Inspiration comes in the strangest forms. For this story it came when I was at work, and there was this funny noise reaching my ears and making my tummy do odd little somersaults. I felt weird, and I don't know why, and it was a bit like deja vu, too. Anyway, strange noises, strange feelings... strange day dreams forming in my mind. Here is the result of such weirdness: a new story.
Not sure how long it will be yet, but I figured writing something is better than writing nothing (chapter 40 of Scars is still in the wings, not to mention all the other projects I have left waiting). I might change the story title, and it might be a while before chapters get names too.
Rated M for weirdness, but following my normal styles you can expect plenty of heartache and dark, disturbing stuff.
Taken
Chapter one:
It was an awesome and terrifying sight.
The machine stood at nearly ten feet tall, six feet wide, and stretched out so far in length the other end was barely discernible. Its inner workings were so complex even his mechanically-oriented mind couldn't make any sense of it. Pipes and dials; cogs and pistons; wires and chips and fuses, all encased together in this one great beast of an engine. It wasn't really an engine, not by what his species classified as one anyway, but having worked with such things all his life it was the closest comparison he could draw.
The thing hummed, too, in an almost monotonous rhythm, a pulsing. It sounded a bit like a heart beat but with only one thud: the dup without the lub, or the lub without the dup. It wasn't anywhere near so soothing as that inner sound though, and in fact every time he heard it his stomach would churn, and his own heart would race twice as fast as if it were trying to disassociate itself from the other.
Vinnie stood there, taking it all in, his eyes wide. The room was vast, as was necessary for housing such a large contraption, which stood running down its centre length so that both sides were easily accessible. At this end, by the doorway, were a number of smaller machines and computer-like stations. Apparently these were for monitoring or controlling the larger one, and were managed by a few of the staff who were not assigned to operate the behemoth dominating the main floor space.
The walls around the machine were more or less bare, with just a few panels at irregular intervals that also appeared to be some sort of computer terminals. From where he stood he couldn't see what was on the screens, but there were people accessing them from time to time so he could only make an educated guess. That was what he did about a few other aspects of the room, too, such as that there didn't appear to be any other doors bar the one he entered, and the clear-walled walkways encircling the upper part of the room seemed to be some kind of observatory. Certainly he could see figures up there, looking down. Watching, perhaps.
Aside from those glass panels above him there were no actual windows in this place. There were no skylights, nor anything at all to give its occupants glimpse of the outside world. Having never seen it himself, Vinnie had no idea what this might look like. Was it inhabitable, or toxic? Were they underground, underwater, or above the surface? Did it have blue skies, like on Earth, or an amber dusk like his birth planet?
Mars. Did that world even exist any more? he wondered. Or had they taken that too, when they had come for them? How long had they known about the red planet and its inhabitants, and why did they choose that moment to make their introductions? Not that it had been much of an introduction. Appearing out of nowhere one second, and silently announcing their intentions the next. In only a few short days the invaders had succeeding in doing what the Plutarkians had failed at trying to for decades.
None of that mattered now though. Vinnie sighed, struggling to push the images of those last days out of his mind. He tried instead to focus on happier memories, wistful rememberings of better times when his life had been filled with action, purpose, heroism, and the deep and meaningful bonds that he had had with his friends. He had to cling onto those feelings, somehow, because in this place there was no such thing. And if he allowed his senses to acknowledge what was about to happen to him then he would certainly crumble, and they would win. Though just how anyone could fight this particular battle was almost unimaginable. He knew deep inside it was one that they had already lost.
Two months earlier...
"Hey don't you worry babe, everything's going to work out fine. Biker's honour."
Throttle cocked his eye through his long, tan-furred fringe, but didn't stop what he was doing, and the woman nodded glumly as she watched the three of them work. They had almost finished boxing up all of their 'Earth stuff' as they called it, and pretty much just had their personal effects, clothing, and anything else they would be needing still left unpacked. Charley had promised to keep in storage what they couldn't take right now, and as soon as a transport vessel became available it would be used to ship it across to their new home. Or their old home, even.
