A Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons Story
By Cwissy
A group of Spectrum captains were peacefully sitting around in the Officer’s lounge doing various tasks, mostly reading. Captain Ochre was clipping his nails and was having a hard time with his big toenail on his right foot – it being slightly thicker than the others.
“You’re a tough little sucker,” the captain grunted, giving it a last mighty snip. “Gotcha!”
The toenail spun off whirring like a boomerang in the general direction of the others.
“Ouch!” yelped Captain Scarlet, as the sharp little object hit him just above an eyebrow. “Watch where you flick those disgusting things,” he stated, looking in horror at the offending nail clipping and tossing it away with a snort of revulsion.
“Don’t throw one of his talons on the floor,” protested Captain Blue, “someone might step on it and be permanently injured. Those things could be registered and sold as lethal weapons.”
“Tell me about it.” Scarlet rubbed his skin and stared accusingly at Ochre. “That could have had my eye.”
“So?” Ochre responded with a smirk. “You recover quickly ... in fact ... if you are ever short of money - you could remove your body organs and sell them.”
“That’s an awful thing to say,” protested Captain Blue.
“You suggested me selling bits of my body.”
“I was joking.”
“Well, so was I!” Ochre squawked.
Captain Magenta started laughing at them as a thought struck him. He just couldn’t help saying the thought out aloud. “The Great Liver Auction.”
“Who’s being disgusting now?” asked Ochre, fighting back a grin and adding, “What am I offered for this fine fresh organ, still warm and twitching from only just having been removed from its last place of abode?”
“Pity cats and dogs couldn’t bid; you could get a fortune from them. Cats in particular can get addicted to liver.”
“Funny, I have actually met a couple of cats that refused to eat any sort of offal at all ... would rather starve than touch the stuff.”
“Always knew cats were intelligent and that some have more superior intellect to others. I don’t know how people can eat that goop either, especially liver!” Magenta pulled a face. “I did have a distant cousin who loved offal and he used to cook up a concoction called ‘licker and ticker’ stew.”
“Licker and ticker, was that tongue and heart?”
“Sure was.”
Captain Ochre grimaced, “I don’t know which sounds worse. He did have a way of making it sound really unappetising, didn’t he?”
“I suppose he could keep more of it for himself, although ‘liver and onions’ was his favourite.” Magenta gave a great exaggerated shudder.
“Is life worth living? It depends on the Liver!” Ochre responded with a twinkle in his eyes.
“I wonder which organs would be most in demand,” Captain Magenta further mused, then qualified himself, “…for transplants, not pet food.”
“I just don’t believe how insensitive you two can be!” Captain Blue broke in on them, aghast with shock.
“Don’t let them upset you,” Captain Scarlet, unperturbed, assured his friend. “They will get over their little game soon enough. I find it a pity that I can’t donate my brain cells to them.”
“It would be an improvement,” confirmed Blue, calming down and relieved that Scarlet hadn’t taken offence at the other two captains. His calm state didn’t last long.
“Give your heart and lungs to meeee...” sang Captain Magenta, with exaggerated movements of his hands.
“Idiot,” pronounced Symphony Angel, as she entered the Officers’ lounge. “It’s ‘Give your heart and soul to me.’ It’s not a song about organ transplants.”
“Wasn’t; but now it is,” was the quick response from Magenta, as he continued to sing his version of the song. “And you will always be my favourite donor...”
“You’re hopeless,” she coughed.
“So who do you want to give ‘your heart and soul’ to?” he enquired of Symphony, whilst still humming away.
She blushed as thoughts of Captain Blue crossed her mind. “Not you,” she muttered, “And you won’t get my lungs either or any other bits you might be drooling over.”
“I don’t drool ... I’m not old enough, you have to be at least ninety to drool properly.”
All jesting abruptly stopped when the deep grumbling sound of the Mysterons was heard.
“This is the Voice of the Mysterons, we have not forgotten your unprovoked attack upon our complex and in turn you will have to ward off an attack from a lesser enemy.”
“Oh great, they’re talking in riddles again!” spat Ochre in disgust. “And at the most inconvenient time too, I still have two nails to cut.”
“How terribly inconsiderate of them,” Captain Magenta responded with sarcasm. “I wish we could send them your foot odour as that would shut them up forever.”
***
In another part of the world, hours later, a woman named Angelica was also giving attention to her toenails. She wasn’t cutting them though; she was painting them various colours and then adding different facial expressions to them. It was as she was putting a pupil in a second eye of a face with puzzled countenance that there was a knock on her office door.
“Oh bugger, now he’s cross-eyed!” she snorted with annoyance, then smiled in a cheeky way when the knock was heard again. “Come in if you’re good looking, stay out if you’re not,” she called out in a musical lilt.
A dark-haired gaunt-looking man dressed all in black entered the office.
“OH!” Angelica choked and turned bright red in embarrassment. “I... I... I thought it was my idiot sister playing her usual pranks, she can be a real nuisance at times...” She trailed off when her excuse elicited, what seemed to her, a contemptuous stare.
“How may I help you?” she asked the stranger, after a moment of silence.
“I am looking for your father,” he told her in a growling rumbling voice that sent shivers up and down her spine.
“You and half the world it seems. I’m sorry, but I have absolutely no idea where he is; he never tells me anything.” She removed her foot from the desk and plonked the other one on it.
Captain Black took a step closer to her desk. “I believe you do know.”
“Ha!” Angelica snorted in response. “For once in my life I wish I did and then he could face all you menacing creditors for a change, instead of his sweet charming delicate little daughters.” She added the last bit quite unblushingly as she was surveying her second lot of wriggling toes.
“You will tell us when you are at one with the Mysterons,” Black informed her in a cold unimpressed tone.
