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

“No, there is no way to turn off Limbo Projection Mode.”

“What about when the power died? Wouldn't it turn off then?”

“The power never died,” replied Janet. “Within our ship's cargo was several thousand years worth of battery cells. It was only the flight-engines that needed IB. Besides, the ships power had no relevance here. The Limbo Projection operates under rules of its own voodoo mysticism. Escape is only possible with help from someone outside the ship.”

“Ah,” said the reporter. “I'm glad we've reached that part of the story. Everyone is wondering about your rescuers. It seems the Grollers, one of the longest running jokes in the universe for being a non-swimming creature on an all-water planet, went ahead and evolved into swimming creatures while no one was looking these past years. A Groller is what swam to the bottom of the ocean, discovered your ship and freed the trapped specters.”

“Yes,” said Janet. “We believe their evolution into an aquatic creature was directly caused by our presence on the planet.”

“Why would you think that?” asked the reporter.

“They knew we were down there. The spark of the inevitable next phase of their evolution was their intense curiosity to find us.”

“How would the Grollers know you were there? Isn't it likely they never knew about a single event that ever occurred off their measly 3 acres of rocky conglomerations?”

“There is an explanation for this,” began Janet. “Aboard our ship is a device which enables the entire population of a planet to simultaneously watch the same movie, by way of having the image of the movie projected onto the entirety of the sky. It is simply called Sky-Projection Mode.”

“There is that word 'projection' again,” said the reporter. “We all find your descriptions of technology fascinatingly crude.”

“Yes,” said Janet. “Anyway, we were prone to re-watch the movies in our VHS collection rather frequently, so we decided to have the image of the movies projected up through the water and onto the sky. Might work out as a great rescue signal. Over time the Grollers evolved to worship the mysterious flickering images in the sky. Yet they were not content with mystery. Their curiosity to peak behind the curtain is surely what prompted the Grollers to learn how to swim. The projection leaves a trail of luminescence in the water. They would have known the picture originated from in the ocean.”

“How do you know what the Grollers feel?”

“Specters, being nothing but pure consciousness, have the ability to sense what speechless creatures would wish to say. A sort of drifting into their minds.”

“Telepathy? With those beasts?”

“Indeed. But our powers are weak compared with the great Elemental Tele-Specters of the Invisible Dimension.”

“I'm going to interrupt you Janet,” said the reporter, as a scientific looking creature materialized on the stage. “The historical biologist Dr. Julmook is here to speak to us about the evolution of the Groller. Hello, Dr. Julmook.”

“Hello,” replied the doctor.

“What can you tell us about the Groller transitioning into an aquatic creature?”

“We have deduced the Groller gained the ability to swim because of a great sacrifice that was had amongst the population. As we know, Grollers generally have only one arm and one leg each. But now they have two of each. How did this happen? The only logical explanation is that half of the population at some point amputated their own limbs and reattached them to other Grollers, thus out of two useless bodies creating one capable of life on this world. The reattachment procedures were unsuccessful for a long time, but they stuck with it and it clearly worked out in the end. All the currently living Grollers now have symmetrical amounts of limbs. As soon as swimming was possible, the ability to breath underwater naturally followed in their evolution. Just look at this Groller,” said Dr. Julmook as he pointed to a cage that suddenly materialized beside him. The crowd were in awe of the new looking life-form. “You can clearly see this Groller has an advanced gill system and a more resilient exterior hide capable of withstanding the pressures of unknown depths. We have not found any other Grollers with gills, but there will surely be more. Finding this Obotron ship was the first action ever undertaken by an ocean-worthy Groller. Until this point, all they did was drown or be eaten. It is then likely that Janet's theory is correct. They evolved so they could find out where the pictures in the sky came from.The new aquatic Groller finally found the source of the sacred movies.”

“Yes, that sounds accurate,” concurred Janet. “The only thing we are confused about is why no one else but the Grollers ever saw the movies in the sky?”

“That is easily explainable,” said the reporter. “No one ever comes to Hroon. It is a terrible place to visit.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Just one more hole in the story needs filling,” said the reporter.

“What's that?” asked Janet.

“After you lot had died, how did you continue operating the movie watching device? How did you change the battery cells? Everyone knows specters can't perform physical acts.”

“A good question,” replied Janet. “You have not yet met Prollk, the last living crew member of our Obotron ship.”

“Living? How could anyone still be alive after thousands of years.”

“Prollk discovered within the cargo bay a hypodermic needle filled with a strange glowing substance. The needle was marked “Immortality Quik-Shot: Inject into Eyeball and Live Forever.”

“Prollk became immortal?”

“Yes. It was Prollk who was the one who performed all the physical tasks we needed done, such as replacing the battery cells, rewinding and playing the VHS tapes, making sure the Sky-Projection Mode was always turned on during a movie, etc.”

“We should like to meet this Prollk,” said the reporter. “Is he around?”

“Yes,” said Janet as Prollk arrived on stage with perfect timing.

“Excellent,” said the reporter. “Please sit down, Prollk.”

Prollk sat down. He promptly threw his microphone into the ocean.

“No one will be able to hear you if you throw your microphone in the ocean,” said the reporter. “Someone get him a new microphone!”

“No!” said Prollk. “No microphones. I have a loud voice. They can hear me just fine. Start the interview.”

