Greegs & Ladders (20 page)

“Wait a
minute, are you implying that all of this is happening so that you
can write a bestselling book?”

“What else
would this kind of chaos and insanity be happening for!? We’ve got
some really unique and unheard of things we’re going to include in
just the first couple chapters that’ll really get ‘em hooked. For
example, the last remaining Obotron Crew Members in our last
trailing Obotron fleet ship… became Greegs! No one could have
possibly predicted that! They did so at a staggeringly swift pace,
without even having a home planet to reside on. Evidently, in a
last ditch attempt to gain control of the fleet, several of them
converted themselves into Investment Bankers so as to have an
independent fuel source for the ship. Except once they saw how much
quick cash could made at the expense of each other in the
investment banking field, they quickly forgot all ambitions of
gaining control of anything other than more things to invest in and
bank on. This quickly caused a complete erosion of what little
civility was left onboard the ship and before long they were as
Greeged out as the next Greeg. They created Schmold via a large vat
of all the evacuated disgustingness they’d collected from being
hurtled through time so many times on our exploits to collect more
Greegs! It was also likely a factor that the remaining ship they
had all been crammed into was increasingly being overcrowded with
all of the Greegs we had collected from around the many Universes…
so perhaps there is something to be said for the ability of other
Greegs to have an affect on non-Greegs become Greegs? We’ll have to
wager on that sometime.”

“Unbelievable,” I said. “Don’t you two have any sense of remorse or
consciousness about all the horrible things you have done to all of
these innocent creatures and worlds? Just to prove a few points and
win a few bets and write a book about it?”

“No, of course
they don’t,” came the spooky sound of thousands of eerie ghost like
creatures, seemingly infiltrating our brains and the walls at the
same time. “They have no feelings at all. They recklessly destroy
and kill on a whim, just to settle a bet or a wager. They care not
about the consequences of their actions. This is the curse of the
Immortals.”

“Who are you?”
asked Rip and Wilx.

“We are the
ghosts of the Obotron Crew Members,” proclaimed the ghastly voices.
“We have banded together in the invisible dimension, where we are
better known as Algreenian-Fog Specters. We have returned to the
physical dimension to exact our revenge on these careless fools who
used us, who murdered us, for nothing more than their silly games
and whimsical wagers. By infiltrating the highest ranks of Kroonum
Law Enforcement, we are now ready to do what most dead folks can
only dream of. We are going to put the very cosmic dirt bags
responsible for our death on trial!”

“No wait! I’m
not one of them!” I cried out. “I’m not immortal at all!”

“Errrr…” began
Rip.

“Well… that’s
not entirely true, persay, any more,” said Wilx.

“That
longevity formula you injected in yourself was kind of a bit more
of an… immortality formula.”

“So what does
that mean?”

“Congratulations!” said Rip. “It means you’re the first ever Greeg
to become immortal. You also won me this nice pile of invisible
money by not having your internal organs burst into ice flames as
soon as the formula hit your bloodstream, as Wilx predicted would
happen.” I finally understood why Rip had been holding his arms
outstretched like he was carrying firewood.

“Yeah, we’ll
be confiscating that,” said the former Obotron Crew members
reincarnated as judicially vengeful Algreenian-Fog Specters. “Now
get your ass into the courtroom. The judge awaits you.”

Windy gusts
began uncomfortably tugging, pulling and prodding us out of the
cell and into the courtroom.

“I still can't
understand what would drive you to have such a lack of emotions and
care for the consequences of your actions,” I said to Rip as we
walked the long glass tubeway leading to the courtroom.

“Boredom, you
will learn,” Rip said matter of factly, “is the most torturous
thing that exists.”

We entered the
courtroom.

“Hello again,”
said the judge.

“Hello Reg,”
said Rip. “You probably want your Greeg back now don’t you?”

The Trial

It’s
true.

Reg, my former
carnival Greeg-keeper, was now an official first-rank judge for the
Kroonum Courts of Law. I suppose that’s justice. Or not.

