Strange Tails

“Squirrel, wake up.” Potbelly nudged his plump rear end with her snout. Again, the one eye popped open.

“Is it Christmas?” he asked.

“We’ve stopped. Brittanee’s shopping.”

“For all the little children?”

“I know you’re awake so just quit it.”

Squirrel sat up to feel the warmth of a new day. He looked around and discovered they were no longer in the school; instead they were at a much lower level, back in the trees, and presumably on course for the Glitterband.

Pleasantly, the sugar hangover, his usual comedown, was absent. This stuff must be pure, he thought, uncut. The good gear, straight off the boat. Just like the bar at Chagrin Falls. Ponyata, he decided, was beginning to grow on him.

Around him the trees looked thinner—more like a series of avenues than a forest—and running in straight lines through gem fields identical to the ones they had seen when they first arrived on the planet Ponyata. The spiders’ aversion to open spaces did not prevent Brittanee from stopping at a famous little Pick Your Own Rubies place, though, and this explained their temporary cessation. Way-ne! looked on bored. He was an amethyst guy, apparently. They were a little more unusual he claimed—and so he was not so much a customer, as an unaccustomer.

While they waited Potbelly described to Squirrel that their little group did well to remain anonymous, despite passing great fields of toiling, singing humans, and the occasional cluster of spiders—presumably playing Huminecraft. By her reckoning the humans were far more numerous than their captors. The spiders, it seemed, were the thin, blue-rinsed line.

Their spiders now numbered two. Tiffani had left the group before Squirrel awoke—it was Salesla Day†, and unlike gravity or the speed of light matriarchal attitudes to family gatherings were very much a universal constant. Cedric didn’t approve of any of this, of course, the leaving and the stopping, but he came to understand silence could not only be golden but the best way to remain ambulant.

When the group set off again Squirrel took great delight in taking Potbelly’s earlier information and educating Brittanee on how population density was the other way around on Earth, and that so ubiquitous were their tiny little arachnid counterparts they must be having sex with just about anything in a web. She replied, concisely, that if he kept that up, he’d be riding on Way-ne!.

After a distance akin to several lengths of a Carkball field the avenue of trees crested a large hill initially haloed by an intense blue-ish light. On nearing its brow the light grew stronger, the crest finally pulled down like a window shade, and beyond it lay an extraordinary, dazzling brilliance—a brilliance so striking that even at this distance, maybe four or five clicks away, the off-worlders needed to avert their eyes. Cedric yanked a pair of sunglasses from a pouch. Michel disappeared into his shell leaving only a small voice drifting out, requesting an aspirin.

“Sequin Mountain,” announced Cedric, with something like pride. Its scintillating light glinted from his shades. “That is our ultimate destination, but the Glitterband, however, is closer, and where we are headed first.”

“Does it have a dimmer switch?” asked Squirrel, his face buried in Brittanee’s back, who, on the other hand, was delighted. “Raw fabulousness,” she cooed, with evident admiration.

“The most powerful energy source in the galaxy,” agreed Way-ne!. Neither of them needed Cedric’s shades, possessing as they did an extremely high tolerance for shiny.

“What do you mean raw fabulousness?” was Potbelly’s muffled reply, her voice buried, like Squirrel’s, deep in Brittanee’s back hair. Even for her this thing was exuberant.

Cedric answered. “Fabulousness is the purest form of energy in the galaxy. Only a naturally occurring mountain of sequins can create it. Harness its potential and you have unlimited power. Sequin Mountain drives the engines that brought this planet so close to Earth. It kickstarted each of the spaceships’ fusion reactors. There’s nothing else like it on Ponyata—though I understand the eastern continent has a hillock of diamante generating sufficient awesomeness to drive a very large discotheque.”

“Legend has it,” chimed in Way-ne!, “Sequin Mountain was once a much bigger affair, and unicorn-shaped too—but at some point it imploded. The unicorn formation created a highly unstable isotope of phenomenosity, and this great lump of fabulousness is all that remains.”

“I still say it could do with turning down,” whined Squirrel.

“Let’s move on. Our first stop is the Glitterband. If we hope to take Sequin Mountain we need an army, not just … ” Potbelly shot him a withering look, despite the hardship in doing so. “ … an elite band of brothers,” he finished.

Displaying a mixture of reluctance and relief—depending on their differing opinions of Sequin Mountain—the travelers quickly descended the light-ward side of the hill and into the shade of another promontory. Being curious about such things, and finally emerging from his dome, Michel inquired how an entire mountain of naturally occurring sequins was geologically possible. He posited that such a large topographical feature must surely be formed by an upward push from the substrate below, or by an outpouring of molten material that cools, solidifies, and wears down over millennia. Neither, it seemed to him, would leave Ponyata with a large pile of perfectly identical, multi-colored, and exceptionally shiny sequins, especially round ones with little holes in them.

Way-ne! considered this conundrum for some time. Eventually, he concluded, geologically speaking, and with all things considered, Michel should just shut up and enjoy the shiny.

Fortunately for the luminescently-challenged the remainder of their path included no more direct exposure to Sequin Mountain. Unfortunately, for the spiders at least, it included something far more disturbing. Two clicks on they came upon a long, gray, flat-topped structure, resembling in its somber stolidness a fallen tombstone, assuming that tombstone had endured a very bad day indeed and was rather inclined to let everyone know about it.

“The Glitterband,” declared Cedric, as was becoming his habit.

“The Glitterband?” repeated Potbelly. “Doesn’t live up to its name, does it?”

