$aff Alabama Flint and the Mints of Fate $fdf This started off as a silly reply to a message that Bootblock wrote. Kei replied to it in a Tomb Raider style (he's recently been playing TR2 night and day ya see) and what happened was.. well read it for yourself. $cffCharacters so far.. Alabama Flint Kei/Carnage keiofcarnage@geocities.com Evil Genius BootBlock BootBlock/Carnage bootblock@geocities.com Doctor Dick Dick Dr.Dick@LineOne.net Foo Phil98 Phil@mrfoo.force9.co.uk Janus Pyscho JP JohnPaul@airport.bt.co.uk Wes-bob Shaggy/Carnage ? $ff8 >There's one After Eight Mint left, but everyone's too polite to take it. >Message Ends. ----------- Dave runs through the corridor glancing left and right for detection devices, you never know. Dodging the toy car and squeaky doll he reaches the dinning area. Spotting the approaching butler he vaults a dinner trolly, grasps the chandelier and starts to swing. Avoiding the butlers attempts to grab his legs he body somersaults through the air and grasps the other chandelier with extraordinary skill. He drops onto the dining table, only a seconds pause as the serving wench attempts to decapitate him at the ancle with the carvary knief. Doing back flips across the table that would make sporty spice proud he manages to successfully avoid the thrusting knieves and forks of the seated guests. Narrowly missing a minor soup incident he grabs the box "Aha!" and jumps up and back landing lightly on the carpet retrieving the baseball bat from his back-mounted sheaf. One quick swing and the butler is out of the picture. He heads for the only other exit, an open window. He leaps it without a problem falling the short distance into the moat. He swims around back and comes up behind the bike sheds. Retrieving the box from his backpack he takes a look at his prize, the last after eight mint, 14,000 calaries worth. A prize to any couch potato with a joypad in his hand. In the distance he hears barking. The dogs are loose. To be continued... BootBlock had previously licked the After Eight Mint and put it back in the box. Oh yeah, did I tell you I had lurgy? Well, I have. You'll die soon. Realizing he is suffering the effects of poison, Dave starts in on his supply of 36 medpacks which may just allow him to make it to the surgery of Dr.Dick, a well known medical doctor of questionable sanity. He spots a moped in the nearest shed, one hotwire later and he`s on his way. The dogs get nearer, no time to retrieve a weapon, he mows the pups down with his 50cc. 5 minutes later he`s skidding to a halt at Dr.Dicks.. only 2 medpacks left, can he make it? Oh no, from out of the bushes pops Fiendishly Foo, arch criminal and known decoy. Foo attempts to delay my arrival by starting in on a nostalgia topic but I quickly dodge it by telling him that his new suit fits better owing to the weight he's recently lost. He looses his train of thought just long enough for me to sidestep and head up the stairs. I reach the door and begin to pound upon it. A second later I hear a voice, "go see who that is Dickie wickie". Strange.. I know that voice. Will Dave make it in time? Who is the mystery voice? Will Dr.Dick have an antedote? Or will Dave die to the sounds of C64 verses ZX+? To be continued... "There you go Ms.Powell, that ought to hold it". The doctor turned to transport his materials to the locker from whence they came. His latest patient, a dark-haired and thoroughly gorgeous TV presenter, pulled on her clothes, gingerly testing the repairs that had been done. A pounding on the surgery steps roused Dr.Dick from his private reverie. He crossed to the door and opened it just as Alabama Flint went to barge it open. Flint fell into the room and managed to turn onto his back before hitting the ground, the green vomit staining his lips looked supernaturally bright in the evening gloom. His previous patient headed for the door and, pausing, she turned to the Doctor. Words were not necessary, a simple glance confirmed that they would meet again later that night, but for now she was giving him some room and privacy in which he could treat the injured man. Privately thanking her, Dick examined Flint, dreading what he might see. The stench of the vomit was enough, he had obviously been poisoned, and from the way his eyes were rolled back it was obviously the salive of the Greater-Blobbed BootBlock that had done the damage. Cursing, he opened his safe and reached for a phial of extremely