Cowboys and Dinosaurs - Chapter 9

9. Marked For Death And Worse

Gonoroid's living room was approaching the forbidden planet of Beta Omega Three. The viewscreen showed a prospect of heavy planetwide cloud, with the possibility of light crimson showers. Steve was sitting in the captain's chair, a sign of special consideration on Gonoroid's part.

"...so I'm a marked man. That bloody bayonet training has fucked me up but good."

Gonoroid blew over his cocoa. "But it worked, yeah?"

"What am I supposed to do now? Carry a bayonet to work with me, just in case? I can kill a man with ten inches of cold steel, but I'm useless if it's not on the end of a rifle. What if they attack me in a phonebox or a toilet cubicle?"

"Do you know who these people are? Maybe you could visit them, work something out."

"I made inquiries from my friendly neighbourhood ganja dealer. They're the Palace Albanian Mob."

"I thought you said they were all white."

"Albanians are all white. You're thinking Aldebaranians, TOSS 15, The Sanity Asylum, who are green. With gills. Captain Delamitri defeats them with hairspray."

"Fair point."

"In any case, they're not Albanian either. My contact reckons they just claim to be Albanian so people will think they're harder. But they're a subcontractor for the Dowd crime family -"

"- who I've never heard of -"

"- who control half the crime in North London, apart from parking offences and the occasional gross indecency. The Dowds have been on the top of crime north of the Thames for over six generations. One of their ancestors, William 'Saucy Fingers' O'Dowd, apparently picked the pocket of John Montague Druitt in 1880, and gave assistance to the police when Druitt was later suspected of being Jack The Ripper. There's a plaque with his name on it at the local museum. I checked."

"I see." Gonoroid spoke to the air. "Voice control, search engine on."

Immediately, the planet disappeared from the viewscreen, which changed to Google search. The Google title dripped with blood; used tampons adhered to the letters.

"It's International Menstruation Day", explained Gonoroid. "Very important to feminists everywhere. A mass synchronized bleed is planned in Washington DC."

"Would you like me to do anything...else for you, Brevet Sub-Commander?" said a saucy male voice.

"Ah, no, just Open Quotes Dowd crime London Close Quotes Enter", coughed Gonoroid in embarrassment. "Sorry about the voice, it's a geek thing. Like Weird Science, but sadder. I can't get boyfriends, so I make them. Oh my, look at all those hits. And so many with cross references to castration."

Steve read down the list. "It says here the Dowd family franchise out the right to commit criminal activities under the trade name Burglar King. The head of the family has a multi-million-pound mansion in Hampstead -"

"- which is to say, anything bigger than an airing cupboard in Hampstead", cautioned Gonoroid. He pulled out an optical mouse and ran it over himself disturbingly. The pointer moved and massive HTML gobbledigook filled the screen. "Mind you, this page was last updated in 1999. He probably lives in at least a two-up-two-down."

Steve slumped back into the Captain's chair. "Captain's log supplemental: I am fucked."

Gonoroid looked at him severely. "What do we say?"

"Erm, Trek bad, Space Cruiser Invincible good, Babylon Five tolerable. I should be saying 'Black Box Spoken Record - Captain's Voice'. And then 'I'm fucked'."

"Captain Delamitri would not have given up so easily", tutted Gonoroid.

"Captain Delamitri was a bit-part actor in The Onedin Line and Crossroads, not a bloody starship commander."

"And do you think Jesus was the Son of God? But millions of people worldwide try to be better people every day because of his example. Captain Delamitri is my Jesus", said Gonoroid, wounded. "I try to live my life by Space Force Regulations."

"Delamitri repeatedly broke Space Force regulations! He chased a Uranian War Fish halfway across the Tetrabrachian Demilitarized Zone! And he was mean about Sub-Commander Gonoroid's horns - hey!" He clicked his fingers suddenly. "Hey! Yeah! What's the deal with -"

"- the name, I know, I know." Gonoroid nodded sadly. "The name was indeed dreamed up after the chief scriptwriter saw it on a pack of haemorrhoid ointment. But the act of writing signifies the death of the author, Steve. Invincible has become something bigger than just a few lines someone scribbled down in the mid-Seventies. It belongs to all of us. Sub-Commander Gonoroid is able to multiply fifteen-digit numbers in his head. He can read minds. He can see through walls in the dark. He doesn't need oxygen to breathe. In a sufficiently dense atmosphere, he can flap his wings and fly. Wouldn't you like to be able to do all that? What can Jesus offer against that? Superior carpentry skills? The one time the Devil offered him the chance to fly, he turned him down flat, the faggot."

