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.Movies	By : keithcompany Category: Titles in the Public Domain > Gulliver's Travels Views: 2234 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, based on Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. Any resemblance to person(s) living or dead is purely coincidental.

Chapter List
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They didn't quite end up having to restrain her. Well, not with chains, anyway. I'd have been okay with chains.
Bill got away from her and stood, Mama sat and glared at me, and Winnie hovered behind her. "She says," Bill told me, "that you guys are, aheh, giants."
"Really?" I asked faintly.
"And back home, in the Old Country, they know how to deal with giants."
"Where's the Old Country?" Winnie named it. It's something of a principality in the mountains between two other nations I didn't know of, a small speck of a thing. I get the idea it was about the size of an aircraft carrier. Invading armies that took the wrong mountain pass missed it completely.
"But we've never been there," I muttered. I was sure of this. Swift said we lived on a peninsula, but that was a mistake. We're completely surrounded by water. There's just no way a giant would leave home, travel that far across the world, then travel that far inland, and THEN muck around. And if there WAS some justification, why would they suddenly change their operations to a city on the coast? The only city with a continuous presence of the only people that might catch them and punish them?
I dunno, maybe the giants in question consulted James Cameron for planning their nefarious plot.
"What was that?" Bill asked.
"How do the giants get there?" I asked. "Is there a giant colony in the hills?"
"No, no, they climb down the beanstalk," he laughed.
"Oh. Of course," I said.
"She's been telling me these stories since I was a little girl," Winnie said. "The secret giants, their secret invasions, the secret society to fight off their wild advances…. When I started school, I wasn't surprised that everyone knew the story. But then I realized they only knew about one giant…." She shook her head and reached out. Bill took her hand. "It's just so crazy!"
"Yeah, well, some people hold their wild ideas pretty close," he said.
"Like every straight-man in a monster movie insisting there's no monsters," I said softly.
"Heh, yeah," he smiled.
I was staring at Mama. Mama stared at me. I wasn't sure what weapon Mama's secret society would use on me if she were able to prepare for it. But I was no longer confident that only a few things in human lands could hurt me.   Still, if she DID know something we needed to know, to stop…whatever was going on in the Downs... Well, we needed her on our side.
Bill and Winnie were talking softly. They had some plans, but Winnie didn't want to leave her mother in this state. Bill was trying to carefully indicate that he, too, valued crazy-pants family bonds without quite saying he wouldn't be disappointed to miss their date.
So they weren't paying attention to me when I walked slowly up to Mama. And offered her my hand. "I'm not quite who you think I am," I said. She smiled in victory and snatched at my fingers. I wasn't suddenly moved to a soundstage of darkness and spotlights. And there weren't icy fingers poking through my brain. I was just really, really aware that I was touching Mama.
I remembered a lot of things. I think was watching her look through my memories. I relived my briefings, my training, my schooling. I saw parades and relatives and the tiny, cramped bilge I rode to get to this tiny, cardboard land of fragile people and electric, shiny ideas. I saw Mary, and Spooky, and Jenny, I saw Winnie in my store and I saw Uriah trying to get away from the axe without breaking the tiny weasel swinging it.
And I saw the instant replay of my fear that this little woman posed a threat unlike any I'd encountered since boot camp. She smiled, and for a second it was an evil, carnivore's smile. Then it relaxed and she stood up. "Okay, then," she said with a laugh. More of a cackle, really.
Evil witch.
She brushed off her hands and turned to her daughter. "He's okay. They both are. You two go watch the fireworks. I'll put the duck in, it'll be done by the time you get back." She went towards the Employees Only door.
"Ma, Mama?" Winnie stuttered. She waved a hand at me. "After all that…he's OKAY?"
"Yeah," Mama shrugged. "He's not orthodox." Then she was gone.
Bill laughed. "There's orthodox giants and non-orthodox," Bill giggled. Winnie looked at him funny.
"He's just glad that no one's going to force him to file a complaint about giants," I said. "In fact, neither Uriah nor I will file a complaint about the attempted axicide." Winnie flashed me a smile, Bill stopped laughing.