expensive and dangerous antidote. Forcing the bottle between the convulsing man's lips, he watch, concerned that he might have acted too late and would soon have a malpractice lawsuit on his hands, but the shaking and struggling gradually slowed and Alabama Flint drifted off into a deep and dreamless sleep... To be continued... only not by me :-) He felt much better. He got up and surveyed his surroundings. A modest flat with an over use of technology in the decor. While the doctor stepped out to make a coffee (filtered of course) he walked over to the nearest cabinet. Sliding open a drawer he noticed a pile of computer chips and a computer printout with some code "PSX5552" that he did not understand so he closed it. Taking a look in the next drawer revealed a collection of Swedish porn import data disks. Before you could say "Aha" one was in his backpack. He won`t notice one. The doctor returned with the coffee... ah that sweet aroma. Still wearing Channel no.5 Doctor? "Ya know me Alabama". Enough to keep an eye out he thought. While they sipped their coffee, Flint recalled the previous events and the doctor nodded. "Got myself a modified BMW black roadster outside Flint, modified it myself. It`s completly overclocked and is Y2K". "Sounds good. First we need a plan to get back at the dastardly evil genius BootBlock. Maybe if we hid his Amiga and put a PC in it`s place?" "He may notice that. We could stick a `Motorola Inside` sticker on it though." "Tempting but where can we get a PC at this time of day? Know of any black marketeers around here?" The doctor crossed the room and with a quick flick of the wrist, detected by the sensor, the window opened". "Foo get your butt in here man. We need to buy some hardware asap". To be continued... Foo lept into the room but was instantly sntached back as if by some unseen force. Unclipping his anti-static curly cord, Foo again arrived on the scene. "Obsolete processors, dodgey soundcards, unsupported inkjet printers and rechargable AA batteries our speciality!" he bellowed down Alabama's ear whilst pedalling around the room on a unicycle. "I'll take that CPU and Soundcard off your hands" said Alabama. "Phew, thanks. Damn nuisance trying to keep 'em out the water when washing up." said Foo. Doc and Alabama looked at each other blankly as Foo burst into fits of hysterics. The laughter came to an abrupt end however.. Just then all the lights in the entire building went out. "Unk!" exclaimed the Doc. "Wha?" whispered Alabama. "Crunch!" went Foo as he fell off his unicycle. "A dastardly plan by our arch nemesis no doubt!" snapped the Doc finally. "TV licencing, Bristol.. Curse them!" hissed Foo. "No, I meant the BootBlock, the evil mastermind and used car salesman" "It has to be - but wait, I have a plan!" spluttered Alabama. A few seconds later the room was baithed in a soft blue light as our hero set about opening a stack of unopened mail, which he'd noticed earlier (ahem). Just as well, for at the very moment the door frame came crashing in followed by the contorted visage of Mr Bootblock... To be a pligrim.. err.. continued.. "For God's sake, where's that bloody light-switch??" BootBlock hissed. "Ah it's okay - I'm using these light-emitting envelopes. So, just act as though nothing's wrong..." said Foo. "Oh okay, thanks. Where was I? ... Oh yeah: The temptation of a single After Eight Mint left in the box on a table was too much for Alabama Flint - just as I thought. I kne..." Flint interrupted, "But how did you know that I would come to the Doc's surgery and not go somewhere else?" There was a little pause while BootBlock slowly walked upto the Doctor, walking past Fiendishly Foo that was frantically trying to open as many envelopes as possible in hope to keep the blue light at a constant level. "So Doctor, we meet again." "Again? I don't recall seeing you before.." "Oh yes, we have met. Your father... did you get on well with him?" "Wha...? My father? What's this got to do with him?" "He left you.. didn't he? When you were 14...." It was a summer's day, the type that would make the insides of your legs stick together when you walk. There was a surgery on the sea-front with the front-door open with mothers and their children going in and out. "Do you remember?" "Yes, yes I remember..." said D!ck with his eyes filling up. Your dad was bandaging little Bob's knee, which he grazed when he slipped up on a turd outside the shop. You were watching as