"This is crazy," Pee Kitty sighed for the eighth time that day. "No shielding? No Yacatizma fields? Nothing but a low-level cloak? This is one of the--"
"--most important devices ever created, on or off this planet, in the history of time," Godfather finished for him. "We know. We've known the last three times you've brought it up. It's going to work."
"I just don't trust it, is all. Maybe if _I_ wasn't the carrier, I'd be more at ease."
Betsy looked up from her needles and yarn for a moment, "Pee, you know the Yists would never suspect this! It's too simple. They only think complex and scheming--such a simple trick is bound to fool them!"
"I'm not saying it doesn't have merit, just that...ah, forget it. Does Onan have the fake?"
RyGy and Kriscindy, the two new recruits, both looked up and answered, "Yup!" at the same time. With a grin, RyGy finished, "We dropped it off yesterday. It's set up with a full protective Yacatizma matrix, damn near visible from orbit! They can't miss it."
"They're ready!" Betsy looked up from her finished work with a smile. Everyone agreed that she had done an amazing job. No one would ever have suspected that the two multicolored, striped socks she had before her were actually the primary antennae of the Janor Device.
No one except for the Xists, of course.
And Janor, but that goes without saying.
::: Somewhere in the Solar System
::: X minus 4 days, 18 hours, 32 minutes
The Yist scout looked up from the neural inductive field display. His face wore an exression that a human could only achieve by microwaving their head for several minutes, then watching a Teletubbies Marathon. It was, however, an evil smile.
WE ARE NOT AS EASILY FOOLED AS YOU MIGHT THINK, "SUB-GENIUSES".
It went back into the field, again monitoring every word the unsuspective Yetinsyny said.
::: Luciferian Liberation Front HQ (Monitor Room) ::: X minus 2 days, 13 hours, 15 minutes
An alarm went off.
An important alarm went off.
An alarm that warned the SubGenii of odd happenings on the Luck Plane went off.
An alarm specifically designed to watch for increased odds of the presence of NHGH hisself went off.
Unfortunately, no one was there to see this alarm go off.
::: Somewhere in High Orbit over Earth
::: X minus 2 days, 13 hours, 10 minutes
IT IS DONE.
WILL IT WORK?
OUR CALCULATIONS INDICATE A 94% CHANCE THAT IT WILL. OF COURSE, WITH nhgh THERE IS ALWAYS ROOM FOR DOUBT. nhgh DOES NOT WORK FOR US, BUT FOR HISSELF.
THEN HOW IS IT THAT WE CAN SUMMON HISSELF SO EASILY?
HISSELF ALLOWS IT. FORTUNATELY, nhgh LIKES US AND HATES "SUB-GENIUSES".
::: Brushwood Folklore Center
::: X minus 2 days, 3 hours, 52 minutes
Picture, if you will, an announcer with a megaphone, though there was none. The only sound in reality was a snoring SubGenius and the distant sounds of pagans drumming.
"LADIES... AND... YETINSYN! STEP RIGHT THIS WAY FOR THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY!
"In THIS corner, the all-powerful force of Anti-Slack! That which works against "Bob" himself! The demiurge and demigod, He Who Destroys, the true form of Evil.....NHGH!!!
"And in THIS corner, a sleeping, unsuspecting, tired, worn-out-from-way- too-much-partying, MORTAL SubGenius...Pee Kitty!!!
"Gentlemen, to your corners! Now LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!!!"
Who would you bet on?
To those of you who said Pee Kitty: Your faith is touching, your naivete even more so.
::: Somewhere in High Orbit over Earth
::: X minus 1 day, 16 hours, 2 minutes
STATUS REPORT.
WE HAVE CONFIRMED OUR FEARS - nhgh WAS AND IS POWERLESS TO AFFECT THE ANTENNAE HISSELF. PLAN B HAS BEEN HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL, HOWEVER.
CARRIER STATUS?
FULL SYSTEMIC ASSAULT IN PROGRESS. ALL KEY BIOCHEMICAL SYSTEMS ARE UNDER ATTACK - SEVERAL ARE ALREADY DESTROYED. FULL SYSTEM SHUTDOWN IMMINENT.
GOOD.
And the face went back to its microwaved/Teletubbies contortion.
::: Westfield Hospital Emergency Room
::: X minus 1 day, 13 hours, 36 minutes
Doctors raced around, yelling out various orders. Nurses raced around, following various orders. Tubes were hooked up, needles injected, and fluids were exchanged all around.
