Steal My Stuff: Do aliens dream of space operas? (Episode XII)

'So lets go over the plan holistically, make sure the bits fit.'

Joe stood in front of the assembled personnel. They were all quiet, attentive. He could hear the sound of his own voice, strong, without nerves. He also imagined hearing the Mission Impossible music (or something eerily similar yet far less copyrighted) playing over the top.

daaa daaaa
Da dada da
daaa daaaa.

He felt a surge of energy with all eyes on him. There was Isaac and the noob, sitting up front like good schoolchildren; there was The Tank, taking up a large portion of the middle of the room; there were the twins up back, unusually silent; next to them were four empty spaces where the three men and one woman of The Underground should have been, after having arrived with perfectly clichéd appearance,

only to have left promptly upon hearing the phrase “preparation”; and to his side, with an encouraging smile, was Anne.

daaa daaaa
Da dada da
daaa daaaa.

'Ridley, Tank,' continued Joe, 'you go straight to the Emperors Tower and demand to see the Emperor himself. They'll refuse. The guards will be Black Shoes, but don't let that scare you.'

The Tank hruffed. Loudly.

'Sell them on the idea that what you've got could change everything. Sell it big. Don't show them anything until you've gone further down the sales pitch, though. Let them know you're only doing this for personal profit, that you're sick of fighting for food. Let them know that what you've got will solve their little sanitation problem.'

Joe smirked at Ridley. He continued:

'Tell them how you've got this wonderful technology that will solve their biggest problem, that you can force the wormholes from Earth to pop up in the location of their choosing. Straight into their jails, if they like. Only after saying this should you show them the device. And make sure it's safe enough to give them a demonstration. They're only guards so they'll be impressed by anything shiny.'

I'd like to point out that I don't personally endorse Joe's thoughts on guards. I think they are an important part of modern society. Perhaps a little lazy at times, sure, but who isn't? And certainly not the most intelligent of workers. Granted, they can be quite cowardly when push comes to shove. But ultimately they do a wonderful job. Bouncers on the other hand...

'This is where you come in,' said Joe, with a look toward the noob. 'Have you spoken to Adam Douglas?'

'All done,' said the noob. 'He assured me that they will agree to the deal. They are desperate. Blah, blah, blah.' (Does it really matter what else he said?)

'Good,' said Joe. He didn't know how the noob had been able to get in contact with the drug-addicted white-suited smooth-talking hyphen-inducing man, and privately cast admonitions my way for not having already established any of this in the story. Especially harmful to the believability was the explicit mention of no communications equipment.

He also pondered how the noob had convinced the man to help. With drugs, maybe? But how would he have access to them?

I could have filled him in on that part. Isaac had a few reds inside his watch (or is that technically the noob's watch?) back from when he was working with the local human gangs. Perhaps I should have mentioned it a few episodes back? Whoops. Oh well. Consider yourself informed.

Having no knowledge of this, Joe plunged on with his instructions to the noob:

'Set up the other end of the matter transmitter here. Then once it's opened up, jump on through. They'll arrest you and hand you over to the Cowboys.'

Ridley grinned at Joe's use of his nickname for the creatures. 'Nice,' he said.

Joe continued with his instructions. Not so much to ignore Ridley, that was merely icing; his focus was on making sure the plan got executed as well and as quickly as possible. 'They'll take you away to the temporary holding area.' Assuming they have agreed to the deal, thought Joe.

The noob probably nodded his head or something like that. But Joe was still worried about how desperate the Cowboys really were. It was clear they were enslaved with transmitters, fixed to this dimension, forced into labour by the O.L.'s. So surely the promise of freedom would be enough recompense for their help.

'Oh,' said Joe, looking at The Tank and Ridley, 'and if they take you away too, which they probably will, they'll send you to the same place.'

'Oh, it'll be fine then,' said Ridley with the brutal force of all his sarcasm. It was a level 9 at least.

'You'll be OK,' said Joe. 'But I'll get to that later.'

'Sure,' said Ridley, 'as long as the Cowboys are in on it. Quite a lot rests on that assumption.'