“Really?” Angelica snorted, not having any idea what he was on about. Her face undertook a quick transformation though when she heard the sound of the cat flap opening and saw what was coming through.
“OH GREAT!” She gasped in a loud tone. She hurriedly pulled her leg off the desk and jumped to her feet. “I hope that thing is dead!”
The object of her consternation was a small prancing ginger cat, named Gizmo, carrying a large rat. The rat’s head was being firmly gripped inside the cat’s mouth, with its body dangling downwards, belly outwards, and with its tail trailing along the ground between Gizmo’s front legs.
With a musical ‘murr-up’ sound Gizmo let her prey go. The rat, still very much alive, took the opportunity to search and race for cover. A few corners were encountered by the bouncing rodent before it made a mad dash towards Angelica’s desk.
“NO! No no no, you don’t,” she screeched as she picked up various objects from the desk and flung them at the rodent. Some of the missiles caused a few sideways swerves from the animal, but didn’t deter it from its course. Soon it was within folder-bashing distance of the near-hysterical woman, as she was doing a little dance with her bare feet and hoping like mad she wouldn’t step on it.
“OUT! OUT! GET OUT!” she bellowed, while batting the persistent creature backwards a few times. “OH SHIVERS! I TOUCHED IT! WHAAAAAA! IT TOUCHED MY HAND!” She held out her arm, with the hand dangling as though it were irreparably damaged - then, while still batting at the rat with her good arm, she wiped the offending germs off her hand and onto a coat of her sister’s that was hanging on the wall.
Her efforts nearly succeeded when the rat made a valiant attempt to go back through the cat-door, but Gizmo had different ideas - her humans still needed these lessons in catching food, as the sisters’ attempts at handling the twenty or so mice the ginger cat had carefully delivered had been a dismal failure so far. With, seemingly, no effort at all Gizmo casually put out a paw and swatted the rat back in her mistress’ direction - the unfortunate creature was then instantly belted into a small side room. The door was almost slammed on the pursuing cat, causing Angelica to curse some choice words about all of Catdom in general and her ‘Gizzy’ in particular.
“What am I going to do now, what, what, what?” she asked of no-one in particular. The obvious answer lit up in her mind like a flash. “A MAN! I need a MAN!” she cried out in glee, remembering her visitor.
“Where the hell is he?” she declared in disgust, still gripping the doorknob in the subconscious belief that to let it go would be to allow the rat an escape route. “Great! The only man available has to have a rat phobia.” She concluded in dismay.
“The Mysterons have no fear of minor life-forms, Earthwoman,” came a grumble close behind her. Captain Black had his gun out and was prepared to use it, but the Mysterons had underestimated the speed and power of a ‘damsel in distress’, with a one-track mind, who has just spotted a means of salvation.
“Wonderful!” she exclaimed. In a flash she had the luckless Mysteron agent grabbed by the arm and shoved through the small crack of the door opening. “I think that space in there is too small for shooting, you’d better club it with the butt end instead,” the girl told Black in a helpful tone, as she pulled the door back, noting that Gizmo was vacating the room - as she was a pussycat that had a dislike of sharing small spaces with strange people.
“What on Earth are you up to, Angelica?” asked a female voice. “I could hear you yelling from down the road.”
Angelica looked over to her sister, Rosemary, framing the doorway – she had two men with her, one had on a red vest with matching boots and the other blue.
“It ran in here and I now have it trapped,” she explained.
“What?”
“I have it trapped in here,” Angelica testily replied, thinking her sister was becoming both thick and deaf. She often expected everyone around her to be psychic, even though she didn’t believe in such nonsense – as she called it.
“I ask again, what is trapped in there?”
“Gizzy’s rat and a man of course.” Angelica smiled over to the two men and rolled her eyes at her sister’s continuing obtuseness, though they were appearing even more dumbstruck.
Rosemary shook her head slightly. “What man? Why? Is this you latest method of landing one?” She snickered then at the thought.
“Don’t be stupid.” Angelica gave a big sigh and launched into an explanation. “Gizzy brought in a rat and Mr. Whatever-his-name-is was handy, so I very kindly requested his help and he indicated that he was more than willing, so I shoved him in there – what else could I have done?”
“Indicated and shoved, huh? I know you, your idea of willing would be that he didn’t run screaming for his life – as any sensible fellow around you would.”
“Ha! Look who’s talking? Just because your idea of an ideal man is a cantankerous decrepit old fart…”
“Rich decrepit old fart, remember? And he didn’t get away, he was snatched against his will... Bloody interfering families.” She turned to Captains Scarlet and Blue. “Only a few days away from marrying me and his kids turn up and take him away, and he only lived a few weeks after that... I could have been a beautiful, desirable, wealthy young widow by now. Grrr!” She stomped her foot in remembered frustration.
“Er, my commiserations,” muttered Captain Scarlet to her, not knowing what else to say.
“Look on the bright side, dear sister, at least you didn’t have to sleep with that pile of wrinkles.”
Rosemary responded with disdain: “You don’t marry a ninety-year-old for sex, besides; the sight of my buxom naked radiance would have been enough to finish him off on our wedding night and poor sweet Bertie would have died with a big smile on his lips.”
“Yep, the sight of you in the nude would be enough to kill him,” her sister unkindly agreed, “and it wouldn’t be a smile on his face, it would be a look of horror.”
“Is your mystery man trying to escape?” an embarrassed Captain Blue butted in; thinking a quick change of topic was in order.
“No, no, I’m holding this to keep the rat in,” Angelica explained.
“Good grief! Just how big is it?”
“A great enormous plague carrier,” Angelica exaggerated, as she temporarily let go of the doorknob to hold out her hands as far apart as they would go. “I’m sure it was trying to leap at my jugular vein and it’s damned lucky I have a cool head.”
Her sister, Rosemary, snorted at that comment.