“A dread place,” whispered Way-ne!, discovering his grave voice again. “Nothing good ever comes of something so relentlessly drab.”

Brittanee made the sign of the tiara to ward off unglamour. “Headquarters of the Fashion Police,” she said. “One can only imagine what it looks like on the inside.”

Way-ne! knew. “My brother-in-law says a few days in there and you’ll never want to wear cargo shorts again. Knocks it right out of you. Nearest us is the White Sneakers compound, for the low-grade delinquents. On the other side is the Taupe Chinos wing, where the hardcore offenders are kept.”

“Doesn’t seem so terrible to me,” replied Squirrel, who like the building wore a monotonously gray exterior. Brittanee stared at him, as she might an inmate convicted for wearing flip-flops to a cocktail party.

“We must be fortified and execute the plan,” warned Cedric.

“Again,” said Potbelly. “What is this damn plan?”

“I’m glad you asked,” he smiled, again with that whiff of cunning.

“Well that makes a change,” she sniffed.

Cedric sat back on his furry haunches, still atop Way-ne!, and checked the integrity of their camouflage. They were hidden from the Glitterband by a thicket of narrow angular trees, no more than bushes really, while Squirrel, his fickle brain less enamored by Cedric’s routine by now, munched on their candied barrier, seemingly intent on eating them into plain view.

“First,” announced Cedric, attempting not to be distracted by Squirrel’s slurping, “we find a lone guard. The perimeter is always patrolled by humans, even when it’s not Salesla Day; but given the holiday, as I say, the spider presence should be minimal, if at all.”

Michel nodded enthusiastically. “Agreed,” he said. “Tell them what’s next.”

“Next we acquire the human’s entrance code to the main building.”

“Aha.”

“Then we scout out the Nevermore army and free them.”

“Excellent.”

“After that, we push on to take Sequin Mountain.”

“Brilliant. Let’s get cracking.”

“Just a tick,” said Potbelly. “So I’m clear. Your plan is this: we walk up to the front door, we ask the guard how to get in, he tells us, we mosey on into this prison, have a shufti about, and then we rescue everybody and leave.”

“Correct.”

“With the assistance of no weapons.”

“Yes.”

“And this is the entirety of your plan.”

“It’s quite brilliant,” nodded Michel.

Potbelly stared at him. “The only thing dumber here is you.”

“You’re forgetting, Potbelly,” interrupted Squirrel, his eyes glazed from the oncoming sugar rush. “The humans do exactly what they’re told. Remember our one at Nevermore? She’d have stood on one leg and whistled Friggin’ in the Riggin’ if we’d asked her. Now I think of it, why didn’t we ask her?”

“Not these ones,” said Way-ne!. “You’re thinking of the humans after they’ve been put through the Moronizer. We only have Moronizers on the spaceships, for immediate use after capture. Completely removes their logical reasoning. Makes it easier to fit the collars during transit. Wears off after a few days, thank the Goddess, all that literalism can be quite trying. My nephew told some group to hang around for a while. Took him hours to cut them all down.”

“I thought the humans did the collar-fitting on the spaceships?”

“Usually they do—but humans who have skills to serve other humans are an elite group, the most expensive ones in Huminecraft. Waitresses are like Earth’s movie stars. Humans who dub movies on the spaceships are basically actors working their way up into waitressing. Every servant is bought by the richy-riches in the end, once their training is complete. Typically we have a shortage. My nephew says the ship’s onboard beauty salon is the only thing that keeps you going. Awful business.”

“Yes, we saw it, it was … pink … but again, this guard with a collar, he’s going to tell us how to get in … why? Because we ask him nicely?”

“Still not getting it are you?” interrupted Squirrel, his eyes wide and insistent, the potent fructose mixture coursing through his veins. He gestured towards Way-ne! and Brittanee. “We’re here with a couple of their spider overlords. With the spids calling the shots, the guards’ll do exactly what they’re told.”

Every single one of Way-ne!’s eyes lit up. “Ooh an overlord, and calling the shots, I like that,” he said. “Granted, I do feel a bit masterful at times, but I’m afraid the only thing Brittanee and I are good at is keep an eye on Chagrin Falls. Which, mind you, can be important, especially when drunk little doggies are around.”

“In the pecking order we’re just chaff” agreed Brittanee. She turned to Way-ne!. “Overlord though, eh? Does sound exciting. Would one wear leather, d’you think?”

“Black rubber I thought, but I do like where you’re taking it.”

Potbelly tried, and failed, to interrupt.

“Maybe we should join the Fashion Police then?” Way-ne! mimicked a low, authoritarian voice. “Wearing relaxed fit jeans, are you boy? That an anorak, is it? Drop and give me fifty.”

“You do that ever so well.”

“It’s in the blood.”

“But Cedric’s plan,” interjected Potbelly, with considerable frustration. “How can it work?”

They all turned to Cedric to explain. Another cunning glint shone from those red-and-green eyes. “Oh, it will work.” He nodded in the direction of the Glitterband. “All we have to do is pop off their collars.”

Potbelly thought about this. Even Squirrel stopped munching.

“But doesn’t that make their heads explode?”

“Yes.”

“But—“

“Potbelly, just roll with it,” Squirrel blurted out, now totally wired. “You are barrel-shaped after all.” He grabbed another twig.

Cedric chuckled. “That’s an excellent suggestion, Squirrel. And I’m glad you’re in the mood to volunteer.”

“Mmph?” he choked.

