Part X - Leagues of Practically Useless Information

Sheckkie Leibowitz stared at Rorschach's Inkblots, and his mind swam in the sea of dreams. This irritated the Inkblots to no end.

"Yo, snap out of it, dude!"

"Wha, wha? Oh, sorry. What were you guys up to?"

"Other than listening to you quote Faust, not a whole heap. Now snap out of it will ya!"

"Faust?"

"Yeah, you know, the play? Skip it. Seriously, you gotta meet this chick, she's perfect for you..."

"Oi vay, you sound like my Grandmother. So what's her name?"

"Yopu the Seriously Underrated."

"She sounds under age too."

"Funny, that's what the red wood tree said, too. But look, you want a good evening, this girl is it! Personality? She's got nine of them."

"Nine?!"

"Yeah," said one of the other Inkblots. "She keeps eight of them in a jar of cherry juice."

"Sounds like a sticky situation."

"Only if you're an animal tamer."

"Does she put out?"

"What are we describing here, a person or an automatic teller machine - of course she puts out!"

"So, she's not Jewish then?"

"Sure, I think number six is."

"Three and four are ancient Sumerian," said the third Inkblot.

"And Number Nine is a Red Daemon Cultist. Seriously, it's a wild evening."

"Just spectating would be," said Sheckkie. "So, why's she underrated?"

"Y'see, the thing is, she's been set up with all the wrong guys so far. First there was this old fart named Zeke..."

"Couldn't understand why she didn't want to stay in a mineshaft," explained the fourth Inkblot.

"... Then there was this Anaconda..."

"She just doesn't like it when people put the squeeze on her."

"... The Nameless One..."

"She figured if he wouldn't tell her his name, he wasn't likely to commit."

"Besides, she was using her Thomas More personality at the time - too much religion and stuff in the way," put in number two Inkblot.

"Okay," said Sheckkie, "she's had bad luck. What's she look like?"

"What do you want her to look like?"

"Huh?"

"She's a shape shifter."

"Huh?!?"

"I told you she was underrated..."

Part IX - Another Imperial Interlude from the Supremes

"We're goin' to the chapel and we're gonna get stoned..."

"You hiding weed or something, man?"

"Hmm, Maybe... Maybe not."

"An' what's with the chapel shit? You get religion or what?"

"Nah, it was a Supremes thing..."

"Sure. Whatever."

"... The rococo design of the Hallelujah Chorus is what allowed it to continue in appreciation, especially when considered in light of the later interpretation by the Beef Farmers Association of San Marino ..."

Thank you, Nigel Lamebrain.

"... And we are just now discovering - through scientific methods of course - that there seems to be a very toxic substance that accumulates within various types of fabric and can cause certain mental "highs" in humans. We are hoping that this research won't be released to the public as it may cause widespread human self-infliction of stitches and embroidery of the skin..."

Sacman was listening.

"... Technically, we're not sure where Sturmgosse might be; he could be behind that wall, for all we know. The house defies all efforts to map, or even understand, its passages and layout. For example, it seems to be possible to reach geographically remote areas through certain broom closets and whatnot. Such being the case, it is impossible to ascertain what has happened to mister Smith. Therefore, we are forced to move that Sturmgosse Smith be declared legally dead and..."

Roger Harpell received a letter.

"... I don't know what made me do it! I was just out in the field one day and I found myself staring at it. It was so perfect! Nobody else could understand, but the tail wagged and I just fell in love with it on the spot. I had to have it..."

Geraldo cut to a commercial.

"... It does not compute. It never will compute. That's the whole idea, you moron! It's supposed to tie the micro-processors up in knots..."

The makers would have sued for libel, but they never knew what hit them.

"Thousands of lives are shattered every moment, with no hope of ever finding the pieces, and no one really cares anymore. It's just too big. If it was just a village, we would care, but it's not, it's billions of people, mind boggling really, and it deadens the emotions until some of us wonder if we still have any. The odds are enormous, and no one cares to bet. So don't blame me, it's not my fault."

And the shrink took notes while feasting his eyes on the stretch of thigh.

