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The curious Tale of...

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The curious case of


It was too late to be morning, but too early to be night time. All sensible people were tucked up in bed and as such were leaving strenuous activity to the insensible. Kai Pen felt put upon, which was his usual state of mind, but especially so now when he was, for reasons he couldn't quite remember at the moment, holding up a supporting wall. Nearby something that looked like a cross between a pile of rags and a squid dozed peacefully, humming gently to itself.


"Right everyone! Up we get! A mission of vital importance has arisen!"


Kai Pen sighed. Of course his mistress was nocturnal and managed to have him working both his day and hers. He couldn't remember when he'd last had a good night's sleep. Last valentines day perhaps, after the massacre. He tried to indicate the creaking, cracking wall he was pressed against, a task made difficult by the fact that his arms had gone numb.


"Oh leave that be! It'll take care of itself. Where's Laur? This is vitally importantly lethal!"

"Uh.. I don't think I can mo-"

"Think? You're not paid to think! Come to think of it... you're not paid! Just get to the war burrow immediately!"

"We don't have a war burrow."

"We don't? Oh. Well to the conflict bunker then!"


There was a slow groan, followed by a resounding crash as Kai slid himself down one of the many corridors in the underground base he called home. (As well as many other, unprintable, things.) This was followed by a his and an annoyed buzzing, like someone grinding two tons of zoisite together. The conflict bunker was really little more than an old concrete shed that had been bought at discount on Ebay. It was sparsely furnished, but was a good place to stick big maps of places and important looking computer monitors that showed newsfeeds from all over the globe. After some extensive fiddling Kai had managed to make it play G-Force on DVD.

Already there was the blue, dog-like organism known as Laur, pilot, tactician and tea lady. This probably meant a mission to somewhere dangerous. With her, huddled up in a corner was some sort of goat... bat... thing... it... she...


"Yeah, sad isn't it? We found her like this outside just an hour ago."

"Is... that's the goat lady right?"

"Mr Ryuu's personal assistant, bodyguard and possible lover, yes."

"What... happened to her?"

"She's been dejected."

"Dumped?"

"No, dejected, the opposite of adjectived. Drained of all description, horrible thing to do to a person, especially a former Llama weekly model."


That was insane, you couldn't drain words from people. But... the more Kai looked at the disheveled creature, the more he felt himself agreeing. She didn't look sad, or hurt or happy or cold or white or.... anything but there really. He had to keep reminding himself of her species and gender. This was bad, he should-

*Click*

Damn and blast! The door was locked! Or at least, mostly locked. There was a large cat-flap in it, through which everyone but him would fit. (In his mistresses' case, she wouldn't even have to duck.)


"Right. So where am I-.. we going?"

"To the most dangerous, evil and vile hellhole on the planet. Well, except for Pakistan."

"New Orleans?"

"Worse! Mexico."


There was a dull thud as something large and heavy threw itself desperately against the door.


* * *



It was hot. It was sandy. It was dry. The sun shone down with a fierceness that would bake anything living into the ground in minutes. And an American man was not having a good day.


"But... you're smuggling."

"Yes, but I *told* you, we're taking these guns-"

"And grenades."

"And grenades, I was just about to say, we're taking them-"

"And the rocket launcher, body armor, sodium pentathol, surgical instruments and worst of all, three pieces of fresh fruit."

"Yes yes, we're taking them IN to Mexico, right?"

"Ye-es..."

"So it's like opposites right? We should be given a medal for ridding your wonderful country of such banal and dangerous items!"

"Well I guess I..."

"Exactly! So if you don't mind?"


Ziblink strode into the the state (It was a state right? All places in America were states.) of Mexico thanking the American educational system. Behind panted Kai, who was cursing the law of gravity, especially as to its application to large pieces of metal. So far things hadn't been too bad. They'd managed to get a plane to Australia and then over to the states. (This took some time as it was not often that the Red Cross sent aid to the small island insignificance that was New Zealand, and they'd been quite resistant to hijacking.) and he'd suffered nothing worse than having to eat airline food.

But now they were hot on the trail of one of Zib's 'contacts' some crazy half wit of a dragon that spent his time plotting world domination. (As opposed to his mistress, the crazy quarter-wit bird who spent her time plotting plum puddings.) Apparently nothing had been heard from him since his assistant had turned up. No radio, no email, nothing. And as a modern dragon Denryuu had been especially well connected; there wasn't an Al Queda camp that didn't use his patented sunglasses with the reduced glare lenses.

Apparently his 'compound' was just a few miles hence, across just a short stretch of the blazing, dessicated, hostile land that Mexicans had used to grow hundreds of varieties of maize since time immemorial. (Indeed, legend tells of a lost Mexican tribe that migrate to the amazon, fertile grasslands at the time, just to 'Put in a few trees, make the place look better.' ) And that was, of course, what it was. A 'compound' There had been drug barons there originally until they were evicted by the new owner by bloodless means (They were all strangled and poisoned.) Now the police and government pretended it didn't exist. (This wasn't of course due to the fact that a large yellow dragon with a loyal following of several hundred armed guerrillas intimidated them somewhat, but rather because they'd lost their maps and didn't know where it was.)