Pee Kitty's request that he immediately be taken back to Brushwood so the Janor Device could be completed was politely refused. When he persisted, the doctors pointed out that the Janor Device did not appear in any of their medical textbooks and therefore must be less important than the "human" life they were trying to save.
Pee Kitty began to question the wisdom of having the "socks" carbon-bonded to his legs before the trip.
Pee Kitty's second request, that his legs be amputated and immediately taken back to Brushwood so the Janor device could be completed was politely ignored, and dismissed as either a joke or the ramblings of a man driving insane from systemic shutdown.
Pee Kitty's third request got him sedated.
::: Entering the Milky Way
::: X minus 1 day exactly
The commander of the Xist fleet gave the order to halt just within the borders of our galaxy. It glanced at the screen where the coordinates were to be displayed soon.
NOW, WE WAIT.
::: Westfield Hospital, Room 215
::: X minus 14 hours, 45 minutes
"So tell the doctors they can all come along, if they want! You know I've got to get back there or we're all doomed!"
"We've been trying everything, man," Godfather assured Pee Kitty. "Stang's got the banks of lawyers trying to find a loophole that'll get you out of here. G. Gordon Gordon's working on a direct armed assault of the place, but all the weapon caches are back in Dallas."
"Okay, okay...if you can't bring me to Janor, go get Janor. Bring him to the hospital. It's not that far away from Brushwood, Godfather - the broadcasting amplifiers should still be able to pick up the signal!"
"Thought of that already. No can do. Janor won't come."
"Why?"
"He's Janor, man."
That explanation had always sufficed, and would have to suffice for now, as well.
Pee Kitty sighed and picked at his hospital food.
::: Just inside the Milky Way
::: X minus 2 hours, 4 minutes
The Xist commander frowned.
SOMETHING IS WRONG. WE SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN THE COORDINATES BY NOW.
::: Leaving Earth's Orbit
::: X minus 1 hour, 14 minutes
The Yist commander did that strange evil smile again.
EVERYTHING IS RIGHT. THE JANOR DEVICE HAS BEEN NULLIFIED AND THE COORDINATES WILL NOT BE SENT. OUR WORK HERE IS DONE.
The ship was a blur as it crossed the lightspeed barrier.
::: Brushwood Folklore Center
::: X minus 30 minutes
Stang looked to Philo, "Maybe they'll still find us?"
Philo just looked back at him disparagingly.
::: Just inside the Milky Way
::: X plus 1 minute
HAVE THE COORDINATES BEEN RECEIVED BY ANY OF THE SHIPS?
NO, SIR.
SET A COURSE FOR HOME, AND PUT ME IN CONTACT WITH MR. DOBBS. HE OWES US ONE HELL OF AN EXPLANATION... AND GAS MONEY.
And the last hope of Yetikind sped off into the void of space.
::: Westfield Hospital, Room 215
::: X plus 2 hours, 3 minutes
The doctor seemed a little taken aback by the patient's nonplussed reaction. "Mr. Levine? I don't know if you heard me correctly. What I said was that your pancreas has been destroyed and several of your other internal systems have been damaged."
Pee Kitty, or "Mr. Levine" to the unaware hospital folks, turned a single open eye lazily toward the doctor. "And what _I_ said was, 'Big deal, compared to the fact that it's July 5th, 9 am, and we're all still here.' Look, I wouldn't expect you to understand, doc. What else did you want me to know?"
"Well, uh, with no pancreas, you're now suffering from diabetes. I'm afraid you'll have to take insulin to stay alive now, and monitor how much sugar you take in. We'll also need to keep you here for a while until your body is able to function on its own again."
Pee Kitty grinned, again fazing the doctor. "No big deal. I'm imprisoned in this meat shell anyways, so I might as well be imprisoned here" The confused doctor muttered a goodbye and left the room. Pee Kitty turned towards his cluster of friends in the room, "Now what I want to know is who the hell ratted us out?"
::: Tampa Bay Tridenominational Multiclench ::: X plus 21 hours, 3 minutes
The shadowy figure glided through the empty household until it found the hidden bug. Pocketing it with a smile, the figure slipped out of the place quickly and quietly, locking the door behind him.
The pipe smoke had faded from the air long before the SubGenii returned home.
Rev. Pee Kitty, of the order Malkavian-Dobbsian Meow!
::: Official Martyr of X-Day! <http://www.cris.com/pkitty/xday98>
Up one level
Back to document index
Original file name: An X-Day submission from PK
This file was converted with TextToHTML - (c) Logic n.v.