'We don't have a choice,' said Anne. It was the first thing she'd said since the meeting started. The words hung in the air with no one willing to argue the point, not even Ridley.

To Joe's mind, the air of excitement had been sucked out of the room as they were reminded of why they were doing this. His earlier confidence had been partially based on the thrill of the plan, the kind of thing you'd see before a heist in some Ocean's 50 sequel. Now that the point of the meeting had been reinforced, it was all a bit too...real. He tried to get the tone back on track, at least in his own mind, with some more exhilarating background music.

daaa daaaa
Da dada da
daaa daaaa.

Yeah, that was better. His chest stuck out as he continued the low-down: 'After they witness the veracity of the device, the guards will quickly pass it on, up their chain of command.'

'Why?' said Ridley. He crossed his arms. 'Why would they do that and not just use it themselves?'

'Because they're guards,' said Joe. 'Who ever heard of a smart guard?'

'I've heard of selfish guards,' said Shamus.

'And ones that are on the take,' said Micky.

I must say, I'm shocked at such a strong anti-guard sentiment. I'd put together a protest and march on the streets with big signs and bigger bull-horns, but...you know. *shrugs*

Joe took a deep breath. 'That's not the way the Black Shoes work. They are chosen from those most disciplined so as not to be corrupt. They will fight to be the first to give it to their immediate superior. They will want the rewards of duty.'

He didn't say how he came to know this information. Some might suspect him of being more intelligent than he appeared. Others would realise how obviously wrong that statement was, and surmise that Anne had told him. Still, it was enough to win over the Rat's Nest.

'The rest of us will stand by until the device works its way up to the Emperor.'

This was a big worry. He was fairly sure it would get there, as each rank of the Black Shoes, and further to the O.L.'s, would want to send it straight to the top as soon as possible. But still, it would take time. And time was something they didn't have.

The plan wasn't unravelling just yet. The mission impossible beats in his head were a bit slanted, though, a bit off-key.

daaa daaaa
Da dada da
daaa daaaa.

'Once the device has made it into the hands of the Emperor O.L.,' continued Joe, 'and switched on, Anne will go next, with the transmitter removal tool hidden on her body.'

He looked at her body. Come on, what choice did he have? He mentioned it, she was standing nearby, it was only natural he'd look at it. All those curves and smoothness and warmth. It gave him good thoughts and bad thoughts. Well, bad thoughts about good thoughts. Or should that be good thoughts about bad thoughts? He coughed and continued:

'Remember, act like you were just on Earth and you've been unexpectedly shoved through a gaping hole.'

The twins made a few jokes about shoving and holes, which didn't help Joe's focus.

He didn't really want Anne involved in the plan but she was the only one who knew how to remove the transmitters. Even if there was someone else, there was no way she'd let them do this without her.

'Once she's through,' Joe said 'Anne will get straight to work on removing the Cowboys' transmitters. It'll be a great good-faith gesture. That way, we can get them to find Connie as soon as possible and get her – and everyone else – out of there.'

'When do we get to squeeze through the hole, then?' asked Shamus, with a wink. Joe cringed. I think it was more at my use of a stereotypical over-the-top wink than at any crass humour.

'Next up,' said Joe. 'But space yourselves a bit. We want it to look random.'

'To be sure, to be sure,' said Shamus.

That even made me cringe. Sorry.

Joe paused at the next part of the plan. He wasn't entirely sure how this would happen. There really needed to be better communication systems in play. He hoped that if they did get out of this and manage to transport themselves away from this place, it'd be nice to go some place where phones are prevalent. Or better, some kind of high-tech brain->brain communications mapping. That'd be cool. Or, would have been cool.

That last bit was directed at me. Sigh.

It might get down to just winging it, Joe thought. Just like on Earth: close your eyes and jump through the hole, without knowing what's on the other end.

'Once Connie is out, once you're all out, let me know,' said Joe. He was looking at them all. It didn't matter who told him as long as they did. He turned to Isaac. 'Have you got the weapon working how we want?'

'Ya, I have rigged up ze trigger so zat she overloads on release.'

