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When last we left our brave cyclists, they were preparing to split up into three
bands, each with its own separate mission and purpose. Westley, no longer a rare books dealer in
Panama but reprising his role as the Dread Pirate Roberts, is setting out to find and rescue his beloved
Buttercup and her perfect breast from the clutches of the Scientologists, currently in the employ of the
ABD under the direction of the much-hated Professor SafeSpeed. Captain Jack is determined to find
where the evil creatures running this foul place are keeping their ill-gotten funds, with a view to
relieving the fiends of some of their lucre and putting it to better use elsewhere. The High Priestess,
Logan and Gabriel Van Helsing are heading straight to the heart of the matter and planning to destroy
the laboratories in which unspeakable experiments are being performed in an effort to resurrect the
Humungous.
Nutty and Aeroflash headed off in the direction Westley had taken moments before.. Mr and Mrs Pike,
Arellcat, TimC, Rjevans6, Rigby and FatBloke, Brock, Alchemy, PW and a sizeable number of the
others, for whom the attraction of a bit of cash to add to their respective stables is overwhelmingly
attractive, joined Captain Jack as he follows his nose and his finely honed buccaneering instincts in
search of gold.
TooMuchCake, The Pinniped Preservation Society, Groucho, Spesh, Macleach, HairyHippy, Redshift
and Gunner headed deeper into the complex, striking towards the very black heart of the Scientologist
lair.
They leave behind Charlotte, who has taken it upon herself to awaken the cryogenically frozen
Aragorn.
Fortunately the corridors are wide enough to cycle, no doubt to accommodate
those members of the ABD who have already progressed to a stage almost as decrepit as their erstwhile
lord and master and who thusly require vehicular assistance to remain mobile. With Westley slowed by
his need to check through every window he passes, and explore every side-turning, Nutty and
Aeroflash catch up with him easily and quickly. He pays their arrival scant notice.
"She must be here somewhere, gentlemen!" he declares, rubbing some film of cloudy substance from a
thick sheet of what appears to be lead crystal with the heel of his hand and pressing his face up to the
smooth surface. His visage is somewhat pale when he turns away, and, after exchanging a hesitant
glance, Nutty and Aeroflash take a look for themselves.
The scene inside the room causes them to blanch. There are shelves lined with jars, and inside the jars
are various parts of dismembered creatures. Many of the parts come from demonic or supernatural
beings; creatures probably kidnapped from A-Time and brought to this cul-de-sac of liminal space out
in the borders of reality using some method unheard of by either of the two Cake Stoppers. Most of the
parts are vaguely identifiable as being a foot, or a hand, part of a torso, a heart, a kidney, a head with
face contorted in unimaginable agony. Many of the parts are so far removed from their original context
that they cannot be identified.
And yet this is not the most horrifying thing about this terrible collection. What is worst of all is that all
the parts seem still be alive. They twitch, jerk, occasionally thrash in spasms in their glass prisons,
causing the containers to wobble slightly and the faintly yellow liquid in which the dismembered pieces
are immersed to surge and splash against their covers.
From the layer of dust on the door frame, this room has not been entered into in a very long time. All
that time those dismembered creatures have been left to suffer an incomprehensible fate; each piece,
every individual part of each being encapsulated in its own screaming hell.
Are the creatures this collection had once been still aware? Do they know of their own
suffering?
As if in answer to the unspoken question fleeting through the minds of both horrified cyclists, the eyes
of one of the heads snap open and stare at them. The creature has the appearance of a Harpy. The eyes
roll, as if the mind inside is insane and battering against the inside walls of its own head in an attempt
to escape its torment. The lips work and writhe as if attempting to speak, but there is no possibility for
the head has been removed above the vocal chords and there are no lungs or diaphragm to produce air.
The mouth is filled with that peculiar, synthetic amniotic fluid and perhaps the Harpy did not ever
know English or speak in any human tongue.
But, for all that, there is no doubting that the creature inside is aware.
Feeling physically nauseated, Aeroflash and Nutty force themselves to look away from the ghoulish,
horrifying and yet utterly compelling grisly scene beyond the window.
"I would not wish that on anyone," Nutty says, face drawn and tinged with the chalky wash of
shock.
"Oh, I don't know," Aeroflash responds grimly. "I wouldn't mind seeing Professor SafeSpeed getting a
taste of his own medicine."
"If your High Priestess has anything to do with it," Westley tells them brightly, passing them on his
way back from having explored to the end of that corridor, "I imagine that is a wish that may be
fulfilled."
* * *
Further down in the complex, the war band of the Cake Stop is making its way
slowly and cautiously along corridors that seem strangely empty. Flying Monkey is particularly
nervous, sure that they must have set off some security system or the other by now. He asks Ravenbait
is she is doing anything to keep them from detection, but she shakes her head. This place is not quite in
A-Time, but it is not truly outside it either. In some ways, if she attempted to make them less
detectable, not only would they be able to exert less influence but it could backfire. The very act of
trying to hide that information would produce more information by which they could be
detected.
