Dastardly Doings -Part 12

By Primula Porker (Mayor of Bogan Chitty)

The Dastardly Doings cast are now political detainees. Iris Pessary has disappeared. Terence Pucker is dead and the Queensland State Government are taking advantage of Pucker’s plan to revolutionise the fresh food industry. Meanwhile, far below ground, the earth groans and a sickness seeps through the rock.

THE DEVIL’S COLON.

(It was once as dark as blindness, not just very dark but a total lack of light. If there had been eyes capable of seeing, the darkness would have touched them like a solid thing. For years counted in billions, this place was forming. From a time when fire swept through the earth and shattered new-made stone and from when molten, blood-red rock twisted a path that pressure, too massive to bear, eventually enfolded in growing mountains, this dark place was slowly being shaped. Great tubes were opening and collapsing then opening again until, eventually, the waters came and flooded through the tubes to the centre of the land and made a mighty inland sea. But layer upon layer of limestone strata at last closed up the conduit and the inland sea began to shrink until its last bright puddle dried.

The water reduced to a stream and then a trickle but for a billion years more, it wore at the limestone and, inch-by-inch, the rock was hollowed here until this place became a vast cave filled with total night. For more millions of years the cavern grew. Its roof occasionally fell and a river, grown deeper and more swift, washed the rubble away; and thus, the cave reached upward. But a day came when a lumbering beast, of a kind long vanished, placed its weight on a patch of ground too weak for the sudden stress and the ground fell through carrying the beast into the blackness. For the first time light penetrated the cave and life came with it.

Then more life hovered at the edges of the dark. Vast flying things and the booming tread of monstrosities were commonplace until a shock killed all the world and brought the blackness back. The light and the monsters fled and were gone for many seasons, then, slowly and dimly, the light returned - but the monsters never did.

Small things lived. Small things that flit and chirruped. Small things that spoke one to another and occasionally fell through. Their flesh and bone joined the mound of beasts that had dried in the darkness for so many, many years. It was simple and it was time past and passing – nothing more. Until the day that Gorman came and changed the world forever.

Gorman was just a man. He stood looking into the dark and spoke to another, as men do from time to time. He asked what the place was and was told the cave had been there forever and that other men dumped chemicals and used-up oil into it and no one knew or cared. Gorman was told that a glass could be dropped in and he could wait for hours and would not hear the break. He was told that in polite society, the hole was called The Devil’s Colon but others knew it differently. Gorman was told all these things and seemed pleased with what he heard.

Another man named Pucker had given Gorman a task to move a mountain. Money was entrusted to Gorman for the cost of extra machinery and bribes. Much had already been dumped at great expense in machines to spread the earth and bribes to local landowners, but Gorman stole the rest of the bribe money that Pucker had given him and Gorman secretly poured his mountain into The Devil’s Colon. He hoped to dispose of at least half - but the cavern took it all and after the last load thundered in, the hole was sealed with steel. Gorman was rich but, grey-faced and bent, he died a season later.

When the opening was sealed, the day was taken away but still a light remained. It was a different light, soft and green, a glow that pulsed and bathed the cave with vibrant haze. The stream mixed with this new glowing earth and a sludge was made that melted ancient mummified remains and merged the soup of genes with chemical waste still flowing down the creek. Occasionally animals were carried in and some were still alive. These thrived in the glowing ooze, but not for very long. The ooze fed flesh and bone that surged and grew apace, but often the beast’s spirit abandoned hope and the monstrous bodies died. Only simple creatures could last a while but most just faded slowly into death and added to the unnatural brew of nutrients boiling from the glow.

Many years past by, and then, into this place, Iris Pessary came, spluttering and thrashing through the ooze. She slumped on a rock and wept and called for God to help her but when she looked around, Iris saw only the pit of hell. For days she tried her best to die and only raging thirst made her drink from the pool until agony from her surging bones tore her mind away. But still she lived and talked with the beasts that shared her hell.

And she grew.

They all grew.

They continued to live and to grow for 14 days,)

UNTIL…….

