Intergalactic Terrorist (New Dimension Book 1) (9 page)

    Charlie’s hand had found the closest thing to him and, with a strong arm, threw the small metal box containing Geoffrey George’s wife’s voice. It hit the robot between its two red eyes and in doing so, activated the box.

    At once a shrill, high-pitched, squawking voice emitted from the cube.

   
“What the devil are you doing here? Who are you? Get out of our house you fiend! Get out! Get out! I’ll call the police… you just watch me! Here I am see… I’m calling the police! You’re going to get arrested! You’ll be arrested and sent to jail! You’ll be sent to jail and bummed! You’ll be bummed in jail! I’ll make sure of it! You leave my husband alone! What do you want with him? Don’t you fiddle with him he’s very delicate! No… keep away from me! Don’t you be fiddling with me! I’ll bite you in the nuts! Keep away! Keep away! Keep away you son of a-”

    Charlie slapped his hands over his ears to block out the dreadful sound but that didn’t work. He stuck his head inside his shirt but that didn’t work. He took a scrap of tissue from his pockets and wedged them in his ears but that didn’t work. He put his head inside the fish tank but that didn’t work. Plus the fish-that-once-was Greebol’s partner in crime, bit him on his already swollen nose.

    The robot that went by the designation of X7421 also seemed troubled by the terrible screeching. Its head started spinning around on its neck and its eyes flashed on and off. As it backed away from the awful noise, it began changing into the sphere and back again. Sparks flew. It was having a massive robotic fit. It was similar to the effects of metal in a microwave.

    When Charlie finally got the fish from his nose and his head from the tank he looked over to the robot (after of course giving his most menacing scowl to the fish, which actually looked more like he was concentrating on a bad itch at that point on your back that you just can’t reach). X7421 was hovering dangerously close to the doorway and more importantly the steps that led down to the ground.

    Charlie screamed and rushed towards the Mechanoid like an ancient warrior rushing to battle. Realising he had no weapon to bash the robot with, he instead foolishly lowered his head as though charging like a bull or a rhinoceros. Only he had no horns.

    His head collided with the robot’s chest with a sickening crunch. Charlie dropped instantly to the ground, his world now blurred with stars and swirls and little yellow birds flying around his head tweeting.

    As painful as it had been for him, his attack had actually worked. The robot, caught off guard, slipped on the top step and fell, crashing down, onto every single step until it landed on the forest floor with an almighty crash!

    Charlie slowly staggered back to his feet, clutching onto the side of the large metal table as though it were dinner for a fat man. His head still spun. His legs felt like jelly. His head hurt. Really hurt. By the time he had composed himself he heard the sound that he did not want to hear. The robot was already climbing the stairs again!

    “Greebol!” Charlie shouted. “We need that power back on!”

    “Almost got it!” came the distant response. 

    The robot was almost at the door once again. One of the flaps on its metal head had broken and was dangling wildly in front of its face, looking like feral hair hiding an evil vision below. And the face
did
look evil. Angry was a good word for it. Really pissed off would be a better one. Even though its face was made of metal, therefore none of it ever moved, it still somehow managed to look pissed.

   “A… SECOND… VIOLATION… OF… LAW… 002… DEACTIVATION… IS… IMMINENT!”

    The robot raised its weapon, which now glowed a deeper shade of orange. Charlie was spent. There was no way out of this one now. He was done for.

    All of a sudden the lights flashed back on, the control panels lit up and began to beep and, much to Charlie’s relief, the main door closed and locked. There was only a moment of panic as the robot attempted to open the lock and get back inside but that subsided when the giant rubber hand fired out, slapping the robot in the chops and sending it back down the steps once again.

    “You did it Greebol!” Charlie cheered.

    “I know, I really did,” the response was shouted from the engine room.

    A rapid thunder of weapon fire hit the hull of the electrical. The robot was firing randomly at the ship in a mad hope to blast a hole through one of the walls. And it was succeeding.

    “Get us out of here Charlie,” Greebol yelled, “no time to waste!”

    Charlie stuck the key into the ignition and turned it. At once the engines began to rumble. Charlie grabbed the steering square. His hands were sweating. He had never been a great driver. In fact he had only ever taken three lessons. On the first he ran over a cat. On the second he ran over a dog. On the third he ran over his driving instructor. So his hopes at this being a smooth ride were not high.

    He looked down at the foot pedals. They were designed for large Gumthar feet not Charlie’s size nines. Which pedal did Greebol tell him to press? Left? Right? Middle? Charlie didn’t want to make another mistake. He didn’t want to be the person that you can count on to do everything wrong.

    He made a decisive decision and chose the left pedal. However, as he took a big leap, ready to land on the pedal and push it down, another blast rocked the electrical, forcing him to trip. His foot, instead of landing on the left pedal, landed heavily on the right.

    The engine powered. The thrusters fired. The ship was about to take off!

Outside, still smashing its large metal fists into the dome-shaped electrical’s hull, X7421 was unprepared for the blast of flames and smoke that fired outwards from underneath the ship. For a second the Mechanoid stood amidst skin-melting temperatures, as the flames pressed against its metallic body. It held on as best it could but even X7421 was not strong enough.

    The Mechanoid blinked its red eyes.

  
 
“SHIT!
”
it said.

    The force of the flames flung X7421 away from the electrical where it smashed into a nearby tree, splitting it in half.

    At this point it is probably best to mention the poor tree that has just lost its life (as recovering from a nasty split in half is virtually impossible). This particular tree had been alive for over five hundred years and seen many changes in its time. If the tree had any form of consciousness it would probably never have believed that it would end its days being split in half by a flying robot from another world. Instead it just stood there and thought nothing. 

