The most cliched sci-fi story ever

[Granfalloon]

The laughter continued for what seemed to be an interminable amount of time. The large bearded figure joined the hilarity about halfway through, and finally he said, "I suppose it is rather humorous", while still smiling widely.

"Thoroughgood Flange." Seraphina said the name in a distant thoughtful way, as if she we're distantly thinking about it. "I could swear I've heard that name before", She said tilting her head ever so slightly to the left.

"I smell kippers mum." Scout spouted gleefully.

"Hush, boy. I'm trying to think." She waved her hand in dismissal, and stared off into that corner just a little to the right and above one's eye that one stares into when trying to recollect something.

"Fluffy!" Seraphina shouted, and threw her arms wide open toward the huge bearded figure. "That was my pet name for my cat when I was a schoolgirl's age."

Fluffy didn't seem to show any particular emotion about this new epiphany that Seraphina had experienced. He shrugged, and said, "I got the name from the headmaster when I was a boy, and I was experimenting with a magic spell in a mirror. It took 2 weeks for the fur to fall off."

Seraphina smirked, and replied, "Fluffy was my cat's real name. I used to call him Thoroughgood Flange. That was his nickname."

Scout was fidgeting and pacing the cobblestone. "I'm hungry." He said, and started off down a diagonal alley.

"I wouldn't go that way if I were you lad." Fluffy said to the boy.

"Why?" He cried in anguish. "That's where the smell of kippers is coming from."

"Those aren't kippers you're smelling, and that's not just any old alley you're headed for. If you're hungry there's a bakeshop right across the platform behind you. Here's a half million p. That ought to get you a few nibbles anyway."

The boy had spun around, and had spied the bake shop. Before anyone noticed, the money had disappeared from Thoroughgood's hand almost as fast as the boy.

Elsa said "I don't mean to be intrusive, but... what is this place?"

No sooner had Elsa asked, than a glowing light entered the tunnel, and a strange craft glided up next to the platform. It was somehow glittering in green and white. Elsa examined the craft more carefully. The glittering effect was the result of columns of numbers sliding past one another at different rates; most of the numbers were visible if she focused in on a given column. She quickly became aware that there were really only two numbers in the moving display. the number "1", and the number "0."

Mr. Flange turned toward the craft, and waved one of his immense arms at it. A door opened up revealing a pathway that mirrored the effect of the number columns on the inside of the vehicle. "Well, all aboard the Binary Train.", He said, and motioned with his other immense arm for everyone to follow him in.

 

[Interference]

They had only two options: to board or not to board, as the bard may once have believed, though he never mentioned it much.

Scout returned to the group with kippers and some small change that weighed a ton in his pocket.

"Elsa," said Seraphina in that questioning manner that precludes any respons but "Uh-huh?", which it duly got.

"Uh-huh?" said Elsa in such a way.

"What has been happening to us?"

"In what way?" Elsa asked.

"In the way of like - what brought us to this place at this time with this person and these kippers?"

"Well ..." and her brows knitted themselves a lovely pink cardigan. Her brows liked to knit while she was thinking particularly complex thoughts. "Well," she repeated unimaginatively, "I think," she said as she thought it, "that we were trying to get somewhere in order to do something about someone, but you know ... even though it was only a few seconds ago that we came to be here, it feels like ... well, frankly ... it feels like ..."

"Like years," said Seraphina, completing the thought that had been brushing past Elsa's brain in a hurry to get somewhere safe and cozy in her subconscious.

"Like years," said Elsa, repeating a previously-established example of unimaginative rejoinding.

"Do we even know why we are in this position, this state of choice-making?" Seraphina said.

"Well, it's got something to do with ... well, I mean, isn't it all about ... Isn't there something about ..."

Scout fell asleep listening to them.

Fluffy fell asleep listening to them.

They themselves fell asleep as they listened.

And the train driver looked and said, "Oh, look! Kippers!"

 

[Granfalloon]

The train driver, who had an appearance uncannily similar to a caucasian spy, wearing dark sunglasses with smooth corner angles, a rigid chin, dark hair and eyes, a dark suit, and black shoes, grabbed the "kippers" from the child's sleeping hand. "Too bad." He said, with an evil smile, "This would have been your last meal." The man in black pulled out a large handgun that bore the inscription 'Magnum', and as he was aiming it at the boy, Seraphina woke up.

She ran the two steps between her and the train, up the side of the train, did a slow motion backflip in mid-air, and kicked the gun from the train driver's hand.