your father put the plaster on to hold the bandage together, the feeling you got when Bob thanked your dad and your dad waving goodbye to him. It was a good feeling, wasn't it D!ck? ".... yes... it was..." D!ck said with a glazed look over his eyes. "But he left a few days later. Do you know why he left a few days later, D!ck?" "..no... when I came back from school, he wasn't there. He was gone. Not a note - nothing. I was all on my own.. just me. I didn't know how to pay the bills, so I had to find a way." "Yes, you became a rent boy, didn't you?" said BootBlock. "*sob* yes *dribble* But.... how do you *waah* know all this?" "D!ck, son, I am your father." To be conjured.. continued.... Dr.Dick stared in disbelief at BootBlock's ponderous form, those six words had left him shell-shocked and, for once in his life, he was unable to speak. "Bloody Hellfire!" said Agent Foo. The spell was broken, and Dick's words poured forth... "But.. bu-bu-bu-bu-but... you can't be! I mean, I know my father, he's that bloke off the telly, him on Countdown, Richard Whitely... he's always been th..." He trailed off, the image behind his eyes was of a dark-haired and curiously plump old man, who had suddenly shaved his head, grown a goatie and gone off to Grimsby to paint nude women. Tears again welled up in his eyes and he looked at BootBlock with something verging on anger. The fat body, the facial hair and the dreadful sense of humour, how could have have missed it? Genetics was a terrible thing, no wonder they called Nature a Mother. Suddenly, without warning, the anger overwhelmed him and he lunged for Booty's throat. Foo and Flint tried in vain to separate them but Dick's anger had given him superhuman strength and he shrugged them off like a loose jacket. Dazed from a blow to the head, Foo crawled away under the couch and curled up into a foetal position. Flint, however, was relatively unscathed, and seeing a fire extinguisher against the wall, where it had been installed at the insistence of a bigotted and particularly bloody-minded Health and Safety Executive, he grabbed it and swung the cylinder like a baseball bat. There was a sickening crunch, like heavy crockery breaking, and on such a note the universe might have ended. Dick's head flew forward and came undone at the neck, exposing hydrhaulics and splitting tubing which ejaculated oily fluid like a burst artery. His hands flew up and tried to stem the tide, but it was no good, he was loosing plasma quickly and had to escape. Foo poked his head out from under the bed and stared as Dick staggered around the surgery, his sensory input no longer corresponding to the actual layout of the room. In desperation Dick charged through a gap between Booty and Flint and headed for the door which, due to a damaged eyesocked, was nowhere near where he thought it was. He hit the wall three feet to the left. The whole building shook as the wall gave way, the robot had given up all attempts to look human and though only of safety, it staggered out into the street and the remaining three heard the mournful wail of a carhorn, a long screech of tires and a God-almighty bang. "Bloody Hellfire!" said Agent Foo again. Flint ran to the hole in the wall and looked out... Alabama Flint looked out into the street and saw the doctor, or the cybernetic representation of it meshed up against a ford pickup. The pickup looked the worse for wear and was heavily in need of a paint job. The crash had loosened the back tarp on the pickups rear revealing a small cache of weapons. The driver got out of the pickup and strolled around to the front. He appeared to be chewing something. He spat it out of the corner of his mouth and it went "ding" off a nearby lampost. "God darn it, what in hells tarnation do you think you are doing son? You lilly livered sonovabitch! I could have been damaged. Don`t you go waving your sensor at me boy! I`ve been in nam and back and no toaster-looking dude is gonna mess with me!" Alabama strolled around the back of the pickup and entered the registration into his wrist computer. "JP 666". He waited for AOL to connect him to the DMV. > CONNECTED Name : Jonus Psycho Alias : JP, Mad Psycho bastard DOB : unknown Age : unknown WANTED in connection with various armed robberies, mdk`s, manslaughter in colarado, carrying with intent, DDI, unregistered copy of Windows 95 and obtaining a sheep by deception. Whereabouts unknown DO NOT APPROACH CONSIDERED MENTALLY