“When the collars come off they have a moment of lucidity. In effect, they are themselves again, and in that brief window we have our chance. The problem we must overcome is this: not only will they collapse from sheer fright should they see a giant spider there to interrogate them, they wouldn’t understand a single word it was saying. Without their collars on, humans cannot understand the language. It must be someone else.”

“So why don’t you do it then?” objected Potbelly.

“I intended to, but then you two came along, and who better to leap up and detach the collar than a small yet nimble rodent, with his fine, sleek-gray fur? That way I get to … stay here and direct operations.”

“You’ll use this,” said Brittanee, offering Squirrel a small metallic object.

“To throw at their heads?”

“To unlock their collar. They’re magnetically sealed.”

“This is crazy,” Potbelly declared.

“I’ll do it!” cried Squirrel.

“You’re riding a sugar-crack high. You’re not making sense.”

“But I want to blow up their heads.”

“You haven’t the slightest idea what to do if it goes wrong, do you?”

“Not the faintest”

“Exactly, so—“

“So let’s get exploding!”

“Excellent,” declared Cedric. “We have a volunteer.”

Close to the perimeter of the Glitterband, as close as the foliage would allow, close enough even that Potbelly quit protesting, they hunkered down and waited. After a few minutes, and as promised, a human guard marched into view, with her gun slung haphazardly across her shoulder. She marched with a bemused expression, as one might do when one has no idea how one got there, or why one got there, but one is there doing whatever it is anyway.

The guard stopped. “Hello little friend!” she said, bending down to a manically gurning Squirrel. A tiny extended claw beckoned the guard closer. She leaned in.

“Collar inspection!”

Squirrel leapt. The guard shrieked. Something behind her neck went click, and then fell. She stared down at a thin, no longer blinking collar. As instructed by Cedric Squirrel remained behind, clinging to her shoulder, low down and out of sight. He was not a half-ton talking spider, but still, a tubby ten pound chattering rodent would be something of a surprise in the average day of a typical human being.

“You are free!” urged Squirrel. “You were abducted by aliens. Now it’s your job to save the Earth. But first, the Glitterband. What’s the entrance code?”

“Luv a duck,” said the human, blinking rapidly and itching at the weight on her back. “In all my days I never did. Well blow me.” Between pointing her gun and staring in wonder at the brilliant gem fields beyond, she made no further attempt to swat Squirrel away.

“The code!” he repeated. “The code!”

“Darn’t shiv me!” she cried, now more cognizant of Squirrel’s voice and the danger she might suddenly be in. “I got the cheese for the bobby, tha’ wha’ yer want?”

“The who for the what? No, the—“

The guard swung around, unbalancing Squirrel, who then fell. She stared aghast at the pudgy gray ball that must have been the something speaking to her. She reached for the nape of her neck and yelped, staggered back, dropped her gun, found her feet, staggered back some more, tripped on a stone, yelped louder, and then scratched at the top of her scalp as if something itched profoundly. Then with a rather quizzical expression, her head exploded.

A sloppy plop signaled its demise, much as if one dropped a casserole of chopped cabbage and blancmange. Her torso fell to the floor thereafter.

Squirrel viewed the corpse, defeated. He’d heard her words, in fact they sounded very much like English, but they made no sense whatsoever. He looked to the foliage for guidance. Brittanee scurried over.

“Collar inspection,” she said, repeating Squirrel’s line.

“Wha’?”

“Ooh, looks like a bad one,” said another guard, who unbeknownst to Squirrel had appeared from around the corner. “Hope they’re not all playing up.”

With a deft flick of her leg Brittanee booted Squirrel behind the new guard, who was busy shouldering his gun and tutting at the sticky mess just a few inches from his boots.

“Good work, sentry,” said Brittanee. “I’ll be off.” She scurried back to the foliage.

“You don’t want to inspect mine?” the sentry asked, watching Brittanee disappear.

“Nope, that’s my job.” Before the human could develop a curiosity over where the second voice had come from, his collar flipped open and slid down his rotund stomach to the floor.

“Quickly!” urged Squirrel. “Alien abduction. You’re free. Gotta save humanity. Etc. Etc. What’s the Glitterband code?”

“Glitterband code?”

“To get in the damn door!”

“But she has the keys.” The sentry pointed to a large and really quite obvious bunch, now Squirrel thought about it, attached to the midriff of his stricken colleague. The sentry felt a powerful and irresistible urge to scratch the back of his head, followed by a powerful and irresistible urge to be decapitated.

Squirrel shook his own noggin, removing from it a new mixture of brain blancmange and cerebral cabbage. “Oh, right,” he said, and hopped over to the keys, detaching them. “Must’ve been cockney rhyming slang. Cheddar cheese—keys.” He offered them to the artificial sunlight. “Lor’ luv a duck.”

Squirrel waved his prize like a magician’s wand, and thereafter, as if by magic, a ragtag group of spiders, mammals, and a solitary reptile emerged from the bushes. Quietly they crept around the perimeter of the building, found a small service door, tried the key, failed, found another door, saw it was marked “Entrance”, opened that, and went in.

Inside they found a brightly lit and pleasantly decorated foyer, with ample seating and dog-eared magazines, each bearing pictures of smiling spiders doing something with sailboats. There were pictures of equally delighted spiders holding things, a soft squidgy carpet that felt pleasantly like angel cake, and most interesting of all, on the far side, directly in front of a pair of double-swing doors, stood a large, hairy, and very orange Snodberry.

“Snodberry!” yelled Potbelly, unable to contain her joy.

