Chapter 4
In a stark white painted room with bare stone walls, fortified window and loose strip light, an old heavy desk sits pushed up against the wall under that window with the items of Krytens shopping trip lay neatly labeled, the Dwarfers on the other hand sat along the far wall away from the side door on cheap metal folding seats under heavy guard.
"No Talking!" said Michael clearly in some stress perhaps because of what he said next.
"The Captains' on his way"
And at that precise moment the door opens and in walks two men flanked by two more soldiers, one of the men (the one whose wearing a suit) goes to the back of the room and lights up a cigarette while the other uniformed man turns and addresses his detainee's and by some strange coincidence or is it fate, this man Captain Twinning looks just like a certain other Captain on a deep space mining vessel called "Red Dwarf".
"These are the aliens?" he says looking round at the smoking man.
"Aliens? Where?" asks Rimmer.
"He is talking about us" answers Kryten whose chair is slowly crushing under his weight.
"Hey, we're no aliens, ok so he may have strange pointy teeth and this one may look like an overly used car crash dummy, but we're no Uurgh!" Rimmer gets another rifle butt to the stomach.
"Quiet!" shouts the Captain, he takes his hat revealing a balding head with a white clump of hair in the middle that looks like someone had stapled (badly) a lump of cotton wool, this produces sniggers not only from the crew but also his own men.
"Shut Up!" he yells and quickly replaces his hat abet slightly askew. He paces up and down in front of them as he talks "Now, you creatures from beyond the sky have as many rights as a south paw, now tell me, what's your mission here on earth alien scum?" his glare finishes on Lister.
"Oh that!" Lister exclaims wiping his shirt with the cuff of his jacket, "It's probably a bit of Krytens space nettle soup" He pulls his shirt out so Kryten can see and he nods in agreement.
"Stay still!" And a guard goes and rifle butts Rimmer in the stomach again.
"Urrgh!"
"No mission" says Kryten "We just wanted to get some supplies"
"Did you get them from my Pa's shop?" asks Michael, Jack's son taking an interest talking to Kochanski "I could have got you a discount"
She smiles sweetly back to him "Could you? That's so nice"
"Well if he knows we shop at Pa's store you can let us go right?" The Cat says and gets up to leave.
This time it's the Cat who gets the rifle butt to the gut.
"JOZXYQK!" he cries out as he gingerly makes his way back to his chair.
"Hah!" Rimmer's happy it wasn't him this time.
Captain Twinning gestures towards one of the guards who leaves the room.
"Right back to business. We found a part of your craft" The crew look stunned at this revelation as the smoking man hands over a folder " What can you tell me about it! What is its primary function?"
The door opens and a guard comes in pushing a metal gurney looking trolley, on top is some strange item emitting an odd noise covered by a white sheet.
The Captain pulls off the white sheet. In front of them in a clearly battered state lay a sand battered radio attached to a slowly deflating female shaped object known as Ingrid.
Quick as a flash Lister points out to Rimmer "Hey! Your girlfriends back!"
Rimmers face at this point is like a lovesick schoolgirl pining after some boyband.
"What is it?" Captain Twinning says
"Is it Cantaloupe, Flip fantasia by US3" asks Kochanski
"Nah it's never that! Its Take Five by Quincy Jones" The Cat informs "What? You think I never listened to that station whilst at the controls of"
"Shussh!"
"The controls!" Twinning twists the controls on the front of the radio.
"Arsenal 1 Tottenham Hotspur 3, Southend United 4 Tranme" the transmission cuts off in a loud squeal.
"Hey! I was listening to that!" Rimmer protests
"No back on Star Bug" The Cat corrects "Dam! I wasn't supposed to say that was I? What a smeghead"
"AH Ha! So there IS a craft out there! See I told you" he says to the smoking man who gestures back an 'oh well'. "Guard can you take this, this item (holding Ingrid) to my private quarters, I want to investigate it more thoroughly"
"Pervert" Kochanski whispers.
"Listen, I want you to direct us to your Steer Bud craft, if not President Eisenhower will be personally presiding over your morning autopsy! Oh don't worry we WILL be shooting you first"
There's a pause as the gang think.
"Come on, we haven't got all day, well I have, you lot are dead before breakfast July 8th" He waits
"Hold on, hold on, we're thinking" a panicked the voice of The Cat cries out. The crew are huddled in serious talks.