“Considering that you have locked somebody in that room with a man-eating rat,” Captain Scarlet said dryly, “then it is rather surprising that we don’t hear any sounds coming from in there.”
“He’s probably waiting for the right moment to hit it,” Angelica offered.
“More likely cowering in a corner,” her sister contradicted.
“I’ve told you, he offered to help. He had his gun out and he said that Mystics weren’t afraid of small animals.”
“Gun!” gasped Rosemary.
“MYSTICS?” queried Scarlet and Blue in unison.
“Oh, Dad’s creditors are always trying to look threatening,” Angelica scoffed. “I’ve long since stopped taking them seriously. I don’t know how he managed to get tangled up with a bunch of Mystics though – probably conned them good and proper and left us to sort it out, as usual.”
“What did this, er, Mystic look like?” Captain Blue asked.
“Not very happy, but then Dad’s creditors never are a jovial lot.”
“Physical appearance, please!” Blue almost shouted in frustration.
“Dark brown eyes, five o’clock shadow, a bit thin and pale...” Angelica started.
“Sounds like my Bertie’s ghost,” murmured Rosemary.
“No mass of wrinkles,” she shot her sister a narrow-eyed stare. “Black hair, not grey and he was dressed all in black, and didn’t wear a skirt.”
“Bertie wore a kilt, not a skirt.”
“Same difference,” Angelica scoffed. “He always had his hand up it itching himself.”
“You would too if you had ingrown hairs in that region.”
“That could be Captain Black,” Blue said urgently to Captain Scarlet, ignoring the ongoing argument between the sisters.
“I’ll go in and check,” Scarlet offered.
“You’re more than welcome; I wouldn’t want to meet either him or a large rat in an enclosed space.”
“Or Bertie’s ghost,” Scarlet quipped back to his friend with more levity than he felt as he walked over to the door.
“What about his fingernails?” Angelica was asking of her sister, whilst still holding the doorknob. “An inch long and yellow with goodness knows what hiding under them. There were probably creatures living in there unknown to science.”
“Excuse me,” Scarlet addressed her, while fighting the urge to push her aside. “Can I have a look in there?”
“If you want, but don’t let that rat out if it is still breathing.” She noticed that Scarlet had his gun out too. “I’ll tell you what I told him, no shooting – you will have to club it in that tiny space, because I don’t want bullet holes in the wall.”
“Captain Blue, will you take them behind that desk for safety – this may get nasty.” He then warily entered the room.
“Getting a bit carried away, don’t you think?” Rosemary asked of the other two, as they were hunched behind the desk.
“Typical man,” Angelica observed, conveniently forgetting her own reactions to the rat. “I find they are the biggest sooks when it comes to creepy crawlies.”
Captain Blue was up and charging to the door in the next instance when the sound of ‘ARRRRRRRRGH!’ was heard from the room and then a series of loud thumps. He wrenched open the door to be confronted by a white-faced Scarlet holding a dead rat by the tail.
“The place is empty,” Captain Scarlet announced.
“How?” Angelica barged by both men and quickly searched the room. “That man definitely went in there, he can’t have just disappeared.”
“Look above your head.”
She complied and understood. “Oh, the manhole. What did I tell you Rosie?” she addressed her sister. “Men are basically cowards.”
“Don’t call me ‘Rosie’, I hate that,” Rosemary snapped back at her.
“I know,” Angelica snickered, “because it conjures up a picture of a fat Irish washerwoman, when ‘Medusa’ would be a more appropriate moniker.”
“Just shut up, will you. I prefer ‘Rosebud’, if you are going to change my name.”
“Fat chance,” her sibling not so lovingly told her.
“What was all the screaming about?” Blue loudly asked his friend, not wanting to hear another sisterly tirade.
“That damn rat jumped at my face...” Scarlet started.
“Told you it was deadly,” Angelica announced with smugness.
“I think it actually wanted to climb onto my head and jump through the manhole.”
“A man-tracking rat was it?” snickered Rosemary.
Both sisters started giggling.
“How would you like this,” he indicated the dead animal, “draped over your shoulders?” The red-vested officer was not amused.
“What, both of us at once?” Angelica asked with a delighted squeal.
“It can be arranged,” was the growling response, the captain had grown very weary of those two. “It doesn’t have to stay in one piece.”
“You are quite the sensitive little thing, aren’t you?” she smirked.
“Here cat, din dins.” He angrily tossed it across to Gizmo who sniffed it, tapped it with her paw, half tossed it in the air a couple of times, tapped it once more, concluded it was lifeless and so then she stuck her head in the air and stalked off with a mien of offended dignity.
“You can’t leave it there,” shrieked Rosemary, turning to Captain Scarlet. “Move it.”
“NO.” Scarlet felt a bout of childish stubbornness hit him.
More threats and pleading didn’t move him, so the girls turned to Captain Blue and harassed him. He ended up throwing it outside with a loud cry of exasperation at them and at all the time they were wasting, but not before Gizmo, seeing the rat hanging in his hand and thinking it was a game, made a spring grab at it; making Captain Blue give off an exclamation of horrified revulsion, jumping in alarm thinking the rat was still alive and starting to revive. He was not impressed when the sisters started laughing and teasing him for his sideways skipping motion.
“All right, enough fooling around,” Blue put on his sternest face. “What was Captain Black doing here?”
“Who’s he?” Angelica asked in puzzlement.
“The man you described and who escaped through the roof.”
“Well, he was supposed to have been killing the rat – like he promised.”
“Arrrgh! The real reason he was here, not what you wanted him to do.”
“I’ve already told you, silly, he was obviously one of Dad’s creditors.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“Of course he was, no one in his right mind comes here about Dad for any other reason.”
“You may have a point there,” said the exasperated Blue, “but why are you so certain that he was a creditor.”