(The vast open excavation that would form the base of a great dam wall thronged with engineers and convicts as well as giant digging machines that lurched and growled through the boulder strewn expanse. A small group of convicts led by Arjy Barjy toiled up the road that wound about the walls of the pit. They were on their way to the top where they could rest and be safe from the blasting that would soon bring down tonnes of stone and earth and tear a 30 metre deep gouge in the limestone cliff.

When the explosion came it was a deep and vibrant THUMP that moved the air in one huge slip. The massive rock face crumbled and was lost beneath great gouts of billowed dust that rose a hundred feet then slowly drifted down in feathered folds. It was some time before the cliff could be seen again and the gaping new scar was deep and dark except for a gathering flow of pale-green, glowing mud.)


THE DEVIL'S COLON AGAIN.

(Before the blast that changed their world, Iris moaned with abject misery. Seessaa coiled about Iris and offered comfort as best she could although she too quaked from the torture of gross mutation. Koom added his snuffling care to them both and the three wept together, but each in their own way. They were a family now. A family bonded by the suffering and agony generated by a glowing mud that kept them all alive.

When Iris first became aware of others in this place she had been badly frightened and it had been a while before she realised the others feared her more. The strange communication that developed between them began suddenly and was born of shock.

Koom the koala, had a mate he called Kaaa and there came a time when even the glow could not sustain Kaaa’s life and so she withered into the mud. Koom’s grief was loud and pitiful and he fell into Iris’s arms like a child and didn’t care if his action led to death at the hands of the hideous man-beast. But an instinct that Iris had thought impossible welled up within her and she held Koom as the son she never bore. Then Seesaa the python, wound them both about and gently squeezed, adding her pity to the mix of rare emotion. Koom spoke the name of his mate and Iris understood. Seesaa repeated the name in sibilant mimicry and it became the first time that they all wept together – each in their own way – and it was also the first time they spoke to each other and truly knew companionship.

The first explosion was dull but it was only the start of a rapid advance of destruction marching nearer to where they trembled. The last explosion, less than a second after the first, hit them like an earthquake and the great wall split. Impossible brightness speared through the cracks and blinded them. They flinched and scrabbled into the shadows to protect their burning eyes.

But the wall still held and in a while, they grew accustomed to the new light that streamed through the fractures. They saw that the glowing mud was diminishing and knew the source of their life was seeping away. Iris explained by gentle sounds and careful movement of her arms, what must be done. She manufactured a scent in her gut, which Seesaa could interpret, and they all agreed to her plan. Seesaa kept her head in the shadows and braced her tail length against the damaged wall, Iris closed her eyes and leaned in, while Koom turned his back and prepared to strike the wall with his powerful hind feet. Dismissing the need to speak in tongues, Iris merely shouted ‘NOW!’ and the three launched their power at the wall. It crumbled.)


AND THEN….


(Slowly from the mud arose a shape so awful that Arjy and her friends could only gape and tremble as it crawled then staggered from the gloom.)

Arjy: That’s impossible!

Sean: What the hell is it? And shouldn’t we be running away, screaming and doing sensible stuff like that?

Arjy: Not before we find out what’s going on. Sean, does that shape remind you of anything?

Sean: Could it be one of those advertising gimmicks? Like the giant Michelin Man or something like that.

Bistro Waiters: That’s no blow-up doll – that thing’s alive!

Sean: Don’t be stupid, it must be 30 metres high. Shit! There’s another of them crawling out.

Bistro Waiters: Christ! It’s a giant Kenny Koala. I don’t know about you buggers but I’m off, armed guards or no armed guards!

Sean: There’s something else moving now! It’s either Kenny Koala’s prick slithering towards us or the biggest snake ever seen on this Earth!

Arjy: That first thing that crawled out - It’s Iris Pessary!

Sean: What?

Arjy: I don’t know how – it’s all impossible, and maybe we’ve all gone mad – but the big bugger that crawled out first is Iris Pessary!

Sean: Arjy? Do you think we should …..

Arjy: Wait!

