Repeated Encounters

Chapter 10: All Your Cells Will Renew And Be Enhanced.

Paul and the others, led by Hidgens, entered a room deep into the house. Upon arrival, the professor retracted his arm from around Paul's shoulders and gestured proudly around the room.

"This, my boy, is a full bar. Help yourselves."

With that he stalked off, presumably to study the blue ... shit. Ted, immediately went behind the bar, grabbed a full bottle of whiskey, and situated himself lazily across some chairs left in the middle of the room.

"He said this was a full bar! How the hell am I supposed to make a Shirley Temple without any cherries?"

"Jesus Christ, Bill! It's the end of the world and you're going to get your drink on with a Shirley fucking Temple?"

"Well, if it's as serious as that, I figured we might need a designated driver."

"Ok, so, when the cops pull you over, you can pass their breathalyser test before they infect you with their nasty blue shit? Come on!"

"If you make one more crack at me, I am gonna ... do something to you!" Wow. Great threat Bill. He really isn't very well versed in the act of intimidation.

"Oh, yeah Bill? What are you gonna do?"

"I'm gonna ... kick your ... head!"

"Oh. My head."

"Yeah!"

"Not my ass?"

"... Yeah!"

"Alright then, let's see it, huh! Kick my head! Come on, karate champ. I want to see you kick above your waist. Alright, show me that roundhouse. Show me that sweeping crane kick that your kung-fu master taught you."

"Okay, you two, calm down. Ted, Bill's not gonna kick your head."

"Why not? It's the most vulnerable part of the body. That's what Sensei Bill taught me."

"Okay, it was a dumb threat. Stop rubbing it in." To himself, Paul sounded like their mother. Trying to calm two men down who were behaving like children. "I'm sure if you could do it over again, he'd say ass."

"Uh-uh, uh-uh." This really didn't help Ted's case. You could quote a child with having said the exact same thing. "You know, if you want to kill a snake, what do you do? Huh? You cut off its head. Where does the fish rot from? The head! Take out the head, and the whole thing goes down!" This information could be used later to help us. Eh. It's unlikely. "That's why a fisherman always goes for ... the head!"

Ted swung his hand at Bill, who retaliated by lightly hitting his hand.

"Ow! Come on, Bill, come on!" *cough* child *cough*

"Give me that. This is supposed to relax us, not make us want to kill each other."

"Whatever."

At that not at all lame comeback, things seemed to settle down, and so Paul went over to Emma who was sat cross-legged on the floor, literally right in front of a chair, but ok.

"Ugh. Why did I come back here?"

"To, uh, drink?" Emma laughed at Paul's naïveté.

"Back to Hatchetfield. I spent the first eighteen years of my life trying to get out of this place. Should've just stayed in Guatemala. I mean, yeah, they've got volcanoes and Coatimundis everywhere, but uh-"

"What's a Coatimundi?"

"Oh, it's like a little raccoon thing. Eh, they get into shit, people hate 'em, but at least they don't sing and dance!"