UNSTABLE!!!!! To be continued... (by JP?) JP glimpsed round and saw Alabama... "What in god's name d'yer think yer doing sonny? This is no time to go playing with yer new fangled watch, this sorry looking cyborg contraption has just trashed me automobile." The remains of Dr. Dick whirred and buzzed a bit, a strange gurgling sound came from it's stomach and Alabama suddenly found himself feeling hungry. "Yer pet cyborg beastie looks as though it's sufferin... say you wouldn't want me to put it out of yer misery for yer would yer son?" JP's eyes gleamed as he looked at Alabama questioningly. "Erm no thank you.", replied Flint, "Actually I'd like to have him fixed, we've been through a lot and... well I kinda like the guy." Dave watched as the grizzled man bent down and hoisted the remains of the doctor over his shoulder. "Saw a few of these goddam walkin toasters a few years back when they were been knocked up in a high security place in the states. Ach... metal beasties I've never liked em, had to kill a hundred of em once just for looking at me funny..." JP's eyes glaze over and Alabama watched as he opened the boot and hoisted the doctor into it. "Get in sonny, we're going for a little ride... well whatcha waitin for...MOVE IT". Alabama got and looked around as they pulled away at high speed. As he expected a shotgun rested beside the dashboard, and there was one on the backseat, looking more closely Alabama could see an assortment of other weapons scattered around the vehicle, each as nasty looking as the last. "So where are we going?", Flint said hesitantly as the clapped out, recently damaged car managed to reach ninety heading in the wrong direction down a one way street. "Well laddie, I figure I could probably fix yer ugly buddy here real quick if he wasn't so badly mangled. But to be honest with yer son I'd just be too tempted to shoot 'im, he's got that kinda face on him. I'll sneak him into a place I know, we're gonna have to sneak past all those bloody guards and across the mudd pits and the gates with spikes on em, oh and over the barbed wire but once we're there I'll get us one of those spangly techies and hold a gun to his head until yer buddie here is fixed. Aaaaah here we are." Alabama watched hopelessly as JP pulled over and stepped out the car, taking with him the biggest handgun he'd ever seen. He got out the car himself and heard the boot pop and JP mutter something along the lines of 'Yer lookin at me, eh are yeh?' With a sigh he walked alongside the wild eyed psychotic. "Okay me'ladoe here's the plan, we get over this damned barbed wire fence and then we take it at an easy lope over to the main complex. Now I may have to shoot some people so just stay calm." JP's eyes roll crazily. The journey over to the main complex was like a nightmare. The run to the complex was just the beginning, the tunnels and passages seemed to last forever and each was more dangerous than the last. Poison gas, water filled tunnels and crazed half starved attack dogs all awaited the two companions, and their damaged cyborg counterpart who stilled sparked occasionally kept telling them that the princess was in trouble. Finally JP halted Alabama. "Wait here laddie I'll only be a second". Alabama waited anxiously in the shadows as JP snuck away. There was the sound of gunshots, lots of gunshots, and within a few minutes JP emerged with young technician with very strange curly hair... To be continued... (wes's turn I think) The story continues... It had been one of those days today, you know the type...90% men, 10% women, 1% of which are gorgeous and even then they have a beefcake of a boyfriend hanging off their arm, his bottom lip dragging along the floor leaving behind a trail of that unmistakable beer smelling drool... Well anyway, it had been one of those days for technician Wes-bob (he was christened Billy-bob, but due to his Wesley Crusher like tech skills, his ever so sexy lesbian biker babe from mars workmates decided Wes-bob was much funnier...). He'd arrived at the Labs late that morning. Logging into his Ninja PC terminal ever so sparsely decorated in yellow post its, he prayed that he could find what he was looking for before the boss showed his toad like face. Muttering to himself his eyes glazed over as the browser brought up yet another search engine, 'damn those rent boy pics are hard to find without newsgroups'. It was just one dilema after another in wes-bob's life, now