“Actually, they can't hear anything.”

“Who cares,” said Prollk. “There's hardly anyone here.”

“Are you joking? The audience is in the millions.”

“What?” said Prollk. His disbelief was so genuine that it became apparent he was not fully aware of his surroundings. “Aren't I performing stand-up comedy right now? The crowd isn't very good tonight. Barely a dozen people, all mingling around in the back making noise with their cell phones and clinking glasses. Who can get a laugh in this dump?”

“Just look out there,” said the reporter, pointing to the endless vista of spectators. “There are millions of people gathered on this planet for the specific reason of listening to what we have to say. When you throw your microphone in the ocean you are negating their very reason for being here. Are you aware the fuel cost of coming here has bankrupted at least 20% of the crowd?”

“Doesn't matter,” said Prollk. “I won't use a microphone.”

“Why?” asked the reporter.

“To be infuriatingly random, because I do not approve of this whole scene.”

“I see,” said the reporter. “Nonetheless, we would like to have Dr. Julmook ask you a few questions. Is that okay?”

“Yes. But only a few questions.”

“Is it true,” began Dr. Julmook, “that you are completely insane?”

“Yes,” replied Prollk, who's words were now being shown in subtitles on the big screen.

“Is it true you are immortal?”

“Yes.”

“Where is this immortality elixir you have taken? We would like to have some so we can sell it for lots of money.”

“There isn't any more. I took the last of it.”

“Oh,” said Dr. Julmook. “Is it also true that--”

“Interview over,” interrupted Prollk. “I said a few questions. I'm going now, because I disapprove of this whole scene.”

Prollk left the stage. No one tried to stop him.

“Maybe Janet can answer some more questions,” said the reporter. “Tell us what became of your leaders?”

“We don't know, but if they were somehow still alive we would definitely try to kill them. We always took comfort in knowing that Prollk would be able to exact our revenge.”

“Wouldn't they deserve a second chance?”

“No. They were the worst leaders imaginable.”

Suddenly Rip stood up. “THEY WEREN'T THAT BAD!” he yelled.

“What?” asked Janet.

Only the surrounding thousand or so people had heard Rip, so the message was passed along through the crowd. By the time it reached the stage it had been added to with the usual string of non sequiturs that inevitably comes with playing a game of telephone amongst millions of wackos.

“Who said that?” asked Janet.

“I DID!” yelled Rip, once again needing the majority of the crowd to relay the message.

Wilx, Rip and I were now on the big screen. Rip's identity was kept safe by the specter costume.

“It's YOU!” yelled Janet as she recognized Wilx and I.

“Uh-oh,” I said. I turned to face Rip. He was already gone. Somehow he'd found the time to write a note and leave it on his chair. It read:

Got my own ride. Stowed away with a proto-star hopper.

Meet you at Grebular. Can't stay in this place.

“We'd better get out of here as well,” said Wilx as he began fumbling through his pockets. “Where's that stupid floating elevator remote?” he asked himself.

“That was our old ship, remember?” I said. “Our new ship doesn't have a floating elevator.”

“Oh yeah,” said Wilx just as he found the remote, which was then thrown into the ocean in the spirit of Prollk.

“What are we going to do?” I asked. There were many security guards looking in our direction, all of whom were holding clubs and nets.

“I don't know,” said Wilx as he continued to empty his never-ending pockets. Piled on the chair next to him was quite a collection of unknown electronic gizmos and other strange inventions.

“What are all those things?” I asked.

“Not entirely sure,” he replied. “Most of this is highly laughable technology from a distant past. I only keep it in the off-chance I must return to those pasts. But one of these gadgets might be useful given our current time-frame and dilemma.”

“You don't even know what all these things do?”

“I remember what some of them do,” said Wilx as he frantically pressed random buttons and switches.

“What's this thing?” I asked, holding up a donut-shaped micro-chip console.

“That is an Instantaneous Self-Destruct Remote,” said Wilx. “One press of that button and you are immediately guided into the nearest black hole.”

I chucked it away. The security guards were moving in fast. We were probably going to be banished to the Invisible Dimension. Maybe thrown into another Space-Maze if we were lucky. It was more likely they were simply going to bury us in the bottommost layer of the most particularly disgusting region of Garbotron. We still had a couple minutes before they would reach us from across the crowd.

“So, are you ever going to explain your mysterious ability to produce the amount of items that couldn't fit in the pockets of a dozen coats?” I asked Wilx. I wasn't sure if I even cared about the mystery or if I was just trying to strike up one last free conversation before being captured. Wilx evidently felt the same, for he surprised me by delving into the story instead of saying it was a bad time for exposition.

“This coat I always wear, I bought it at the estate auction of a dead genius-inventor. I didn't know it was special. I just needed a lab coat and it was going for a good price. No one else knew either, otherwise it would have cost a fortune. I quickly discovered the pockets never seemed to end, but rather extended into another dimension. A dimension I now use as an infinite storage locker.”

Just when we thought the scene couldn't get any crazier, a loud disembodied voice suddenly announced:

“INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS AND NATIONAL LAWS PROTECT COPYRIGHTED MOTION PICTURES, VIDEOTAPES AND SOUND RECORDINGS. 'UNAUTHORIZED