The Hollow Man could do it, the Priestess reflects. He is not here.
It is warmer in the lower levels, the air more humid. There is a strange smell: not just the fractionated
hydrocarbon smells of diesel and petrol, nor the acrid, cloying, almost metallic stench of their
combustion products; there is also an underlying current of something sweet that touches upon the
deeply honed instinct possessed any creature whose ancestors have been hunted, whose place it was as
a species occasionally to die ripped asunder by teeth and claws so that something larger and faster
could feed its young.
Redshift unsheaths her sword. That smell is the smell of blood. That is the smell of death. That is the
smell of pain.
Logan smells something else. His nostrils flare.
He starts growling.
"Striker!" he curses. Unbidden, driven by a sudden surge of rage-fuelled adrenaline, adamantium claws
spring out from his right fist, which he slams into the wall of the corridor. The razors penetrate deeply,
leaving three gaping holes when he yanks them violently free.
"Logan, no!" Ravenbait tells him urgently, grabbing his arm. "This is not the time! And Stryker's
dead!"
"That's what he wants ya t'think, toots. He might've died but his differently-spelled lab monkey didn't,
and he's here. I can smell 'im."
"So? A lab monkey has nothing to do with you!"
"Sure he does, sweets. Since he had Stryker's research downloaded into his brain so that he could sell it
and himself to Merlin or Airborne or Omega or someone for buildin' unbreakable frames. Your old pals
the ABD have got some serious mojo goin' on here if they got Striker as well. Thought the boy was on
the side o' the good guys now that his old boss is at the bottom of Alkali Lake. Guess I was wrong. Best
to take him out before they use what he knows."
"I said no, Logan! We need to find the Humungous first! Take him down and it doesn't matter what
Striker does. We'll have won!"
"You do what you want, darlin'. No way am I standin' by and lettin' some frame-builder resurrect the
Weapon X programme just when we got it shut down. Surprised at you, toots. Thought you'd feel the
same."
"We need you with us!" The Priestess' face turns crestfallen as Logan shakes his arm free from her
grasp.
"No, darlin'. You don't. You're a big girl now. You can take of yourself. You take care of SafeSpeed.
I'll take care of Striker."
He grins, feral, eyes dancing, and then lopes off.
"Do you wish for me to stop him, madam?" Van Helsing asks her, removing some sort of clockwork
weapon adorned with Gothic embellishments in purest silver. It looks like it has come from the design
table of Antonio Gaudi in full Sagrada Familia mode.
Ravenbait stares at him for a couple of seconds, face hard, and then she smiles.
"With that? Are you trying to tickle him to death? Better off hunting teenygoths in a nightclub. No. Let
him go. We'll manage."
"Damned right we will," Macleach agrees, to a general chorus of agreement from the rest of the
cyclists. He hefts his head-sized chainset menacingly.
"Jolly good show, what?!" Gunner exclaims. "Right lads! This way I believe!"
They move onwards and downwards. Ever downwards.
* * *
"Where would you keep your loot if you were old Botox-head?" Captain Jack
asks Kathy conversationally, ducking through a door apparently at random.
"In the bank?" she suggests, following.
"Ah," he says, tapping the side of his nose and winking. "But what if you were an ageing Hollywood
actor whose career has already failed once and been revived and is now on the fade again, and you
were so obsessed by the promise of eternal youth that you would paralyse your own face — and this is
an actor, mind — rather than have a few wrinkles, and, not only that, but you were hooked on a
religion invented by some old geezer who didn't quite get what the sixties were all about and
mistakenly thought of himself as a hard science-fiction writer?"
"I don't know much about Scientology," Kathy says, shaking her head.
"Scientologists end up being afraid of society, believing all society to be controlled by a group of drug
companies, psychiatrists and financiers all of whom report to more remote masters," Arellcat says. "A
bit like David Icke, really, only without the shapeshifting reptilian aliens or the colour
turquoise."
"So they're not going to go to a bank, eh wot?" Rigby says brightly. "I'd say they probably keep it in an
old sock in the garden shed. That's where I'd keep mine!"
"Somethin' like that," Captain Jack says with a conspiratorial wink. "Let's just say that I 'appen to know
that the Sea Org has authority to handle the accounts, and we 'appen to be lookin' for someone who
thinks of himself as an action hero with a flair for the dramatic and who 'appens to be part of a religion
whose leader told them they were fightin' SMERSH."
Ah," says FatBloke unhappily. "Suddenly I understand where the sharks with frikkin' laser beams on
their heads come in."
"Well, never mind," says TimC. "Surely if SMERSH are involved then James Bond will turn up.
Who'd prefer Timothy Dalton?"
A perennial argument, and a favourite of the Cake Stop. One that is destined to run and run. Just what
is needed to distract our brave heroes and heroines from the dangers that lie in wait.
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