Lizardo...

Here... on Planet 10! All the efforts to keep him away had now failed. The entire government of that long suffering world had been swept away overnight and replaced, yet again, with this maniac. It was clear that the Poohawks had played a big role, for black lectroid scalps (to a human they looked more like pelts) hung all over the place on Lizardo's.... tribute. Yes tribute. It looked like something out of ancient Rome or out of the fascist news reels of the late 1930s. A large collection of columns built of some white substance and decorated with the glyphs and graphiti of the red lectroids, with a statue of a Lizardoesque figure doing something vicious with a nasty looking scimitar in a shrine-like area underneath, towered over a crowd that was roiling in front of their leader, enjoying their moment of unchallenged world domination.

"Today this world...
Tomorrow the universe!"

(thunderous applause)

They hide, we seek.
(shouts of ooo ooo ooo)

First their corporations...
then their governments.
(Leeezardo Leeeeezardo)

What is the greatest joy?"

(the crowd) "The joy of duty!"

A very pleased Lizardo, looking 50 years younger, pulled his Minister of Justice to his side and said: "Bring the mountie to the ... Tower of Power." Then was off again whipping up nationalistic fervor.



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Well you shan't have to wait long my dear... You are a big part of the fuel that propels me on my mission...

I can remember how it was the first time I met you... I can remember the many times I visited you...

To know you is to be richer in such good things... So take my blessings with you this day and have them lift up your light heart still higher. Light the world with your lovely smile. Fill our beating vessels more full of warmth for you by the delight you take in living...

But ...

For the sake of all we treasure. For all that we love about life and want to enjoy till our dying days... For all... For the long term... Make sure you are well stocked with JellO before you close your lovely lids this night!





You can't remimber but I do...I could never forget...It was amazing and u kept coming back to me again and again in the same day....A real gentleman...

Love ya dudley

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Chafed hips? Rough skin on those elbows?

Need a pillow for those bazooooombas?

Come right down, right down, right now, to the Model Accessories and Party Alignment WearHaus

If you come today you can meet our fearless One, signing her latest book: "Mounties I've Obliterated."

And remember... the One cares about your views and your on-the-job comfort.

Get proactive with your career. Choose the party with the right direction.

Learn how to become more like the One today... Quote

Palila walked slowly up the stairs to her flat. Her lovely golden hair streamed out from under a fedora. Worn perhaps because of her furtive mood. In one arm she carried groceries - or rather one item in great quantity: Jell-O. She had made it to the store in time, before she became another on a fast growing list of victims of the menace that brooded over them all.

She wore red everywhere but in her hair. Her favorite color. It was on her lips. Even on her undies. Perhaps coincidently there was also a can of tomatoes in her shopping bag.

As she reached the top of the stairs she became aware that she was not alone. She turned slowly toward the figure waiting for her up there. A woman. Brunette. Long hair bound with a red scrunchie. Very carefully made up. Very carefully dressed. Something that passed for a smile on her lips.

"Good evening my dear" said the younger woman. She spoke in a somewhat cold voice that like so many other little things about her conveyed the idea of power and ruthlessness. "I'd like to talk to you about your future and the friends you currently hang out with."

She glanced into Palila's bag and said cooly: "You won't ever need that stuff again."

She guided Palila into her own flat where other women wearing red scrunchies waited. The door closed. The trial began... Quote

The mountie hung in his chains... the working over he'd been given had made him a bit logey. He wasn't alone very long. One very proud, very excited Emilio Lizardo entered his cell. He seemed to have been waiting for Ride and was positively delighted to see him.

Emilio: Ahhhhhhhh, my favorite mountie... Welcome, welcome to the Tower of Power.

Ride: What sick plan are you about to unleash on the world this time oh chinless one?

Emilio: All in good time my friend.

Ride: What happened to your accent?

Emilio: I have been evolving. It is part of the new Emilio. But now, I know you love particle accelerators. You will really appreciate this transmutation.

Ride: Will I?

Emilio: Observe. One normal bowl of Jell-O. Surrounded by a high energy field. Bathed in medium energy neutron beams - so and so. John O'Conner, throw the big switch!

