CHAPTER 19 – STEAM HEAT

They all knew it was going to be a long long night. A night of fuzzy heads performing exacting calculations. A night of bleary red eyes inspecting critical tolerances. A night of gallons of coffee and lots of trips to the lavatory. It was that kind of night. A night of unrelenting demands, of the need for careful attention to detail, and the potential for disaster on a grand scale if even the slightest detail was missed in the dopey exhaustion.

Punky’s day had been a long one; beginning with the call from The Chair, but it was not nearly as long as Daggy’s, Tek’s, Mr.Mr.’s, and the crew at Zippys. Their nights long journey into day had been running for weeks. Weeks of non-stop confusion, concentration, and construction … and a few contusions.

Punky was shown to a small desk by the idiot savant Mr.Mr, or as was more politically correct - Dimwit Genius. Mr.Mr. was a human calculator. Ask him for the square root of anything and you would immediately get a correct answer to more decimal points that you cared to hear. He did logs in his head. Differential equations and extrapolations to zero were instantaneous. Gaussian functions, critical in an airship, or parametric equations were a snap.

However Mr.Mr. paid a price for his talent as all Idiot Savants must. He had all the personality of a turnip, the hygiene of a homeless porcine politician, and a misshapen head that resembled nothing less than an overripe tomato with catfacing disease. All swollen, split, and pitted with little blossoms protruding from the top. However, Punky would soon learn to ignore these ‘defects’ and appreciate Mr.Mr.’s remarkable talent.

Punky looked at her desk. She saw the cast iron dispatch box which contained the mysterious document she was to deliver to the Great Leader and Glorious Leader of Clissa, that is, if she lived long enough and didn’t end the chapter in a fiery crash of a hydrogen Armageddon. Her duffel was neatly placed upon a rather battered government issued stool. Then she noticed three thick blue envelopes with the Navy Board Insignia and the insignia of the Stellar Seal of the Double Squid. They were addressed to Captain Punky Pugilist, Zippys Blimp Works. Emblazoned on the cover were the words “FOR HER EYES ONLY -- TIPPY TOP SECRET.” Clever thought Punky, any nosy person or clever spy would know that that meant ‘Read Me First and Get a Camera Fast.’. But it was the Navy way and who could argue with a thousand years of nautical disasters and hard formed traditions. ‘Tippy Top Secret’ thought Punky, why that was the highest security level she knew to exist, well except perhaps for ‘Double Tippy Top’. Punky did not know that there was yet another level of secret. So secret that no one knew it existed, It was called ‘Double Double Tippy Top & Burn Before Reading.’

“Here,” said Tek handing a steaming cup of dopy espresso to Punky. How he could hold on to that freshly scalded and intensely hot beverage in that thin paper cup Punky wondered?

“Put it down right there,” she said motioning to a spot on here desk. “And thanks Tek.”

“No problem,” said Tek, “I just modified the machine to get a bit more umph out of it. This is my first batch using boiling retardation. It took some extra pressure”

Punky loved technical jargon and she started thinking about Tek in a different way. Tek turned away to get back to work and the paper cup began to dissolve in the intense heat and the espresso slowly oozed across the paper work on Punky’s desk before bursting into a flash of super heated steam and coffee crystals. Punky jumped back just in time to avoid getting “the frapachino effect” It was going to be a long night.

After she brushed away the coffee crystals she reached for the first envelope. She tore it open with her teeth, blew into the ragged edges, and pulled out a folder. Opening the folder she saw that it contained a number of newspaper articles. There were all from The Times so Punky knew they must be true.

Punky began to read the first article which was almost entirely marked up with pink highlighter, and annotations in pencil and some in crayon. It was about her first assignment. The rescue of Little Ben. She read:



LITTLE BEN IN THE DOCK
ARMY ON TRIAL AT SONOGNO COURT HOUSE

By Sissy Talbot, Special Correspondent to The Times
Little Ben, the only private in the army of Sonogno, was brought before the bar of military justice today at the Veterinarians of Domestic Wars Memorial Court House. Little Ben, is charged with dereliction of her duty by KIA at the front with the evil sim of Clissa.

Honoree Millicent Netherbottom, Judge of the Military Tribunal, dressed in a smart cameo wool suit, with golden epaulets, rhinestones, and silver braids and bosom bedecked with medals, called the military tribunal to order. Netherbottom asked Ben for her admission of guilt, or for her lying connivance of innocence.

Rising from her seat, shackled hand and foot, Little Ben appeared very small indeed surrounded by the resplendent court house statuary of past military heroes of Second Life, such as Mofo the Brave and Very Dead, the Goth leader and martyr Bodice the Magnificent, and famed fireworks advocate Guy Fawks.

“To the charge of dereliction of duty by KIA, which for a private is punishable by death or worse, how do you plea Little Ben?” asked the Judge.

To which Little Ben replied “ I plea guilty, but not really.”

A collective gasp was heard from the crowded courtroom made up primarily of the old geezers and malcontents who had nothing better to do. Karl Grove, retired Demican political consultant and confidential advisor to Governor Linden, famed for his puppy eyes and a kind face, shouted out “To the gallows,” as he coiled a length of hempen rope around his prodigious middle section.