He swung his head quickly toward her in anger, and reached out to grab her throat. Just as his hand got there, it was sliced off by a light saber held by none other than Fluffy. "Anger doth not give you power." Thoroughgood said to the "driver".

The train driver's hand grew back almost instantly, and Fluffy threw a cell phone toward him. As the driver (only Fluffy knew his real identity - e.g Mr. 'Smith' a.k.a. Voldemort) tried to catch the phone, Thoroughgood Flange shoved everyone inside the train and the glittering green door closed. The train sped out of the station.

An un-perturbed Mr. Smith began running after the train at an amazing speed. He must have been the best at track in high school. Anyway, as the glittering green train sped across giant trestles and bridges, Smith (a.k.a. Voldemort), began to catch up.

Fluffy was holding a pill in each hand, one red, and one blue (the pills, not his hands), and telling Scout it was time to decide. "You can go back to your imaginary life on the other side of platform nine and three quarters, or you can join us in a mixed up tale of Quiddich, an inestimable amount of unconventional weaponry and magic spells, and fly with us on this, the train we call "Nebuckaneezar " (bless you) which we use to escape from the sentinels, and re-invent the imaginary world as we know it. Whatta-ya think?"

The child sulked for a moment. "Which pill tastes more like kippers?"

"The red ones." Mr. Flange replied.

No sooner had Thoroughgood spoken than the child had ingested the red pill, and flew out of the train through a sunroof and swooped toward Smith (a.k.a. Voldemort), and punched him with a blow that no mortal muggle could imagine or produce. Smith broke into fifteen little smiths, and continued running along the rails behind the "Nebuckaneezar " (bless you). Scout (A.K.A. "The Scone") lifted the "Nebuckaneezar " (bless you) off it's tracks, and carried it off to Ziongwarts where none of the sentinels would dare to find it. Then, something unbelievable happened...

 

[Interference]

Someone sneezed as the train slowed and gradually hauled at its wheels until it lumbered to a complete halt.

"Bless you," someone else parenthesised.

"Unbelievable," said the driver, Casey "Voldemort" Smith, in several pieces and varying pitches. "I let the damned choo-choo chooch itself for five minutes and it decides it's time for a tea break."

"What's that ye say?" asked the brake-man, a wiley Scotsman with a tartan moustache, calling from the braking car.

"Tea's up," said the coal man, a man named Coleman who got the job, not because of his name, but because he cut the mustard, which has absolutely nothing to do with his name at all, has it, gentle reader? (Gentle reader )

"Where'd the kid get to?" Elsa asked as she awoke to see a severed hand on her shoulder, which she removed nonchalantly and placed on her knee.

"He had to fly," responded Seraphina gazing upwards into the still night beyond them.

"Does that mean we have to continue our journey without him?"

"I suppose so," said Seraphina, turning towards her companion and noticing how familiar she looked in the darkling cabin of the Nebuckaneezar.

"Bless you," said, Thoroughgood a man of the world and a world of a man, standing six feet, two arms, a leg and four coat buttons tall, "but was he important to the plot at all?"

"I really can't remember, if I'm honest, to be fair," the two women replied with a simultaneity that made their voices phase, and the fair one sneezed.

"Bless you," said Nebuchaneezar (bless you) and it began to make jokes about how you can tell when a duck's feeling down and laughing with hilarity at the answer it didn't wait to hear.

"What's wrong with the train?" asked Seraphina with abstracted concern.

"Don't mind the train, m'dear, it's always going off the rails like that," said Fluffy Thoroughgood Flange, who had no excuse. He had no excuse for not being a Master Spy in the Cause of Truth and Wondefulness, no excuse for being a detective and thus no excuse for not doing his Holmeswork. Oh, and no excuse for making jokes at others' expense, either, which is what I meant the first time I said it. Try to stay awake, this is costimg me sweat and tears here. That's right, no blood. It's not a bloody paid job, is it

You know what, I'm the narrator, I can make something exciting happen instead of waiting around for these guys to realise that the reason the train stopped was because it had arrived at its destination, the threshold between the Badlands and the Baaahdlands, where all the sheep live.

Instead, I'm just going to make something up and they'll have to follow it through because -- and this is where the plot comes back for a second or two -- Scout had actually taken both pills and now the entire Universe was sitting on the brink of a Probability Collapse.