John O'Conner: Not the big switch!

Emilio: Throw it! Throw it I say!

Sparks fly. Machinery screams. Two clumps of heavy particles start to move down opposite tracks. Doomed to meet each other eventually near the bowl of Jell-O but at much higher energies.

Emilio: (with hair raised from high field. eyes lit by an unhealthy gleam) Now watch this mountie. Watch as I create anti-Jell-O.

The beams met, the particles collided. Light flew out from the joining, the fusion of the heavy particles. The collision colloid wiggled, it jiggled, but in a somehow unholy way. Then it plopped down into the bowl of Jell-O.

There was an immense explosion. That cracked the transparent, protective container surrounding the bowl.

Emilio: Ever since this universe began life has trusted Jell-O to protect it, to keep it safe, to keep it free. Now begins a new reality. Those who possess Jell-O must cower now, now that I have created its anti-gelatin.

Bwaaaaaa ha hah ha ha ha. Buy Jell-O and destroy yourself and all within several city blocks. Don't buy and be devoured. Or... worship Emilio Lizardo. New master of the universe.

Ride: I'd say you are mad but that would be too obvious. You'll never make that in quantities big enough to threaten a school let alone a planet.

Emilio: Won't I? It's alive you fool. I've created a new form of life. It self replicates. It breeds faster than bacteria.

Ride: The deuce you say.

Emilio: And now... Let me show you another reason we call this the Tower of Power...




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It was a day like any other it seemed...

Taisa was in her private room, joking around with her regulars. Her eyes were bright. Her mood so light. She was constantly shifting her lithe sexy body this way and that as her smile broke over and over like happy waves on the welcoming beach. Just another day with her buddies.

She had a new toy and was describing the kinds of things she would do with it. As she was about to lift it up, the power shut off. Her viewers were bumped out. They waited patiently for a time and were happy to see her room come back on.

But when they logged into her place, they were greeted by a changed Taisa. Her eyes were vacant. Her long, fragrant hair was bound in a red scrunchie. Her smile was gone. A ... smirk, that was definately a smirk, for the first time was on that cute face.

Her chat was flat. Regulars began to drift away. Newcomers came in as the room's mood shifted. They had names like John Small Berries, John McEnroe, John val John...

Ah well. Whatever will be will be....


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Emilio




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PWHpjBG6U8&feature=related

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By now you, the discerning reader, has grown quite confident in Ride's ability to get out of tough situations. You are also well versed in the dramatic hero slips chains, destroys madman's cool but deadly control room, and exits stage right with explosions ripping everything apart.

But this is not the type of solution that Ride would advance for this type of situation. Remember Ride considers himself a bit of an artist. Part of being an artist is to use just the right amount of everything, all in proportion. Ride could see immediately that this situation could be adequately resolved with just a phone call.

You see even with their totalitarian bent, the red lectroids had some cultural connection with their black lectroid relatives. Ride in fact knew this went deeper. That in fact they had many long genetic strings in common. Their differences were largely in a few trigger genes, Hox genes as they are called by geneticists, being in different states. One thing that was too deep within their very being in this sense to be avoided was a natural tendency to follow arbitrary rules fanatically. Lizardo in fact had almost without knowing exploited this tendency to seize power and Ride would use it to derail their universe domination schemes.

Even a prisoner as deadly as Ride was allowed a phone call. A legal relic of the black lectroid rule. Ride requested and made it. He simply called the lectroid security wing. He reported that Lizardo had divulged state secrets to a known enemy agent (himself). In fact this of course was true. Lizardo had even given him a demonstration of the technology. Ride knew that like most security wings, the lectroid department would crack down on Lizardo without any regard for his plans. He would not be able to get any exception made. There are no exceptions to such rules anywhere in the galaxy. He would not be able to do anything at all but make court appearances and argue with mute officials for months. This of course would give the forces of good plenty of time to shield the universe from this new type of threat.

Being ever the complete artist, Ride was able to note, in his later lectures on this subject at the academy, that his plan would have been far too risky to try if the red and black lectroids were only related through the tenuous tie of convergent evolution. Really just tied together by the need to survive in a common environment. For he had to extrapolate the behavior of the red from knowledge of the black.