(The grotesquely grown Iris Pessary had spotted them and her eyes fixed on Arjy like gun sights. For a moment, no one moved until Iris raised one huge arm and pointed her fat fingers in their direction. Arjy cried out and her mind reeled as a confusion of information flooded her thoughts. Arjy was shown the wild ride on raging water that carried Iris here; she saw the meeting with the others and experienced their companionship. She felt the pain and terror as the glowing pool transformed Iris’s body and mind into another form of life. Arjy saw all these things and understood. She felt a wellspring of pity come from deep inside and, for the first time in her life, Arjy empathised. But the emotion was unbearable for her, so she was simply released from the pain regretfully and Arjy keenly felt the yearning of the hive-mind, like a hand from the window of a moving train taking a last tremulous touch, finger tip to finger tip with a loved one left behind. One thing was very clear – whatever this new life was, it meant none harm and desperately wanted help.)

Arjy: Let’s get out of here!


THIRTY-SIX HOURS LATER.

Premier Fanny Bligh: I want answers. Kevin Rudd will be here in twenty minutes and I need to be able to tell him we have the situation under control.

Professor Damon Ringwood: But we don’t have anything under control and we are unlikely to have anything under control. This situation is uncontrollable.

Premier Fanny Bligh: God’s teeth! Can no one give me a positive slant? You buggers are the best we have! Now, fucking well prove it! Give me a Goddamned solution! Anything will do!

General Fishpout: Well, killing the bloody things won’t work. We’ve fired all we’ve got at ‘em. Nothing.

Professor Damon Ringwood: And that was a stupid idea wasn’t it. According to that young lass Arjy Barjy, they meant no harm. We might have tried a bit of simple communication before letting the Military try their toys!

Premier Fanny Bligh: Bollocks to Arjy bleeding Barjy. She’s just a kid with too much political ambition. She doesn’t know what truth is unless she makes it up herself.

General Fishpout: And what was your alternative to military action, Ringwood? Nobody heard you come up with any ideas. I’ve lost good people to those ‘things’ that mean no harm. Six tank crews are still missing.

Professor Damon Ringwood: Yes, because they drove for half a kilometre along a giant python before they realised it wasn’t a freeway. Then they tried to blast it to smithereens while they were still sitting on it. The poor buggers are probably being digested as we speak.

General Fishpout: Damn you, Ringwood, I’ll……..

Premier Fanny Bligh: Gentlemen! This isn’t helpful! Professor Ringwood, it’s been twelve hours since the SAS brought you those samples of the green matter from the bottom of the dam excavation. What progress have you made?

Professor Damon Ringwood: Tentative findings only. It appears to be a living organism but the DNA is so complex it defies analysis. It’s almost like a combination of hundreds of different DNA strands but each intertwined with the others. There also seem to be traces of common pesticides and other compounds we can’t identify. The whole thing is radioactive so the Maralinga connection you told me about is possible. As for its effects, well, it kills most living tissue quite quickly, some tissue not so quickly and in rare cases it combines with the tissue and replicates the host organism’s cell structures. That is – it grows the host very quickly and mutates the DNA. We’ve called this effect ‘gross immunity’ on the part of the host.

We’ve checked the spread of the organism with our own sample and with aerial observation of the dam excavation site. The growth is exponential. Helped by sunlight and by the take up of other organic material we estimate Australia will be consumed in six months. When we realised this, we checked the effect of seawater as a possible containment barrier but the organism spreads across the surface of seawater faster than across land. Present calculations suggest the organism will be worldwide within four years. All life not grossly immune will be consumed and this earth will have a new, totally dominant species. The only thing to slow down and possibly damage the organism is extreme heat. I’m not talking about just any heat such as we in Australia might be able to produce, I’m talking about the temperatures found only in the sun itself or in a nuclear explosion.

You understand, Premier Bligh, this is all just ‘best guess’.

Premier Fanny Bligh: Dear God …..I can’t…….um…..So that’s your suggestion? We nuke this organism?

Professor Damon Ringwood: Premier Bligh, you asked for a ‘Goddamned solution. Anything will do.’ Well, I can think of few things more ‘Goddamned’ than pleading with the Americans to drop a nuclear bomb on us, and it certainly comes under the general heading of ‘Anything will do’.

