Geeks, Babes and Sentient Vegetables: Volume 2: Quantum Flux in the Equilibrium Status Quo Vadis

By Andrew Mitchell

For those people who loved Star Wars, Star Trek and science fiction in general but don’t take them too seriously. Every science fiction trope and cliché expertly mashed into one tale about a guy, his cat, his secret agent alien dancing girl and a talking 7 foot tall avocado. In the finest traditions of everything that was wrong with Star Wars, Star Trek, Aliens, Transformers and many more movies, television shows and video games all crammed into the day to day adventures of Will Campbell, average minimum wage employee at a miniature golf course. An epic quest across the galaxy filled unreasonable amounts of violence from highly impractical weapons and vague references to every science fiction masterpiece that came before it. Plus some really obscure ones and some no one has heard of before.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781300121992

Andrew Mitchell

Andrew Mitchell obtained his D Phil and a DSc from Oxford and has had an international career in geology. From the early 1960’s to the late 1980’s he was an exploration geologist for the then British Service in Vanu Atu, and in Thailand, Myanmar, Nepal, and the Philippines on Colombo Plan and UN projects. After consulting for various minerals companies in Eastern European and Asian countries from 1990 to 1995, he joined Ivanhoe Myanmar and until 2011 was based in Myanmar responsible for the company’s minerals exploration. He has spent more than half of his career in Myanmar and is familiar with the country’s world-class mineral deposits. He has authored or co-authored about 100 papers on tectonics and mineralization. His first book Mineral Deposits and Global Tectonic Settings (Academic Press, 1981) was followed by Epithermal Gold in the Philippines (Academic Press, 1991).

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Geeks, Babes and Sentient Vegetables: Volume 2: Quantum Flux in the Equilibrium Status Quo Vadis

Geeks, Babes and Sentient Vegetables: Volume 2: Quantum Flux in the Equilibrium Status Quo Vadis

by

Andrew Mitchell

Copyright © 2012 by Andrew Mitchell and Boom Shadow Productions

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchase

ISBN: 978-1-105-84342-6

Cover Artist: Paul Alexandrescu

Boom Shadow Productions

0403 595 229

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Dedicated to Dijon Mustard Seed

Prologue

Ever had a bad day at work? A really bad day that made all other bad days pale in comparison? A day so bad that it unleashed a series of chaotic events that spiralled out of control to the point the very existence of your entire species if not the very planet that your species occupied was at stake in what would under any other circumstance may have just seemed trivial and uninteresting had you only heeded the advice of adopting a stray cat from a reputable animal shelter? William Campbell was having such a day after adopting a green kitty cat and with the current trend of doing things as trilogies he still had a long way to go.

William Campbell, average mild mannered psychotic monkey creature from the planet his species liked to refer to as Earth, was recently fired from his job at the Sunshine Tee Putt & Putt miniature golf course upon discovering that his recently adopted cat, Brindamour had been involved with an assassination of an as yet undetermined regal figure during a long running property dispute over the galaxy’s largest reptile theme park, which also just happened to be the planet Earth, and more importantly the ownership of a consignment of snow globes left over from the theme park’s gift shop.

Not only were William’s services terminated but his employer, who just happened to be a bio engineered alien killing machine mercenary specifically engineered to infiltrate Earth’s humanoid population in order to capture the previously mentioned cat, then sought to have Will killed with what might be considered a highly unreasonable amount of firepower and perhaps an equally unreasonable amount of innocent bystanders.

Faced with a demise not unlike little Tina’s Aunt Martha, whose poor choice of drink had the most unfortunate side effect when combined with rapid fire high calibre bursts of plasma energy, William logically sought the protection of a talking avocado and a blue skinned dancing girl from the planet Estrogena-V.

Luckily the talking avocado was a no nonsense sentient vegetable and veteran warrior turned mercenary and the blue skinned dancing girl was an elite covert operative sent to Earth specifically to ensure the safety of William’s cat, Brindamour, who as Will came to learn was the ambassador of the feline occupational force that had managed to seize planet Earth and enslave Will’s species without the slightest opposition.

Through a series of random mishaps and clichéd plot twists taken straight from the text book of science fiction writing 101, William and his friends visited a few planets, destroyed various expensive pieces of hardware, broke many social taboos of various cultures and were indirectly responsible for several acts of genocide and murder that you would have to be the captain of a star ship lost in the delta quadrant to have any chance of justifying let alone using it as a basis of being promoted to admiral after throwing causality to the wind.

Having escaped death numerous times and avoided lengthy jail terms, William soon discovered that the entire human race is regarded as a collective of annoying, troublesome, ill-mannered and somewhat psychotic squatters, even by races not intent on wiping them off the face of the galaxy. William has tried his best not to let the public perception of his species get him down during his tour of deep space.

As luck would have it, all of William’s adventures lead him right back to Earth but unfortunately they also landed in Canadian territory and were captured by the pro wrestling dictator, Halberd Reevs. Separated from his cat Brindamour and imprisoned, William was later rescued by the previously mentioned dancing girl who had inexplicably come back from the dead and now sporting for the first time a pair of pants fashioned from the cape of the previously mentioned talking avocado.

Ownership of the material used for said pants was still up for debate be it the avocado who used it as a cape, the alien dancing girl who converted the cape into the pants or the green cat who had used the cape as a blanket to snooze on, the pants themselves proved to be far more useful than a short skirt.