it was the T.B.S. corp(Tall Blonde Scotsmen) that was after him for stealing one of their revolutionary inflatable cows with built in electrical stimulation...Wes-bob eyed his watch nervously,'man he'll be here in 5mins!', another webpage flashed up on his screen,'I need pics on naked men dammit!!!', wes-bob screamed,'got to get some pics, it's the only thing the T.B.S. will accept as compensation for the loss of that feckin cow, mmmm cow, mmmm', wes-bob's mind wandered back to the night he'd spent alone with that cow... Just as wes-bob's nervousness was reaching fever pitch the he heard the door go... Wes-bob checked his watch, 'dammit he's early!', tearing his eyes away from the XXX Ass Awards advert on his screen he looked towards the door....and breathed a sigh of relief...it wasn't the boss, 'phew', wes-bob breathed a sigh of relief, 'it's just another crazed looking beefcake drooling all over the place'... Wes-bob paused... His mind went over that last sentence again slowly...crazed looking...beefcake...drooling , 'oh my god he's got a bloody huge weapon!!!', wes-bob thought to himself in awe and wonder... The beefcake paced towards wes-bob's desk, his bloody huge weapon pointing directly at puny curly haired techie... Wes-bob's hands kept the mouse going even though the rest of him was motionless, 'Who is this man, have the T.B.S. come for me so soon?', questions flooded wes-bobs mind, it was almost to much for him to take, his lips quivered as they tried to form some semblance of language, 'hu hu huh hullo?', wes-bob mumbled. 'Yer comin' with me!', the beefcake growled. 'Er, okay...', wes-bob replied, sweat forming pools in the pits of his arms... At that the beefcake grabbed the skinny technician, hoisted him above his head, did a few clean and jerks and then raced off never to be seen at the Labs again... "Righteeo me'laddy get fixin.", JP growled prodding the young techie in the ribs with his aptly named 'Super Man Stopper 9mm'. "What erm exactly do you want me to do.", wimpered Wes-bob. The three men were stood in a small room on the fifth floor of the labs and the older man... the crazy one... kept staring out of the window and pretending he was shooting people with an imaginary rifle. The younger one, Alabama, stood calmly beside the table where the badly damaged cyborg was leaking all over the table. "Can you do anything for him." asked Alabama. "I'm just a trainee.", replied Wes-bob. "I'm not sure if I can!" "Yer better get sure in aboot five seconds sonny or ye'll have lot more than an ugly robot to be fixin." snapped JP "Okay, okay I'll try... pass me those tools." The operation lasted an hour with Wes-bob carefully repairing the cyborg. At one point he fixed his head on sideways but he finally managed to have Alabama's friend looking somewhat more normal. "The 'Dick' series cyborg was developed by the Cybernetic Life Institute Texas. They were meant for intelligence gathering operations but most of them were destroyed when the factory was attacked by an unknown man.", JP shuffles his feet as Wes-bob talks, "It doesn't matter anyway, they were never any good and had a tendancy to malfunction causing abnormal, some may say subhuman behavior. Is this Dick yours??" "Erm he was a friend." "He is a friend... do you want him switching back on?" Alabama nodded and the young technician reaches behind the cyborg and presses something very low on his back. Dr. Dick's eyes sparkle back to life. "Hello Alabama, what happened?" "You mean you don't know?" "No I think I was hit by something but... oh my head." "I'm sorry to interupt laddies but we'd better be off, those stinkin guards I had to knock out on the way up here'll be wakin by now. I said I shoulda shot them." The small party agrees that they should leave, post-haste. "Jeese those flea ridden muts were vicious, yer okay sonny, just another fence to go and we're back to the car. Ye still here Wes-bob. I dinna care if yer gonna be shot if yer go back there's no room for ye in me car, now dissappear before I shoot yer" JP turns around and stares in horror as Alabama and Dr. Dick steal his car and drive away as fast as possible. "Come back yer miserable bastards, I'll give yer what for... what, argh yer guard buggers sneaking up on me are yer, well eat this..." >From their seats in the rapidly accelarating car Alabama and Dr. Dick can hear the sounds of gunshots and screams in the distance. They look at each other and give