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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
- 7
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We spent the rest of the day sorting her things. Stuff she wanted for herself, we set for Spooky to shrink down, stuff she wanted to donate we put in a box for Sister Sarah. Then we worked our way through a few more Bond movies. I told Mary, "I could get into this British Spying standard, though it would be hard on the address book."
"All the people you meet in various casinos and trendy hot spots?" she asked.
"No, changing the status. Meet girl, sleep with girl, bury girl… Adding an acquaintance is okay, but erasing the 'current lover' tag every other week would cause excess wear and tear on the thing." She threw a popcorn kernel at me.
Later, the Lilliputians came back. Spooky was agitated after the census was taken. "People are missing," she said.
"They are homeless, thus a transient population," I said cautiously.
"No, no. They have their shelters. Their patterns." She was pacing, pounding a fist into her other palm. "We know them. SOMEONE should know where they can be found. No one's talking."
"So, another mad scientist collecting guinea pigs?" I asked.
"Oh, no!" Mary cried.
"Could be," Spooky mused. "But there should be a pattern."
"Maybe he told his minions 'get me some homeless people,' and they did?"
"THEN there'd be stories of strangers in the neighborhood. No one's talking about anyone new. Not in groups, anyway." She paced for a bit, then glanced at me. "Any ideas?"
"No," I said with a shrug. "But if you're sending people out to just watch what's going on, put me down."
"Thanks, but someone needs to watch Mary and-"
"The HELL!" Mary squeaked. She stomped her foot on my coffee table. "Mary can spend a night alone with a book or the TV remote. Mary is used to being all alone while others have their adventures, Mary WAS married, you know!"
"But what if-" Spooky started.
"But what if people are being hurt or carried off or, or, or KILLED?" Mary interrupted. "And I haven't got the skills to prevent it, but I HAVE got the skills to not need a babysitter for a night or two!" She ran across the table towards Spooky, who in turn stepped up on the table and shrank down to meet her. "Don't make me worry that my neediness made for fewer people in the barn!"
"The field," I said. "Even I know that much."
"Shut up," Spooky said absently. "You're not needy," she told Mary. "You're the bravest human I've ever shared the big guy's pocket with."
"Well, alright then. Now go out there and save the world."
"Again," Spooky said, nodding at me.
"It's what we're here for," I said, nodding back. "The mystery of the week."
---------
I paced my assigned alley, several blocks from my store. It was mine because something about the place put the Lillies off. They never spent time here and had installed no cameras. I felt no superstitious dread from the alley. Of course. Nothing here had the power to hurt me. Unless it was a ghost, maybe. I tried to figure out what a human ghost might be able to do to me.
Which led to wondering about human vampires and phantoms and Rue Morgues and operas.
That might hurt. A human opera. A good opera back home covered the whole history of the event, including the parents of the key figures and what they were doing during The Suppressed Succession. Twenty four hours to finish three acts of a Brob Opera was what we called A Short. Humans? They come in, they scream, wave sticks and it's over. I was just getting comfortable with the story when they took their bows. It was like eating one cashew, or one bag of potato chips.
I was thinking of the last opera I'd seen before leaving home, "The Place the Trees Bend Down Because of a Four-Generation Scandal and What the Butler Saw."
To be completely frank, I was thinking about how to stage that for human audiences. Maybe a serial? Three hours at a shot, release one every other month. Of course, we'd need to print a primer on the significance of where the actors stood on the stage so the viewer could really grasp why married couples stood forty paces apart, but then-
"Find anything?" Spooky said from just way, way too close to start being noticed. I calmly and quietly spun violently around, stopped myself from hitting her, and set myself to ignore her mischievous smile. Except she wasn't smiling.  She looked worried.  And not in a 'oh crap we're gonna get caught' way, like usual. "You wanna come take a look at something?" she asked.
----------
Two blocks from my alley, Spooky showed me this strange sculpture laying on its side in a little cul de sac. It was metal, twisted in an odd way. It looked kinda like a tree made of wire, or a fountain that froze solid…and rusted.