“He has a gun!” yelled Cedric, with rather less joy.

“I’m a guard now,” said Snodberry, with pretty much no joy at all.

“You can speak?” asked Potbelly, suddenly halting.

“Of course,” replied Snodberry. His voice was surprisingly mellow for such a large and hirsute beast, much like a throat lozenge would sound if it ever got the chance to articulate.

Squirrel bounded up and sniffed him.

“Smells like a Snodberry,” he said. “Earthy. Hint of garlic.”

“You must all come with me,” announced Snodberry, aiming his gun in their general direction, unable to quite decide who should be on the end of it first. Potbelly noticed Snodberry, her Snodberry, wore a collar.

“Oh! They got to you too?”

“You will accompany me to the fitting room,” he continued. Snodberry’s smooth amber tone did nothing to assuage the trepidation in the room.

Brittanee coughed. “Speaking as, um, your overlord, I’d like to, I mean, I’m here to tell you that we found these rebel scum, and we’re, um, hereby returning them to you.”

“Yes,” squeaked Way-ne!, at the unpleasantly large thing before him. “Turning them in, exactly. To you.”

“Why did you kill all the guards outside?” countered Snodberry.

“We brought you a nice ruby,” said Brittanee, proffering it.

“First you tell us why you never spoke before!” demanded Potbelly, not liking the direction this new verbalizing Snodberry was taking.

“It’s overrated,” he shrugged.

“Oh …” Potbelly noticed a small wooden box hanging from Snodberry’s neck by a chain. “What’s in the box,” she asked, keeping him occupied while someone smarter than her thought of a way out of this predicament. That someone was not going to be Cedric, whose plan, simply, was to stare at the huge gun that was now pointed directly at his head.

“Not important,” replied Snodberry, touching the box defensively.

“Is it Siobhan?”

“You will accompany me to the fitting room,” he repeated.

So as to not improve matters, the doorway behind them, the one they had arrived by and which hitherto promised to remain an escape route, suddenly decided to not be an escape route any more. Two creatures entered, one a gray thing that could well have been a stoat, and the other a panda munching nonchalantly on a bamboo shoot.

“Oh, I remember you,” said the panda, pointing a soggy stalk at Potbelly before placing it behind his ear. He raised a gun. “You need to come with us to the fitting room.”

“So I’ve been hearing, but your overlords are here to—“

“How come you killed the guards outside?” interrupted the possibly-a-stoat, but it could have been a weasel.

“I asked them the same question,” noted Snodberry, who somewhat confusingly followed up by yelling, “’Ere, geroff!”

Snodberry swung a large heavy paw to the back of his neck, and came away with a thin, black, and no longer blinking collar. “Sorry old chum,” said Squirrel, who by now had leapt from Snodberry’s shoulder to a light pendant.

“Oh, Squirrel!” wailed Potbelly, taking in the startled face of Snodberry. “Snodberry, quick, you must help us. How do we get out of here?”

Snodberry looked around the room, sizing up the creatures he knew and did not know, some huge and oddly spider-like, others holding guns pointed straight at Potbelly, and then straight at him. With his face no longer startled he looked like the same old Snodberry, and just like the same old Snodberry, he shrugged.

A few moments later a very round, very titian, and somewhat unhappy face sprayed its cabbage and blancmange against the ceiling. Those few moments, however, had been quite eventful.

Two spiders lay on their back, legs curled up and dead, while a panda and a stoat (possibly) were similarly flopped across them. Each was noticeably charred by laser fire. Somewhere underneath the mess lay a mink and a tortoise, likely in similar distress, though no creature was around to check. The only two that might, a small dog and a squirrel, were otherwise occupied running down a corridor as fast as their little legs could carry them.

“Wait!” cried Potbelly, coming to an abrupt stop.

“What?” panted Squirrel.

“We have to go back.”

“This is no time to be a hero! They’re dead! Let them go!”

“No, I mean, we’re heading in the wrong direction.”

“Oh.”

They peered along the corridor they’d finally hoved up in, soon calculating that being in a corridor meant not being outside the Glitterband.

From up on a shelf, in an adjacent room with its door open, two hamsters eyed them suspiciously. They wore tiny black collars. Squirrel chirruped, waved, and alongside Potbelly backed quietly away. They tiptoed, took a left, a left again, started running, and finally ended up back in the foyer.

Before them stood a bedraggled and slightly burned Cedric. He was holding Snodberry’s collar and the set of keys.

“You have to put this on,” he said, offering the collar.

“They got to you too!” yelled Squirrel, his claws scrabbling to get away.

“Squirrel!” hissed Potbelly. “He’s not actually wearing it.” She walked over to Cedric, still catching her breath. “What do you mean?” she panted.

“We must find out if all the creatures here are collared. It’s the outcome I had feared but we must be sure. There may still be some we can rescue.” He gestured with the collar again. “We stand out too much by not wearing one. If we cut this large collar into three we can pretend we’re like them.”

“That’s actually quite smart,” said Potbelly.

“It’s the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard,” protested Squirrel. “We’re walking into a lion’s den, quite literally.” He recalled the injured Nev and his colleague from Nevermore. “We have to get out of here, immediately.”

“And go where?” asked Cedric. “There’s even fewer of us than before. We need an army.”

“Where’s Michel?”

“Out cold. He was on the spider’s back when it was shot. Maybe he’s just stunned, but even so, I’ll wager he’ll be out for a while.”

“We have to bring him.”

“How? Carry him?”