In this kind of timeframe his escape from the planet was like rolling out of bed on a Sunday morning. They couldn't execute him because he was required as a witness at Lizardo's trial. In fact he made use of the lectroid's witness protection plan claiming that Lizardo would murder him in his cell unless something were done. Lizardo himself knew that the mountie had slipped between his paws even before the reports drifted in weeks later of a mountie fitting Ride's description tripping the light fantastic in a seedy system many parsecs away from Planet 10.

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Ah R and R on a strange new world. Just what a frazzled mountie needs. The place was odd but fun: doing its version of some old Irish folk songs::

Hair eyes they shown like two diiiiiiiiamonds...

You'd think she was queeeeeen of the laaaaaaaaand...

And her hair it hung over her shouuuuuuulder...

Tied up with a red scrunchie band...

***

Wait a minute. Wasn't that supposed to be "black velvet band"? Ride was suddenly alert. He spotted her immediately: Malori. Sauntering down a path that would take her fairly near to him.

Ah what a force of nature she was. Irrepressible personality - so mellow, so sweet. Devastating good looks with long, silky hair, a smile that changed all your priorities in life. Her eyes... mmm... a universe in them. Her breasts. Her form. Her grace. And ... well you get the idea.

Ride's worries were made a firm number two in priority as he moved forward to greet her. His mind already playing with his opening line, his eyes already taking their greedy fill of her, his heart brushing off its wings getting ready to fly again.

But wait... In her hair, a red scrunchie. Ride frowned. She turned toward him. Her normally lively eyes were somehow dull, vacant. Ride froze in his tracks. Every instinct there was told him to be so wary.

She made one distracting movement with her hand in her hair and incredibly went straight at him with a not too subtle knife attack. It was child's play to catch her wrist and stop the assault. Ride was very puzzled. This was not her at all. If she wanted him dead, and she most definitely wouldn't, she would likely succeed but do it in a much more subtle way.

Ride didn't bother to speak to her. He merely examined her very closely as he held her arms pinned to her sides. There were other changes. She was dressed... so preppily, with that almost militaristic cuteness that Ride vaguely remembered from ... yes... now I've got it, he thought. There was a deadly clique back in a particular high school that had started a dangerous movement many years ago. She had become... most definately... no question in his mind... no possible competing explanation: a ... Heather!

Malori? Their Malori? Perfect, sweet, yet strong willed Malori.... a Heather? Inconceivable! How had that deranged movement managed to brainwash someone of her caliber? They preyed upon insecure little girls, who craved popularity, who needed acceptance. Never in their existence had they ever made a recruit like Malori. Something about that organization had changed. In a big way. The knife attack surely showed that their methods and ambitions had become more... direct.

"I think you need the healing power of a mountie's touch" whispered Ride to her, his eyes soft but determined. He scanned the room for other threats and then carefully spirited her away. Took her off alone. And began the cure.

They were familiar lovers and Ride appreciated her very much. It broke his heart to see what she had become. He wished that he had come to this foul place sooner and made the cure so much earlier.

She of course resisted at first. Violently but with no guile. She was soon lost in the whirlwind, the warm light. Her decks were soon awash. The Nile soon rose and spilled over its banks. Her curt smirk soon melted like everything else and was reformed, recast into its earlier, purer, unique form. The evil clique's control evaporated as the mountie's control, his healing ways, working over and through her very being, brought her back from the brink of destruction.

"I..." she murmered with rekindling eyes, "I ... will tell you all... do anything you say..."

"Good... Good... My child, my pet." quietly, soothingly, musically intoned the mountie. His eyes hypnotically dancing before hers, two sets of diamonds in close orbit, dazzling each other.
"Confess all to me. It is not your fault. Your heart was always so pure. They brainwashed you. Made you feel such terrible things. Do such horrible things."

Her pain was so immense. It made her speech difficult. He silenced her with one gentle finger to her full, soft, sexy lips.

He took out his recording of deep Vulcan strings, carried just for such emergencies. He raised one eyebrow and placed both hands on her head. His eyes rolling up toward the ceiling.