"I'm not much of one for art, anyway," I said. "Not sculpture. I mean, you weld a general on his horse, or chisel a statue of the Blessed Candlemaker, or pile up beer bottles into a pyramid, I can recognize it. But the monks always despaired of me ever 'getting' it."
"It's not art," Spooky said.
"Well, in effect, that's what I thought I was saying. But I'm no expert, so the fact that I don't see-"
"Peter!" she snapped. "It's a dumpster."
"Now, that's REALLY abstract," I said. "There's not enough room in that to throw out a DVD, without the case." I knelt down and stared. "But they got the colors perfect. And it smells like a restaurant dumpster."
"It IS a restaurant dumpster! Buddy's Chicken!" She pointed down the alley. There was a small light by a door. Humans grouped in the doorway, holding bags of trash and looking around for their dumpster.
"They need a better trash service," I said.
"NO! Peter, someone SQUISHED their dumpster! And threw it down here!"
"That's not friendly!" I said. And it wasn't. People tended to respect dumpsters in this city. Well, they certainly didn't cart them off. They didn't always respect the fact that a poor businessman had to contract for the trash pickup, and tried to gauge the service (And costs!) that matched his business' need, not the needs of any random ass-hat that thought a private dumpster was a free resource to anyone trying to empty out their home or anything.
But at least you could depend on the dumpster being there the next day, if a little overfull.
"Who would compress one and move it 300 feet?" I asked. "Sure, they can't find it NOW, in the dark, but tomorrow they'll find it. If you want to carry it off, take it at least to another alley and-"
"Peter," Spooky moaned. "This dumpster looks just like that hammer did after it displeased you."
"Nonsense!" I said. "That hammer bounced off of a nail and hit the glass case and I squeezed it with my bare hand. It was a little twisty bit of metal when I was done." I spread my fingers to show the size the hammer had ended up at.
"Yes," Spooky said slowly, "And when I was THIS tall, that hammer looked like THIS dumpster does now that we're THIS tall."
"OH! I see what you're saying. The state of the hammer, in my hand, is similar to the state of the dumpster, if a giant hand had done the same thing."
"Yeah," she said, staring up at me.
"But that's silly," I said. "We'd need an angry giant. And I've just never been mad at dumpsters. Or Buddy's Chicken Shack."
"Then… Maybe….an angry DICK did it?" she asked.
"Spooky," I said, "we don't have any angry dicks in inventory." I picked up the dumpster and heaved it over my shoulder. I wasn't sure what had done this, but it seemed prudent to keep the evidence under wraps until we'd figured it out. "Nothing's happening out here, let's go home." We stashed the twisted shape in a culvert then got to the bakery just as the sun rose.
Jenny was anxious as we came in the back door. "I didn't know what to do?" she said.
"Then you couldn't have done anything wrong," Spooky said cheerfully.
"That's when she's most likely to have done the worst possible thing wrong!" I pointed out.
"But she'd be blameless," Spooky insisted.
"Never lose that childish optimism," I snarled, turning to Jenny.   "What are you talking about?"
"There's a customer! He knows who you are! And he asked if I'm a LILLIPUTIAN!"
"Oh. So he's someone from the mission!" I said happily. I stepped out to see the young man eating a couple dozen breakfast rolls. "Your, uh, your Highness," I said, taking a knee. He smiled down at me.
The Prince stood and pat me on the shoulder. "Get up, Mr. Peter. We can't draw too much attention to ourselves among the humans, can we?"
"No, Your Lordship," I replied as he drew me up to a standing position.
"And we should probably call me by a name that doesn't stand out that much," he said with a wink.
"Yes, your hi-," I said, slamming my mouth shut too late.
"Good one," Spooky said at my elbow. "Call him Uriah. Since you're going to be calling him 'your hi' every time you open your idiot mouth."
"Peter's no idiot," Prince Uriah said. Then he raised an eyebrow at me. "Are you?"
"No, sir!"
"Then why did your heels just snap together?" he asked, but with a twinkle in his eyes.
"Just unused to the novel experience of meeting the next king, sir."