Potbelly thought for a moment. “OK, let’s stash him in a cupboard. Maybe the others won’t look there.”

“Do it now. We have little time. Squirrel, you and I will bite this collar into three.”

“Squirrel will do no such thing. Squirrel will get the hell out of here. And while Squirrel is talking about himself in the third person, Squirrel might never come back, neither.”

“Stay here and help Cedric,” insisted Potbelly. “If you don’t I will personally disembowel you with a spoon.”

“With a spoon you say?” mocked Squirrel, nodding at her less-than-dexterous paws.

Potbelly trotted up to him, within an inch of his face. “I won’t even sharpen it first.”

“Squirrel will assist.”

“Right. Take those keys and lock the outer door.”

Still eyeing Potbelly, Squirrel acquiesced. “I’ll keep guard at the inner door,” she said, passing him. Cedric began gnawing at the huge, Snodberry-sized collar. He was one third the way through by the time Squirrel had finished locking up and took the other end.

No more than five minutes later the three were strolling along a connecting corridor, feigning moronized nonchalance, while trying not to dislodge their thin black collars. They were held together by sticky tape Cedric had found, fortuitously, in the same desk drawer now containing Michel. Potbelly hoped the locked doors to the foyer would buy him, and them, a little more time.

The same two hamsters passed by, still eyeing them with suspicion.

“All hail our spider overlords!” cried Squirrel, unable to contain himself. Potbelly nudged him hard in the ribs.

The hamsters eyed them harder.

“Hail,” replied one, watching as they passed.

Relieved to come across another set of swing doors they disappeared through, and just as quickly came to the conclusion that if this place was a lion’s den, or a badger’s set, or a chicken’s coop, or just about anything else come to that, one thing it most definitely wasn’t, was a prison.

The immense room they emerged into smelled of roses. And hyacinth. And then of vanilla, orange, pine, apricot, and cedar. Amongst these scents was the familiar funk of perspiring mammals, both the non-human and human kind. In fact, any life form with a body shape suitable for moving something from A to B was so employed. The activity set itself against a stockpile of small cylindrical tubes, of glass bottles of every conceivable shape, size, and design, and small disks stacked so high they reached the ceiling some thirty feet above.

The pungent smell could be explained by a spillage distracting the feverishly working creatures, who were mopping, wiping, and generally cursing some poor soul’s incompetence. A landslide of glass shards acted like a traffic island. The ongoing tumult meant three newcomers slipped by unnoticed. To Cedric’s dismay, every creature he saw wore a black and blinking collar.

“Too late,” he muttered to himself.

The next space was even larger than the first, practically warehouse-sized. It held the same kind of containers as the preceding space, but this time with no loading crew, at least none visible. Potbelly sneezed, unable to hold in the irritant building in her sinuses. Squirrel and Cedric chose not to bless you, busy as they were spitting out the unctuous taste of the previous room.

Realizing their reactions might be drawing attention all three ducked into an alcove sporting a rather nice sculpture of a naked lady with no arms. Something about it was familiar to Squirrel. He leapt up for a closer look.

“Oh, hey there small furry dude,” echoed a warbling voice. It bounced through Squirrel’s head in a way he instantly recognized as a telepath-only mind.

“Who’s speaking?” he said.

“You are,” replied Potbelly, looking around for more collared foes. “Feel free to stop.”

“It’s one of those weirdo telepaths,” said Squirrel. “Don’t focus on me. Speak to all of us.”

“Sure thing fella, what d’ya want to know?”

“Oh I hear it now. It’s the fish.”

“The ones and the onlys! Wait, can we be ones and onlys? I mean, like, if there’s two of us.”

“There’s two of us?” said another voice. “I thought you were a mirror.”

“The shiny stuff is water dude. Had me going for a while.”

“So who’s this dude over here?”

“That, in fact, is your reflection. In the glass.”

“Man this is tricky. So the other dude didn’t leave?”

“Oh he left. Bird took him.”

“Fish!” declared Squirrel, by way of interruption. From his perch he could see a glass tank at the end of the alcove, around six feet long, standing on an ornately carved, dark brown, and very ancient-looking table. “Fish … is every animal in here mind-controlled?”

“Not us!” declared one of them. “I think the little collars didn’t fit.”

“No dude, they said we didn’t have enough mind to control, remember?”

“Oh right. I thought they were talking about you.”

“But you thought I was your reflection.”

“I did?”

“So,” persisted Squirrel. “What I’m hearing is that you two are not wearing collars. Are there others like you?”

“Little hard to tell from here furry dude, but I doubt it. All I see is blinky collars and waaay too much hard work.”

“What are they doing?”

“Lipstick.”

“Lipstick?”

“Perfume too. Some dropped in the water. Tastes funny.”

“Oh dude that was awesome. Waaay trippy.”

“The colors man! The colors!”

“So all the stuff out there in the prison—the warehouse thing—it’s all cosmetics?”

“You speak the truth, oh furry one.”

“Are they making cosmetics?”

“Nope, stolen from Earth.”

“I miss Earth, dude.”

“Me too. Well, the watery bits, anyway. The actual earth parts, not so much.”

Cedric, who had remained silent due to a lack of recent experience of the strangely disembodied nature of telepath-only communication, finally came to terms with it and spoke. “You’re saying they’re stealing cosmetics? From our home world?”

“The spoils of war, other furry dude, the spoils of war. Not just cosmetics, mind, check out the artwork. Pretty sweet. You should get some. You could be their fence.”