The mice were finally going back to Mars. It had taken them four years to reach this point, but eventually everything had worked out. Earth was safe now; there was no real need for them to stay. The Plutarkians had been ousted from their skyline for the last time. All of them, that is, except for one.
They had never actually expected to draw a truce with Chicago's resident flounder, but after years of fighting with each other, and with him failing to live up to his superior's expectations, Limburger had finally given up. He had quietly asked the mice to let him complete one last acquisition, one that he would do what he could to minimise the long-term damage from it, and once he had received his last tainted pay cheque from his home world – and thus have enough capital to sort himself out with more legitimate finances – he would put a stop to any more of their operations on Earth. Permanently.
The purple-suited Plutarkian had held good on his word. Somehow he had convinced the council on Plutark, and the Lord High chairman Camembert himself, that Earth was no longer viable for resource harvesting. The mice and Charley had no idea how exactly he did this, but mere days after his final land withdrawal they detected a stench carrier in lunar orbit, and the subsequent vanishing of each and every other of the human-masked fish disguised down on planet Earth. Except Limburger. Apparently he was to remain in exile, cut off from his own kind, as a punishment for the catalogue of failures connected to his name.
The mice suspected the stranded fish had managed to sway that verdict too.
Now that Limburger was free of the burden his own planet had put upon him, he was at last able to just be himself. A businessman, or a crime boss, or just a malodorous millionaire with time on his hands. Either way, he didn't pose any kind of real threat now that his external funding had been cut, and now that his goon army had disbanded, his super villains re-commissioned elsewhere, and his access to alien technology all but halted. Even Karbunkle had gone, so there was no one around to encourage him to return to his deviant and despicable ways.
There was one thing that Limburger had kept of that old life, something which he had concealed from the Plutarkian council when they came by to repossess their nation's technology. He hadn't had it for long though; his transporter had swiftly been 'borrowed' indefinitely by the mice, and the moment Charley got her hands on it she modified it to prevent any future alien threat to Earth.
For the time being it would only connect to Mars, and nowhere else, and certainly not to Plutark. Now that she and the mice had it in their possession they would be putting it to good use. And once that was done... well they wouldn't need it anymore, and they wouldn't want anyone else to have it either. They would go home, and it would be set to self destruct upon their final exit. Charley would stay behind to make sure this happened, of course.
The pull from their native land was strong, but not definitive. The mice had at first offered to stay behind and live out their lives with their human companion on Earth. But she could see in their eyes the deep longing they had to be back with their own kind, on their own planet, where they could be themselves and not have to hide. Where they could be free to roam, free to ride their Martian bikes as fast as they liked without reprisal, and free to blast their laser weapons at just about anything without causing any serious damage.
For the next couple of months Charley's garage would be rid of any danger of being blown to pieces by her rambunctious houseguests. Or smashed up. Or turned upside down. Or covered in muddy boot prints. Stale leftovers. Root beer spills. Grease, oil, blood. Let's not forget the fur; oh so much fur! She had never known anything to shed so much damn hair, not even the Labrador mix she had had as a child. At least the dog had had its own set of towels, brushes and shampoos, and didn't insist on raiding her toiletry cabinet 'just to see what something looked/smelled/tasted/felt like to use.'
Despite all the things that irked her about the bros, however, the next few months were going to be so empty without them. Even with them assuring her that the time would fly by, and that once they had got their new pad set up they would be back, no delays, she knew it was still going to be difficult. And boring. And lonely. But she would wait here until they returned, because when they did it wouldn't just be for their stuff. She would be accompanying them, and her own belongings, to their new home. Her new home. They mice had insisted she was welcome to join them, and it hadn't taken her long to make her decision.