"Uriah," he said gently. Then he turned to Spooky. "Hello. I'm apparently Uriah. And you are?"
"Spooky," she said, looking at his hand. "Can I have your fingerprints?"
"Is this a typical greeting among…" He glanced around the shop to make sure we were alone. "Lilliputians?"
"It's a project," she lied smoothly. The very concept of lying to the monarch's heir made my heart skip a beat. "We're trying to compare human and elf and giant anatomies-"
"I'm sorry, what was that?" he asked. "Elf?"
"Oh. Well, little Lilliputian infiltrators is such a mouthful, and," and she shot a glare up at me, "we try to avoid anything SILLY like 'the Lillys,' it just seemed to flow. At least, in English."
"Yes, delightfully alliterative," he agreed. I tried to tell if his smile was a sneer.   It would be in character…but he appeared to be sincere. "And you want to add my fingerprints to the database. Well, of-"
I couldn't let him give evidence to Spooky. There was no telling what she'd find on the dumpster. Or how she might misinterpret whatever was there. Or if there was, maybe, a plot? I couldn't imagine who could possibly be behind any plot, with knowledge of The Isle, but no loyalty to it, the power to twist and throw the dumpster, and knowing that Spooky would find it? But that didn't mean he shouldn't be protected from it.
"I should remind you, Uriah," I interrupted, "that our two nations have not agreed to share basic biological information as yet." He looked surprised. She looked infuriated. I continued, "You don't want to prejudice the diplomatic channels by jumping the gun, as they say here."
"Oh, I doubt that the, heh, The Elves will take horrible advantage of us with something as simple as-"
I was thinking as quickly as I ever had in my life. I couldn't cast aspersions on the Lillys', sorry, the elves' motives. Not if the real problem was not with the emissaries.   Trying to protect the Prince could screw up international relations for the foreseeable future. Ah. But there were villains I could depend upon.
"No, Your, um, Iah, I was thinking more of OUR diplomats. If you take actions that anticipate their efforts, they could go into a full snit."
"Ah." He nodded. "Yes, Lord Fstackesset IS chairing the delegation." He apologized profusely to Spooky but denied her request. She appeared to accept it. But her eyes were scanning the table for a glass or anything else to take the prints off. I swept up his plate in a napkin, giving it a brief swipe, and invited him to go out on a tour of the neighborhood.
He declined, having a host of meetings scheduled for today. "But I wanted to make contact with our most forward observer, Peter," he said.   "You have the most interesting reports. The whole concept of 'homeless' citizens both amazes and appalls me. All of us in the castle, really." He moved towards the door and a dark limo at the curb. "It's something that bears significant investigation."
He climbed into the back of the vehicle and it lurched off into the morning traffic.
Spooky slugged me. "Idiot! I wanted his prints-"
"To test the dumpster," I nodded. "And what would you do if you found his prints there?"
"I'd ask him where the missing people are!"
"But he won't know that!" I said. "He's not the person that squished the trash box!"
"Of course YOU'D say that!" she snapped.
"Because it's the truth!" I insisted. "He's not a suspect for the same reason I'm not!"
"Oh?"
"Fourteen hours," I said. I stepped onto the sidewalk. One of these days I was going to pound a doorway between the two shops. Probably by accident. For now, I unlocked the door with Spooky at my elbow.
There was no surprise in finding Mary waiting in the ventilation grate. I lifted her down to the counter. "It takes about 33 hours for our daily maintenance dose of toothpaste to wear off. Then it takes 14 hours before we can take it again. Or, we can take it, but the broken down remains of the worn off dose, um…"
I waved vaguely. The chemistry of my assignment amongst the humans wasn't all that exciting to me during orientation. Not with the chance to actually understand human lives and see the Star Wars that had been described to me by some of the advanced scouts. "Um… do…chemistry. Stuff. Anyway, it interferes with our reshrinking for a while."
"So?" Spooky asked.
"Yeah! So?" Mary said, taking Spooky's side. I had no idea if she knew what Spooky's side even was, but that was beside the point of girl solidarity.