"Our minds become one." he droned in a monotone as the deep deep bass twanged in its alien way.

"Pain... Pain... So much pain..." he emoted but kept his hands on head.

(loudly) "Accessories... Domination... Chainsaws..." then sobbing "chainsaws"

"I... oh God... Valley speak... Horrible, unforgivable crimes against the language."

(then with horror) "Moby Dick!"

Ride broke off the connection quickly. Panting. This poor woman had endured more than her share of evil. It was time to make it up to her.

And he did.











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Many men have dreamed of living the prime of their lives during critical moments of mankind's or their nation's history. Presumably being born into such conditions that they could actually play some significant role. Ride, however, was no such man. He was of the type that longed for a simple, peaceful existence. He had no thirst for glory. He had plenty of pursuits to fill his leisure time. He loved life itself, despite its downside, and merely wanted to get into the rythm of some idyllic lifestyle. But alas, duty... just duty... had a way of interfering with such schemes. Perhaps this is why he was able to be so fierce at times when dealing with Evil. He resented Evil for its demands upon him, even though in an abstract way he got all the other reasons for which he should despise it.

There was no doubt that these were unusual, significant times. Evil was getting its act together and cranking everything up as far as it would go. It was silencing all its internal feuding. It was finding the beat. It was marching with one step. It was reaching for the stars. It was flexing its fingers in the iron glove, maneuvering for the knockout blow. It was ready to deal Good a deadly, decisive blow.

And Good? Was Good mobilizing the same way? Was there the same sense of moment on the other side?



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Now deep in the guts of a big freighter... On his way to widen the crack opened by Lorre's leak... Ride silently brooded and pondered human nature...

Shaylla was on his mind again. She was quite the puzzle. He didn't know quite where she fit into the world situation. He knew precious little beyond how well she fit into all the fabulous outfits she loved to show off when the mood struck her. And how easy it was to recognize her in a crowd by her striking beauty, style, and tell-tale dimples.

Oh he knew a few secrets about her. She had been the leader of a few Slovakkii movements whose motives were not well known outside their inner circles. He knew some of the dark past of her current lover. He knew that many of her enemies had mysteriously disappeared.

When the chips were down, as they seemed to be now, mysteries turn from charming to agonizing. Ride knew he was soon to enter near people and regions that she had influence over. It would be close, a high risk plan, to strike in the heart of the One's domains. He wished he knew just where this model's loyalties were. If she bore a new tat that betrayed some new allegience to the dark side or if she was keeping to her habitual position on the side - playing for her own purposes the game of intrigue.

She of course knew this and his most recent recon missions found her smiling but revealing little new information. Her dark sense of humor and perhaps her playfulness conspiring to keep the element of surprise firmly on her side.

But Ride was a natural gambler. His brooding quickly ended as he realized that the sum of what he knew placed her with sufficient probability on his side, at least in the immediate conflict. He would make his play and strike deep in the domains of the One - with a good chance of badly crippling her ability to continue operations...

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How wonderful Altair was when it was near enough to warm you...

Its unusually fast rotation rate for its size made it bulge at the equator by 25 percent relative to the poles. This made the equator darker, cooler than the poles as well.

With the right kind of goggles and a little... temporal distortion... it made for one gnarly, disco ball. It reminded Ride a little of a fat guy forcing himself into a belt.

The fracks were hitting off of it, their jeweled fingers picking strings, their voices warbeling with that keening sound they are so well known for:

Yeen tung yeen tung Yeen tung yeen tung yeen tung keeble eyeeee oooooh.

Yeen tung keeble eye oh, keeble eye aye, keeble eye yeeeeee

Wuck duck foo duck be kawasaki, do gabaseeki be gor lee

kuo dat ping yack boob in kentucky, deedle me up a bangloree

ooooooooh Yeen tung yeen tung yeen tung yeen tung yeen tung keeble eyeee ooooh

Yeen tung keeble eye oh, keeble eye aye, keeeble eye yoooooooooooooooooo

-----

Yeah on a night like this, it didn't matter how many legs you had or how much you had been drinking... you were gonna do all right.







