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Jack
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The Hooded Hood checks to see if he can still write this stuff

Subj: That sounds like Icy... I hope they collect a sufficient amount of maguffins of doom :)
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2009 at 07:28:47 pm EDT
Reply Subj: #331: Yet More Untold Tales of Ghost Taxis: Fare Play (complete)
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2009 at 04:48:46 pm EDT (Viewed 48 times)



    Quote:
    #331: Even More Untold Tales of Ghost Taxis – Part One: The Rules Debate

    Previously: Lair Legionnaire Nats (Bill Reed) has accidentally gained ownership of the Ghost Taxi Co., a mystic organisation currently facing hostile take-over by the sinister Westminster Necropolis Company. The very souls of Nats’ employees hang in the balance. So naturally Bill calls in some help…

    #329: Untold Tales of the Ghost Taxis
    #330: More Untold Tales of the Ghost Taxis: Road To Nowhere

    Other previous chapters at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom.
    Descriptions of cast at Who's Who in the Parodyverse.
    Locations explained in Where's Where in the Parodyverse    .

    ***




        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay,” sighed Vinnie De Soth as he looked at the people assembled around the abandoned warehouse off Kapitz Street. “I’m really, really sorry about this. I’d like to apologise in advance.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’s the sorcerer supreme now, right?” Nats checked nervously. “And he’s saying sorry to us. Xander the Improbable never said sorry to us.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not even for that things at Mumphrey’s Christmas bash,” agreed Dancer, “The time where Con Johnstantine stole my underwear. One of the times.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Guys,” prompted Hatman, pointing to the nervous acting sorcerer supreme. “I think you might be putting Vinnie off his game a little.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Um…” said Vinnie.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sorry, Vinnie,” Dancer said, a little shamefacedly. “Xander never blushed furiously when he had to speak in front of large numbers of people.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Just imagine everybody’s stark naked,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! advised De Soth. “I always do.”

        Vinnie glanced over at the Manga Shoggoth and winced.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Maybe if you were to put your head in a paper bag?” suggested Icy. The visiting snowman had been dragged along by Yuki Shiro and he was keen to be helpful. “I tried it that one time but the bag got all soggy and disintegrated. But some people say it can be very comforting. The bag I mean. Not the disintegration.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Disintegration has its charms too,” bubbled the Manga Shoggoth.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s fine,” Vizh tried to comfort the nervous jobbing occultist. “Just try not to start singing ‘I’m Henry the Eighth I Am’. That’s my key tip. Oh, and check that your pants are on.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m really really sorry,” repeated Vinnie De Soth. “But not quite as much now, so thanks for that.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Also you should make sure you’ve emptied the paper bag first,” offered Icy. “Otherwise you have to spend an hour or so getting grocery out of your snow head.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“But at least the frozen stuff didn’t thaw out,” offered Dancer brightly.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“We still haven’t quite worked out how Icy appears to cause localised temperature and humidity shifts inside an enclosed n-space transient environment,” Al B. Harper noted. “Every time I ask him for a sample he just snowballs me.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“As if you hadn’t learned about asking for samples after that time with the Shoggoth,” chided the Librarian. “We’re still trying to get the molecules in Lab Three to come down off the ceiling.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“The briefing,” Hatman steered the Lair Legion. “Don’t make me loose Yuki on you.” He glanced across the warehouse to where the dark funeral-suited agents of the Westminster Necropolis Company waited without moving. Many of them didn’t appear to even be breathing. “You don’t see those guys bantering away when we’re waiting for the big plot revelations.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“You don’t see those guys having their own ongoing series either,” countered CSFB. “But hey, it’s your call, o glorious leader.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Tell us now,” Yuki advised Vinnie. “While there’s a lull in the dialogue.”

        Vinnie took a deep breath and began. “There’s this challenge,” he explained. “You all know by now one of Paradopolis’ weird occult manifestations is the Ghost Taxi Company, a mobile supernatural event formed through a series of arcane convergences that aren’t fully understood unless you’re Xander the Improbable.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Which you’re not,” Icy clarified helpfully. “You’re Vinnie De Soth. You’re Vinnie, this is Hatty, that’s CSFB! and Yuki and the Shoggoth and Vizh and Al B. and Dancer and the Librarian and Nats, and I’m Icy. Over there are some scowling baddies and…”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, it’s good that we have somebody else around to footnote the obvious,” Al B. muttered to the Librarian. “Saves you getting all the exposition dialogue.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“I do more than the references,” Lee Bookman objected. “I also do the background research that tends to save the day at the end.” He glanced across at Al B., “I also don’t go evil every so often.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“I prefer to think of it as otherly moralled,” the archscientist shrugged. “Anyway, I didn’t destroy any worlds, did I?”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“So” Vinnie interrupted, clenching his teeth together, “The charter given to the Ghost Taxi Company by the Triumvirate is pretty clear about the terms of their continued existence. They have to have a mortal anchor, an owner with psionic and necromantic potential, who acts as the conduit through which they can still interact with the material realm.”