During these previously mentioned exploits, William also retained the services of Marvis, an excessively hairy dwarf who caught up in the grips of a cross dressing fetish as a French maid who developed the obsessive compulsive tendency to clean anything and everything that should happen to cross his path. It has yet to be determined which personality quirks has allowed Marvis to get over the wholesale slaughter of his entire species as well as the destruction of his home by a certain talking avocado that he currently finds himself travelling with.

Marvis being rather polite and helpful decided not to make too much of an issue of this as the talking avocado had recently been widowed in a tragic incident involving some underlying rage issues against vegetarians and the announcement of a light salad buffet during the wedding reception.

Following the destruction of the Sunshine Tee Putt & Putt and a few spontaneous mutations, Will’s former employer’s latest incarnation, RALPHIE-X is now leading an ill-advised two person incursion into Canada having gone through several politically incorrect references to other science fiction franchises all in an effort to presumably not be added to the list of supposed superior races undone by the human race, a species that has already been established as being weaker, dumber and slower than every other species in the galaxy and not to mention being shorter lived, corrupt, immoral and totally without any McGuffin plot device super powers.

Now on the run from Halberd Reevs’ steel chair throwing death squads, William and his companions currently find themselves in the custody of the W.W.W.W.W.F., the World Wide Whack a Woeful Wrestler Federation, a local resistance cell that served not as a commentary on Halberd Reevs’ wrestling ability but were making a last desperate stand against his hard-line policy to outlaw musical theatre in all its forms. So deep is Reevs' hatred he has even gone as far as making it a crime to utter the word Broadway, so much so it is now punishable with lashings from a Singapore cane and baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire as well as being beaten with a trashcan lid and a coalminer’s glove.

While a travelling troupe of freedom fighters / militant Gilbert and Sullivan fans may not be the most ideal soldiers to have on side, Will had little choice as they appeared to be the only ones willing to help get Brindamour back and all he had to do to secure their aid was convince them that Brindamour’s name was in fact Carbucketty Skimbleshanks and his feline vocal cords were capable of reaching octaves far and beyond the sing range of a mere upright walking monkey. They were not too concerned with the fate of the universe type stuff but with their numbers running thin, their latest revival production of Cats was currently in jeopardy.

Luckily these lies and deceptions were unlikely to come back and haunt Will as with all important details such as storylines and plot threads, they are usually ignored for the sake of just one more musical number and devotees of the genre are never ones to let a good story get in the way of lavish costuming as would become readily apparent in an upcoming reference to a marketing ploy favoured by comic book companies in the 1990s.

0. Collectables, Fads & Gimmicks

With their new found allies at their side, Will and his companions currently found themselves waiting in some sort of mess hall. Apparently they were waiting for the W.W.W.W.W.F.’s man on the inside of Halberd Reevs' organization to report back in. Unfortunately, there was some sort of hold up when it was revealed that prior to his arrange rendezvous someone had gotten into a fight with said inside man and felt the need to physically detach one of his arms which happened to have a key grafted on the end.  Whether or not this was the same man Will’s potential love interest but currently just person of acquaintance, Tsumari attacked and physically detached the arm of to gain use of the key grafted to his arm stump had yet to be determined, however it was decided that perhaps they should keep a low profile.

Will, Tsumari, Avea Cado and Marvis were all sitting around one metal table twiddling their thumbs. Zannix was mysteriously absent as if he was being written out without a second thought or explanation. A buxom serving wench delivered a platter of the last remaining racial slur snack allowed in the universe, the bleached white salty cracker. As part of the usually gratuities in such situations Avea sent her on her way with a hardy thank you slap on the buttocks.

Interesting custom. Avea mused.

Yes just be sure you only do that to people described as a serving wench otherwise it gets very messy and there is a lot of legal red tape. Will added.

Indeed, we don’t have time for legal dramas we have to find the cat and get the heck off this planet. The more people we have to shoot the better! Avea snapped.

The entire room fell silent as all eyes locked on Will and his companions. Under a veil of hushed whispers, Avea looked around cautiously to see if any of the theatrical musical loving mass could actually pose a threat.

Okay what did we do wrong? Avea asked slowly without making any sudden movements.

You do know that Canadians have a thing about guns? Even listening to someone explaining about how Canadians have a thing about guns can be grounds for immediate arrest and a severe beating with a lacrosse stick. Will whispered.

I have no fear of mere sporting equipment! Let them send their champion, I will crush them all! Avea shouted as he rose to his feet with his clenched fists over his head.

Before Avea could break out into some sort of war dance, a rather snooty man holding up a placard with various militant causes crossed out and written over ranging from Save the Whales to Equal Rights for Weevils marched up to them and handed them a written petition.

I am afraid you are all going to have to leave as we are a nonviolent organization totally opposed to violence in any way shape or form.

Avea was about to relieve the man of his face and no doubt the better portion of his skull when Tsumari grabbed him by the earlobe.

This won’t end well if you keep treating every encounter with a foreign culture like it was your wedding night.

Tsumari released her hold on Avea’s ear and looked over the petition and counted up the number of signatures.

So this is all of you then and you are all totally opposed to violence in any way shape or form. Tsumari asked with a raised eyebrow.

Yes! And I demand that you comply with our wishes and leave.

Make us. Tsumari replied with so much indifference it made an entire generation of disillusioned youth seem like over achieving workaholics.

The snooty man with the placard was rather taken aback by Tsumari’s act of defiance. He used the index finger of his free hand and tapped on the petition repeatedly.

You must not ignore our petition!

Avea reached over and grabbed the petition with one hand and then proceeded to fold each