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As a part of her stress reduction therapy, the One wrote the following derivative work while waiting for Ride's assault to begin:

That's my last Mountie painted on the wall,
Looking as if he were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Luchesi's hands
Worked busily a day, and there he stands.
Will't please you sit and look at him? I said
"Luchesi" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
His lover's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the mountie's cheek: perhaps
Luchesi chanced to say "His gun belt laps
"Over my mountie's hips too much," or "Paint
"Must never hope to reproduce the faint
"Half-flush that dies along his throat": such stuff
Was courtesy, he thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. He had
A heart how shall I say? too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; he liked whate'er
he looked on, and his looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at his breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bottle of sherrie some officious fool
Broke in the winyard for him, the white mule
He rode with round the forest all and each
Would draw from him alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. he thanked women good! but thanked
Somehow I know not how as if he ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech which I have not to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
"Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
"Or there exceed the mark" and if he let
Himself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
His wits to yours, forsooth, and make excuse,
E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, he smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed him; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There he stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for lawyering will be disallowed;
Though his fair self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Pier1 Imports cast in bronze for me!

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Finally some action Quote

little girl: That's stupid!

gramps: What?

little girl: You know, that business about the 'lurking menace' scarfing down all of Sodom and Gomorah.

gramps: (closing the book and peering at her over bifocals) Why?

little girl: You know why! The thing was created in some lame dude's apartment late at night. So how could it be around way back then. (sarcastically) Was that its daddy?

gramps: (with a grim expression) You realize that I haven't yet told that part of the story?

little girl: (gasping) Oh my god!

gramps: (nodding) Yes. You see. Even now there is something wrong with space-time.

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So what... who cares... thought Ride as reality did some bends around his seated position in a bar in another far off world.

So the fabric of space-time was bending, rending, gyrating. Why did people need a normal universe? Why? Wasn't this strange new universe good enough? Even more interesting in its way.

He stared with somewhat detached fascination as couples, some of them anyway, dealt with reversed and accelerated timelines. Yeah it played havoc on a normal home life but people could adapt. They could learn to make timeline direction and rate of travel just another parameter in their already incredibly complex list of mate-selection requirements. People were masters at getting used to really bizarre realities.

It would also explain a lot of history if there were a little back and forth with some shaking going on.

This chick Ride was checking out was benefitting by the local distortions. It was making her breasts move in a very sexy way. They were giving off some kind of radiation too, probably Chernekov, that made them shimmer in a blueish light. Harmless visible bands but such a nice blue.

"Yeeeeeeeah. I think I'll just go with the flow for now." thought Ride as he kicked back comfortably.





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Just call me Ishmael...

I am as much an orphan, a refugee. My team was taken out as surely as the crew of the Pequod. But not by the whale. No, by my Ahab.

She is obsessed. Troubled by a slight wrong. Vowing great vengeance against a man, a mountie. Anything that gets in her way is crushed. And woe befalls all who enlist under her command.

Her cause is a meat grinder. Devouring lives and dreams. The mountie truly does not hunt her, not really, and so is madness even though he is a reasoning being. Her harpoons may lodge in his skin but they are attached to their throwers and drag them down under water.

Ever since history began wise men have warned their charges of the foolishness of vengeance. The folly of obsession. So I do not expect you to heed the warnings of this foolish, simple 'sailor'. But some yet may turn away at one of the many opportunities that Fate offers from their over-hasty plunge into destruction.

Beware the pale mountie Model in Black. Turn away... Take this opportunity, there may not be more.


aiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.....




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As Ride made his observations, he realized for the first time the wisdom in the choice of the words "moved on" or "moving on". The universe was moving on he now could see. Each bit of it was moving on its own timeline, so it wasn't necessarily moving all in the same direction. The negative connotation, that this was not a normal good thing, was in fact a sign of decay, he wasn't yet certain about. He was on the fence. Working it out.

The tower was involved with this of course. The Model in Black. A host of other icons.

He now understood why the models were being targeted.

It is amazing what a properly located bar, with the right crowd, and the proper drink in your clutches, can do for your reasoning ability...


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