'On release?' said Joe, shocked. 'What do you mean on release?'

'It is like a dead man's svitch,' said Isaac. He shrugged.

'Why?' said Joe.

'It vas ze most elegant vay to achieve ze desired outcome, ya?'

'Err no,' said Joe.

'So wait,' said Ridley, 'he'll take the thing through to the other side, then when he releases the trigger...ka-boom?'

'I sought you vould appreciate ze self-sacrifice. It vould be helping all of ze people.'

Joe looked at him, aghast. 'You thought I'd want to be a suicide bomber?!'

Ridley laughed. 'We all bear risks with this plan, Joe,' he said.

'Why would I want that?' said Joe.

Isaac started responding but his words were drowned out by a much more animated Joe. 'This is a recovery mission. We're trying to save someone, not bring down a government. I'm no martyr.'

Ridley wouldn't take the horrible grin off his face.

Joe hadn't realised until now, but Anne was holding his arm. It was like a magic transportation device where strength flowed into him. It didn't matter that no one else seemed to be on his side. But why would he self-sacrifice if there were other options?

'Can you rig it up so that it only overheats after I press a button?' asked Joe, trying to keep calm.

'Ya, I'm sure zat could be done. If you vant it.'

'Oh, I vant,' said Joe.

He felt his heart beating against his chest. He was nervous enough without having to worry about exploding randomly. 'Perhaps you should get started on that now,' said Joe, with a quiver in his voice.

'Ya, I can do zat,' said Isaac. The noob followed behind quietly.

Joe let his fingers find Anne's hand and held it in his own. There wasn't much more to the plan but he was finding it difficult to finish. It was all catching up to him. Maybe he hadn't really changed at all. Perhaps the extra confidence, the more willing personality, was just a temporary boost, something that would fall over and die just before he did (i.e. real soon now). His whole body drooped as he deflated emotionally. He looked around at the faces of Shamus and Micky, of a grinning Ridley, of Anne. He wanted more than anything to just curl up in the corner and let them all sort it out. But he'd made a promise. You could call him a lot of things: fat, ugly, introverted, passive, shy, humourless, unintelligent, impersonal, disagreeable, grumpy, purposeless, sexually-frustrated,... oh, err *cough* but promise-breaker ain't one of them.

CLANGGGGGGGGG...

Joe jumped.

The room shook.

They all turned to see the noob standing with a red face next to a large fallen piece of flexible metal.

'Sorry?' he said.

I should have pointed out that this scene is taking place in the Play Pen. It seemed best to hold a secret heist-type meeting in a secret gadget-filled room. Yeah, I don't get it either, but I'm sure it made sense to Joe at the time.

'So like I was saying,' said Joe, 'once you're all out of range and we've got Connie, I'll send through the overheated weapon.'

He had a bad feeling. The kind that says this plan won't go according to, well, plan. The plan of the plan will not, in affect, be well planned. Hang on, I'm going off track here. Joe felt his stomach twist in strange ways. His bad feeling (oh yeah, that's what I was talking about) made its way slowly up his neck and into his conscious brain. The plan should work, in theory, but it just might involve exactly the kind of self-sacrifice he was trying to avoid.

Being terrible with technology was simply the source of a bit of humour back on earth. If you couldn't get your new phone to actually send a phone call, that'd generate a few derisive laughs from onlookers, sure, but you wouldn't find your bones separated from your skin in quite the same way as an explosion. The bigger problem was all the small holes in the plan. Imagine the plan was a large boat. Not the titanic though, since it sank, which would be bad for the plan. Instead, imagine a large yacht, cutting swiftly through the sea with a nice tail wind and plenty of salty sea-dogs to help you on your way (is that what sailors in yachts want, salty sea-dogs?). So you're making good speed when you discover a hole in the hull. Not a massive hole by any stretch, but enough to see the sea through. So rather than be a little dutch boy, you'll refrain from “fixing” the hole by sticking your fingers in. Instead you'll...but wait, what's that? Another hole? The same size but on the other side of the hull. Then another. And another. Pretty soon you're swimming in holes. Pretty soon after that, you're swimming in the ocean. No big holes, just lots of little ones. That's the way Joe felt about the plan. And he didn't want this ship to sink.

