Greegs & Ladders by Zack Mitchell, Danny Mendlow (top 10 ebook reader txt) 📕

“Can you guys help me up and then we'll discuss this? Or shoot me into the canyon. Just do something. It's starting to get to me, the feeling of nearly plummeting into a canyon. I've been experiencing that feeling for hours on end. Have you ever experienced the feeling of nearly plummeting into a canyon continuously for hours on end?”

“No. We have not had that honor.”

There was more conversation heard from the ship, except this time too muffled to hear. Alien #2 had remembered to cover the microphone, but had not yet learned about the on/off switch.

“We have decided,” said Alien #1, “to help you. Because if you hate Fralgoth as much as we do then you deserve to live.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Good logic.”

The ship continued to hover over the canyon while a robotic arm helped me back onto level ground. I collapsed from exhaustion.

“Who are you?” I said.

“We are the Confederation of Angry Drug Dealers, or CADD. What we are generally angry about, and pretty much the only reason we started up the confederacy in the first place, is to cause the downfall of sativa-thief Fralgoth. The crops of Mount Grucian on Glassvexx have been tended and harvested by my line of people for as many generations as the plant has existed. Fralgoth discovered and usurped our land, and has been harvesting the plant at much too greedily a pace. The rare potency of the Sativa high comes from the continuance of the original strain, which was supposedly blessed by ancient gods. The original strain was in danger of going extinct, but now without Fralgoth it may be safe a while longer.”

“Do you think my friends and I could take Fralgoth's ship?” I asked. “We're stuck here. And here is not a very livable place.”

“It's not so bad,” said Alien #1. “Have you met Milt, the fruit fly? He's made a life here. There's also the one who reads stupid books and makes signs.”

“He's gone now,” I said.

“There's still Milt.”

“Not all of those books are stupid,” I added.

“Yes they are.”

“Look, can we have the ship or not?”

More muffled discussion. “We guess you and your imaginary friends can use Fralgoth's ship to escape. But not before we clear the cargo holds of the 296 million standard-measure galactic tonnes of Luminesco-Cannibid-Sativa. We can leave you with a pound or two in the glove-box. That should be enough to last a lifetime.”

“I might have more than one lifetime ahead of me,” I said.

“Fine. We'll leave three pounds,” said Alien #2. “But you're getting greedy.”

I climbed down to where Fralgoth's ship had parked. By the time I traversed the steep canyon path the CADD had already cleared out the cargo holds and taken off. None of Fralgoth's crew were to be seen.

I entered the ship. Rip and Wilx emerged from hiding within one of the empty cargo holds. It was perfect timing to suddenly appear, if your intent was to arrive on the scene at exactly the moment in which your help was no longer needed.

“Where have you been?” I yelled angrily at the two bleary-eyed maniacs. “I've been nearly falling into a canyon all day!”

“We tried to find you,” said Wilx.

“Yeah,” joined in Rip. “Did you know the ground on this planet moves? Not easy to find someone here. We kept inadvertently going in circles.”

I was still angry, but decided to let it go. It was a legitimate excuse.

“So Fralgoth's dead?” asked Wilx.

“Yeah.”

“That's good.”

“What happened to Fralgoth's crew?” I asked. “Did the drug dealers take care of them too?”

“Actually, we took care of them,” said Rip. “We weren't entirely useless.”

“How did you do that?”

“He's lying,” said Wilx. “The crew were frightened off by that looped recording of the shrieking demons.”

“I broke that sound-system,” I said. “Does that mean there are real demons?”

“No, there were more sound-systems. Quite a few scattered all over the planet actually. We suspect each of them guards a different item, stuff as equally valuable as the beard. Enticing, yes. But we don't want to stay here any longer. Maybe one day we'll return to look for other self-profiting items. For now let's go take over planet Lincra.”

We fleed Garbotron and charted for Lincra. Along the way we stopped to trade in the ship for one that could do impossible things.

Lincran Revolution

We were high on the promise of owning planet Lincra. We were also high on what had been left in the glove-box.

Our plans were to fail, for during our journey the beard became useless. When we arrived at Lincra we learned that Commander Flook had been assassinated, and that the entire planet had entered a state of riotous turmoil caused by the unexpected yet well underway toppling of the Kroonum Ladder Union.

From orbit we could see the glow of the towering bonfires. The people of Lincra were gleefully rejoicing in the overdue burning of ladders and all things ladder-related. There were a lot of ladders to burn, hence the towering aspect of the fires. Much of the planet would be forever damaged during what has now been become known as the Age of Bonfires. At least the focus was forever taken off the damage we'd caused by our 'intentional crashing of an Obotron ship' episode.

Of particular note amongst the damage was the decimation of the investment banking corral farms. The ladder-revolution caused a crippling universal spike in gas prices, Lincra being practically the primary source of local IB.