Steve was dubious. "I seem to remember his species entirely lack any concept of irony, eat their partners after mating, are reptilian, and find common table salt deadly poisonous."

"Those are just delightful peccadilloes that fill out the character. Like Jesus founding a religion based on bloodshed, homophobia and bigotry that spread its poisonous creed across the world for two thousand years. Everyone has a weakness."

"Okay, okay, I believe you, don't hurt me." Steve wrung his hands together white-knuckled. "Maybe if I changed my job, moved house, shaved my head...perhaps if I changed my job, changed my name, moved to a different country, shaved my head....maybe if I changed sex..."

"Changing your name is easy", said Gonoroid, speaking from personal experience, "changing your sex less so. You'd have to live as a woman for a year."

Steve shook his head. "I couldn't stand the reduction in salary. Dave almighty, Gonoroid, what am I going to do?"

"Dave won't help you. He'd just tell Devasekhara to Render Unto Caesar. For an omnipotent, omnipresent being, he's low on smiting. He pays protection money to the Crouch End Somalian Crew. The big black guy with the tattoo of the Prophet Mohammed."

"What, Delroy Smith? I went to school with him."

"Well, he can pass as Somalian if he talks funny and says 'inshallah' at the end of every sentence. Someone really ought to explain to him about Islam and iconography."

"How does he know what the prophet Mohammed looks like anyway?"

"It used to be Haile Selassie. He had the nose thinned down and the word 'Mohammed' written underneath it in Arabic." Gonoroid flicked further down the Dowd family Wikipedia entry. "Wow, it says here the current head of the family, Ronnie Dowd, is a predatory homosexual sadist. And he's dead lush."

Steve was nonplussed. "You're turned on by all this?"

Gonoroid began flicking through Google images. "Well, he's the predator, I'm the prey, love. It's how the gay food chain works...Gosh! It says here that he enforces his dominance over members of subordinate gangs by making them let him put his cock in their mouths and take a picture. Once he has the picture, he can threaten to release it on the internet and ruin their gangster street cred."

Unconvinced, Steve said: "But if everyone knows he does it, doesn't that ruin their gangster street cred right from the start?"

Gonoroid shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he just likes doing it. Maybe they do. But just think about it! The Gay Mafia's real, and it ain't just in control of the BBC."

The Communications Officer's station lit up on the other side of the room. A deep male voice said: "We're being hailed by an unidentified caller at the front door, Brevet Sub-Commander."

Gonoroid spoke up. "Voice command, open video link."

The viewscreen lit up with two terrified-looking public schoolboys standing holding violin cases.

"Ah, the kiddy fiddlers", said Gonoroid into a microphone on the chair arm. "I trust it's just violins in those cases." He winked at Steve. "Please come in."

"You're got a camera out there?" said Steve.

"Yes. And before you ask, yes, I do see you rubbing your penis all over Mr. Johnson's milk bottles every morning."

"He dumps his rubbish in the chute room", said Steve defensively. "He doesn't put it in the chute."

"He also doesn't shred his bank statements", nodded Gonoroid. "You'd be surprised who'll pay good money for them." There was a hiss as the airlock cycled, and the two boys entered.

"Thanks for letting us in quick, Mr. Quarxxx", said one of the boys. "Hanging around looking like this, in this neighbourhood...we stand out."

"You certainly do", said Gonoroid, unbuckling his gammaraser and placing it on the chair arm. "Can't you take off your ties?"

"Being seen in town without a tie is a suspension offence."

"Even at weekends?"

The boys nodded meekly.

"Can't you just put on a burqa or something? It's what all good Moslem terrorists do."

"Yeah, but then we'd get spat on all the more", grinned the older of the two.

"Well, I suppose there's no mending it. Let's get down to business. Page one hundred and thirty-eight. Claire de Lune, an adaptation of. My gentleman friend was just leaving. He's late for work." He winked at Steve again. The boys smaned and nudged one another.