“He asked for Dad and where he could be found, like they all do.”
“Ah, now we are getting somewhere, where is your father?”
“Beats me,” Angelica shrugged.
“You must know.”
“Why?”
“He’s your father.”
“So? That was my mother’s fault, not mine.”
“But you have an office here for him.”
“For show, to impress people ... You know, when they see what lovely secretaries he can afford – that sort of thing. And it also gives them somewhere to come and vent their spleen when Dad loses all their money on yet another hare-brained scheme.”
“Why do you put up with it then?”
“I figure that I will be able to snag one of these wealthy fellows, before Dad bleeds him dry,” Rosemary answered first. “It almost worked with Bertie and the next one won’t get away so easily,” she vowed.
“Take no notice of her, she was actually fond of that disgusting old reprobate; the real reason we stay here is that we promised our mother, on her deathbed mind, that we’d look out for our silly father as he continuously gets into trouble all the time and, believe me, I often wish I’d never made that promise…” she shook her head.
“Can we stick with your father,” Blue tried yet again to get information out of the girls. “What, um, hare-brained scheme is he up to now.”
“You won’t believe it,” snorted Angelica. “It has to do with robotic insects, can you imagine? Dad thinks, for example, that you can get largish flying wasp-like insects to deliver injections in hospitals; just send them out straight to unsuspecting patients to be stung by them, I mean can’t you just see people leaping, screaming and jumping about trying to avoid them, there would be heart attacks all over the place, not to mention all the people that will fall off their beds! You try telling Dad things like that and he just won’t listen. It sounded like a complete nightmare to me, just unbelievable!”
“Yes, I believe it – it tallies with what we have learned so far and explains what Captain Black was doing here. We had heard your father’s name in connection with it but weren’t sure we had the right Herbert Hyssop.”
“You mean to tell me,” Rosemary sputtered in shock, “that there is more than one person on this planet with that ridiculous name?”
“There are forty-seven to be exact,” Blue told her wearily, “and your father’s is the fifteenth we’ve personally checked out and we still haven’t found him.”
“That’s Dad for you,” Angelica cheerfully told him, “He’s had a lot of practice in being elusive.”
“So how do you speak to him at all?”
“He phones us up from time to time to inform us of his latest mad scheme, but none of them ever work out for him – but he keeps on trying nonetheless, one has to admire his persistence in a way.”
“Where does he phone from?”
“Wherever he is at the time; we never know and he sort of thinks that keeps him safe from fallout from angry creditors.”
“But, what about you two girls? Doesn’t he worry about something of a nasty nature happening to you two, I mean you might get kidnapped and tortured for information...”
“You are talking about our father, he never thinks ahead or considers the consequences of his actions – never has, never will,” she smirked. “Besides we have an ‘attack cat’ for protection.”
“That little thing wouldn’t be of much use against an aggressive man.”
“That little thing has teeth and claws and can move at warp speed when the mood hits her, besides both of us can scream loud enough to burst eardrums.”
“I believe you; we all heard you from down the road,” Blue answered with a grimace.
It was when they had stepped outside the building that it happened, there was a whirring whining sound and the next thing there were a couple of dozen or so small insects, seemingly dripping toxins, and apparently coming straight at them with deadly intent. Rosemary ran back inside and grabbed plastic tennis racquets and tossed one to Angelica.
“I hope the batteries work in this wretched thing,” Angelica said, as she turned on the small switch.
“What is it?” asked Captain Blue.
“An electric fly swat of course; we have a few here and it helps pass the time to swat at insects and little Gizzy likes join in for fun too, if fact she is so much better at it than we are.” She handed it to the captain and caught another one her sister had thrown to her and switched that on, luckily it seemed to work too. She tossed that one to Scarlet and caught yet another one off her sister and then they all had to start swinging like mad at the robotic fiends.
“Go away, Bugger off you mongrels,” Angelica yelled while swatting at the robotic insects as they zoomed around her, “BUGGER OFF, JUST BUGGER OFF.”
“Why are you wasting time yelling at them?” her sister called out to her.
“I once saw someone yell that at a large eagle that was in a tree eyeing off some lambs and it worked, so I thought it would work just as well on these things; besides it’s the thought that counts and it makes me feel better to say it.”
“I’m willing to bet that they won’t hear you.” She said as she whacked at and sent a fried insect flying across the road.
***
Later on and back on Cloudbase and Colonel White was not looking very impressed with Scarlet or Blue when they turned up with the two sisters and a cat in a carry-case. The colonel had his other captains with him who were also wondering what was going on.
“Who are these two women and why is there a cat with them?” queried the Colonel.
“This is Angelica and Rosemary, Herbert Hyssop’s daughters,” answered Captain Scarlet. “We couldn’t leave them behind after we were attacked by robotic insects, so we brought them here for safety until the threat is over.”
“Are they responsible for me being threatened?” barked an irate voice from a man on a screen hanging on the wall. “They should be arrested and locked up.”
“Hey! Who the hell do you think you are?” Rosemary barked back at the man.“Those damned bugs have nothing to do with us, in fact a horde of them attacked us earlier…”
“What disrespect…” the man started answering before Angelica cut him off.
“Who the hell are you, some Tinpot Dictator? What does it say on that ridiculous sign in front of you,‘Might is Right’- the cry of every blood-thirsty madman that has ever befouled the earth and has caused wars, mass murder and general misery. You are the one that should be locked up!”
“That’s enough!” barked the Colonel. “This is General Ward you are addressing and so you will show him some respect…”
“Why? He started it,” bristled Angelica.
“And I’m finishing it,” declared Colonel White glaring at her.
“Want to bet?” she glared back. “I’m quite used to dealing with foul tempered men and I’m not one of your underlings you can push around.”
“Calm down,” Captain Blue cut in, “I think we have all gotten off track a bit.”
