I Don't Seem So Bright in a Well-Lit Room

Chapter Six

Inside The Node's Great Chamber, The Node was nowhere to be seen. When the bounty hunters arrived, they were instead greeted by a dozen rows of fold-out chairs, a side table with coffee and hard, dry cookies, and an agitated General Kendra Eppie.

Freckles sat off to the side with a paper notepad and over-sized novelty pencil to take the meeting's minutes (his webbed fingers made it difficult to hold a regular pencil). He had placed a few vases of half-dead, purple and brown (mostly brown) flowers to brighten up the dark dankness of the room. A few maintenance men worked quietly in the background on dripping pipes, clogged duct work, and hanging wires.

Jorge Jorge Jorge arrived first and headed straight for the cookies. He ate them all. No one would dare call out the huge reptile on this apart from Toobli, but Toobli didn't eat cookies and therefore, when he arrived moments later, he didn't notice. He had also eaten an entire bag of "Gaston's BBQ Gelatin Grub Parts and Dried Human Fingers" before showing up.

Teeg walked with purpose into the chamber and sat right up front. She didn't take her eyes off of Eppie, and ignored everyone else. She was alone. Gekko had gone looking for sustenance and Clory was guarding The Muse. The others steered clear of her and her reputation for causing horrible pain and tantalizing humiliation.

A robot the size of a large human rolled in on its tank-tread "foot", and immediately started grumbling and complaining about the slight dampness. The blue, translucent holographic projection of a middle-aged man's horned head that floated atop it switched topics from dampness to the price of ship parking without skipping a beat. Everyone ignored Mel Million Max, which gave him one more thing to grumble and complain about.

A dozen or so other bounty hunter-wannabes shuffled in, grabbed their paper cups of weak coffee and had a seat wondering why they hadn't been served cookies. There was much excited chatter amongst them. No one had ever known The Node to hire bounty hunters, and no one had ever been to a function such as this that didn't serve cookies.

Lastly the Blankton clone sauntered in with a stupid look upon his face. Much like every other clone, he had a thick chocolate-Labrador-coloured (and scented) moustache and a patch on his eye that he wore for no other reason than to look tougher and more like his hero, every other Blankton. Upon seeing him the entire room booed and threw their paper cups at his head. Quite used to this response he shuffled in and sat next to Toobli, who was very good at ignoring others.

Eppie cleared his throat and stood awkwardly proud in front of the hunters, ready to hush them.

"Ahem!" he yelled. If he hadn't been connected to The Node this wouldn't have worked, but he was, so it did.

"Men. Women. Those that are neither and those that are both..." he looked to Toobli "...and, um,  other...?" Toobli stared ahead accepting this acknowledgement by doing nothing. "You have been called here by The Node himself. The Great Node requests your assistance."

Two wavering holographic images, much like Mel Million Max's blue transparent head, appeared at Eppie's side. Images of both Potto and Aye flickered in the darkness of the room. Mel perked up upon seeing his son.

"These two masterminds have taken something from His Greatness, and He means to have it retrieved by one of you," Eppie continued.

"Isn't the little one called Aye?" Blankton interrupted. He squinted. "Yeah, yeah, it is him. He works down in Mild Flooding Absorption. My late brother Blankton used to work with him. Spends all his earnings on anything with testicles, tentacles, hallucinatory properties or an alcohol content greater than hover-ship fuel. Mastermind? I've been drunk with him. He's an idiot."

The room erupted in laughter and surprise that a Blankton could cause a room to erupt in laughter. No one was more surprised, however, than Blankton himself. Before he could enjoy it, Eppie fired a laser pistol at him, reducing him (mid-smile) to small pile of ash on the hard seat of his plastic chair. This garnered even more laughter and surprise until a slightly miffed Eppie had to hush them again.