Hah! They'll never get out of that. Not unless the next Narrator is cleverer than I think he is and realises that all he has to do is -- but that, my dear friends (dear friends ), would be telling

 

[Granfalloon]

"Seraphina Saffronella... That is your name isn't it?" The gargantuan Mr. Flange said gravely.

She looked stunned "Why yes how did you know that?"

"I looked back a few pages in the script." The Giant replied.

"Script, what script? What are you talking about?"

"Determinism versus free will. It's standard college level philosophy. A series of choices we took led us to the present we now know as reality. We could have just as well taken another course and be in a different situation."

"I didn't take any philosophy courses in college, and If what you were implying was that I knew you were going to say that next, I didn't."

Ah, they never see it coming, he thought, and picked up up his hat.

"The fact is, Seraphina, both pills were placebos, and I knew that if scout was in fact 'The Scone' it wouldn't matter. He alone has the power to deal with Casey Voldemort Smith."

He help up a simple utensil. "There is no spoon." he said, with a certain calmness in his voice.

"That's okay, I can manage with just the fork then." She picked up a forrk from the table in front of her, and it drooped over to one side as it it was made of rubber.

"Hmm... Interesting." Fluffy said.

 

[Interference]

Something wonderful was about to happen. Something so profound and consciousness-altering that its effects would be felt for all time and would raise two people to the level of Godhood itself. Unfortunately, it was about to happen in another story and to two other people completely, nevertheless, I thought you'd like to know before we carried on with ...

Chapter Twelve: A Fork In The Track

From the distance came the howl of a whistle and the insistent clickety-clack of an approaching engine.

"Another train," murmured Elsa.

"Sounds like it's got a head of stem up," said Seraphina.

"And there's only one track," said Fluffy.

"It's going to hit us," a fourth person might have said, but there was no need as they had all already realised it.

"It's going to hit us," said the stoker, anyway.

"It's going to hit us," said a coach load of passengers that had been forgotten about.

"It's going to-!" Yes, all right! I said there was no need to say it, didn't I???

Sheesh!

 

[Granfalloon]

The Stoker sat, serene, in a dark corner of the coach car, stoking his pipe, and stroking a nearby cat. Whilst Seraphina, Elsa, and Scout "The Scone", A.K.A. Nesco, panicked and began taking off their shoes, the fire that burned in the stove under the boiler that creates the steam that pushes the pistons, and makes the wheels go around, raged on. Just at the moment the two trains would impact the frozen moments stretched out into a menagerie of psychotic episodes and escapades like none that would ever occur in any eternity worth mentioning. As the train coming from the opposite direction passed through the binary train, Nesco saw through the fabric of imaginary reality into the backdrop of another reality that was more interesting than most. The apparition passed through them as if it was only an apparition train.

Thoroughgood chuckled a bit as he flipped the lid of his pocket watch closed again. "Right on time." He said.

Elsa looked at Seraphina, attempting to put on her best disimpassioned face. "Were you, uh... scared?" She asked.

Seraphina slumped her shoulders a bit, and took on a nonchalant pose. "Who me? Nah! I wasn't the least bit frightened. Not for a minute."

Elsa spurted a nervous laugh. "Yeah, I knew there was nothing to..."

She was abruptly interrupted by Stoker who stepped out of the shadows. "I've heard enough of this facetious banter. You ladies were as scared as a couple of schoolgirls on their way to a nudist sorority camp!"

The ladies jumped back, groping for each other like a couple of schoolgirls on their way to a nudist sorority camp.

"Now you've gone and frightened 'em." Thoroughgood said, shooting a scornful look at the Stoker.

Stoker gave a nod toward Fluffy, and puffed at his pipe. He turned to scout the Scone. "Tell them what you saw Nesco."

Scout "The Scone", A.K.A. Nesco turned on his heels toward the girls. "Through the maze of steaming bits, I saw another reality outside of this imaginary one we're in, and it was as if the whole of the universe was contained in a tiny spec, smaller than a grain of sand, smaller than a molecule of bacteria, smaller than a one-celled organism with a tiny piano." He pause briefly, squinted his eyes, and continued "The ghost train carried a single passenger, and it wasn't Casey Jones. It was... Serious Black. He was surrounded by a bunch of mannequins."

Just then a thunderclap sounded around them. They looked outside and saw a likeness of the binary train flying along side them backwards and upside-down.

Elsa turned to Seraphina. "Do you see what I see?"

 

[Interference]

"No," said Seraphina, "That would be impossible. But I think we are both perceiving exactly the same thing."