“And whose fault is that? Oh, that’s right; it was Mr. General Pain-in-the-Whatsit over there.” She indicated the screen showing a red-faced man about to burst into a flame of indignation.
“His name is General Ward, Angie,” spoke up Rosemary, “and I must say he looks rather cute all fired up like that.” She batted her eyes at the screen and smiled, the General started to look discomposed at the change of events.
“I don’t believe it,” muttered Angelica, “what is with my sister and bad-tempered old farts?”
Captain Scarlet cleared his throat to stifle a laugh. “Er, um, I believe Angelica has one of those robotic insects on her in a jar and it is still intact.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Angelica confirmed. “The good-looking member of our family captured it.” All eyes turned to Rosemary. “No, it wasn’t her,” she stated with annoyance.
“Of course, it was you that’s why you have it on you,” said Captain Grey smiling, as he walked over to her.
“Oh boy, do you ever need your eyes testing,” she scoffed at him, “It was Gizzy who caught it.” She walked over to the cat carrier and let her out.
“Don’t let that cat loose,” yelped the Colonel, “it might cause all sorts of mayhem.”
Angelica ignored him. “Up Gizzy,” she called and the little cat jumped up onto her shoulder and purred. “Mind meld,” she added and Gizmo rubbed her head against Angelica’s temple. She then turned a stern gaze to all assembled, “I hope there are no cat haters here as I have zero tolerance of such evil people and some of the worst despots in history have been cat haters. I hope you are not one of them Colonel White?”
“Certainly not, I just don’t want that cat of yours getting into things and causing problems.”
“Gizmo is a good cat,” she stated, but then jumped a bit, “Not the grappling hooks …” Gizmo had slipped a bit on her shoulder and naturally used her claws to get a better grip as cats are wont to do. “Oh, here’s a better shoulder for you,” she leaned over to Captain Grey and pushed Gizmo onto him. “Thanks for volunteering to do that,” she added as an afterthought to Grey while patting his arm; he didn’t look so happy at what had happened to him, especially when the cat started to knead his vest with feline gusto.
“Still volunteering people against their will, huh?” her sister taunted.
Dr. Fawn walked over to Angelica, introduced himself and asked, “Where is the robotic insect you found? I’d like to analyse what toxins it might be carrying.”
“So you are a doctor are you?” She gave Fawn a narrow-eyed stare. “Are you a decent man or a homicidal maniac at heart?”
“What do you mean?” asked a startled doctor.
“Take no notice of her,” Rosemary called out, “She is still carrying on abut Benji, even though he died five years ago and it is about time she got over it.”
“I have gotten over it; but I won’t forget or forgive how he died and I certainly will never trust another doctor ever again, EVER!”
“How did he die?” Dr. Fawn asked.
“A Dr. George Schwartz.”
“Oh, I see and I am so sorry that happened to someone you knew, I really am.” The doctor was distressed for her.
“What is all this about?” asked Colonel White.
“He was a deranged doctor who murdered many of his patients and got away with it for years.”
“Her Benji was the ugliest man I’ve ever seen,” Rosemary added as an afterthought.
“Don’t say nasty things like that,” cut in the doctor appalled at her comment.
“It’s all right,” Angelica smiled. “It’s the truth.”
“He looked like a Neanderthal,” Rosemary stated with feeling.
“Yes he did,” Angelica confirmed, “but he was the nicest kindest person I ever knew and he is the reason I have Gizmo. He took on five thugs that were trying to kick her about and he beat the living snot out of all of them.”
“Dear sister, it was four; the fifth didn’t get to do anything because you hit him over the head with a rock and damned near killed him.”
“I have no regrets … although, actually I do. I should have hit him with more force or used a bigger rock as he was the ringleader after all. There is nothing like deliberate cruelty to kittens or any defenceless animal that that makes me realise I could kill someone after all.” She gave her head a little shake. “Well, we are getting way off topic.” She pulled a small jar out of her pocket and handed it to the doctor. “Here, but don’t let that damned thing loose or sting you.”
The robotic bug still stirred and looked menacing making Gizmo look over at it and hiss with flattened ears.
Captain Grey started to panic, “Get her off me, I don’t want to have my face clawed.” His panic caused a bit of amusement among his colleagues.
“Get over it,” Angelica gibed at him, “she is hissing at the thing in the jar, not you. She is not going to ruin your delicate fragile beauty.” A comment that caused a bit of laughter from the others. “A little thing like her isn’t of any danger to a man.” She looked over to Captain Blue and smirked.
He responded with mirth. “That little thing has teeth and claws and can apparently move at warp speed.”
With a chuckle she tried to remove the cat, but Gizmo decided she liked her perch and dug her claws in and wouldn’t budge. That caused much more amusement to the others in the room and Angelica couldn’t help laughing aloud too; making her give in to Gizmo and letting her stay.
“I want to see it,” demanded the head on the screen, “I want to know what is threatening me.”
The doctor took the jar over to the screen for the General to get a better look at it.
“Is that it, is that all I have to be worried about?” was the incredulous response.
“Ha, it is a bit different when there are lots of the things coming at you,” countered Rosemary, “it gets hard to swat and dodge at the same time.”
“Gizzy took down more of them than the four of us put together,” stated Angelica proudly, “even though she was stung a couple of times, she didn’t stop whacking them.”
“She was stung by some of these and is still alive?” asked an incredulous Dr. Fawn.
“Yep, she certainly was and she lived. Cats can often survive snake bites, so why not those things?”
“Why indeed, I’ll have to test her blood and …”
“Saliva too, she licked Captain Scarlet’s hand after he was stung and he survived all right; in fact, I’ve got to hand it to him, he didn’t even squeal or faint, I know I just might’ve if it happened to me.”
