Chapter 2: "I am...Cable Guy!"
Houston and Hardy were both headed to the Federation Headquarters office
so that they could do a little research on the case. Not long after
they had entered, did an officer report to them.
"Sir? We have a situation. We have it logged on the navigation monitor
of your truck. We've already sent a team, and they say that..." Hardy
grabs a donut and looks at the officer.
"Well? That what?" The officer turns away.
"That...there were Space Pirates leaving the scene...followed by Ridley."
Hardy stops from eating the donut before he even took his first bite.
"We gotta go, Houston! You!" The officer turns around.
"Yes, sir?" Houston dashes out of the door, and Hardy stops in
mid-waddle.
"Send a medical team, at once! If Ridley was there, I want few-if any-
casualties!" Hardy continues to waddle out to his truck. He and Houston
both speed off to the location marked. Hardy drops Houston off on the
other side of the block. He then speeds away.
"Well, looks like I'm going in from the back." Houston takes out a
small cable wire fashioned into a circlet. "CABLE GUY CHANGE!!" He
puts the wire circlet on his head and his outfit changes into a cable
technician's uniform. He then dashes down the alley. Halfway down,
he sees three men all encroaching on Samus.
"Augh...not her. Oh, well. Gotta save everybody." Houston gets closer
to the scene.
"STOP RIGHT THERE!" The three men turn around. "I AM THE DEFENDER OF
TV PROGRAMMING! I STAND FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND UNCENSORED SHOWS!"
Houston poses. "I AM...CABLE GUY!" He poses more. "AND IN THE NAME OF
ALL THINGS TV...I SHALL PUNISH YOU!" Samus took the opportunity to run
while these guys had their attention focused on Houston.
"And why does an employee of a cable company get involved?" Houston gets
into a low stance.
"You...are going to regret the day you thought I worked for a cable
company!" He reaches back and swings across air, stopping his arm in
front of himself. A long cable wire strings out of his sleeve and wraps
around the gun of the head of the three men. He pulls the gun away from
the man and holds it in his other hand. "Ha. Looks like Agent Smith
will soon be canceled on today's show!" He fires at the three men, who
scatter across the alley and dash at Houston. The three men, much to
Houston's disbelief, become nine men.
"Aah! He knows multiplication! Wait a second...NASA CHANNEL: SINE
WAVE!!" A bunch of sound waves ring out from Houston's cable hand at
the nine men. They all cringe, and the duplicates fade. "It pays to
know every TV show!"
"AAAGH, the NOISE!!!" Houston jumps over the three men and dashes away.
"Later, dudes! I've got a cop to meet!"
-----------------------------------
Houston rounded the corner and shortly after that looked at the entire
scene in shock. In front of him, there was nothing. Absolutely not a
single thing left...well, for the radius of a city block, anyway. He
looked around at the rest of the street in front of the tavern. There
were several objects melted down as though a giant blowtorch had hit
the whole street. Cars, street poles, traffic lights, even people were
burned to dust. He still looked around, his face screwed up in an
angry horror. THIS was what Ridley was capable of?!
'No...he has got to be able to do much worse. This was only an
example.' Houston hears a shout behind him, fairly distant at first,
but rapidly catching up as he turns around to see Hardy waddling up
to him quickly.
"Houston, it's awful! I didn't think that Ridley was that strong! He
effectively let out a blast of fire that reached a mile down the whole
street! And what about this?!" Hardy points to the disintegrated
spot. "My God, it's so awful! It's worse than your messy apartment!"
Houston swallows hard.
"Yeah. Way worse...and to top it off, that's not the half of what I
feel Ridley can do." Hardy lets out a little squeak and faints.
"Uh...Medic! Hardy's passed out!" A few paramedics run by with two
strechers. They load Hardy up onto both of them, side by side, and
cart him away from the scene.
"Thanks, he's seen enough." Houston nods. He knew it was what he
said, so he adds to his gesture.
"I think he's heard enough, too."
-------------------------------
Houston spent the last couple of hours cleaning up his apartment.
The floor wasn't as loaded with garbage and dirty clothes, but he
still had more to do, and dishes still needed to be washed. He so
badly wished he had a cleaner system to maintain the place, but
having a built-in Internet system was costly enough. After relocating
the terminal in all the mess, he stares at it for a while.
"...Why not? I'll just peek into Samus' history, and find out if
the Space Pirates have a webpage...I'll do the page check first."
