Andy Roos - "In the red" pt1

Who: Andy, Seymour
Where: Mollopod planet, Slums
When: Year 2107, wormhole jump. +60 seconds
Andy didn't quite know how to explain it. One second he was armed
with a bazookoid standing alongside the ambassador and his saviour,
Seymour Niples, who had consented to hold the dormant Skutter-001;
the next… he was everywhere. Seconds prior, by pulling Andy and by
consequence 001 from the berserk Express-lift, Seymour had saved them
both. Andy and Seymour had no way of knowing that Express-lift's CPU
had just been finally destroyed due to the jump, rather their
interest was focused on the unusual buzzing that filled the corridors.
His last memory was Seymour screaming (as usual) as something behind
him. The cleaner suddenly felt like someone just missed a yet
unnoticed dartboard and tagged him in the shoulder.
For the span of three seconds he felt like he just had a power
conduit shoved down his throat. Electricity crackled up and down his
arms and arced across his chest. Sucking in a scream of pain he
noticed that his agony seemed to be sourced one the back of his right
hand- right where his temperature chip was located.
Then he vanished.
Then he appeared.
Then he vanished again.
Now he was disappearing and re-appearing all over the show.
For one second Andy was back in his quarters, next the command deck,
another in that damn toilet *AGAIN*, then in a strange house that
looked conjured up from the 1930's, for exactly 3.5 seconds he was
abandoned in the hard vacuum of space.
Finally he was teleported to a bizarre glass room filled with other
crew members. From then he was shot to a random location and back to
that same glass room and never for more than a second at a time.
A small crackly-pop issued from his right arm and the teleporting
stopped. Andy let out a small yell as he was left to fall in the top-
right-corner (what he thought was right) of the glass room.
With spectacular dexterity Andy's arms and legs folded out and
slammed into the diagonal sides of the wall. His ultra-stick boots
squeaked as they attempted to stick to the neigh-traction-less
surface.
Andy's Bazookoid was gone, his right hand bled, his plunger and bio-
spray dug into his backside painfully. That's it! With a moment's
hesitation his left hand abandoned the effort to keep him from the
fall and dug into his pants then whipped out the plunger as though it
was Excalibur.
For a second his right hand succumbed to the blood loss and his body
lurched forward on axis from his boots. Left hand shot out to the
west and a loud `slum!' sound told the cleaner that it stuck. The
limited-edition graviton plunger (voted to be overkill by three major
cleaning firms) stuck to the side of the glass room like the
Paparazzi to Princess Diana.
Almost forcefully pulling his boots free from the grip, Andy swung
down to the bottom of the plunger then reset his boots while his left
hand kept a powerful grip on the plunger's body.
`What the hell just happened?' Andy's mind passed this thought over
as more important questions occurred like `Where had all the crew
members gone?', `What the hell was that pain in my right arm?'
or `Why the hell am I in a glass room in the middle of a city square
surrounded by a few thousand slugs dressed like hobos while suspended
3 metres above a red whirlpool?'
Andy's eyes stared down at the red pool below, suddenly his senses
returned to him. His first was smell. It was blood. The thought that
he had just avoided the fates of some of the other crew members never
crossed his mind. Which was a good thing as if he panicked now he
would be very much dead.
Then the sense of sound returned. A roaring buzz came from below the
red pool. He then noticed that the Slugs where cheering… and
speaking… which they seemed to have been sped up by Andy's appearance.
A rebating noise like a thunder-strike suddenly assaulted his ears.
Suspended directly one metre above him was a massive orb of ball-
lighting. Miscellaneous objects began to fall from the crackling orb,
and I mean miscellaneous. At first it was a huge mass of grey wire
then the floor doors where open. Paper clips, beakers, other science
equipment and even his fallen gas-mask (must've fallen off when
Seymour pulled him out of the lift) fell down and where quickly
absorbed by the pool. The buzz from below was only momentarily paused
with an even louder roar as the objects floated to the bottom.
Then the demi-god of all miscellaneous objects fell through, Seymour
Niples. A high pitched scream accompanied the man as he fell. Andy's
lightening fast reflexes (honed by dodging hot irons, acid and the
like) forced his wounded right hand to snap out and grab the man's
arm. A renewed scream was let out as Seymour twisted around
completely just before he fell into the pool.
Andy growled as pain once again snapped up and down his arm. "Climb
up me!" The cleaner snarled. "Are you mad?! You're harder to climb
than a ladder covered in olive oil!" Seymour snapped in return.
"You see that pool below? That's not tomato sauce!" Andy's grip was
slowly beginning to slip. Luckily for both of them, Andy's point was
well made.
The MK IV hazmat (cleaner variant) was flitted with a number of
extras. All of these had the un-expected function of making excellent
climbing platforms. As Seymour planted his foot right above Andy's
belt he reminded himself to hunt down and kill the designer.
Eventually the Ambassador slung his leg over the body of the ultra-
stick plunger and stayed there, his arms supporting themselves with
the `lid' of the blender. Unfortunately with Andy's hand still
gripping the body of the plunger it made it perilously close to
Seymour's groin.
"Tell anyone of this and I'll destroy you." The well-dressed man
hissed.
"What's all this then?" A slug's voice echoed. Andy's head turned to
see what appeared to be a `police' slug holding a megaphone. The
creature was surrounded by a small group of slightly more well-
dressed slugs. And all of them scratching their heads as to what had
happened. "Let go and just die already you idiots!" Both Andy and
Seymour stared at the creature, then to each other. Did that slug
just call them idiots… for trying to live?
The cheering slowly began to subside after a few minutes. Realisation
slowly dawned upon the creatures that neither Andy nor Seymour
weren't going to let go for any reason.
~@~
Who: 001
Where: Blue Dwarf, Science deck halls
When: Year 2107, wormhole jump. +240 seconds
The covers over the damaged Skutter's optics slid open gently.
"You right dude?" Holly's voice flittered in through its audio
receivers.
001 noticed that it was laid out on a long metal table. Its long head
extended up to look for the boss. He didn't find him.
001 turned to the digital representation of the AI. A short series of
squeaks questioned about the boss's absence. "Almost all the crew's
been kidnapped by a pack of flesh eating slugs." Holly explained in
deadpan. "I know that the other Skutters tried to kill the crew but
now it's time for you lads to restore your good name. No more hiding
in the vents, no more hiding in cardboard boxes and no more people
staring when they see them move around. So it's going to be extremely
dangerous, good thing is that you lot will be able to actually follow
your boss around."
001's CPU was sent whirling with the new data. >Crew= kidnapped>Boss
(part of) crew>Boss= kidnapped>Kidnapped= Danger>Boss= Danger. A
sound akin to a buzz-saw ground against titanium was produced from
the enraged Skutter. 001 let out a Wide-brand broadcast. With the
Skutter Wi-Fi, 001 was in contact with all of the hidden Skutters at
all times, their complaints (and protests=Boss's job), new orders,
suggests were all made known. 001's attention vibrated as it
broadcast the message that their saviour and father figure, Boss was
in danger. It was on now.
<to be continued>