“I’m really glad to hear you didn’t squeal and faint Captain Scarlet,” chuckled Captain Ochre, “er, did it affect you at all?”
“It started tingling, but stopped when the cat licked it, so there might be some truth in the cat saliva theory. Although maybe it was a test run and there wasn’t anything dangerous in them at all.”
“Oh no, maybe it was Dad playing some stupid prank on us,” gasped Rosemary.
“If it is, is he ever getting a right old tongue-lashing from me,” growled her sister, “causing all this mayhem and trouble – the stupid old bugger!”
“It’s all your fault, you told him what a stupid idea it was in the first place; so he decided to teach us a lesson. Not so funny now, is it?”
“In your primeval brain of limited imagination when did I ever say this damned idea was funny, you dope,” Angelica snarled with fury.
“You are the one that upset him, you hag-faced shrew,” Rosemary spat back with equal venom.
A few more insults flew back and forth which abruptly stopped when Gizmo jumped from Captain Grey’s shoulder to Angelica’s.
“Ow! Gizzy, watch your claws. I’m sorry if my idiot sister upset you, ignore her.” She made a cat purring ‘brrrt’ sound and tickled her chin. “Pity there’s not a missile handy I could throw at her … where is that doctor and the jar?”
“He left to analyse that insect, while you two were having your little tirade at each other,” snapped the Colonel, none too impressed at them. “Behave yourselves!”
The girls abruptly shut up looking both sheepish and ashamed knowing that they had gone too far.
“Now,” said the Colonel to the quiet room. “You Captains, Scarlet and Blue, will have to go back there and see if you can locate the source of those robotic insects before the Mysterons find them, that is assuming that they had no toxins in them. We will tell you the results when we get them.”
“Gizzy and I are going too,” jumped in Angelica.
“No, you’re not.”
“Why not, Gizzy will be able to locate where they are coming from as she will get upset and hiss at them and cats can smell and hear things no human being can; and where Gizzy goes, so do I.” She stepped closer to Colonel White and said in a low voice, “Do you really want me here as that General person is still annoying me with that idiot sign on his desk and I won’t be able to keep quiet about it much longer, I mean he could have one saying ‘Strength for Security’ or similar, instead of one that a playground bully would love – I really will have to have another dig at him about it.” She then said in a louder voice, “Besides I know what Dad looks like.”
“Very well, I don’t like it, but you have made your point.”
“You are not going with her are you?” asked General Ward to Rosemary.
“Certainly not, I’ve had enough of swatting and dodging those things!”
“Were you good at it?”
“Well I didn’t get stung.”
“Good, maybe you could join me here and act as a bodyguard.”
Rosemary gave off a delighted giggle.
“Get me out of here quick,” gasped Angelica giving both captains a hefty shove with both hands, “I can’t take much more of this, UGH!”
Gizzy then took this opportunity to jump onto Captain Scarlet’s shoulder, digging her claws in and hanging on with a firm grip as she had developed a real liking for those captains’ vests.
On the way back to her father’s office, both men told her she should be prepared for the possibility that her father was dead and that a Mysteron copy might have taken his place. If he had sent out the robotic insects in the first place then the Mysterons could have traced where they were coming from and found him that way.
Angelica then expressed the belief that her father would probably remain unscathed and that it was usually other people around him that got into trouble, not him.
They arrived at their destination to a silent street and it took them a while to work out which direction the robotic insects had flown from, so they started walking that way. Gizmo was looking around very intently from her perch, still on Scarlet’s shoulder.
“Which way, Gizzy?” asked Angelica, “Your head is in the way,” she told Captain Scarlet, “just turn around slowly so she can see more.”
He did as he was told feeling a bit of an idiot but was resigned to putting up with it as Gizmo had refused to leave his shoulder a couple of times. He stopped abruptly and jumped when Gizmo gave off a shrieking screaming banshee-like cry and stared in the direction of a laneway bordered by leafy trees.
“A parrot couldn’t have made a worse noise,” grumbled Captain Scarlet, his ear still ringing, “can’t someone else take this cat?”
“Not me,” stated Captain Blue with feeling, “she seems more than happy where she is.”
“Snivelling coward,” stated Scarlet, only half in jest.
“I’ll happily own up to it in this case as I’m quite fond of my eardrums,” was the smirked response.
“I know this place,” said Angelica excitedly, “I was once here years ago. Cuthbert Johnston owns it and he was always tinkering with strange machines and things.”
She went charging up the laneway and was in the house at the end before the captains could catch up with her. They heard a muffled scream from inside the house and Gizzy gave off a low growl.
Angelica had found herself grabbed from behind and shoved into a loungeroom.
“So it is you, Angelica, I thought one of you two Earthwomen might come here looking for your father.”
“Earthwoman? Oh, I see, you are no longer Cuthbert, you are now a Mystic slave and why did you have to leap out at me like that, you scared me to bits!” She was really annoyed at him.
The Mysteron eyed her off with his gun aimed at her. “Where is your father?” He jabbed the gun against her ribcage.
“You tell me, I was just going to ask the same question of you and watch where you are poking that thing.”
He ignored her complaint. “Your father disappeared after sending the insectroids after you and furthermore...”
“Insectroids? He calls them insectroids. No wonder poor old dad fails at everything he tries, what an incredibly stupid name,” she couldn’t help scoffing. “The horrible thoughts that name conjures up in my mind doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“His associate approved of the name.”
“Yes, but he’s a gullible idiot; you’d have to be one to get involved with one of Dad’s mad schemes.”
“You are probably right, anyway your father apparently was afraid of what you would have said or done to him so he left before we knew it.”
“Grrr, he was right to run off, he would have gotten one hell of a telling off from me for that wretched stunt he pulled and I sure as hell won’t forgive him for a long, long time. Now it seems he not only makes his associates go broke, but he also gets them killed and taken over by some weird alien forces – UNBELIEVABLE!”