Houston boots up the terminal and opens the browser program. He
types in a search queue for the Space Pirates and finds several
sites pop up on the listing while he busied himself with hacking the
Guild to find out about Samus. He struck paydirt one way.
Name: Samus Leah Aran
Age: 14
Gender: Female
Rank: Apprentice Level 20 "20?! Damn, she IS good!"
Biography: Attacked by pirates at the age of 5. Details
unclear. Joined the Bounty Hunter's Guild at the age of 12.
Has been reported to take several unsanctioned missions by
a faction known as the 'Marduk Cult', lead by Agent Sumisu.
Is currently on probationary measures due to illegal activity
as a by-product of said missions.
Houston looked at that. No wonder she was said to be a nutcase.
The Marduk Cult was bad news, and it was crazy enough that Keaton
hired them to be Alpha Centauri's 'Men In Black'. He continued to
read.
Current Mission: To eliminate a small party of Space Pirates
that are searching for something currently unknown.
Partner assigned: Locuthis Schneider
Commanding Officer: Adam Malkovich
Mission Commissioner: Chairman Habinazzah Keaton
Reward: 150,000 Credits
Now Houston was shocked. Schneider, Samus' partner?! A reward of
150,000 Credits?! She just landed the biggest paying job that any
apprentice hunter could dream of! It was insane!
"I'll bet that most of her reward will be for not stepping out of line,
and being able to put up with that sleazebag who gives the Guild a bad
name." Just as he said that, he saw just what he wanted in his search:
a Space Pirate manufactured webpage. "Now to hack this bunch of
paydirt and see just exactly who Ridley's superiors are."
Mission: We of the Space Pirates of Gamma Sector, also known
as the Gammans, are on a crusade to rule the galaxy. Our great
leader, Mother Brain, has given us the duty of finding an ancient
relic. This job was recieved from the Marduk Cult. If any
fellow activists of we Gammans know about anything ancient,
please feel free to think about it. Mother Brain will know.
Or, you can save yourself the brain stress and send a message to
Kraid at bigfatlizard@msn.com, or Ridley at firedraco@yahoo.com.
Page will be updated with our next mission from Mother Brain.
-Webmaster Kraid
Houston looked through the links to find the elites roster. He found
it and looked through it, at one in particular.
Ridley: Effectively our most powerful active lieutenant, capable
of massive destruction producing fires so hot that they equal the
energy emission rates of a nuclear fusion bomb.
"So that's how he was able to disintegrate a whole city block."
Also among his abilities are to use poisonous barbs on his tail,
possessing a slow, yet cumulative poison that smothers the ones
afflicted. His strength and powers are unnatural for a dragon
of his size and age. We know nothing about his history, not
even Mother Brain knows.
Houston sat back, onto something weird. He turned around and saw
Hardy holding the chair with his chubby fingers, grinning.
"Ready to go back to Headquarters yet? I like what you've done with
the place. It's easier to walk around now."
------------------------------
Houston followed Hardy and the others into his big office. Big, probably
so he could have room to move without something falling over.
Hardy clears his throat as he sits in his chair. "As Houston and I already
know, Space Pirates caused a scene outside of a tavern in Sector 8-8A. When
we got there, there were only three people left alive, and very badly burnt.
The rest were all roasted to ash, and the whole scene was like a well
contained bomb went off. Suffice to say, Ridley does mean business." Hardy
activates a projector with pictures of what the area looked like. One whole
block south of the tavern was gone. Nothing left standing. The survivors
were grotesquely blackened and looked like they were already dead. Samus
shuddered in horror. It was worse than her home, but in a small space.
"Houston told me that Samus was attacked by three men dressed in black suits
while she was escaping the other way. He distracted them and then escaped
himself. I called Keaton a minute before arrival here and he told me about
what all this happened over." On cue, Keaton enters holding the ME disk.
Adam was with him, too.
"Lady and Gentlemen, Exhibit A." Hardy clears his throat again.
"This disk contains data about a history of Earth even far before Atlantis.
Who created it, we don't know yet." Samus looks up at Hardy.
"I have to ask...what are the AN.UNNA.KI? Those three MiB's said that they
were looking for their homeworld." Keaton looks down glumly.
'So, that is why...the Marduk Cult wants the ME. They want to find Nibiru
and conquer it. But...why Nibiru? Why don't they look for a ME containing
data about a nuclear weapon? Unless...the Anunnaki have developed something
far worse. Sumisu...I will have your number.' "HEY!" Everyone jumps.
Keaton darts his head around.