"So you want to think that during a census, you missed a GIANT PRINCE running around the area for fourteen hours? Not counting how in the Hell a royal manages to be left completely alone for thirty three hours."
"Well, that's a point," Spooky said. She still looked unsatisfied, though.
"I guess that's that," Mary said. "You gotta know, if Peter couldn't figure out a way to do it, then no one-"
"I didn't say I couldn't figure it out," I snapped.
"No, no," Spooky said, reaching up to pat me on the shoulder. "If it's too difficult for you, it's too difficult for anyone. No shame in being unable to solve-"
"First off," I said, "no one's going to be watching me at my toilet. If I'm the prince, I could pretend to use the toothpaste for two days, as long as I'm careful about where I am when it wears off."
"Would you have that kind of experience with the toothpaste?" Mary asked.
"Pfft," I said with a dismissive wave. "As Prince, I could just demand information from Debbie. And royal attention would not only make sure he complies, he'd even volunteer information that wasn't well-enough established to be in the official reports."
"But then you've got to get from where they're keeping you to where you want to… What?" Spooky asked. "Observe humans? Maybe capture them?"
"Again, Pfft. I tell the Guard that I'm going to take a walk in the courtyard because the tiny size of human dwellings makes me claustrophobic. AND I tell them to stay away because I feel crowded when they're around me."
"But your majesty-" Mary protested.
"Highness," I corrected her, haughtily.
"Your highness," she tried.
"Highness," I insisted. "I have to hear the capital H in your voice."
"You're not… What, really?" She looked over at Spooky, who nodded. And also rolled her eyes in my direction for some other message. I couldn't think of what that might be. "Oh. Well, Your Highness, buildings here, at this scale, are the same as buildings back home when we're at that scale."
"Self-deprecating chuckle," I said. "I'm sure the feeling is entirely in my head, but I still have the feelings. So stay out of the courtyard."
"Yes, Your Highness," Spooky said. "Then what did you do?"
"Oh, hired a taxi to get to the Downs, which I'm aware of because of the wonderful reports from our most trustworthy spy, Peter. Then hide inside an abandoned warehouse. Grow at the end of the cycle, squeeze out through a loading-dock door, tiptoe swiftly down alleys to wreak mayhem and steal dumpsters, then hide back in the warehouse until I can take my toothpaste and hop a cab to headquarters."
"So, if you could do it, he COULD have done it," Spooky said.
"What? No, he couldn't have!" I insisted.
"Why not?" Mary asked. "You just proved-"
"I described how I would do it. But remember the fortune? This prince is a bit of a bastard. The Guard does not turn their back on him for an entire evening. There'd be a bed check no matter what his orders were. No way could he get away for sixteen hours, to travel, grow, squeeze a dumpster, then wait and then shrink again."
"Hmph," Spooky snorted, crossing her arms. I turned to open the blinds and pick a movie to set running on the TV. My heart was racing as if I'd just been asked to testify against the royal and his established innocence.
Spooky started walking towards the stairs to the apartment. "I'm still going to send a team to check that dumpster for prints."
"Hey," I protested. "You don't even know if giants leave prints!"
Mary and Spooky both laughed. Spooky continued on as Mary stepped to the edge of the counter. "Peter, dear, trust me. Everyone that's been held in your hand knows all about your bodily oils."
"Oh…." I was alone with Mary for a while before I noticed that the movie I picked as the day's demo was 'Silence of the Lambs.' Great. Two psychotic villains in one show. I'm sure it was just random, but how would I explain that to Mary.
I stepped over to where she sat by her little hideaway. She wasn't paying any attention to the movie, though. "Peter?"
"Yes?"
"If… Well, if Debbie or someone invented a way to quickly grow you back to normal and shrink again… Would it be possible that the prince would know about it?"
"He's, uh, he's the one in charge of the whole Human Lands Investigation Project," I had to admit.
"So… It IS possible that it was him?"
"No," I insisted. But couldn't tell her a good reason to believe that.
- 7
- 8
- 9
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