Premier Fanny Bligh: Professor Ringwood, would you mind explaining all that to Kevin Rudd. He’ll be here soon……… I’m going to……I think I’ll ….. go home now. Thank you Professor, Thank you General….. I’ll just …. go home.


TWO HOURS LATER.

Secureline – ASIO sub transmitter. Brisbane to Washington.

Kevin Rudd: Hello….Hello.

Barrack Obama: Hello ….Hello.

Kevin Rudd: Oh – Hi, Barrack. It’s Kevin Rudd calling from Australia.

Barrack Obama: Ahh shit! Wonder what that weasel’s asshole wants. Ok, put him on.

Kevin Rudd: No, Barrack. This is he. I’m Kevin Rudd.

Barrack Obama: Yeah sure – great. Kenny, my old friend! How’s things in Austria?

Kevin Rudd: It’s Kevin and it’s Australia, old friend. We have a bit of a problem and we’re hoping you could help.


FOURTY FIVE MINUTES LATER. – THE PENTAGON.

General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: It’s perfect, Mr. President! We didn’t think we would ever get an opportoonity like this. We can’t let America down, here.

Barrack Obama: I don’t know, General. It all seems kinda half-assed to me.

General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Half-assed it aint, Mr. President. Lookit, I’ll just run it by you with a little more detail.
We came up with Operation Vulcan’s Hammer a year ago and all the work has been done. Back dated web sites are ready to go up on the net. Some of the finest minds in the world contributed to the theory and the proofs. We are ready to quickly change school and university records to make the theory look discussed and even taught for the last five years and our allies will all go along with us on this. On your say so, Mr. President, we can make the Theory of Equatorial Slip one which has been around for a good long while.
According to the theory, there is a dangerous fault line in the Earths crust which runs north of the equator across North Korea, the Afghan/Pakistan border and I-ran. This fault line can trigger massive volcanic upheavals at any time. That’s the theory we circulate. Ok, so the good old US of A has the hardware to make this dream theory come true and solve all our global hot spot problems in one strike. The new DustBuster missile can be launched from space and hit the ground at 15,000 miles an hour – too fast to be picked up by any scanning device. The missile case is made of depleted uranium with a Klordite laminate – that’s the hardest composite known to man. It will penetrate to a depth of up to 500 metres and the nuclear explosion will be localised but totally destructive inside 50 kilometres. It’s also fairly clean with minimum fall-out and will seem more like volcanic upheaval than the real deal. It all gets blamed on The Equatorial Slip theory and we’re completely out of the picture.

Barrack Obama: But the time, General. How do we do this in the time?

General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: As we speak, Mr. President, a shuttle is ready to be run out and it’s already prepped. It’s been that way since we came up with this operation scenario. The payload bay is fitted with a multi-launcher and 28 missiles just waiting to be programmed with target coordinates. We can have that bird in orbit within 48 hours. We can start launching missiles 52 hours from now and it will be all over 4 hours later.
Mr. President, we held off on Vulcan’s Hammer because we were concerned it might seem too convenient that all our problem regions were ass-wiped in one hit. But now that one of our allies needs help we can add Austria to the list of targets and nobody is gonna believe we would take out one of our own. Like I said, it’s perfect. And Austria’s just south of Korea, right? It all fits.

Barrack Obama: It’s Australia, General, not Austria and Australia is more than just south of Korea. It must be more than a thousand miles south.

General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Ok, so the Earth throws a curve ball with the fault line. It still fits! What do you say Mr. President? If you back down on this, people are gonna start thinking maybe you are some kinda Muslin after all. What’s it to be – Sir?

Barrack Obama: We get all US and allied personnel outa the danger zone in Afghanistan?

General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Of course, Mr. President, Delta Forces and British SAS will plant fifty, maybe a hundred crude bombs in north Afghan towns. We waste a few hundred, maybe a thousand civilians and we get our guys north to beef up security there. They’ll be clear well before impact.

Barrack Obama: ……………………………………….

General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Mr. President? Yes or no?


FIFTY HOURS LATER – THE SPACE SHUTTLE VULCAN.

