"
With Brad's final line the song ended. After a melancholy pause Magenta began to half-heartedly applaud. She'd liked the little show a lot more than she cared to admit, but she didn't want them to know.
For the rest of the trip nobody spoke. Everything about the little ship – from its four passengers to its thick metal walls – somehow seemed sad.
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