a nervous smile. NEXT EPISODE... DEATH SOMETIMES WEARS A PRETTY FACE Dave floored the pickup down the dirt road away from the labs. "That was close Dick, that guy was raving mad!" Dick still did not look to good so Dave slowed down a bit. A short time after he pulled up at a fork in the road. Deciding the left one was quicker he made to turn but the pickup did not move. Shifting it into second and giving it more revs was not having much effect either so he floored it. There was a snapping sound and about a few yards from the fork Dave got out to see what the trouble was. Returning back to the pickup a short moment later he muttered to Dick "it was nothing, just a worm got attached to the rear axel". Twenty minutes later they were back at Dick`s pad where an anxious foo was waving his hands in the air drastically while riding around on a unicycle balancing a ZIP disk on his nose. "Whats up Foo?" Alabama asked while exiting the pickup. "It`s BootBlock. He stole all of Dick`s AMOS code and ran off shouting something about bringing down the internet!". Alabama removed one of the shotguns from the cab of the pickup, checked it was loaded, pushed Dick out onto the sidewalk and told Foo to get in. He spun the pickup around and stopped. Popping the glove compartment he extracted a pair of ray bans and put them on. He rolled down his window and looked down at Dick who was checking his attachments. "I`ll be back..." To be continued... (by Foo?) Unfortunately, the gearbox on the truck clapped out 47 seconds later so they were stuck at the surgery for the time being. The three of them sat around discussing the case. "Its got nice brass latches" said Foo. "Yeah, I got it from Vince's Leather.." started Flint but he was halted in mid-sentence as an incredibly tall, palid man in a dark green overcoat crashed through the thin plaster wall. The group exchanged worried glances as the bizarre figure reached inside his coat pocket.. "You know the Hornby "OO" gauge railway?" said he, producing a torn page from a catalogue, "Do you have a GWR Signal Box kit?" Breathing a sigh of relief, the Doc said they had not and began to direct the man to a model shop over the road. The pale man wasnt impressed though, he wanted a model signal box and wouldnt settle for a shop.. Just then, Alabama's mobile phone began to ring.. The beepy Neighbours theme tune he'd programmed to impress the girls at the night club was hurridly cut short as he opened the flip.. "Look out of your window" said the caller in a squeaky marvellous-mechanical-mouse-organ type voice so shrill it caused Alabama to drop the phone. As he knelt to pick it up, a small dart whistled passed his head and hit the bullseye of a dartboard hanging on the wall. "And Bully's special prize...." announced Foo. The Doc looked more concerned.. "Poison I reckon" he murmered and took a sip of tea. "Yup, bloody awful - you still using that organic goat's milk Al?" "Yeah, but I thought you meant the dart" said Alabama putting away his mobile. "So did the reader" chuckled Foo as the others looked on, somewhat bewildered. Suddenly a mustly smell filled the room. As they all hunted for the source, the floorboards erupted in a shower of splinters. The dust cleared and the green-raincoated man emerged once again, casting a menacing shadow as he towered over them. The was a long eerie silence.. "Do you remember KP Snaps?" he suddenly enquired. "Bugger off!" they all shouted. With that man gave a sigh and scooted himself out of the room on a tea-trolley. Alabama began examining the dart, he noticed a tiny inscription on it that looked like "Amiga Rulez". "The work of Professor BootBlock I'll wager!" remarked Foo, tapping the contents of his pipe into an ashtray, igniting some sweet-wrappers. "So he's professor now?" said Flint bitterly, immediately adding "Bloody hell - the curtains are on fire!" Grabbing the soda syphon, they mixed some drinks before finally deciding to leg it down the fire-escape and into the safety of street - Alabama rescuing several pregnant women and a fat disabled bloke along the way.. Looking around with his acuate visual sensors, the Doc spotted the evil professor further down the street. BootBlock saw that he'd been spotted and panicked. His only means of escape was a Reliant Robin that had just pulled up. Tearing off the door, he pulled out the driver, jumped in and hit the gas. "We cant let him get away!" blurted Alabama almost choking on a