"You all are going to be given a dangerous mission. One far more dangerous
than dealing with regular ol' Space Pirates. You are to find the ME that
has the data about the planet Nibiru." Keaton looks around again. "Now,
to answer some of your questions, I have heard of Nibiru, the homeworld of
the Anunnaki. I don't, however, know where it is, other than in the Solar
System. It's orbit makes it normally unlocatable expect by those who have
been there."
"So it's imperative that we get that ME before anyone else?" Schneider asks.
'Now I feel like a fool for what I have done. I have...made things worse.
Serving the Marduk Cult...what side do I take?' Schneider shakes his head.
'Of course. The side that pays more. So all I need to do is offer my help
to them after finding out how much this pays from the Federation.'
-----------------------------
Houston was back inside his apartment, surfing the website that was made
by the Gammans. He copies and pastes the web address for Ridley into
his book, and then begins to type a message.
To Ridley
What you did back there was highly uncalled for. I thought
that you wouldn't be up to the business of doing so much
damage so close to a hotspot of arrestability. Either you've
become much stronger, bolder, or both, but I still resent
what you have done.
On another note, I know about your hunt for the ME. You
are doing this for the Marduk Cult, whom I believe has
an interest in mind that confilcts with your own. What are
they paying you to do this job? I'll petition for Keaton
to double the price, if you have something we need.
We need the ME that contains the data on the planet Nibiru.
If you have it, or find it before us, consider the offer that
I am trying to make to you. Please, don't foolishly leave us
one step behind.
At least do this for me. Save Solomon one last time.
Solomon Aran aka: Armstrong Allsman Houston.
After typing the message he sends it just before Samus arrives. She
looks at the state of his apartment, still as unclean as he left it
when Hardy showed up by surprise, and she enters.
"...I'm sorry about your door. Look, it's just that you think that
we don't get work all the time, I got mad because I felt that you were
lying about me, and insulting me at the same time. By the way, do you
need any help with cleaning this place? Ezzie's gone out to stay at
work while I'm on duty, it keeps the apartment clean that way." Houston
snapped his fingers.
"Crap. I still forgot to visit him. Nah well, why not? You're doing
dishes though." Samus gets a pang of irritation from Houston, but
hides it behind a fake smile (that when I picture it so reminds me of
Yuffie Kisaragi trying to stifle her temper).
"Okay. I'll...do the dishes."
Houston and Hardy were both headed to the Federation Headquarters office
so that they could do a little research on the case. Not long after
they had entered, did an officer report to them.
"Sir? We have a situation. We have it logged on the navigation monitor
of your truck. We've already sent a team, and they say that..." Hardy
grabs a donut and looks at the officer.
"Well? That what?" The officer turns away.
"That...there were Space Pirates leaving the scene...followed by Ridley."
Hardy stops from eating the donut before he even took his first bite.
"We gotta go, Houston! You!" The officer turns around.
"Yes, sir?" Houston dashes out of the door, and Hardy stops in
mid-waddle.
"Send a medical team, at once! If Ridley was there, I want few-if any-
casualties!" Hardy continues to waddle out to his truck. He and Houston
both speed off to the location marked. Hardy drops Houston off on the
other side of the block. He then speeds away.
"Well, looks like I'm going in from the back." Houston takes out a
small cable wire fashioned into a circlet. "CABLE GUY CHANGE!!" He
puts the wire circlet on his head and his outfit changes into a cable
technician's uniform. He then dashes down the alley. Halfway down,
he sees three men all encroaching on Samus.
"Augh...not her. Oh, well. Gotta save everybody." Houston gets closer
to the scene.
"STOP RIGHT THERE!" The three men turn around. "I AM THE DEFENDER OF
TV PROGRAMMING! I STAND FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND UNCENSORED SHOWS!"
Houston poses. "I AM...CABLE GUY!" He poses more. "AND IN THE NAME OF
ALL THINGS TV...I SHALL PUNISH YOU!" Samus took the opportunity to run
while these guys had their attention focused on Houston.
"And why does an employee of a cable company get involved?" Houston gets
into a low stance.
"You...are going to regret the day you thought I worked for a cable
company!" He reaches back and swings across air, stopping his arm in
front of himself. A long cable wire strings out of his sleeve and wraps
around the gun of the head of the three men. He pulls the gun away from
the man and holds it in his other hand. "Ha. Looks like Agent Smith
will soon be canceled on today's show!" He fires at the three men, who
scatter across the alley and dash at Houston. The three men, much to
Houston's disbelief, become nine men.