“No dude, I heard people sit on fences.”

“They do?”

“Possibly—can’t decide.”

“Anyways, other furry dude, I heard they’re heading home.”

“Dude this is their home, it’s like, their Earth y’know?”

“No way! Then they don’t have far to go!”

“Wait,” interrupted Potbelly. “You say they’re heading home? Who is?”

“The hairy leggy things. The big ones. Man, I’m glad those fellas can’t swim.”

Potbelly turned to Cedric, who was still somewhat confused by the fishes’ conversation. “Does this mean the spiders are driving their planet back to where it came from?”

Cedric shrugged. “Could be,” he said. “Would explain why they’re looting Earth rather than just nipping back for supplies.”

“We’ll be light years from Twinkies,” moaned Squirrel. “Light years!” he added, having not elicited the horrified response he thought his first comment deserved.

“We must get to Sequin Mountain,” Cedric decided. “Army or no army, we must act. Before a return to Earth is no longer an option.”

“Agreed,” said Potbelly.

“We’re doing what?” protested Squirrel, annoyed that apparently this was more important than Twinkies.

“Don’t make me go all Potbelly on you,” growled Potbelly.

“Listen to the lady, dude, sounds like she means it.”

“We ladies know our stuff,” said the other fish.

“Wait, you’re a lady dude?”

“Yep. Have been for some time. Something of a hobby of mine.”

“That’s awesome, now there’s three of us!”

“Shall we rescue you?” asked Potbelly, unsure if her offer was wise.

“No way, chubby dude, I just got a girlfriend.”

“We could take you both.”

“But what about the other dude?”

“There’s only … never mind. You’re right. Been lovely meeting you.”

“Right back at ya furries! Watch for the birds now!”

“Birds?”

“They’ll just swoop right down and eat ya without even asking.”

“Thanks for the tip. So, how do we get out of here?”

“They mainly use doors.”

“Is there a door that gets us outside?”

“I would say, in all probability, yes.”

“Right … thanks.”

Potbelly gestured to the others. The three peered around the alcove entrance, and on deciding the coast was clear, strolled nonchalantly back into the former prison which had now become a warehouse.

They hugged a far wall until they found a low rectangular door, off in one corner. Through the cracks around it came daylight—it was the only thing that could come through it though, the door being locked. Potbelly kicked it a few times but found that did nothing to improve matters.

A large hyena-like creature stalked over. It eyed them much as the hamsters had done earlier, and let out a low menacing growl.

“Get back to work,” it said.

“Yes sir,” replied Potbelly, again gesturing for the others to follow. They disappeared out of sight behind a rudimentary partition, making like they were inspecting labels, while waiting for the hyena to depart.

“This stuff isn’t cosmetics,” said Squirrel, as the tap-tap of hyena claws echoed into nothing. “It’s called poorlom. Is it explosives, maybe?”

“Pour l’homme,” corrected Potbelly. “It means For Men.”

“Then why didn’t they just say that?”

“You never were a lady’s man, were you?” laughed a small, high voice, and another strangely disembodied one at that.

“Fish, I swear, I will drop a live cable in your—“

“No need for it myself,” continued the same voice. “Not since the passing of my dear, sweet, Vanessaconshaltamaressasitiamamorena.”

“Stinkeye?” replied Squirrel, swiveling around, his little ears pricking up.

A fluttering apparition landed on the end of Potbelly’s snout and tickled it with his antennae. “Stinkeye!” she echoed excitedly.

“Shh!” he replied. “The birds are watching.”

She dropped her voice to a whisper. “You’ve not been collared have you?”

“No prison can contain the Stinkeye!” he declared triumphantly. “Actually, quite literally. My neck’s even smaller than the blinking light on the collar. They let me off duties like they did the fish.”

“Wow! I’m so—“

“Shh!” repeated Stinkeye. “The birds.”

“The birds?”

“Coralane and Zoltan. They’re here. They’re in the rafters, somewhere. They’re after me. They ate one of the fish.”

“The fish said something about that. I just thought they were being the fish.”

“Even a fish gets it right occasionally.”

“Do you know where the birds are now?”

“Pretty sure nearby. They certainly will be soon, now I’m out of hiding.”

Cedric, his brain still checking under the bed for the source of these non-yakker conversations, gestured in the general direction of the fish tank. “So why do the birds want to eat you when there are, so to speak, much bigger fish to fry?”

“Good question,” replied Stinkeye. He fluttered onto Cedric’s nose to better see the newcomer. “My guess is—“

But Stinkeye did not finish his sentence.

Because, when a crow descends suddenly, it is like a scrap has been torn from the sky—or in this case, the illuminated ceiling—and in that scrap lay the soul of darkness. Zoltan, his claws extended and sharp, reached out for Cedric’s snout, targeting Stinkeye.

“Grrarrr!” snarled Cedric, twisting instinctively and lashing out his own sharp claws to swipe at the attacker. Avoiding the first parry, the crow flew up and back down again, grabbing at Cedric’s head, who in turn ducked and parried again, repeating each play as if a grab-arm sought a very reluctant and heavily armed vending machine toy.

“Stinkeye! Cedric!” cried Potbelly.

Undeterred, the crow sunk its needle talons into Cedric’s back, and then others into his rump. The mink squealed and the crow flapped and shook, trying to free Stinkeye from his host, who until then had clung on defiantly.

