DISCLAIMER: The usual disclaimer. You know, the one about this being a humorous, fictitious piece of work and it is not intended to offend anyone.
The Beta Test (Part 2)
A week or so later, Piers was behind the bar at the Special Forces Tavern, serving up the latest batches of homebrew plus a few new experimental shot drinks he’d been working on, when Wombat and Hurley came busting into the bar, laughing their butts off.
“I loved the part where you moonwalked right out the door, past security, it was classic. Too bad I didn’t have a camera!” Hurley said as the pair sat down at the bar. The rest just looked on, obviously not aware of the whole story
“Whatcha haven?” Piers asked, smiling, knowing the tale of their latest adventure with his toys was about to begin.
“How about that 50-50 warp plasma thing Ben keeps talking about.” Wombat said. As Piers poured the two drinks, Hurley asked “Hey Ski, did you know about the random factor in that concoction?”
“No, I didn’t, the DNA samples were fragmented, I just didn’t know how bad.” Piers said as he placed the drinks on the bar.
Killa chimed in “Just what in the bloody hell are you three talking about?” getting irritated at not knowing whatever was so damn funny.
Wombat and Hurley looked at each other and said (at almost the same time), “You want to start?” Wombat decided to let Hurls start the tale.
“You know we had that snatch and grab job right?” Killa nodded, so Hurley continued. “Well Ski over here gave us some toys to play with. You should have seen Wombat trying to figure out how to use the PDA we had.”
“At least I didn’t burn a whole through the hotel wall with laser watch!” Wombat exclaimed, slamming the shot glass down on the bar. “Whew! What are you calling this drink Ski?” Piers smiled, “I’m thinking about calling it Core Detonation.”
Hurley smiled. “Kazanski gave us a few things, a watch that had a built in laser to cut through things, a listening device that looked like a mosquito, which worked beautifully, I might add.” Hurley paused long enough to slam his Core Detonation and drop the shot glass onto the bar.
Coughing, he continued, “He also gave us a PDA to download what we were trying to steal as well as Wacko Jacko Camo, in case we were going to get caught.”
Wombat picked up the story. “We went into the lounge where the contact was supposed to meet his handler. I shot the mosquito at him, it worked beautifully. He thought he got bit, slapped his neck and in went the device. He was too nervous apparently to bring the information with him, so he was going to take his handler to it instead.”
Wombat stopped for a minute, “Hey, can you pour me a pint of that porter you’ve been working on?” Piers nodded and grabbed Wombat’s mug, poured the pint and handed it to him. After taking a swig, wiping his mouth, he continued “We tracked him to the room where he kept the information. Got the combination too.” Wombat started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Quack asked.
Hurley continued, “The code. That’s what.”
“What was the code?” Cypher said.
“1-2-3-4-5.” Hurley said flatly.
“Sounds like something someone would use on luggage.” Piers said offhandedly.
“Damn,” muttered Cypher, “time to change the code on my luggage.”
“So, we created a slight diversion to sneak into the room. We easily download the data and EMPed the original storage device. That worked too slick also Piers.” Hurley continued. “That’s when the fun began. We weren’t quite quick enough getting out of there and almost got caught.”
Wombat chimed in, “We split up and decided to meet at the previously designate point. We both headed into the most public areas to try and loose security. We hit the two biggest casinos in the hotel.”
“Yeah, after trying to loose these creeps for a good five minutes, I ducked into the bathroom. I hit one of the stalls and chugged the potion.” Hurley paused, motioning for Piers to pour him a pint of the brown ale. After taking the pint and a quick chug, he continued. “I thought the transmogrifer was bad, this had to be worse. I came out of the bathroom and the first person who saw me screamed so loudly, I thought my ear drums were going to pop.” “CHILD MOLESTER!!” they yelled. “The crowd turned to look at me, then they panicked and flooded out the front doors. I looked in one of the mirrors, I was a thirty-something year old Michael Jackson!”
There was dead silence in the bar. Every face was looking at Hurley. “A what?” someone else asked.
“You heard me. I was Michael Jackson, the child molester, or so it looked to everyone else. This was potentially worse than stealing some dark secret. I found a side exit and ducked out and made a mad dash for the parking garage. That’s when I saw Wombat moonwalking past security.”
Wombat smiled, swallowing the last of his pint. “Yup. I dashed into the dance club, found the thickest crowd and chugged mine. I got lucky. I turned into the 13 year old Michael Jackson. Everyone was screaming and hollering for me to start dancing. I didn't even know I could some of those things! As security was coming in to get me, I was signing autographs and dancing my way out the door.”
“Who’s Michael Jackson?” Jaws asked innocently.
“I had exactly the same question.” Hurley started to say, finishing off his beer. “So, I looked it up on the way back. Seems he was part of a family music group called The Jackson Five. He later went solo and had a pretty good career going, until he started sleeping with little kids. Pretty sick you know what, if you ask me. Anyway, seems he had several DNA samples taken, had some sort disorder. In the holo pictures, he looked like he was getting whiter as time went on. Point being,” Hurley paused, the Core Detonation finally started kicking in, “he had DNA samples taken, I guess so he could clone himself and fix the skin disorder, but someone took him out before he do that. The samples disappeared.”
“Seems like someone found them.” Wombat said, looking at Piers.
“Hey, I didn’t take them. The just showed up one day. I’m glad to hear that things went well. No adverse effects that you are aware of?” Piers asked.
“Woo!” Hurley said at first, “No, not that I’m aware of.”
Just then, the doors opened, and Ben came stumbling into the room. “Give me one of those plasma coil drinks.” He said, finding his way to the bar.
The group looked at each other as Piers poured another round of Core Detonators. Looks like another story was getting ready to be told…..
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