Chapter 12
Sournado
The following is a transcript describing footage from video captured on a Ring™ doorbell belonging to one Professor Doctor Nigel Beerstein.
Roll tape…
Daryl, the Muntoid warrior, had Stu Dapples in the crosshairs of his shooty blamm blamm. “Gav 6.2, give me the seeds of Hopsonica, or I will silence everyone present.”
That is what the Muntoid had wanted to say. Had planned to say. He’d practiced this moment over and over, but you know how it is when push comes to shove, and you’re in the moment… when you’ve not had any oonst dust for days… and your brains all flooey… and you REALLY need to pee. So, instead, he yelled, “My megabladder is ouchy! Daryl need toilet now!!!”
Everyone just stood and stared.
This REALLY pissed the Muntoid off, so, for effect, Daryl shot the one thing in the room that was glowing… and annoying him a little bit.
“Everyone grab something that’s tied down!” yelled the Prof. “He just shot the Hopsonica seeds with the weapon they are meant to power… this will create a causal loop! It’s going to backfire upon itself! Things are about to turn sour!”
And then, the world went brown. Then, upside down. Then brown again. And out of the middle of nowhere, a vortex appeared—a whirling, swirling force of destruction that started sucking everything toward it.
“It’s a Sournado!” yelled Bitta.
“The only way out is through!” yelled Gav 6.2 via Stu’s mouth. “This is like a black hole only made of beer! We use these to travel through space and to deliver drinks to people in rural areas.”
“A black beer hole?!” asked Stu telepathically.
“It’s an intergalactic portal made of beer molecules… a large hadron collider of hops… more like a Brown Hole!”
“What did you call me?”
“Never mind!”
Just then, the Prof grappled Stu Dapples by the lapels and threw him through the Sournado. Unfortunately, Prof’s own momentum dragged him into the portal before he could grab Bitta.
The laboratory was being ripped apart. Electricity was arcing everywhere. Small fires were being set from the resulting sparks. Amidst the smoke and chaos, Daryl the Muntoid levelled the Peacemaker at Bitta Froot’s head, she was dead to rights.
And then, as if by magic, there were two Muntoids. Well, not two exactly, but two pieces of Muntoid. Each piece was held in the claws of El Bastardo, the giant lab rat.
“You came back!” yelled Bitta over the din of desolation. In that moment, unspoken, a debt was settled. A cosmic tit-for-tat erased from the ledger. It was an unspoken moment also because all of the oxygen was being sucked from the immediate vicinity. As Bitta lost consciousness, the last thing (she swore) she saw was El Bastardo mouthing the words, ‘Thank You.’
The giant rat swept her up in his muscular forepaws and, for a moment, was framed by the vortex of the sournado before they, too, were sucked through. And then, as quickly as it opened, the vortex closed and all that was left was the blazing laboratory, Muntoid pieces, and a whole lot of cleaning up to do.
THE END (of season one)
Oh wait, there’s an end credits scene…
Agent Muddly turned off the video monitor and sat back in his chair.
“Well, Agent Scolder, that answers most of our questions.”
“Yes, Muddly, all but the big ones,” replied Scolder. “Beerstein and his cohort have definitely left Nelson, but where on earth (or in the known universe) have they gone, and how is this connected to all the disappearances of high-profile Kiwis?”
That’s a story for another can.