"Oh, yeah. That thing. Well, if you're sure, and the drama has…stopped?"
"We're sure. You go…Fireworks?"
"Yeah, the city's annual display." He offered an arm to Winnie. "We still have time?" She was clearly torn, wanting to go with him, but not wanting to leave her mother without a few WHAT THE HELL's first. Bill realized that about the same time I did.
"Hey, why don't you come down to the store," I invited Bill. "We'll make sure Uriah's okay with not having Mama arrested, then Winnie can catch up once she's sure her mother's really okay."
"Great," he said, grabbing the face-saving exit. Winnie nodded, then ran into the kitchen. We went out, letting the door lock behind us. "So, what's an unorthodox giant?" he asked, giggling again.
"Platform shoes," I said. "But we wear them upside down, to fit in amongst humans."
"Heh. Giants, Reformed. Bigger than houses, but they live in the houses, too. Like Episcopalians: same great pageantry of Catholicism, but only half the guilt." He laughed at his own… I assumed it was a joke?
"Oh, sure, laugh at the giants now, but when there's a cat stuck in a tree, then you'll see where we're useful."
"I suppose that would be handy," he said. He shook his head. "But I can really imagine my lieutenant. 'Paul, my girlfriend's mother wants to complain that unlicensed giants are running amok in the city. No, they're not destroying anything, they're running a video store and a bakery, but they're probably grinding up bones to make the bread."
"And," I said, "you don't need the National Guard to arrest them, these 'giants' will fit in a squad car."
"Yeah," he laughed.
Spooky wasn't anywhere I could see on the half-block to my place. I was going to make another policy decision that could affect a lot of people. But this time I decided to sneak up on it. "Bill? You ever watch those monster movies? The ones where a cop either insists there's no monster-"
"And gets his face eaten?"
"Yeah. That, or once HE decides the monster is real, no one else on the force will believe him, so he's forced to go rogue."
"And gets his face eaten half the time, anyway. Yeah, seen 'em. So?"
"So…" We passed the bakery. It was locked up and dark. "So, Bill, you have to decide which movie you're in."
"Oh, sure. I choose the one where the cop saves the day."
"Excellent!" I said. I tried the door to my shop. It was open and I let him inside. "Of course, the only time the cops survive the monster movie, and save the day, is when they accept that the monster's real, right?"
"Yeah? What are you saying, Peter?"
"Lucky for you, I have visual aids." Spooky stood by the counter, leaning on a rack of light romances. Uriah stepped out of the gloom, looking at us expectantly. I didn't think Bill would be seeing the fireworks tonight. Not literally, nor metaphorically. "Where's Mary?" I asked Spooky. She flicked a finger at the pig blind. I tapped on the hidden door.   "Mary? Could you step out, please?"
"What?" Bill asked, looking around the room. Then his eyes tracked movement on the counter. He stepped forward slowly.
"Hi, Billy," Mary said with a little wave.
"What have they done to you?" he breathed out, barely.
"They hid me from Richard," she said. "It just… They hid me really, really well."
He reached out towards her and stopped. His hand hovered for a bit, then lowered to the counter. He wouldn't quite bring himself to touch her. "How?" he asked.
"I'm from Lilliput," Spooky said. She waved until he was looking at her and shrank. His eyes followed her down, then back up like a strange tennis match. She stepped between him and the counter and grabbed his hand. "She's real," she told him, moving his hand closer. "And she's not as fragile as she looks. And she's been needing a hug from someone for a long time."
Spooky gently wrapped Bill's hands around Mary. Mary grabbed his thumb and hugged. The tough cop's eyes lost the glazed-over look and he showed a half-smile. He whispered to Mary, who spoke back softly.
"I'd have hugged her," I told Spooky when she stepped back from the two of them.
"But with you it won't be closure," she said. "She never got to say goodbye."
"She's written him four letters since then," I pointed out.