"Aah! He knows multiplication! Wait a second...NASA CHANNEL: SINE
WAVE!!" A bunch of sound waves ring out from Houston's cable hand at
the nine men. They all cringe, and the duplicates fade. "It pays to
know every TV show!"
"AAAGH, the NOISE!!!" Houston jumps over the three men and dashes away.
"Later, dudes! I've got a cop to meet!"
-----------------------------------
Houston rounded the corner and shortly after that looked at the entire
scene in shock. In front of him, there was nothing. Absolutely not a
single thing left...well, for the radius of a city block, anyway. He
looked around at the rest of the street in front of the tavern. There
were several objects melted down as though a giant blowtorch had hit
the whole street. Cars, street poles, traffic lights, even people were
burned to dust. He still looked around, his face screwed up in an
angry horror. THIS was what Ridley was capable of?!
'No...he has got to be able to do much worse. This was only an
example.' Houston hears a shout behind him, fairly distant at first,
but rapidly catching up as he turns around to see Hardy waddling up
to him quickly.
"Houston, it's awful! I didn't think that Ridley was that strong! He
effectively let out a blast of fire that reached a mile down the whole
street! And what about this?!" Hardy points to the disintegrated
spot. "My God, it's so awful! It's worse than your messy apartment!"
Houston swallows hard.
"Yeah. Way worse...and to top it off, that's not the half of what I
feel Ridley can do." Hardy lets out a little squeak and faints.
"Uh...Medic! Hardy's passed out!" A few paramedics run by with two
strechers. They load Hardy up onto both of them, side by side, and
cart him away from the scene.
"Thanks, he's seen enough." Houston nods. He knew it was what he
said, so he adds to his gesture.
"I think he's heard enough, too."
-------------------------------
Houston spent the last couple of hours cleaning up his apartment.
The floor wasn't as loaded with garbage and dirty clothes, but he
still had more to do, and dishes still needed to be washed. He so
badly wished he had a cleaner system to maintain the place, but
having a built-in Internet system was costly enough. After relocating
the terminal in all the mess, he stares at it for a while.
"...Why not? I'll just peek into Samus' history, and find out if
the Space Pirates have a webpage...I'll do the page check first."
Houston boots up the terminal and opens the browser program. He
types in a search queue for the Space Pirates and finds several
sites pop up on the listing while he busied himself with hacking the
Guild to find out about Samus. He struck paydirt one way.
Name: Samus Leah Aran
Age: 14
Gender: Female
Rank: Apprentice Level 20 "20?! Damn, she IS good!"
Biography: Attacked by pirates at the age of 5. Details
unclear. Joined the Bounty Hunter's Guild at the age of 12.
Has been reported to take several unsanctioned missions by
a faction known as the 'Marduk Cult', lead by Agent Sumisu.
Is currently on probationary measures due to illegal activity
as a by-product of said missions.
Houston looked at that. No wonder she was said to be a nutcase.
The Marduk Cult was bad news, and it was crazy enough that Keaton
hired them to be Alpha Centauri's 'Men In Black'. He continued to
read.
Current Mission: To eliminate a small party of Space Pirates
that are searching for something currently unknown.
Partner assigned: Locuthis Schneider
Commanding Officer: Adam Malkovich
Mission Commissioner: Chairman Habinazzah Keaton
Reward: 150,000 Credits
Now Houston was shocked. Schneider, Samus' partner?! A reward of
150,000 Credits?! She just landed the biggest paying job that any
apprentice hunter could dream of! It was insane!
"I'll bet that most of her reward will be for not stepping out of line,
and being able to put up with that sleazebag who gives the Guild a bad
name." Just as he said that, he saw just what he wanted in his search:
a Space Pirate manufactured webpage. "Now to hack this bunch of
paydirt and see just exactly who Ridley's superiors are."
Mission: We of the Space Pirates of Gamma Sector, also known
as the Gammans, are on a crusade to rule the galaxy. Our great
leader, Mother Brain, has given us the duty of finding an ancient
relic. This job was recieved from the Marduk Cult. If any
fellow activists of we Gammans know about anything ancient,
please feel free to think about it. Mother Brain will know.
Or, you can save yourself the brain stress and send a message to
Kraid at bigfatlizard@msn.com, or Ridley at firedraco@yahoo.com.
Page will be updated with our next mission from Mother Brain.
-Webmaster Kraid
Houston looked through the links to find the elites roster. He found
it and looked through it, at one in particular.
Ridley: Effectively our most powerful active lieutenant, capable
of massive destruction producing fires so hot that they equal the
energy emission rates of a nuclear fusion bomb.