Brut for Men, Old Spice, and Eau de Parfum flew from the surrounding shelves while the two made a riotous commotion, spilling out into the open and into plain view of a hyena returning from its rounds. Soon an expressively-faced rhinoceros and a brilliantly-patterned, but viciously hissing snake, joined the hyena. The cloven hoof of the rhino stamped down on Cedric and a snake coil ensnared Zoltan. In no time at all the combatants were separated and subdued.

Undetected, Stinkeye had escaped. “No!” his small voice urged Potbelly, targeting her brain directly. She and Squirrel were tensed to leap, while Squirrel, in particular, rediscovering some nominal allegiance to Cedric, had to be tugged back by Potbelly.

The Atlas moth alighted on Potbelly’s nose. “Quick! Behind the Nivea!”

Others arrived to assist Itchynuts and Mildred in their processing of the two creatures, while noses sniffed for accomplices but found little distinction amongst the sweet cosmetic funk. Potbelly and Squirrel laid low some ten feet away, not daring to peer out between the stacks of hair treatment and exfoliant in which they had found themselves.

The three remained like this for an hour, maybe more, silently breathing, listening for the final departure of pads, claws, and hooves. Their hearts were heavy with the knowledge they had just lost Cedric.

But, apparently, they had gained a Coralane.

“My apologies,” she sibilated, in her distinctive, ear-corroding squawk, now dialed down to a whisper. “I advised a persuasive approach but he wouldn’t listen. The impetuosity of youth.”

Coralane’s red-and-green eyes, so reminiscent of the Cedric they just lost, peered down from a small stack of Proactiv blemish remover. The eyes awaited an answer.

“You’re an evil old crone,” said Stinkeye. “Wait there while I kill you.”

Coralane squawked a low laugh. “And how might you do that?”

“The moth’ll distract you while I tear you wing from wing,” growled Potbelly. “How did you get here?”

She flapped one of her wings at her. It still bore singes from the Nevermore attack. “I will give you a clue, Potbelly. I did not take the bus.”

“You were in the cave, weren’t you? Cedric was right. You overheard his plans.”

“Such as they were. I just needed locations. Though some of the Sequin Mountain information did prove most useful, not that your Cedric would ever have guessed.”

“How nice. Sorry the mountain didn’t blind you. Now, about that dismemberment.”

“First, let me ask you a question. Why would you do that?”

“Let me count the reasons—“

“Or put another way, why would you kill me when I’m the only one who knows how to get us out of here? And thanks to Cedric’s information, I’m the only one who knows how to destroy the Uncognitron.”

Potbelly paused for a moment—despite herself, her pesky curiosity had kicked in. “The Uncognitron?”

“A device controlling the behavior of all Earth creatures stranded here on this planet.”

“Oh, you mean the zombification machine?”

“Possibly, if I didn’t already mean the Uncognitron. The main thing is it’s multisyllabic and not easy to pronounce. So, Cedric did tell you about it. I wondered what you were up to in that alcove. Thank the Goddess you weren’t making out. Do you also know where they keep it?”

“Sequin Mountain.”

“Very good. And do you know how to deactivate it?”

Potbelly paused again. Squirrel scratched distractedly. Stinkeye wafted a wing. In a few brief minutes Coralane had taken full control of their conversation.

“Sequin Mountain?” offered Potbelly, weakly.

“Thought not,” smiled Coralane, or at least spoke in that way of hers suggesting a smile. It was not a pleasant smile, not a smile of well done in your math test young lady here’s a cookie, or even a good luck on your journey please don’t come again kind of smile. It was a thank you smile, a thank you for knocking over that stick propping up the box you’re standing under. The one with a spike in the roof. It was that kind of smile.

“We need a telepath-only creature,” continued Coralane. “We need a Stinkeye. We may have needed a fish but transporting them in a live state has proved difficult.”

“So you did abduct the fish. You didn’t eat it?”

“Please, what am I, an animal?”

“But you did freeze the Nevermore army. All this,” Potbelly gestured to the mountain of blemish remover. “This is your fault.”

“I saved them.”

“Huh?”

“They would have been massacred in a moment. Surely you saw the numbers stacked up against them. And they stood out like your snout in a crowd. This was the only way.”

“But that wasn’t your choice to make,” replied Potbelly, ignoring the probable insult.

“Actually, it was.”

“But how come you want to save everyone now?”

She looked beyond the heads of her audience, who despite their disinclination had become just that. “Their release is now crucial. Besides, I can’t remain here on this planet. Which reminds me—I know the way out. Come, follow me.”

With a near-silent flutter Coralane disembarked, alighting briefly atop a pyramid of hand sanitizer. She nodded for them to follow before flying behind the same wobbling edifice.

Potbelly looked at Squirrel. “It pains me to say this but she’s right. We can’t just stay here.”

“How do we know it’s not a trap?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s a trap. But seeing as we’re in a trap already, and we’ve been sitting here nibbling at the cheese, at least the next trap’ll be a change of scenery. Plus, I’m getting a cramp.”

“Speaking as her almost-victim, the one her henchman just tried to abduct,” declared Stinkeye, “I’m lodging a no vote on the whole following Coralane thing.”

“I do understand,” said Potbelly, “but devil’s advocate, how has your whole hiding in a warehouse full of the undead been panning out for you?”

“It’s consisted, mostly, of staying alive.”

“Stinkeye, you told me once that your kind has a short lifespan. Is this really how you want to spend your last few days, standing at the perfume counter of Zombie Macy’s? I’m with you, I am, the sooner we dispatch Coralane the better, but if she knows the next move we owe it to the others to find out what that might be.”