“So, now you are going to tell us where he would be hiding out.”
“No idea. Think about it, that’s if you are capable, why would he hide in a place where I could find him? That would sort of defeat the purpose of him hiding from me, wouldn’t it?”
“You would have some ideas?”
“Don’t you stupid Mystics get it; He NEVER EVER tells us girls ANYTHING about his movements, EVER!” She was starting to get peeved off at this man’s stupidity.
“Don’t you dare call superior lifeforms stupid and we are Mysterons not Mystics!”
“Whatever, anyway the only superior lifeform I’ve ever acknowledged are CATS – SO THERE!” She snorted and almost stomped her foot.
“CATS! Those furry little mammals?” the Mysteron looked completely stupefied.
“They were once gods, so don’t you mess with them.”
“So were jackals, crocodiles, ibises, hippopotamuses and a host of other lower animals.”
“Yeah, yeah, but only the cats count as they are certainly NOT lower animals.”
“The stupidity of Earthmen is not to be underestimated.”
“Now, now no need to be unkind,” tutted Angelica, wondering where the captains and Gizmo had gotten to and so continued to play for time. “I will freely admit that in all of human history there has never been a shortage of idiots and conversely you have to admit that there have been brilliant people too, often much maligned, but still there all the same.”
He was not impressed and tried to get back to what the Mysterons wanted to know. “If you truly value your life then you will give up your father’s location.”
“I no longer care if I live or die like I used to; not since Benji died and you could say that ‘Death has lost its sting’ so to speak. “Hmph, if you kill me at least I will see him again.” She looked wistful.
“The peculiar beliefs you Earthmen have…”
“Well, you have probably never lost someone you love, assuming you have ever loved at all,” she retorted back.
She received a menacing stare instead. “Why didn’t you simply kill yourself and join him much sooner, that is if you truly believe what you just said?”
“He would not have liked me doing that at all, beside I still have Gizzy, our cat, to look after and I don’t really trust others to watch over her like I do.”
“Cats again!” this Mysteron was on the verge of hysteria at another mention of them.
“See, those furry little mammals have their uses after all,” she smirked his own words back at him.
A hostile glare was the response. “I have just been informed by my masters…”
“Damned fool, you shouldn’t let others push you around like that.”
“I have been informed by them that you are stalling for time and time has run out for you. Where is your father?” he barked at her with real menace.
“I don’t know, get that through your thick skull, I don’t know. What do you want him for anyway?”
“He took the codes that work the insectroids.”
Angelica couldn’t help giving off a stifled laugh. “The old bugger, that is just the sort of thing he’d do too – I bet it’s another year before I see or hear from him again. Just go away and come back then and you’ll have a better chance of finding him, although even then you still might fail; he is incredibly slippery.”
“It doesn’t do you any good to stall like this, your captain friends are locked out and can’t save you.”
“Great!” she huffed, but continued talking, “So how are you going to escape to get to my father then?”
“I won’t have to; Captain Black can get him and relay his codes to me.”
“Him? The man that ran away from a rat?” she raised her eyebrows, “Even though he claimed he wasn’t afraid of them.”
“Nice try, but we are not to be distracted.”
“Worth a go, although I would like to know why you are after that General Wart fellow? It seems like you lot have gone to a lot of trouble to get him and he doesn’t really seem to be worth the effort, from the little I saw of him anyway.”
“He once threatened to send missiles to Mars in retaliation to a threat we made on his defence systems.”
“That upset him did it?” she smirked, “So you threatened him and he threatened you back and you lot came up with the bright idea of poking him with a pointy stick to see how he reacts, or in this case poking him with toxic robotic insects. Just whose mad insane idea was that?” she seemed highly amused and sounded it.
“Who is doing the prodding now? It is like you want the Mysterons to notice you and punish you for your outspokenness.”
“Are they really that sensitive that they can’t take criticism at all? Personally I criticise both sides and in this case I still don’t know what you actually stand to gain by getting rid of that old blowhard. In fact you might end up doing mankind a favour.”
“We can’t let a physical threat like this go unpunished.”
“It seems more like you are trying to goad him into attacking you. How long does it take for missiles to reach Mars anyway? Quite some time I should think and I get the feeling The Mysterons wouldn’t sit there like blobs on a rock and let them hit their target. What are they going to do … of course, they would deflect them enough to make them go around Mars and slingshot them back and then people here would do the same with the Earth and Madmen and Martians will end up with a giant game of ‘ping pong’ with deadly missiles or even maybe a giant game of ‘chicken.’”
“You would lose.”
“I suppose you feel duty bound to say that. What I think would happen is that someone on Earth with a functioning brain would slingshot the missiles off somewhere else, like the sun for instance; an adult would have to step in somewhere.”
“You DARE to call the Mysterons childish?”
“Bored would be a better description. It would become quite a boring planet to live on no doubt and I should think there would be little going on there. What better way to relieve boredom perhaps is to prod the Earthlings and see what happens and it seems they prefer that method to talking and discussing things.”
“You have gone too far.”
“An effect I often have on people I’m afraid, it seems to be an intrinsic part of my nature that I cannot change; I really do irk people at times.”
“Then you will either tell us where your father is or you will die, the choice is yours. We have had enough of your stalling tactics.”
“Well at least they worked.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look behind you.”
The Mysteron slave turned around and saw Captain Scarlet pointing a gun at him. Angelica took the opportunity of moving out of the way and grabbing a convenient brass paperweight of a cat that was nearby.
“Put your hands up.” Captain Scarlet told him forcefully.
“How did you get in here; the place was locked up tight?” was the snarling response.
“The same way Captain Black escaped earlier from the rat; through the roof.” Captain Scarlet had decided on some goading of his own.