(In flight communication between the Shuttle Commander, Frank Crudavitch and General Cokschmeer speaking from Ground Control)

Commander Frank Crudavitch: Ready to begin the ..uh ..photo shoot, Ground Control. Cameras programmed and ready. All targets zeroed in except Austria. We can find no target data for Austria.

General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: This is General Cokschmeer at Ground Control, Nix on Austria, Commander Crudavitch! Have you programmed in coordinates for Bromelton, Australia?

Commander Frank Crudavitch: That’s an affirmative, General.

General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Then what the fuck is the Austria shit about? There is no fuckin’ Austria, Commander. Have you got that?

Commander Frank Crudavitch: Sure thing, General. There’ll sure enough be no fuckin’ Austria by the time I’ve finished photographing the shit outa the fuckin’ place.

General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Commander, do you have a Momma?

Commander Frank Crudavitch: Sure, General.

General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: And do you love your Momma, Frank?

Commander Frank Crudavitch: Sure I do, General. Of course I love my Momma, It’s her birthday today.

General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Well, Frank, if you screw up one more time I’m gonna visit with your Momma and shoot her birthday cake just as soon as she got it in her goddamned mouth! Do you believe me, Frank?

Commander Frank Crudavitch: Y-Y-Yes Sir!

General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: You better believe me, son, because I got my 45 in my hand with the safety off and I got a Lootenant Colonel lookin’ through the phone book findin’ your Momma’s address. Now! One more time! One photo in Australia, eight photos in North Korea, six photos along the Afghan border (plus a coupla sneaky ones deep in Pakistan to bring those assholes back inta line) and all the rest of the fuckin’ photos gotta be plastered all over I-ran. NO PHOTOS OF FUCKIN’ AUSTRIA! You got all that Frank?

Commander Frank Crudavitch: Yes Sir!

General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Carry on, Commander Crudavitch, make Momma proud.


FIVE HOURS LATER – BROMELTON DAM EXCAVATION.

(The bottom of the excavation was awash with the glowing mud. Some drained into old water paths but the most of it was beginning to rise up the walls of the pit at a faster and faster rate. Iris, Koom and Seesaa waded through the slurry and took strength from its pulsing power. They had no thought of destruction and were happier now that the pain had been channelled into developing nerve paths that could cope. But somehow, the glow knew or guessed the approaching danger and began to act. Iris felt unease and she moved back toward the gaping tube that passed into the ancient cavern. More rapidly she moved and then a rage of panic made her throw her bulk into the darkness while Koom and Seesaa came after her and sealed the tube with their bodies. For some moments they radiated love and comfort and in the last moment they sent Iris their sorrow before the crushing detonation seared them into dust and then pounded the dust into stray molecules of nothing much. But it was the heat that finished them off. And without Koom and Seesaa, Iris would have ended too and she came very close to that. Iris was crushed but the glow survived in scraps and tiny wisps. It soaked into the stone and ran in tendrils through the billions of new fractures until it found a deeper place to hide – and to wait – and to grow a little bit each day. )


AFTERMATH - SIX MONTHS LATER.

(Arjy wandered around the shambles that was Jimboomba. Amazingly, one of the clock towers remained though it trembled and creaked in the breeze. Most of the single story structures were still useable and recovery work was in process and funded, for the most part, by international donations. The freak volcanic eruption had destroyed the green ooze and Arjy still suspected that the ooze itself had created the blast. Perhaps, in one last gesture of self destruction to prove it meant the world no harm, the organism had shown more pity than humans ever could. Who knows.

Sean was due out of hospital tomorrow and Bistro Waiters was already back in his office writing editorials about championship strawberry jams. This part of the world was coming back together. But the same could not be said for some places. Places like Iran and North Korea had remained deserts of misery and death while Afghanistan no longer figured in the nightly news. Some said the world was a safer place but the price seemed so much greater than the gift.

As for Arjy, she had grown half a metre in the last six months but it hardly noticed as her stick thin legs bowed under the extra weight of her bloated gut. She often thought of her fathers words to her when, as a sullen child, she longed to be taller so that she could dominate the others in her school. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ he had said. But Arjy had just sniffed, and dreamed of higher things.)


THE END.


(P.S. Going on holiday next week – I won’t post for a while. RY)