“Order, order,” cried Judge Netherbottom. After a short pause while the bailiffs passed around burning firebrands for the attendees to use in lighting their torches, Judge Netherbottom commented, “This will not do. You cannot plead guilty. Where will be all the drama of having a meaningless trial? And what about the witnesses, rumor mongers, and political hacks that have come such a long distance to testify against you. Not to mention the generals resplendent in their crisp uniforms, with braid and stars, and heavy weights of medals, and their new Manolo Blahnik’s purchased just for this festive occasion” she asked? “No,” she continued, “this will not do, I enter a plea for you of ‘Not Guilty’.”

Little Ben’s defense council, the famed Bummer Bradley, Public Defender, roused himself from his inebriation and shouted “Objection, objection!” prior to projectile vomiting in the direction of the Prosecutors General’s Electric and Mills.

“Overruled and you are out of order,” screamed Judge Netherbottom as drool and spittle flew from the bench toward the guilty defendant. “Let the games begin”, cried the Prosecution.

Judge Netherbottom then outlined the Rules of Military Jurisprudence to an audience raised on TV judges and sit coms. “Privates have no rights in this courthouse,” she said, “and although generals are given medals for KIA, they are Generals, and it is their patriotic duty. The fact that officers are admired and rewarded for KIS is no excuse for wanton disregard of the rules of the lower ranks, and in particular by the privates.”

Judge Netherbottom further informed the multitude that only Generals could sit in judgment in a jury of Little Ben’s superiors. In this case, Generals Mills and Electric will sit in judgment of this heinous and reprehensible act.

The court adjourned till tomorrow, when admission will be charged, the proceeds to go toward the army bar tab at the Tiki House Lounge and Pool where the Chiefs of Staff are lodged while they plan the victory parade, campaign medals, and work on their tans. Little Ben, wiping a tear from her soft cheek, and looking dejected, was led away as the patriotic courthouse audience erupted into Sonogno’s Hit Hop Anthem:

“Hu hah!
Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah!
And you just don't stop FIYAH!
And you just don't stop JUSTISE
in the court click six shots
Come down!
POM POM! POM POM!POM POM!
Check it out!”

There was a picture of Little Ben taken at the time of her arrest. She was wearing a skimpy uniform about three sizes too small and was in handcuffs. She really looks sad, thought Punky. She paused to wonder why Little Ben was so important to the Navy Board and presumably Governor Linden. She must be very well connected to someone, thought Punky, or perhaps she has some photos.

Punky reached for the next article. It was an Advertisement in two colors. That’s expensive thought Punky as she began to read.

There was a several year old interview of the Great Leader and Glorious Leader of Clissa by Mickey Wallace. After reading the article it was obvious that Wallace was very lucky to survive the interview. Very very lucky. The GL&GL had taken offense to every question except one, and that was a question about where they got their shoes. They had been wearing matching ‘Cinderella Slippers’ designed by Stuie Weitzman rumored to have cost over a million lindens. When Wallace questioned the expense, the Great Leader and Glorious leader, who were interviewed from behind a thick opaque bullet proof window texture, said that the shoes were purchased with freely given donations by school children and orphans from all over Clissa as a sign of their gratitude for having survived the famine of 03, 04, 05, and the eagerly anticipated famine of this year, through the Great and Glorious Beneficence of the Great Leader and the Glorious Leader. The article contained little information of any use and did not answer the perennial questions about the GL&GL. The drawing of the GL&GL (possession of a camera was a capital offense in Clissa) revealed little detail, the artist having been forced to stay in a prison cell miles away during the interview.

The quiet hum of the busy design shed was shattered by a loud hiss of escaping super heated steam and shouts of “%$#@” and “%$&*.”

Punky awoke and realized that she must have dozed off. She shook her head furiously, slapped her small cheeks with her tiny hands, and thought about getting an espresso. But she changed her mind and returned to the stack of “intel” on her desk.

There was a two color advertisement. Very expensive thought Punky as she began to read.

SUNDAY
SUNDAY
SUNDAY

AT THE CAPITAL STADIUM

THE BIGGEST EVENT OF THE YEAR

NECKTIE PARTY OF LITTLE BEN

A CELEBRATION OF FAMILY AND FUN

TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE AT REASONABLE PRICES
$L 1000, 2000, 10,000

PRE NECKTIE SHOW STARTS AT NOON
WITH SPECIAL APPEARANCES BY:

MC Ryan Seacrest
Britney Sneers
Ashley-Kate Olsen
The Righteous Brothers
IcED Kreem

NO LEVIS OR CAPRIS PLEASE


Attached to the advert by a newspaper clip was a diagram of the stadium indicating the sections where seats were still available for purchase. The only seats that the diagram indicated were available were the 'bring your own oxygen' seats in the end zones. That meant only one thing; the sponsors were in cahoots with the scalpers.

Punky closed here eyes for a moment and imagined the layout of Capital City and the location of Capital Stadium. The Stadium was located at the end of Beast Street about a kilometer from the Senate and the Blimp Cartel Tower. Punky had been there only once and that was for her Academy of the Balloons graduation ceremony. Which she and her crew of six had almost missed having been miraculously rescued only hours before. She shuddered as she forced the thoughts out of her head and refocused on the ‘intel’ before her.