Reg was still
very much a scary goblin-like creature with fangs and claws and red
eyes, yet in recent years he had somehow succeeded in making
himself far more frightening. I think it had something to do with
the black hooded robe he wore whilst perched atop a throne made
from the skeletal fragments of the convicted. He was the embodiment
of fear, so much so that hundreds of film scripts were being
pitched to Reg on a daily basis, all of which requesting he fill
the inimitable role of the Grim Reaper. Thinking himself too short
for the role, Reg had yet to reply to any of the filmmakers. He was
also worried his carpel-tunnel syndrome would prevent him from
being able to hold the heavy scythe prop during tedious hours of
re-shoots, as there were sure to be reid was show up on set and
improvise some of his characteristic creepiness. Nowadays his name
frequently tops the charts of magazine polls concerning topics like
“the scariest movie villain of all time and space” and “the #1
cause for sleep deprivation amongst children.”

This all
happens, of course, in another dimension where Reg is not dead by
the end of this novel.

Reg had only
earned the status of a Kroonum judge because of the illegal
wrangling and bribery performed by the Algreenian Fog-Specters.

The Specters
did not want Reg to become a film star, so they filled his mind
with all sorts of ideas to cause low self-esteem. For the success
of the Specter's revenge plot it was imperative that Reg stay in
the courtroom. Algreenian Fog-Specters (or anyone else that is
dead) are unable to perform tasks on a physical level, hence the
reason they didn’t just kill Rip, Wilx and I and call it a day.
They are, however, adept at using their mental prowess to influence
the actions of the living. The Specters ensured our judge was
someone who personally hated us, so that we would be sentenced with
the most brutal of verdicts regardless of the evidence. Reg had
been promised several million dollars worth of invisible money that
he would never see, literally or figuratively.

It is good
that Specters cannot personally harm anyone. Many specters are
dangerously angry about being dead. They cannot control their
jealousy towards the living. Their scene usually degenerates into a
violent revenge plot. Reg was now in control of our fate. Each
unappealing scenario seemed to cancel out the last.

“I said you
probably want your Greeg back now don’t you?” repeated Rip.

“No,” said Reg
from his skeletal perch. “I have hundreds of Greegs locked up in
the chambers. That doesn’t mean I feel any less angry for being
ripped off.”

“But this
Greeg is intelligent,” said Rip.

“And
immortal!” added Wilx.

Reg was
thoroughly against the idea of an immortal greeg. “Who wants an
immortal Greeg? My favorite part of Greeg-keeping is watching them
drop dead from the slightest of parasitic infections. And besides,
once he's intelligent doesn't he cease to be a Greeg?”

“Great
question,” said Rip, sensing an opportunity for stalling. “Let's
debate that with lengthy philosophical discourse.”

“Why don’t we
get started with the trial instead?” suggested the Specters.

Reg pounded
his gavel. It shattered into fine crumbs.

“Why has my
gavel shattered?” he angrily bellowed.

“Er… it is
made of Crabbit skulls?” replied a Specter.

“So? I make
everything out of Crabbit skulls.”

“They have
weak bones, your honor.”

“Why do they
have weak bones?”

“I believe it
comes from a dietary deficiency of vitamin A.”

“Why are
Crabbits so low in vitamin A?”

“We’ve
recently figured that out, your honor. It seems Crabbits follow a
strict diet of cannibalism. The only thing they would be caught
dead eating is each other.”

“And?”

“Well… Crabbit
meat does not contain vitamin A. Therefore if you only take
sustenance from Crabbit meat you will merely continue to weaken
yourself. Itquests for many unneeded hours of re-shoots made by the
group of perfectionist auteur student filmmakers busy competing for
the honor of directing Reg's first Vehicle Movie. Reg was unaware
that height is now a minor inconvenience solved by the art of
trick-photography, and that his scythe prop would be made of
feather-lite styro-foam.

Reg eventually
accepted his calling as an actor. He would go on to star in
countless blockbusters. Only he wasn't acting. He played himself in
every film. All he d is one of those annoying Catch-22s. The
evolutionary cycle of the Crabbit has long been disastrous... a
story of ill-fated choices, mutated genes and easily broken bones
that is rapidly reaching its necessary crescendo. I expect the
Crabbits will have killed themselves off within the next few
seasons.”

Reg pointed to
a group of Specters in the far corner. “You! Go out and present
alternative food to the Crabbits. I want this cannibalism stopped
immediately. And then introduce a source of vitamin A into their
diet. I’ll not have their weak bones causing my brilliant
inventions to shatter so easily!”