"My god Steve... You recorded this on VHS... What were you thinking man??? What if this thing fell into the wrong hands??? How many times do I have to tell you!?! Don't quote Faust while under the influence of ludes!!!"

ISO was listening...

"Do you think you have me? In your dreams, pitiful mortal! The key to it all isn't even in this world! So go ahead, destroy my soldiers. All it is, is a temporary set back..."

Kyle ducked and spun, disembowelling a goblin. Battle raged about him as the words of the sorcerer still rung in his ears. Which world?

"Where did that stupid cat go? Roooooooo! where the hell are you? Gads...even in the underworld, you can lose pets and who the hell farted?"

The Dark Lord waved a fan and thousands of fans waved back.

"Y'know, everything would be much easier if I had ultimate power."

CWBorysowich looked puzzled. "I thought you did."

They'd been wandering the desert for days before Wanderer asked, "How come you keep disappearing?"

"I do?" asked Ed.

Here's an easy bet to win. Bet someone you can predict what they will say. Tell them to pick an integer between one and ten (they can't tell you the number). Multiply it by nine, then add the digits. Subtract five. The resultant number corresponds to a letter (a=1, b=2, etc.) Tell them to pick a country whose name starts with that letter. Tell them to pick an animal whose name starts with the second letter of that country name. Then tell them to think of the colour of that animal. The answer should be...

{note your answer for future reference.}

The Casual Observer walked along the main street of a large city that will remain nameless to protect the guilty. He watched the parade of people passing him and observed the contents of store windows he passed. Then he noticed he was being followed. Three androids had been tracking him for several blocks. The casual observer felt a bit more formal. Used to being the voyeur, he was now the hunted. He ducked into an alley. Dead end. He turned.

The androids were around the corner and bearing down on him. The casual observer backed up to the wall and raised his hands in the air. The androids drew silenced automatic weapons.

He dropped to his knees. "No... don't..!"

They opened fire. The bullets cut into his chest. He never saw the androids leave.

The Pheonix appeared in a puff of smoke and looked at the alley and the body of the observer. "What am I doing here?"

Pheonix approached the body as its last string of life slipped away. A computer disk was clutched in the right hand. The eyes opened and looked into the eyes of Pheonix.

"Don't let the machines win..."

The eyes closed and the body exhaled for the last time.

Pheonix took the disk from the hand and disappeared.

What machines?

PART VIII - Moon Running With the Aussie Surfin’ Babes

Music Man held up his hands as a young Aus pointed two big forty fives and a submachine gun at his face. "I won't give you any trouble miss. Unless you want me to."

"Shaddup mate."

Music Man complied.

Moon Runner said, "Excuse me, ladies, but your motives are a purple haze. I am not afraid to die when it is my time, but please, let us live our lives as we want to - without bullets."

"Wot are you, some sixties junkie, buddy-o?"

Moon Runner looked at the speaker and feasted his eyes. "I, fair lady, am a medicine man. If you would care to sample my healing powers..."

"Maybe later, mate. Look, what we want is sex slaves and you two just aren't gonna do! Now be gone or we fill ya with lead, hippie-mate."

Moon flung his arms and the two characters evaporated from the scene.

The surf babe dropped her gun and gasped "Wow! - Cool!"

Little did she know, but she had just given the brush off to Moon Runner Hendrix - the last male on earth that could bring a female to multiple simultaneous congruent parabolic orgasms while rolling a pair of post-coital joints and saving the universe from mutual assured boredom.

"Great, bimbo bitch," one of her companions said, "NOW you notice ‘ee's talented."

"Like I could tell thot before!"

"`E did say `e was a medicine man..."

"Yeah, yeah, no use cryin' over it, is there? C'mon then."

And the surf babes continued their search, becoming more frustrated as they ran into a pack of stranded monks near Egypt, and then a gay men's colony in south America with their own village called JonesyTown. Even so, the surfing babes managed to convert a few of them along the way to slaves for their deviant behaviour, and their coincidental sexual activity. ISO was pleased with the results.