Charlie was having trouble controlling the electrical as it slowly rose from the ground, the engines quivering under the weight of the huge metal ship.

    Greebol entered the main compartment and the ‘nipple’ door closed behind him.

    “You did it Charlie!” said Greebol slapping him on the back. “I knew you could do it!”

    Charlie was not so sure.

    “Lucky you pressed the correct foot pedal,” Greebol continued, “if you had pressed the left one you would have blown us both sky high!”

    Charlie once again did his best impression of a sheep. “I knew that,” he said meekly.

    The electrical rocked violently as the front began to dip towards the ground.

    “Perhaps I should take over the piloting,” said Greebol, taking hold of the steering square.

    “Thank you,” Charlie gibbered. He sat down cross-legged on the floor, his heart slowly returning to a normal speed.

    Greebol looked down at one of the small screens and tapped it with one of his large fingers. His wide mouth turned down at the corners. The area where a Human’s eyebrows should have been furrowed.

    “We have a problem,” he said slowly.

    “What’s new?” said Charlie sarcastically.

    “Many things,” said Greebol, “but only the one that concerns us right now.” He looked around the room in panic. “We have too much weight. Something is weighing us down!”

    The electrical began to dip once again. It scraped across the top of the trees. Very soon they would be in a housed area and it would scrape across the tops of those instead, causing devastating damage to the underside of the ship. Plus causing a number of extremely shocked Humans to write into ‘Bizarre Stories’.

    Charlie was worried. Was it him? Was he the cause of this extra weight on the electrical?  Was it his pot belly? He knew he should work out more but going to the gym made him nervous. He found it intimidating being surrounded by muscular men. Plus mens’ shower rooms gave him the heebie jeebies. There was always some old naked man rubbing his flannel in areas that should have been covered in cobwebs. He could have always gone jogging or ridden his bicycle or even done a few star jumps at night but in honesty he was just too lazy. Even the walk to the bus stop felt too much like hard work! Now he wished he’d done more.

    “Please don’t throw me out!” Charlie begged.

    “Throw you out?” answered Greebol confused. “Oh no, you are not the extra weight Charlie. The extra weight is on the outside of the electrical! Take a peek out of the porthole!”

    Greebol pointed over to one of the round windows. Charlie quickly bounded over and took a look outside. Stretching to look down he saw the base of the electrical and there, dangling by one arm was that damn robot!

    The words ‘why won’t you die?’ sprang to mind but he found it too predictable to say out loud.

    X7421 began to climb up the side of the ship, ripping into the metal with its strong clamp-like hands. Looking down at the robot made Charlie dizzy, the ground below becoming smaller and smaller. They had passed beyond the forest now and were over the rooftops. He could see cars the size of beetles driving down the small roads.

    Dropping from this height would be very, very painful. He imagined it to be one of the more painful ways of dying. Diced in a giant blender or skinned alive and dipped in vinegar would probably be top of the list, but hitting the ground from falling from the clouds must hurt as well.

    “We have to do something!” Charlie shouted.

    Greebol looked around the room quickly, trying to think of something to do. “The window,” he said, “open the window Charlie.”

    “Open the window?” Charlie gasped, “and let it come climbing in?”

    “You will have to knock it off the side of the electrical Charlie! Open the window and throw something down at it! It is our only hope!”

    Charlie rushed to the window whilst Greebol steered the electrical. Slowly he wound it down. It reminded him of a window on an old bus. The wind blasted inside the room, almost sucking him out. He looked around in a wild panic to find something to throw. X7421 was getting closer and closer.

    Charlie grabbed the first thing he could see. It was a large tin box shaped a bit like a pig (only with six legs and really large testicles). He reached out and threw it as hard as he could at the Mechanoid's head. It bounced off, dinting the box but not moving the robot.

    “What was that?” said Greebol in shock. “My money? You just threw out my Gumtharian Piggybank of money!”

    “How was I supposed to know?”

    “Use the broom,” Greebol growled handing Charlie a large wooden broom. Charlie took it and rushed back to the window. He poked and prodded at the robot, hoping to dislodge it from its vice-like grip.

    Suddenly X7421’s hand began to spin so fast that it blurred like a drill head. It grabbed the broom and wood chippings began to fly. There was a sickening crunch. Charlie fell back into the room holding a tiny shard of wood, the rest destroyed by the robot!

    “This is it,” he said, “we’re going to die!” And he truly believed it. He actually thought that this moment was to be the moment of his death. Charlie had thought he was going to die a number of times. The time that chip got stuck down his throat and he was given the Heimlich Manoeuvre by an old lady with false teeth who smelt of cabbage. Then there was the time he got stuck in the toilet cubicle at school for the full weekend. The most embarrassing thing was that not only was he stuck in the cubicle, he was stuck in the toilet itself! It took five firemen four hours to cut him from the seat. Charlie could still hear the laughter as he was carted down the school corridor, toilet seat around his waist and thighs, his naked spotty bum hanging out the bottom.

    However in those other instances there was a part of Charlie that knew that he would survive. That feeling was not there now. Or was it? As Charlie looked at Greebol’s strange face he realised that this was not the time of his death. And he was right. For Greebol had an idea. It flashed above his head like a light bulb switching on.

    “The table!” he shouted. “Throw the table at it!”

    Charlie clenched his fist and pounded it into the air. “Yes!” he cried with joy. “That’ll get the bastard!” But as he turned to grab the table his face drooped. The large metal table was at least three times the size of the small porthole. “Erm…” he said.

    “Look in the drawer,” said Greebol.

    Charlie did as he was instructed. He opened the drawer at the side of the room as the robot began to drill into the hull of the ship, sparks and metal splinters flying. Inside the drawer it was dark. Very dark.