"So that's how he was able to disintegrate a whole city block."
Also among his abilities are to use poisonous barbs on his tail,
possessing a slow, yet cumulative poison that smothers the ones
afflicted. His strength and powers are unnatural for a dragon
of his size and age. We know nothing about his history, not
even Mother Brain knows.
Houston sat back, onto something weird. He turned around and saw
Hardy holding the chair with his chubby fingers, grinning.
"Ready to go back to Headquarters yet? I like what you've done with
the place. It's easier to walk around now."
------------------------------
Houston followed Hardy and the others into his big office. Big, probably
so he could have room to move without something falling over.
Hardy clears his throat as he sits in his chair. "As Houston and I already
know, Space Pirates caused a scene outside of a tavern in Sector 8-8A. When
we got there, there were only three people left alive, and very badly burnt.
The rest were all roasted to ash, and the whole scene was like a well
contained bomb went off. Suffice to say, Ridley does mean business." Hardy
activates a projector with pictures of what the area looked like. One whole
block south of the tavern was gone. Nothing left standing. The survivors
were grotesquely blackened and looked like they were already dead. Samus
shuddered in horror. It was worse than her home, but in a small space.
"Houston told me that Samus was attacked by three men dressed in black suits
while she was escaping the other way. He distracted them and then escaped
himself. I called Keaton a minute before arrival here and he told me about
what all this happened over." On cue, Keaton enters holding the ME disk.
Adam was with him, too.
"Lady and Gentlemen, Exhibit A." Hardy clears his throat again.
"This disk contains data about a history of Earth even far before Atlantis.
Who created it, we don't know yet." Samus looks up at Hardy.
"I have to ask...what are the AN.UNNA.KI? Those three MiB's said that they
were looking for their homeworld." Keaton looks down glumly.
'So, that is why...the Marduk Cult wants the ME. They want to find Nibiru
and conquer it. But...why Nibiru? Why don't they look for a ME containing
data about a nuclear weapon? Unless...the Anunnaki have developed something
far worse. Sumisu...I will have your number.' "HEY!" Everyone jumps.
Keaton darts his head around.
"You all are going to be given a dangerous mission. One far more dangerous
than dealing with regular ol' Space Pirates. You are to find the ME that
has the data about the planet Nibiru." Keaton looks around again. "Now,
to answer some of your questions, I have heard of Nibiru, the homeworld of
the Anunnaki. I don't, however, know where it is, other than in the Solar
System. It's orbit makes it normally unlocatable expect by those who have
been there."
"So it's imperative that we get that ME before anyone else?" Schneider asks.
'Now I feel like a fool for what I have done. I have...made things worse.
Serving the Marduk Cult...what side do I take?' Schneider shakes his head.
'Of course. The side that pays more. So all I need to do is offer my help
to them after finding out how much this pays from the Federation.'
-----------------------------
Houston was back inside his apartment, surfing the website that was made
by the Gammans. He copies and pastes the web address for Ridley into
his book, and then begins to type a message.
To Ridley
What you did back there was highly uncalled for. I thought
that you wouldn't be up to the business of doing so much
damage so close to a hotspot of arrestability. Either you've
become much stronger, bolder, or both, but I still resent
what you have done.
On another note, I know about your hunt for the ME. You
are doing this for the Marduk Cult, whom I believe has
an interest in mind that confilcts with your own. What are
they paying you to do this job? I'll petition for Keaton
to double the price, if you have something we need.
We need the ME that contains the data on the planet Nibiru.
If you have it, or find it before us, consider the offer that
I am trying to make to you. Please, don't foolishly leave us
one step behind.
At least do this for me. Save Solomon one last time.
Solomon Aran aka: Armstrong Allsman Houston.
After typing the message he sends it just before Samus arrives. She
looks at the state of his apartment, still as unclean as he left it
when Hardy showed up by surprise, and she enters.
"...I'm sorry about your door. Look, it's just that you think that
we don't get work all the time, I got mad because I felt that you were
lying about me, and insulting me at the same time. By the way, do you
need any help with cleaning this place? Ezzie's gone out to stay at
work while I'm on duty, it keeps the apartment clean that way." Houston
snapped his fingers.
"Crap. I still forgot to visit him. Nah well, why not? You're doing
dishes though." Samus gets a pang of irritation from Houston, but
hides it behind a fake smile (that when I picture it so reminds me of
Yuffie Kisaragi trying to stifle her temper).
"Okay. I'll...do the dishes."