It turned out to be a cluster of several dozen large, lifeless and above all *solid* concrete buildings, the kind you could imagine giving wet dreams to soviet architects. They were surrounded on all sides by trenches, razor wire and landmines. (It would have been better if the landmines had been buried and thus not so visible, but the thought counts after all.) They were occupied.

A number of men in military uniforms sat moaning quietly, curled up in their own private worlds of pain. Kai could make out a number of... words littering the floor, like unusually organized alphabet soup. There was 'running' and there was 'printing' and there was 'copied'


"It's worse than I thought. They've been verbally castigated in front of their peers."

"Who would do such a thing?"

"Someone out for revenge I think."

"Really? I didn't think tha-"

"Oh you didn't didn't you? What do I pay you for may I ask?"

"But-"

"No time, give me the body armor!"


Kai handed it over. It was in fact just a converted police riot helmet, but it fit his diminutive leader perfectly.He wished that they'd managed to bring him along some, several landmines had come quite close to clipping his tail on the way in, not to mention the razor wire and shark pits. (Which had, oddly, been buried and thus not visible.) He had a bad feeling about this.

They headed towards the largest building, the one well signposted as 'Dragon's Lair' All the signs had the apostrophe 'penciled' in. With blood. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of his reptilian mind, thoughts of food and... well food slowly moved aside as a nagging and persistent thought tried to get his conscious attention.

Then they found the dragon.


* * *

He had been so yellow as to be almost golden once, a live yellow like ripe corn on the cob. He wasn't now. The color had drained from him completely, leaving him a shade paler than rancid butter. His former sleekness had given way to a starved thinness that made Ethiopians look practically Australian (The fattest nation on earth would you believe?) He was staring wide eyed and unseeing at two plates of vegetables that sat steaming gently in front of him. Dust covered everything,  In the corner a bank of monitors buzzed with static, on the table was a cup of coffee that had dried to a mere moldy residue. He had been there a long, long time.

And yet, something worried Kai more then the disquieting scene of a formerly great dragon bought to his knees. Something was slightly, but oddly wrong about... yes about the two plates. They were legumes of some kind. It wasn't that they were still hot and steaming and fresh after all this time... and they didn't look particularly odd in themselves... Then the dragon spoke.


"Help... me."

"Crud, He's speaking english. This must be bad."

"What is it?"

"A logic trap, he's completely paralyzed. And starving to death. That's Evil. Wish I'd thought of it."

"You mean he's slowly dying while looking at two plates of food he can't ever eat? That's terrible!"


"No... I can eat them... But which one...?"

"Is one poisoned?"

"No. Both fine. Both equally fine..."


The realization hit Kai Pen like an icecube down his spine. THAT was what was so odd about both plates. They were exactly the same. Down to the last detail. They steamed alike, were of equal portions and had an equal knob or organic butter continuously melting in an identical fashion atop them. A logic trap.

Dragons were notoriously logical, in their own specialized way. Some took it to extremes. It was well known that Denryuu was as cold and as logical as the most devious computer network, relying at all times on facts and the power of thought to guide him through life. And they had served him well. Until now.

For, when faced with two equal options, identical in all respects, what was a logical being to do, to chose between them? Which would be picked first if there was nothing to tell them apart, no logical reason to prefer one over the other. The poor dragon was starving to death, but couldn't ever decide to eat something. Moved with compassion Kai went to nudge a plate closer to the suffering reptile...

But which one...?

He felt the indecision pour over him, stifling all thought. Ponderings on size, color and nutritional value began to work their way through his head, stripping away all higher thought processes. As he stared dumbly at the grim tableau, the little spark of his conscious mind raged at his brain, trying to make it understand what it needed to do. Desperately he flicked a few tail muscles, knocking the table. Gently, but enough. One of the plates moved...


There was a snap as hungry jaws too a bit out of the meal, the plate and the table with it. A pale yellow blur demolished the setting in an instant and lay panting on the floor. Slowly Kai backed away, feeling the strange logical presence leave his mind.


"We should leave. Now."

"Yeah, I imagine people aren't going to be too happy about this."

"Who DID this?"

"Grammar Knight. Powerful one too."

"Him? Are you sure?"

"Positive. It seems that The Game has begun."

"We will need to use the Concave then."

"Yes, we'll discuss it at the next Meeting."

"Is that enough ominous cryptic comments?"

"Yeah. I think so. Let's wrap this up."


And so they did.


END
A gift story for my friend ~Denryuu ; who didn;t ask for it, probably doesn't deserve it and definitely won't like it. That's the way I roll, I gather moss.

Don't try to understand it, it's written from deep inside, and anyone who knows me knows that I don't make sense there.


Based on a classic logic puzzle!
© 2010 - 2024 Ziblink
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ShinigamiSand's avatar
This. Is. Fantastic. Why are you not published yet?