“I protest,
your honor,” replied the specter. “Doesn't it seem right to let the
Crabbits die off naturally? I don't think the Crabbits will respond
to other food anyway. They are not forced into Cannibalism.
Apparently there is an abundance of natural food surrounding the
Crabbit population, yet they choose to dine on each other based on
palette preference.”

“Palette?”
asked Reg.

“You know...
taste, texture, consistency. All the factors that determine a meal
as good or bad. I personally died before ever having tried them,
but I've heard Crabbits are superb.”

Reg pondered.
He did not like the taste of Crabbits at all. The only food his
species enjoys is Gahooleb. On Reg's home-world, the only place
where Gahooleb can be harvested, it is merely the word for 'food.'
It is a demonic sustenance not entirely dissimilar to Schmold, a
gloppy green sludge that isn't properly defined as either a liquid
or a solid. Most creatures would be horrified to find it resting on
their dinner plate, and further horrified to find themselves
stone-dead after having been curious enough to taste a tiny morsel.
When an open container of Gahooleb is mixed with the wrong
planetary atmosphere it turns into pure sulphuric acid, which
incidentally has no effect whatsoever on Reg's digestive system or
general health.

“Besides,”
continued the specter, “We can't introduce Vitamin A to the
Crabbits. We've not got any reasonable source of it at the moment.
All we've really got is dead Crabbits.”

“Then go find
some milk or something!”

“No
milk-producing creatures on this planet at all, your honor.
Probably explains this whole dilemma.”

“I have an
idea,” I said, butting in.

“Silence!”
shouted Reg.

“It's just I
think I can fix your problem somewhat effortlessly.”

“Every minute
of our time you waste is another year of imprisonment I will add to
your sentencing. Now explain your plan with meticulous detail.”

“
Brown-noser,”
whispered Rip. I ignored him.

“You see,” I
began, “I have for a considerable amount of time lived on a world
that was overly abundant in milk. You wouldn't believe how many
milk-producing creatures freely roamed about the surface of this
planet. These creatures were called Mammals. Of all these mammals,
humans were the only ones who drank the milk from a different
mammal. Some mammals produced desirable milk for humans. Others
produced milk that for humans to consume would be considered a
gross offence. The centrepiece of the desirable milk-producers was
a quadruple-stomached creature known as a Cow. A blundering beastly
sort of animal. So many humans wanted cow-milk so regularly that it
only made sense to take full ownership of the Cow species. It was
decided to transform the Cow from a creature into a tool of
productivity. Once institutionalized within a cramped environment
of dim lighting and abrasive mechanical structures, Cows soon lost
their zest for life and became indiscernible to the eye from a
clunky scattering of assembly-line equipment. They even lost their
ability to speak, not that anyone remembered how Cows had once
amused the world with their whimsical coffee-table anecdotes. The
only word from Cow language to have survived in their brains was
the resonant “Moo!” The Cow's word for the most rudimentary and
primal verbal expression of emotional displeasure, similar to the
universally accepted form of protest via loudly yelling 'Boo!'
Anyway, in my time on this planet I sought to preserve certain
alien rarities that I thought were worth preserving, one of which
was a few hundred gallons of milk. Of course, at this point, Cows
milk had become advisedly indigestible due to a few generation too
many who indulged themselves in scientifically tampering with the
hormones of the already sufficiently naturally-functioning system
of the Cow, in hopes of greedily producing 'Super-Cows' that pumped
out more milk than ever thought possible. Quantity over Quality was
the popular motto of the era. Any semblance of nutrition had been
genetically modified right out of the cow. I didn't see the logic
of it being preferable to have 1000 gallons of rotten milk as
opposed to having 10 gallons of good milk, so instead I acquired
milk from one of the surrogate producers, an organically fed,
free-range, non-genetically tampered quadruple-legged beast of the
Capra-Hircus genus, otherwise known as a farm goat. This milk has
survived my travels, and is laying dormant in the deep-freeze
section of our spaceship. I have kept it's presence unknown by the
rest of my party, for any liquid material that finds its way onto
our ship is usually immediately consumed in a marathon of manic
alcohol-brewing experimentation. I donate this milk to the
courtroom, should it heighten our chances of leniency.”