Part VII – I want Liar… I mean Lawyer…

"Geeves!... Geeves!" screamed the Queen.

"Yis your feline-ship?" came the servant exhumed from the bowels of Buckingham Palace.

"Stop calling me that, Geeves!"

"Yis, me pussy..."

"Where is that lawyer?!"

"You mean Skippy?"

"Get that smelly slob in here or I'll have him beheaded!"

"Please remember that the Stalin days are over Liz."

"Yes, well he did take care of some rather unloyal subjects for me..."

"Yis, like history and geography me lady..."

"Just get Skippy!"

"I'm off like lightning."

With that Geeves scuffed out of the room in his antique moccasins to locate the smelly lump of Skippy.

Meanwhile, the Queen paced back and forth, shedding fur all over the carpets. "I want that wizard to pay out of his pores! Look what he's done! It isn't very becoming of a Queen to be traipsing about as a kitten..."

"So, Geeves, where is her majesty?" Skippy hoarked deeply and spat on the kitten's head, distracting it from shredding the trail of Princess Anne's wedding dress, to which Anne had no further sentimental attachment.

The Queen turned and bit into Skippy's big toe, which prominently stuck out of his Reebok shoe. Skippy kicked and flung the Queen into the open face of a suit of armour standing in the corner.

"Congratulations, sah," Geeves said. "You just sank the Queen for at least two points."

"Oh. Sorry, your majesty."

The Queen burst out the toe of the armour suit, prompting it to collapse around her. "I want liar..... I want liar... I mean, I want lawyer... BEHEADED!!!"

"Right, madame." Geeves pulled an antique axe off the wall and backhanded at Skippy. Skippy tripped on a gauntlet and fell, avoiding summary decapitation, and creating enough racket to wake the Queen's grandchildren. Screams and cries echoed down the hall from the east wing. A squad of guards ran past the open door towards the east wing, carrying a bazooka. Nobody noticed the casual observer climbing from the wreckage of the armour suit and walking away with a computer disk.

Geeves turned back to the queen and Skippy, "Shall we get on with the legal meeting and cut the cutsie shenanigans?"

"Yes, that's a good idea Geeves, I have to catch a bus in an hour. What seems to be the problem, Q?"

"I'm a CAT damn it!!! That's the problem! The wizard has turned me into a cat!! I want him to pay for it! I want him to pay out of his PORES!""

"Oh, I see, that should be simple matter of liable and small claims... what's the name?"

"The Dark One, who else?!"

"Ooh oooooh, problem. You want me to sue my boss…"

Part VI – Flying Lessons

The Phoenix, newly reborn and totally unaware of anything, looked out from an ash covered mountain top and asked, "What am I doing HERE?"

He looked on a small village in the valley and, with his wings flaming brightly, poised himself to be the symbol on Pink Floyd's mocking of the Nazi third Reich. Coiling his muscles, he launched into the air...

... And sank like a stone.

"Great, what'd I do that for?" He flapped his wings furiously and narrowly avoided a pine forest. Slowly gaining control, he pulled up and surveyed the world.

"What am I doing HERE?!"

Just then he hit wind shear, and plummeted toward the village below, crashing through the ceiling of Holey Roach Motel.

Harold crawled out of the wreckage, asking, "Did you bring my new legs?"

"Uh, no, I just dropped in."

"Oh. Well, do me a favour and go look for them."

"First tell me something."

"What?"

"Who in blue blazes am I?"

"Well, you're a big bird who just destroyed my Inn! Like it needed more after Ed..."

"Oh! Sorry..."

"Yeah, yeah, we're all sorry for something or other, but sorries just aren't going to cut it, bucko! How the fuck am I going to rebuild this place with no legs?!?"

"Don't ask me, I was only born five minutes ago. Besides, you said yourself that a new set of legs are on the way."

"Don't patronize me, chickee! I've a good mind to cook you up as a fricassee..."

"Yeah, sure." The Phoenix spread his wings and cautiously flew away.

"Just like a damn bird," said Harold. "Always flying off on ya."