"Do we maybe want to give them some privacy?" Uriah asked. He asked by tugging on my arm, yanking me back a couple of feet.   Spooky stayed by the two humans, sort of a lifeguard in case someone moved too quickly or roughly. "So, we're bringing him in on this?" Uriah asked in Dingar. It's an old language. Scholars say it's older than the settling of Brobdingrag. It's a language from wherever we came from.
"I think Mama brought him in." I replied in the same tongue. Of course I spoke it. Our basic schooling lasts about eighty years.   We learn all the languages and dialects by the time they let us out. I sketched out Mama's revelation and the steps taken to calm her about at least two giants. At some point I quoted Mama, and just stayed talking in English.
"Beanstalk giants," he mused.
"That sounds impossible," Spooky muttered. She'd moved over to our sides without being noticed.
"Says the five-inch tall woman standing five feet tall," I pointed out.
"Well, that explains a lot!" We all turned. Winnie had entered the store, catching up to her date. Who was laughing at something Mary had said. She stepped forwards to put an arm around Bill, and a finger on Mary's shoulders.
"Okay," Spooky went on, when it was clear that there wasn't going to be a freak out or any axes. "There is SOME magic in the histories of Lilliput and Brobdingrag. But a land in the clouds that's accessible only through vertically ambitious legumes? That's crazy!"
"No," I said. "Mama's emotional, maybe, and fond of axes, but she's as sane as a watchmaker. We have to find this giant, or these giants, and stop them."
"Okay. How?" Spooky asked.
"How is the elf mission fixed for seismic surveillance?" Uriah asked. "Figure someone walking around at 170 tons would leave footprints heard around the bedrock."
"On it," she said, and disappeared.
We walked over to see how far Mary's explanation had gotten.
-----
As the sun came up, we were all sitting around a table piled high with good bakeds.
"Baked goods," Winnie corrected.
"No," Bill moaned around a mouthful, "these are good-"
"We've done that joke," Mary moaned. "They do it every damned day." Bill duly shut up, reaching out to touch Mary gently on her shoulder. Winnie smiled at the gesture. Spooky smiled at his growing comfort with tiny Mary. I frowned, but have never figured out why.
"So anyway," Uriah said, "we, meaning me, Peter, my guards and the Lilliputians, need to search the Downs for either where the giant, or giants, are hiding, or where they come down to Earth on their beanstalk."
"This would make a hell of a CSI," Bill mused. "What do you want me to do?"
"As I understand it," Uriah said, "there's not much of a cop presence in the Downs, so there probably aren't a lot of rumors about disappearing people or strange intruders."
"The cops would BE strange intruders," he admitted.
"But there's got to be SOME contact," Uriah went on. "So, if you could ask about any stories, anything that might help us narrow down the search area?" Bill nodded. Uriah turned to Winnie. "Your mother…"
"Never heard of the giants shrinking down to our height," she replied. "She can only identify giants by their giant auras. Which are usually evil giant auras, present company excepted, or by their evil giant footprints as they stomp their evil way across the valley."
"Present company excepted, of course," Spooky said.
"So either," Uriah sighed, "we take Mama into the field, or we find other ways to identify them."
"I'd field Mama," I muttered, gesturing to swing an invisible axe. "But we'd have to hope the sewers are up to draining the blood." Winnie smiled, clearly proud of her mother's vicious bloodthirst and the 'I'mma kills you' vibe she cheerfully gave off. Humans are weird.
"Hey," Spooky asked me, "why is Uriah in charge? You're the one common element between us all."
"He's the prince," I shrugged. "Trained for personal combat and war."
"Have you ever had a war?" Bill asked.
"There's only one nation on the island," Uriah said. "No one to war with. But I HAVE been in a lot of drunken brawls." Bill, a former beat cop and a man who'd stopped a few brawls over the years, was the only one visibly reassured by this claim.
----------
Spooky's people came back with some seismic observations. Assuming that the unexplained thuds were giants, they appeared out of nowhere, at some random spot in the neighborhood. They moved through alleys for a while, then just stopped. There wasn't a single location they started or ended at, and there was no place for a giant to hide anywhere near either point.
But they also had an analysis section trying to find common elements in those that had gone missing.
And then, we had enough for a plan.
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