He tried to conjure up the theme song in his head once more, to bring back some mojo, but for some reason the tune wasn't coming to him. He would have settled for Gilligan's Island at this point. Instead, he had to stand in the relative silence of the soft metallic noises of Isaac and the noob.

'Any questions?' he said, meekly.

'I've got one,' said Ridley, sitting back. 'What happens when something goes wrong? What happens when things don't go quite to plan? What do we do if we get caught before making it to the Emperors Tower? What happens if the Cowboys aren't on our side? Will the device definitely find its way up to the Emperor O.L.? What happens if we can't even find Connie, if she's not even held there, or...' He looked at Anne. 'What happens if she's already dead?'

Anne's eyes bulged. 'She'll be alive,' she said, almost trying to convince herself. 'They will want to find out all those she “corrupted”.'

She really did speak the quotes around corrupted. It's quite a skill.

'Thanks for enumerating all the potential problems with the plan,' said Joe, stepping in quickly. 'Perhaps you've got some ideas on how to fix them? On what we can do instead?'

Ridley smirked. 'Hey, it's not my job to come up with this crap. I'm here to tear it down, find the holes.'

'Do you even want to help?' said Joe. It may as well get said since he'd been wondering it the whole time, in the back of his mind. 'Do you care about saving Connie or would you rather leave her and find a way to survive here on your own?'

'Hey, I'll do whatever,' said Ridley with a shrug.

You probably would, thought Joe.

'What about you guys, any problems with the plan?'

The twins looked back at him sedately. Perhaps the seriousness of what they were getting into was hitting them, too.

'No problem,' said Micky.

'Good,' said Joe. 'Then we should all make sure we're ready to go as soon as Isaac has the weapon ready.'

Joe stepped into the warehouse. He looked around at the darkened aisles, the mud fixtures, the high ceiling. It already felt like the past for him, like something he used to do, like grandparents you acknowledge and respect, but never want to visit again.

'You did really well,' said Anne, stepping beside him.

'Thanks,' said Joe without much enthusiasm.

'I think it's a good plan,' said Anne.

Plan, plan, plan, plan;
plan, plan, plan, plan.
Plan rhymes with spam!

'We'll get her back,' he said, turning to watch her glassy eyes.

In response she showed a brave smile.

They stood in silence, looking out at the centrepiece of the Rat's Nest, taking in its significance. OK, so maybe Anne had more of a connection to the place than Joe, but without it, neither would have survived long.

'We won't be able to stay here, though,' said Anne. 'Not after.'

'I know,' said Joe. I've got some ideas on that.'

'Good,' said Anne. She turned slowly and faced him. 'I'm really scared,' she said.

'Me too,' said Joe, much louder and faster than he had anticipated, adding a nervous chuckle. He gave her a big hug and felt her body cold, almost shivering.

'Do we have to blow them up?' said Anne, muffled in Joe's chest.

'I think so,' said Joe. 'We'll be in worse shape if they can come after us. Don't you think?'

'Mm,' she said.

Joe pulled back and let his arms fall to Anne's waist. He lifted one hand and touched her face, feeling dampness on her cheek. Their faces were drawn closer together, their lips almost touching, when a clip-clop sound echoed in the warehouse. They both twisted their heads abruptly.

'What's that?' whispered Anne.

'I don't know,' said Joe. He wasn't completely lying, he didn't actually know. But he did suspect. It wasn't the sound the twins make. Ridley would be moving faster and probably shouting out some kind of inane comment. The noob and Isaac would be locked in the Play Pen until they came up with a solution to the dead man's switch. And it certainly wasn't The Tank.

The clip-clops continued, getting louder, getting closer. Like the tick of a clock, they reverberated against the high ceiling of the warehouse. Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-

Episode XII is dedicated to classic movie themes*.

*That's classic movie-themes not classic-movie themes. GOOMHR!

Find episode XIII here.