sherbet dip. The Doc began scanning for a suitable vehicle for pursuit. An ice-cream van bearing the name "Joe's Super Whip" was parked right by them - Unfortunately it had caught fire. Fortunately Joe's arch rival from the ice-cream wars "Mr Creamy" had also arrived., "Get out!" shouted Doc to the driver in monotone voice. The frightened man obeyed and Doc, Foo and Alabama jumped in. A chase ensued with the two vehicles skidding around corners and jumping small bridges at every opportunity whilst Greensleeves tinkled merrily away from the van. "Its no good.." shouted the Doc "We're lagging too much! There's simply too much lagging! This is terrible, I'm off home." And so the Reliant disappeared into the distance, the driver gesturing rudely to his pursuers. After they'd each helped themselves to a "99", they all got out of the ice-cream van and pushed it off a nearby cliff. "Err.. that was bloody stupid" said Alabama, "How are we gonna get back now?" "What, back to the plot?" replied Foo. "I didnt know you had an alotment" commented the Doc with a puzzled expression.. Suddenly there was a metallic crunch as the ice-cream van impacted below the cliff. A huge fireball rose up, singeing Alabama's eyebrows somewhat... After the dust settled, the three turned and headed for home, comically wearing their ice-cream cones as beaks.. Later, in the gloom of his workshop, BootBlock was busy working inside a PC tower case. This computer had highly irregular components however: A digital timer? Large batteries? Stuff that looked like big lumps of plastercine?? "Intel inside? - ARSE!" he shouted and clasped his hands together with glee... That night, at a disused warehouse by Grimsby docks, his car drew up to a small group of shadey looking geezers. A darkened window was wound half-way down but got stuck. There was a crunch and some muffled cursing and finally the door flew open and the professor emerged.. "Grand night for an unfeasably large explosion, Grommit!" he guffawed. The mottley crew proceeded to take a "PC" out of BootBlock's car and stand it in open space at least 30 metres upwind from their position. Another member produced a tatty looking keyboard and monitor and placed them next to the strange monument. One end of a drum of cable was attached to the back of the PC and the coil unwound back to the waiting group where it was connected to a detonation plunger. "What I do now, I do for all mankind.. Err well.. just the Amiga fanatics then." Uttered BootBlock as he pushed the switch... Nothing happened. "Did you load the dos mode drivers?" enquired one of the spectators innocently. He snapped round to the would-be helper to see Alabama Flint standing there grinning at him. Rage welled up inside BootBlock as he launched at the infiltrator but as he did two of the other spectators revealed their faces, it was Doc and Foo, now holding up a sign saying "Predictable plot twist". Chaos followed as a full scale nuclear war broke out, only without weapons and it never actually started anyway because before a punch could be thrown, something strange happened.. A loud high-pitched sound was coming from the PC which was now rising into the air toward an alien space ship. As they looked up, a beam of light emerged from the craft and projected the image of a pair of tights into the air. The image faded quickly and reformed as distorted humanoid face. "Foolish human scum. We will extract the technology from your computer system and use it to take over your world!" "You'll have a job" bellowed BootBlock, "That's just an empty tower case!" The alien smiled an evil smile. "We only need the fan from the PSU actually mister." "Bugger!" They all cried. The alien's image disappeared. Alabama Flint noticed the cord to the plunger getting tighter as the PC reached the alien vessel. He ran over to try the plunger but a wire had come off and it was too dark to see where it went. Rushing to the scene, Foo threw a packet of extra strong mints to the Doc who immediately placed a stack of 4 between his teeth and clenched down on them. The flash of blue light was enough for Flint to attach the loose wire. They all rammed the plunger down and the tower case exploded, vapourizing the alien ship and much of Alabama's remaining eyebrows. "Huzzah!" They all cried. "We overcame our differences and saved the world". "Only Amiga makes it possible" added BootBlock before driving off at speed to dodge a hail of bricks.. THE END.