And as she said this, everything began to make sense.

The alien attack.

The time travelling.

The lost time, those weeks, months of experiences that seemed to have vanished without trace or hint or sign.

It was beginning to make sense, becoming a solid, real thing in her mind, but not in her mind so much as in her soul. And she knew. This was her life, no one else's. Her pure existence. Her ... her what? Delusion, her imagination, her --

Reality.

There was nothing to see, now. A complete absence of - of things - surrounded her. It was like someone had -- but no one had, only her.

Only her.

"Seraphina."

Seraphim.

"Angel."

I am here to make things clear ... and I bring you ...

"Fire!"

 

[Granfalloon]

"Precisely." Nesco said, as he walked back into the coach car armed to the teeth with every kind of high powered machine gun, grenade launcher, and flame thrower known to man or woman. "Fire... power!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We now interrupt this story for a special bulletin from BBC1:

Fire has broken out in the Liverpool district and all citizens are encouraged to panic. The fire seems to originate from the storm drains and other holes in the ground. Scientists are working on an explanation as I am conveying this bulletin. Until then, all residents are asked to run around in the street screaming and flailing their arms in the air. Thank you.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You look ridiculous." Stoker said, and threw another log on the fire.

 

[Interference]

"Where was I?" said Seraphina, who had even less idea than the gnat (that didn't exist) that was chewing on one of the logs, coming out of her daze in a distracted tone of voice with a start and a shake of her head that allowed her hair to fall freely about her shoulders in various colours including the colour of confusion.

"I'll get that for you," said Elsa, picking up the fallen hair that hadn't yet fallen into the fire or blown away on an errant zephyr from the west, or possibly east, depending on the direction they were then facing and the magnetic field of the planet they were on, allowing for the moment the possibility that they were still on a planet, which, to be fair, is something of a leap of faith in this story, but let's face it, you've come this far on a leap of faith, there must be some left to carry you over to the next metaphorical bank of the river that represents the twisted, burbling, swooshing nature of the tale in all its glory, if glory is the word that conveys the meaning of the act, if act is how one may describe the telling of the narrative, assuming that narrative is the term I'm looking for, given that I'm looking for terms, although to be honest with you, I have no recollection of actually surrendering so why it should be necessary to come to terms at all is quite beyond me, if you'll permit this momentary lapse into the first person in order to represent the thought processes of the current interlocutor with whom you are currently, though not, perhaps, presently, interlocuting, that is if you're still with me, or one, or us as the case may, or may not (leave us not be too all-fired dogmatic about this thing, after all) be.

 

[Granfalloon]

Seraphina realized that she had forgotten where her purse was in all of this confusion, including the confusion flowing from her hair. She turned to Scout "The Scone" A.K.A. Nesco, and pursed her lips. She said softly, and slowly "Just call me Angel of the morning, Angel." She grabbed a purse full of napalm, and other various and sundry weapons of mass destruction, and sidled up to Nesco. "Let's go get those nasty aliens!" she shouted proudly.

As Nesco flew threw the sunroof of the train they call the Nebuckaneezer (What, no 'Bless you?') that he himself had parked ever so gently in the courtyard of Ziongwarts earlier, Seraphina grabbed onto his Dr. Martens and was lifted through the sunroof in a flash.

They landed smoothly, square in front of none other than Mr. 'Smith' a.k.a. Voldemort, and began blasting away at him. It seemed like the more they pummeled him with deadly force, the more he kept replicating himself.


Through the din of rapid fire weaponry and explosions Seraphina shouted to Nesco "Are you sure this is going to work?"
He actually heard what she said (as unbelievable as that may be to the past or present interlocutor), and replied loudly "Yes. If you look carefully his replications are getting about a centimeter smaller each time, and some of the pixels are falling out of his bytes."
She shouted back "He's a digital man?"
He replied, "A digital alien, simulated to look like a man, but a million times harder to exterminate."

Seraphina nodded, and spun around on one foot, throwing the deadly cache of napalm she had mysteriously acquired at the sprawling mass of replicated Voldemorts. The blaze was infernally bright and audaciously hot. The resulting mass of caramelized goo writhed and wiggled, screams undulating from it's smoldering heap. Nesco turned a dial on a canister that could have been anything, but was in fact a hydrogen bomb, until the readout said 0:33.
He tossed the bomb onto the pile of twisted, ash encrusted tripe, turned to Seraphina, who now had acquired her wings, and said "C'mon, we don't have much time!"