        A young woman with curly ginger hair escaping from a taxi driver’s baseball cap nodded. “That was my dad,” said Rosalind ‘Roswell’ Fellkirk. “He took over the firm back in ’87. We’ve been running it ever since.” She glared over at Vinnie then beyond him to the agents of the Westminster Necropolis Company. “Guess I’m not psychic enough to satisfy some people.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“But Nats is,” Al B. recognised. “His whole flying power is psychokinetically based and he absorbed the psionic spoor of the alien psychostave so…”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Exposition,” the Librarian interrupted, disguising it as a cough.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“I just wanted an apartment,” Bill Reed, the newly returned hero known as Nats objected. “Maybe something with its own bath. I never wanted to be the new MD of some Ghost Taxi firm.”

        Mr Wormcallow of the Necropolis Company smiled a parchment smile. “If that is the case then I have papers here to ensure a smooth and mutually satisfying transaction of assets.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, nobody is getting any satisfaction just yet!” Dancer objected.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“And it’s not often she says that,” Vizh added. “Sorry. I miss Lisa. Sometimes the jokes just have to come out.”

        CrazySugarFreakBoy! faced the mortician. “We’re the Lair Legion,” he insisted. “When we’re involved nothing goes smooth.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“What he said,” agreed Yuki with a sigh.

        Hatman glared across at the operative of the WNC. “Since the guy you’re trying to acquire the taxis for is the demon lord Sage Grimpenghast we’re not exactly keen to see this hostile takeover succeed,” he warned.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“And your moms dress you funny,” added Nats.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“So in cases like this where there is contested jurisdiction of paranormal estates there are procedures to resolve a dispute,” Vinnie persisted. He was rapidly learning that you had to struggle on as acting sorcerer supreme or the Parodyverse just rolled right on over you. “In fact there’s a contest.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Based upon the Third Age Nirvarnic Conventions of the Host Interregnum,” the Librarian noted. He exchanged a defiant glare with Al B.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“A contest?” Hatman frowned. “Wait a minute! We’ve done one of these before! Back in India, on the world tour!”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Rakshasa games!” Visionary shuddered. “I still have nightmares! Although Woopsa still sends me a Ramadan card.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“We get to fight the Westminster Necropolis Company?” checked Yuki.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“You get to compete with them,” clarified Vinnie. “Basically this is a scavenger hunt. You chase after five maguffins of doom. Whichever team gets the most of them back here wins.”

        Yuki saw a tiny glimmer of smugness cross Mr Wormcallow’s face. She didn’t like it.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“What are we looking for?” asked Vizh. He’d got a sinking feeling about all of this.

        Vinnie held out his fists. In each hand were five index cards. “Split into teams,” he told them. “The Lair Legion are the defenders, so they can use the Ghost Taxis for travel if they need to.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“At a discounted fare,” interjected Roswell. “Slightly discounted.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Westminster Necropolis Company already have their Hearses of Misery,” footnoted the Librarian.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Magic,” muttered Al B. darkly.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“All you have to do is find the item then get it back here and hand it to me,” Vinnie explained. “Of course, some of these things are going to be a bit difficult to locate and harder to acquire.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“I love party games,” enthused Icy.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“I tried Blind Man’s Bluff once,” the Shoggoth reminisced. “It turns out I’m bad at bluffing.”

        Hatman quickly divided up the teams. “Me and Dream. Vizh, Icy. Yuki, Al B. Librarian and Dancer. Shoggoth, Nats.” He paused for the inevitable celebrations and expressions of dismay then went on, “All of you keep in touch with Hallie if you can.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“But not in a Vizh kind of way.” Yuki couldn’t resist the comment. It was just a shame the possibly-fake man wasn’t eating or drinking this time.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m going with Bill Reed,” announced Roswell. “As his driver. And to keep an eye on him, because if he screws this up and destroys my father’s life work and damns everyone I care about to servitude with the WNC I’ll need to be close by to kill him.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Seems fair,” considered Yuki Shiro.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“As long as it doesn’t hurt him,” added Icy judiciously.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Are there written rules?” demanded the Librarian. “Only I’d quite like a copy for the files.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is it too late for me to call Donar to sub for me?” checked Visionary.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Does nobody care that magic makes no damn sense at all?” grumped Al B. Harper.

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Can we start?” Dancer asked. “Only those Necropolis guys will probably explode if they have to try and be any creepier.”

        Ã¢â‚¬Å“Fine,” agreed Vinnie De Soth. “The challenge of oneric transcendence will begin.” He raised his fists. “Pick a card. Any card.”

    ***


    Continued in Part 2 at the Nexus of Unreality with: “Garbage In, Garbage Out”.

    ***


    Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2009 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2009 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.






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