Confused as to how, by simply adding gentleman onto friend, Gonoroid had implied a sodomitic relationship, Steve rose to his feet with wounded dignity.

"I'm not going to work today", he said. "I'm calling in sick."

"In case someone's waiting outside work?"

"They know where I work. They don't know where I live. Yet."

Gonoroid winked again. The winking was becoming annoying. "Wear a burqa. I would. Ciao."

"Ciao, Brevet Sub-Commander."

The airlock hissed shut behind him.

***

"...er, yes, I have a terrible stomach ache. I'm being checked out by my doctor for, uh, lung cancer.

"...yes, I know the lungs aren't in the stomach. I'm not stupid. Look, I'm just not thinking straight right now, okay?

"...I'll get you a doctor's slip. I've been to see the doctor twice already." Extemporizing wildly, Steve searched through the local telephone directory, running his hand down lists of surgeries. "Look, all will be made clear, okay." He coughed theatrically. "I am not a hypochondriac. I am in pain."

Pausing a moment, he said:

"Is Mr. Botham there?

"Oh, nothing, I was just working on something with him last week before I, uh, fell ill." He realized he had not coughed for ten seconds, and coughed appropriately.

"I'm sorry to hear that your father died of lung cancer. In fact, I'm glad you think it doesn't sound like I have it. No-one would be glad to think they had lung cancer, would they?" He coughed again.

"So, Mr. Botham's been at work the whole time? And he's...still got all his toes and fingers and testicles and such? He hasn't said anything about being kerbed or necklaced or bitch-slapped or forced to put another man's, um, in his mouth, and take a picture?...Nothing. Nothing at all. I'll get the doctor's note for you. Notes. I've seen several doctors."

He put the phone down.

"Bugger. I'll have to go the doctor's now."

The knock on the door startled him. However, it was a knock on the door, not the front doorbell. Whoever was knocking was someone who already had access to the house, and if they'd broken in to the hallway, it would be odd of them to then become polite enough to knock.

He walked over to the door and tried to squint through the fisheye lens from far enough away not to get his eye poked out by a Samurai sword thrust through the door. He had seen movies.

On the other side of the door, a lady dressed from head to foot in furs, scarves, thermal sweaters and moonboots stood totally motionless, like a sunning reptile.

He considered his options. Possibly she was being held hostage by Albanian mobsters, standing out of sight on either side of the door.

Eventually, sheer politeness won out, and he opened all the bolts he'd installed over the weekend.

"Hello?"

She looked him up and down. He was still wearing only his boxer shorts, which bore the amusing legend WHAT'S THAT? IT'S TOO BIG TO BE A PENIS.

"It has not been eating", she said. "It has not left to forage for food for several days."

She swept past him into the flat, sniffing the air. "There is no odour of decomposition. There are no obvious signs of its accustomed diet, cheese sandwiches, full cream milk and Mars bars."

"I've had no appetite", said Steve. "I've not been well."

She glanced critically at his allegedly enormous crotch bulge as if in agreement with his diagnosis before continuing. "It is not consuming the amount of food one associates with a mammalian apex predator. It is sluggish and torpid." She looked at the open curtains. "It must sun itself for extended periods before becoming active."

"I've lost weight", said Steve. "I have things on my mind right now. Erm - what do you want?"

She reached forward, pulled open the waistband of Steve's boxers and peered inside. "At first glance, this seems to be a mammalian penis", she said. "But it does not truly resemble one on close inspection." She let the elastic go with a SNAP.

"Now just bloody hang on a minute here -"

"It moves among the warm-bloods, smells like them, and resembles them. Yet it is a mimic, like the hoverfly or dead nettle; it appears human, yet is not human. Its tiny penis is not capable of sufficiently penetrating a human female."

"- will you SHUT UP ABOUT MY -"

"It is a suitable subject for breeding", finished the Lizard Lady.

"Really?" said Steve.

"Really, said the Lizard Lady. "The ornithischia must be perpetuated."

"I do apologize", said Steve. "It's just that my blood feels cold and useless first thing in the morning. Almost as if I'm -"

"Reptilian", she finished, and closed the bolts on the door behind her, one by one.