In the meantime she had to finalise the sale of the garage, which would keep her busy in itself, but up until that point she would still have small jobs on the go – clients that had been good to her that she wouldn't turn away until she had to – and her own packing to do.
Charley didn't actually have a great deal, not beyond what she had in the garage itself, and the bare basics in the way of furniture and other amenities in order for her to actually live. In fact, looking at the stacks of boxes scattered haphazardly around the mice's own living space, the scoreboard at Quigley field, she almost thought the three Martians had amassed far more junk than she had ever owned in her entire life.
"Do you really need to keep that?" she asked again and again in exasperation, pointing this time to the giant cardboard cut-out of what used to be Vinnie's fifty dollar poster of himself. "Or that" she added, spying the white mouse himself sneaking a miniature bubble-gum dispenser back into the box she had sifted through earlier.
Caught in the act, Vinnie grinned impishly. "Sure I do, sweetheart. The guys back home will never believe me otherwise."
Charley rolled her eyes. That was his excuse for almost everything he had kept. They had argued for the better part of the last week on just what exactly would be useful to take to Mars, and what really wouldn't. The mechanic knew that boys loved their toys, and hadn't batted an eyelid at the various gizmos and gadgets they insisted on packing up – especially the things she knew didn't even exist on their home planet, and that might provide some kind of entertainment, or fascination. But keeping useless mementos such as broken candy machines; faded, torn posters of rock and roll legends; lumps of dirt that looked like.. like... well that last rock had vaguely resembled Madonna she would admit... and ego-fuelling pictures of the mice themselves that had been turned into a makeshift dartboard? No way.
"I swear to god Vinnie, I have never seen anyone keep so much crap, let alone want to cart it all half way across the solar system just to show off to his friends, who won't have a clue what they are anyway."
"That's the point doll, how will they know unless I show them?"
The white mouse didn't seem to notice her ensuing glare, and happily plucked another discarded item from her pile.
He wasn't the only one trying to hide things she had already put in the trash back into the storage crates. Throttle was in the middle of slipping a shopping bag full of bottle caps in amongst his stack, and Modo blushed furiously as the green-eyed woman settled her gaze on the rubber ducky he was failing to conceal behind his back.
Honestly. I'm sure they said they didn't even have bath tubs on Mars.
Considering that the mice had arrived on Earth with nothing but their bikes and the clothes on their backs, and considering just how un-materialistic their kind tended to be, there really was an awful lot of boxes that she was going to have to deal with. And pay storage costs for.
"We're sorry Charley-ma'am, we.. it's just..." Modo was floundering, embarrassed, and the woman softened.
"It's al'right you big lug, if you really want to keep every piece of... every hunk of..." Every memory they have of this place, "...everything you guys have collected whilst you've lived here... umm.. I guess that's fine with me."
She slumped, defeated, and Modo grinned, promptly joining his two bros in a violent scramble to claim back all the bits of rubbish the Earth woman had put to one side. She sighed for the hundredth time that afternoon. If she hadn't been so worried she might have laughed at the ridiculous site of the three of them fighting over nothing, the trash pile soon abandoned in favour of their typical rough and tumble.
Charley feigned a small smile, but it wasn't enough to calm the unease she felt deep inside. What if something went wrong? What if the transporter malfunctioned, what if they never made it back to Mars, what if they never came back to Earth to get her, what if Limburger had set them up and the moment the mice left the Plutarkians came crashing through the door again?
Dozens of versions of the worst case scenario nagged relentlessly at her mind.
Don't be an idiot Charlene, the guys will be fine. You fixed up that transporter, and tested it, and you will be here to make sure that fat fish keeps on the straight and narrow. Two months is nothing, they'll be back before you know it.
A loud crash brought her back to her senses. Three panting mice lay in a heap amongst a sea of upturned boxes, their contents not just spilled but practically exploded around them.
The worry lifted, and her smile deepened. On the up side, she thought, she would have two months peace and quiet at her disposal, and would be able to pack her belongings in complete and utter safety.