"Do you Want to be locked up, shot? Is that what you want? If operation paperclip is to succeed, we need your cooperation in recovering your craft and maybe you might just spend the rest of your lives rotting in some jail cell in hanger 84 with the occasional visit to the science lab where our German doctor will run tests and probably some anal probing. You aliens are the most exciting thing to happen in Roswell in decades, we have no tourism to speak of and one's we Do get are either lost or need to fill up with gas because they are lost".
"Hang about? Did he say Roswell?" Rimmer asks
"Did you say Roswell?" Kochanski asks the Captain who's getting that puzzled look.
"Yes I did, Why do you ask?"
"Of course! Roswell, Hanger 84" Kryten says to the Dwarf posse. "It's all fits into place. Do you know what that represents?"
"That we're not actually in pig world?" poses a confused Cat.
"It means that we have may have just found a way out of here" Lister says taking over the conversation "Captain Twinning is it? What would you say if we came up with something that would make you look good and bring in a tourist trade to your town at could become a Mecca for every nerd, geek, loser and conspiracy nut in the world, in exchange you let us go free"
"Go free!? Really?" The smoking man comes up and whispers something in the Captains ear, he nods in cautious agreement" Ok, ok let me hear you idea, but how are we going to explain away your presence and ours in town and to the president! The local press have already rang my office several times already today asking questions and poor old Mavis she's nearing retirement age and she just can't handle all those irritable people down the other end of the phone"
"Oh there no problem at all" says Kochanski trying to be helpful "I became a dab hand at things like that, like when my ex boyfriend Tim (not him again Lister moans) used to keep harassing me after we broke up. I always knew how to handle his testy calls"
There's a pause while everybody catches up to react to what she just said.
"That's very interesting….anyway"
"Couldn't you just say it was like a weather balloon or something?" The Cat asks.
"How did you know about that" Lister whispers to him
"About what?"
"Yes just lie about it, oh I don't know err three times or so. Call it project Skyhook or something like that" Rimmer adds.
"And if you permit me access to those saddle bags I believe we can come up with something to clinch the deal". Kryten has the last word.
Epilogue
In a bustling town somewhere in New Mexico where the shops are full of customers who have been bussed in just to be in the place where it all took place all those years ago, a young man runs through the streets clutching an old cylindrical metal film can tightly to his chest. He bumps passed people in his willingness to get to his destination almost getting run over as he crosses the street outside the recently renamed Michael's Extraterrestrial Hardware by the new owner who screeches to a halt just in time. Pass the diner and down a side street he stops and knocks on an old wooden door, the door opens and closes quickly barely giving him the time to get in, from there he quickly follows his friend down into a damp basement.
"Did you get it?"
"I got it"
"Ok I managed to get the old projector from the school but we will have to use this whitewashed wall to play it against"
"I don't care as long as it's the real thing. Do you realize how much trouble I could get in with my father if he new I had this? I'll be beyond grounded, I think..."
"No don't say it lets just set it up, watch the thing and get it back before anything untoward happens"
The running man gently eases the lid off the film canister, with fingertips he gently puts the film on to the rear spool of the projector, then he very gently eases the film through the machine and hooks it up to the front reel.
"It's ready"
The picture flicks to life on the painted wall and gets focused in just as the government warning appears on screen.
"Cool" they say in unison
The grainy black and white image moves erratically as the cameraman moves around the round filming the image as if he was actually filming the action from his field of vision. Several people dressed in white overalls and face masks enter the room watched by someone in uniform from a nearby window.
"Did you see that one?" says the running man pointing to one of the characters on screen. "I'm sure it was a woman"
"Yeah I did and that one, did you see? I think he's got pointed teeth!"
"Nah don't be stupid! Only vampires and the Ferengi have teeth like that!"
"Perhaps it was the Ferengi! How do you know eh!? It's the one carrying the clip board I'm interested in, the one with the tuffs of hair sticking out the back of his mask"
"Whys that?"
"Because if we can get a good look at it, then we might get an idea of whom……"
At that moment the camera pans over to the metal gurney what the masked people have been surrounding. The sheet is pulled back to reveal….
"God that looks So fake! Just look what that ones doing to its chest cavity! That's not even a medical scalpel it looks like something they'd stock in that stupid gift shop over the road!"
"Is that that silly putty they're taking out of its belly?"
"I dunno, what they are doing to that creatures eyes is a bit scary"
"Did it that bit just deflate a bit? But it looks like the woman's blowing it back up again"
The film runs out.
"Do you think its real though? A real alien?"
"It must be, my father can't of kept it all these years for nothing if it wasn't real could he?"
"Watch it again?"
"Sure"
And with that, Garry and his friend Tom Twinning reload the film and watch it again.
The End
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