“Oh good on Blackie Boy and the rat, they were of some use after all,” Angelica enthused.
“Arrrgh!” growled the Mysteron and he spun back to get her.
Before he could do anything to her though, Gizzy flew at his face from a shelf she had earlier snuck onto, Angelica threw the paperweight at his hand and sent his gun spinning to the floor and Captain Scarlet shot him a couple of times.
“I suppose that is the end of the cosy little chat we were having, did you hear any of it?” she asked of the Captain.
“Quite a bit and I think someone would blow the missiles up halfway between the planets where they wouldn’t cause much trouble… Oh, excuse me.” He left the room to open the door that Captain Blue was banging on.
***
“Cosy little chat, huh?” smirked Captain Ochre, while he was clipping his last two toenails in the Officer’s Lounge.
“That’s what she said,” confirmed Captain Scarlet. “It didn’t take us long to find what was left of those robotic bugs and destroy most of them.”
“Why not all of them?” asked Captain Magenta.
“Dr. Fawn wanted a couple of them to study.” Scarlet rolled his eyes. “He finally got back to us to tell us that the first lot of those things didn’t contain any toxic substances, but the other ones we found were very deadly, so it seems the girls were right to accuse their father of playing a silly prank on them. Their father must have escaped with the bug-codes when the Mysterons tracked them down and killed his associate. No one has seen him since, but Angelica said that was typical of him and that he’ll turn up one day in the future to cause trouble for someone else no doubt.”
“Oh, while you were away, you should know that Rosemary gave General Ward a good telling off when she found out about his missiles…”
Everyone laughed.
Magenta continued, “That’s not the funniest bit by a long shot, oh no it wasn’t.”
“What was?” asked Captain Blue.
“It was while she was talking to him that apparently a bee or a wasp or some such noisy insect got into the room and buzzed by his ear really close…” Magenta stopped to give a little chuckle of laughter. “The General gave off quite a shrill little scream and fell off his chair, causing his aides to crack up laughing at him. Did he ever go off ballistic big time at them, so Rosemary told him off once again for yelling at them; then she told him she’d have to find a way to get over to him and sort him out in person. I tell you he looked absolutely terrified when she said that and it was about that time you called in, Captain Scarlet, and told everyone that the threat was over and the General couldn’t close the call fast enough.”
More much louder laughter followed.
“I have never seen Colonel White look so happy and jovial in my life, he really doesn’t like that man at all does he?” added Captain Ochre, as he clipped his last nail and prepared to put his boot back on.
It was while he was putting his foot right down into it that he gave off a great yelp and danced around on one foot pulling it back off.
“Did you put one of those damned bugs into my boot?” he demanded of Captain Scarlet. “That is taking revenge a bit too far.”
“I certainly did not,” answered an enraged Scarlet as he grabbed Ochre’s boot and shook out the offending object. “Ha, you did get your just desserts after all for your sloppy habits.” He held up a sharpish clipped toenail.
Captain Ochre had to endure quite a lot of taunting after that.
Cwissy
Finished over 20 years later in 2023.
Cwissy: This amusing tale with an undercurrent of deadly peril running through it opens with a landscape reminiscent of the witches’ scene in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, where we find an allegorical caldron bubbling over with a brew comprising licker& ticker, various human organs, and a dash of toenails; that quickly morphs into a serious threat from the Mysterons.
Sisters: Angelica and Rosemary, two barbs on the same acerbic wire are introduced to the reader busily throwing spiteful taunts back-and-forth with no heed to the safety of innocent bystanders or one ounce of remorse for any collateral injury.
The father of these girls is an unconventional inventor of mostly impractical gadgets which he just knows will bring him instant wealth but usually bring only angry creditors banging on his door. His latest invention proves even worse bringing Captain Black, the nemesis of Spectrum, into Angelica’s office looking for her father, promptly followed by her cat, Gizzy, bearing a wriggling rat, which it then purposely releases. Chaos quickly follows, compounded by the arrival of Rosemary and two Spectrum officers, who are unaware that Captain Black is shut-up in the adjoining room with a rat, while all the time the two sisters are slinging insults at each other with the rapidity of a Gatling gun.
It turns out that the girls’ father, Herbert Hyssop, (just one of some 47 unfortunate Earthlings bearing that moniker) has co-invented robotic insects to freely inoculate unsuspecting patients in hospitals but the Mysterons wish to use them to disseminate toxins and the girls and Spectrum officers are soon attacked by a swarm of them which they successfully dispatch with electric fly-swats.
Back on Cloudbase the colonel is discussing the robotic insects problem with a General Ward via a visual link hook-up when the sisters, captains and Gizzy amble in, and Rosemary takes a sudden disliking to the General and hijacks Colonel/General discussions for the better part of an hour; or so it must feel to the harangued General.
Gizzy does some shoulder-hopping, the General warms-up to Rosemary and the Colonel decides to send the captains back to where they had been attacked by the ‘insectroids’ and by utilizing Gizzy’s nose try to sniff-out where the horrible hornets had come from. Of course, Angelica had to tag along to keep an eye on her cat.
Gizzy leads them to the home of a man, Cuthbert Johnston, whom Angelica had known and she went bolting-up the long drive ahead of the captains and is quickly grabbed and pulled though the door by the Mysteronised Cuthbert. The two then argue over an array of subjects stretching from the intellect of the Mysterons back to the deification of the cat by the Egyptians and everything in-between; proving only that the Mysteronised mind (trying to gain information on her father’s code to controlling the ‘insectroids’) has nothing in common with the superior mind of a Mysteron and was also no match for a Earthwoman determined to stall long enough for the captains to rescue her—and her plan worked as you find out in the closing paragraphs of this, yet another, brilliant tale from the creative mind of Christine, the alias Cwissy.
Dan