How had interspersed throngs of civilian Lincran peasants managed to overthrow the well-funded and generally indomitable KULMOOG you ask? Everything happened while we were away on Garbotron. It seems the last will and testament of resident Lincran map-maker Nickbas L. Turkey had surfaced, proceeding to startle everyone with the vast amount of money it was worth. Mr. Turkey was shockingly in possession of far more money than was owned by every faction of the KULMOOG combined. No one was quite sure where he got this money, for he never seemed to do anything other than make maps and then give them away for free. Nickbas Turkey's vast fortune was found in the underground facilities of an obscure storage meteor near the Invisible Dimension. By the looks of the caked on layers of dust it would seem Nickbas had not moved or used any of his money in a long time.

Nickbas L. Turkey had always known that if he left his money to the people of Lincra they would in turn use the money to overthrow the KULMOOG. Saving the money to free the people was his purpose in life.

The civilians of Lincra proceeded to spend the money on whatever weaponry was more advanced than that owned by the KULMOOG. With this new weaponry the people were finally able to banish the KULMOOG into oblivion, followed by the immediate celebratory burning of ladders and all things ladder-related.

The ladders of Lincra would soon be replaced with teleportation booths, floating elevatorsand more shuttle-sliders. In later years this would prove to be a disastrous choice, for no one stopped to think about how all their physical exercise came from climbing ladders. Without ladders, the people of Lincra grew lazy to the brink of Greegdom. Many suffered a gradual disintegration of their bodily cells caused by perpetual physical apathy.

Being the one to have killed Nickbas and therefore being the one to have truly set in motion the toppling of the KULMOOG, Reg was now looked at as a sort of God amongst the Lincran peasants. We found him occupying the same lavish lifestyle we'd expected to gain from the beard.

Reg's compound was atop a spire in the center of the parking dome, reached by a mile-high set of stone stairs. The stairs were completely superfluous, as nobody else was really allowed in Reg's compound to begin with, and the select few inner-class minions always chose teleportation over the mile of stairs. Aside from the daunting stairs, a moat populated by the deadliest creatures of Hroon was busily under construction.

“What is this place?” I said, pointing at the tower. “What is happening here?”

“Don't you see?!” yelled Rip. “Look at all the bonfires of ladders! The KULMOOG has finally been overthrown!”

“Is that a good thing?” I asked.

“For the people of Lincra, yes.”

“For our plan, no,” finished Wilx. “Flook has either lost command or been killed, so impersonating him is a moot point.”

I threw the now-useless beard into the molten core of Lincra. The core was now visible from space, thanks to the collision of our crashed Obotron. The ship was still sticking out of the planet awaiting a proposed removal operation. The specters of the crew-members would not be free to roam until the ship was released from the fiery limbo of the planetary core. They were not likely to be freed, as the ship removal operation was being funded by the ladder makers, most of which had been lynched by now, leaving the question of who was going to do all this strenuous labour.

Later we realized the beard would have been worth a fortune if claimed as the actual beard shaved off the assassinated body of Commander Flook. Oh well. 'Fortunes come and fortunes go, the important thing is to enjoy the ride' so says The Book of The Immortals.

“Should we go?” asked Wilx.

“Why don't we see who's in there,” I suggested, pointing at the newly formed compound in the middle of the parking dome. “Looks like the sort of place where a leader would live.”

“Leaders of planets are not usually good people,” said Wilx. “Haven't you learned to avoid them? The higher up the leader, the greater the danger.”

“How about this,” suggested Rip, “instead of barging directly into the compound of what is clearly the highest up leader of this planet, we go down to the surface and ask some of the peasants what's going on. Gather the intel before making the move.”

We all agreed this was a good idea for the moment. We were quickly told about how Reg, the former Greeg-Keeper/Kroonum Judge was now the God of Lincra. All because he killed Nickbas, he who left the fortune required to overthrow the KULMOOG.

“Reg?!” snarled Rip. “He's the god of Lincra?”

“This is unacceptable,” said Wilx.

“Something must be done.”

“What?” I asked.

“We'll kill Reg.”

“How?”

“We'll get help.”

“Who's going to want to take on the leader of the most popular planet within five trillion universes?” I asked.

“Think about it. Who most deserves revenge on Reg?”

“The Crabbits,” I immediately replied.

“Right. Where exactly do Crabbits live?” asked Rip.

“Many different places,” said Wilx. “You know Grebular? That planet has a plentiful supply of Crabbits.”

“Isn't that a shape-shifting planet?”

“Yeah. Is that a problem for you?”

“Maybe. We'll see when we get there.”

“It's the closest planet with Crabbits, so it wins by default,” said Wilx. “We can't afford to go anywhere else. Prices of Investment Banker have multiplied by pi in the last few hours.”