They heard a soft fluttering from above. Having attracted their attention, Coralane disappeared.

“OK, you win,” conceded Stinkeye. “But first chance we get, we pluck that bird.”

“Parrot pie all round!” declared Squirrel.

“Sounds disgusting.”

“You’re right. We’ll just kill her.”

“Done.”

Together they navigated a path through imposing stacks of modern-man beautifiers, following in the direction Coralane had indicated, while Squirrel hopped ahead and Stinkeye rode Potbelly like a rather fetching hair clip. In no time at all they were lost. Unsure whether to speak up or remain silent, indecision chose the latter.

“This way,” hissed Coralane, from no direction in particular. Duly Squirrel set off in no direction in particular, stopping eventually at a cliff consisting entirely of liver spot remover.

“Up here!” squawked Coralane, from atop the cliff. “You’ll have to climb.”

It was then Squirrel spotted an open window about two feet from the ceiling. It may as well have been in the clouds for how easily Potbelly could reach it. The rest of them could make the ascent, probably, but her stumpy little legs wouldn’t get beyond base camp.

“If you’re trying to kill her, I’ll give you high marks for ingenuity,” replied Squirrel.

Coralane fluttered down. “I can carry the moth, maybe you, but the dog’s too heavy.” Potbelly, who had just arrived, eyed her coolly. “Not that there’s anything wrong with the fuller figure, naturally.”

“So what then?”

“There is also a door, but it is locked.”

“Then we’ll wait until someone unlocks it.”

“We do not have time.”

An alarm sounded, underlining Coralane’s prediction. Potbelly and Squirrel guessed what the alarm meant: Gunfight at the Foyer Corral, along with Snodberry the Headless, had just been discovered.

“We may be out of time but I have plenty of panic left, if that helps,” said Squirrel.

Potbelly thought for a moment. “Squirrel, do you remember when you built me the Yellow Brick Road? Your Stairway to Heaven?”

“The tins of creamed corn to the Pedigree Chum?”

“Yep.”

With no more ado, Squirrel scrambled to the top of the cliff face. At its apex he was no more than three feet from the window. He pushed down a multi-pack of liver spot remover. “Catch,” he said, which Potbelly did not, but she did kick it back into the base of the edifice. Squirrel pushed another, and then another, until slowly steps formed up the monolith, like an Incan Castillo.

“This’ll go quicker if you help,” said Squirrel to Coralane, who mumbled something about it wasting more time, before she picked up a package in her beak and dropped it rather too close to Potbelly for comfort.

Some ten minutes later the packages formed a stairway, and Potbelly picked her way up it nervously. Her paws split the outer casings, causing her to smell unrefreshingly of Eucalyptus. Coralane flapped through the open window and out onto a tree branch. She gestured the coast was clear.

“You next,” said Squirrel, to Potbelly. “Just in case.”

Potbelly kneaded the unsteady base beneath her, feeling for purchase, and then leapt. Her forelegs grapple-hooked onto the open casement window while her back paws clambered at the cement, freewheeling for traction, but succeeding only in carving a desperate array of sketchy hieroglyphics.

Squirrel leapt too, over Potbelly’s head and onto the frame beside her. As best he could he seized her barrel-shaped weight by its collar and yanked.

“A little help!” he called to Coralane. Again, reluctantly, she fluttered over and clamped a strong beak around Potbelly’s frayed pink collar. Between them, quarter inch by quarter inch, they switched the equilibrium of her balance from inside to out.

Only then did they notice the distance to the floor outside the building had not been magically reduced from the distance to the floor inside. “Didn’t think of that,” tutted Squirrel, like a railroad worker pointing at two ends of a non-meeting track.

“Oi! Monkey face!” yelled Potbelly, as loud as she could breathlessly manage. “Yeah you! Furless weirdo!”

The other two spun around and saw a human guard walking towards them.

“I don’t have my collar on any more, it came off,” urged Squirrel.

“Qu’est-ce que tu fais?” said the guard.

“A pris un mauvais virage. Pouvez-vous aider?” replied Potbelly.

“Où sont tes colliers?”

“Cela ne correspondait pas à ma manteau.”

“Pardon?”

Together the two parties stared at each other. Unsure what else to do, the human snatched Potbelly down from her precarious perch.

“Many pardons about this, mon ami,” said Potbelly, craning her neck. “Squirrel, the collar.”

“I told you, I lost it.”

“Not yours, idiot, the human’s. Pop it off.”

“I don’t have that thing either.”

“You don’t have that thing?”

“The fob thing, I lost it.”

“You lost it?“

The human transferred Potbelly to its other arm and reached for a gun-shaped Taser, or at least, Potbelly hoped it was a Taser, and howled on realizing a Taser would be the preferred option. She craned her neck up, and in one quick chomp bit off the human’s nose.

The human screamed and dropped Potbelly immediately, but before the small dog could scramble away she received a kick to her ribs, rolling her back in the direction of the Glitterband wall. The others, by now, had dropped down to the floor and were encouraging Potbelly to stop rolling and start running. Wheezing from a sharp pain in her right side, she hobbled after them.

The human reached for its gun but pulled away as a hard parrot beak drove down into its fingers. Coralane aimed for the eyes until finally the human, blood gushing from its face, swatted desperately with one uninjured hand and ran for the locked door, fumbling for its keys.

Coralane rejoined the others, who were extremely thankful the outer gate had been left unlocked. They made their way as fast as they could, Potbelly wheezing, and Coralane steering, knowing the way.