It was difficult to trace him, more so to intercept and coax him to do the assignment. Fact was, now that he had innumerable successful cases behind and had stashed tonnes of Sector 45Pz Gold, he no longer wanted to rough it out.
But Simon Putter was determined to find him and reason him out of his retirement. She was going out of control, more so paranoid- she would no longer return his calls. His client was getting angry.
He finally located him down on theBoing-Boing Street, in a non-descriptJovianMansion.
He rapped the front door, with the back of his knuckle.
“GET LOST,” came a deep, rough and rugged voice from inside.
“Mr. D, I am from the Ease-Your-Bang Plumbing for repairing your toilet.”
“Jump in, then.”
The red light on the door-signal turned to green (it meant that the door was open), he inched 15 step backwards, then raced forward at high speed, pouncing at the upper half of the door- which yielded under the momentum revealing the long, snaky tunnel underground.
He still never got used to such vertically revolving door with tunnels on both the sides (behind the upper half and the lower half), and felt sick to the stomach hurtling at high speeds through the seemingly endless tunnel that left him disoriented and the mucky taste of vomit in his mouth. But this was a Jovian house- what less could you expect? Jovian People were known for their paranoiac security measures. None of them lived above the ground; they all were stuffed inside their thick lead bunkers deep within the gravel. So deep down did they live (and due to the account that they all were miserly-who would not be able to afford a lift for their guests), that the Cable Guys, Repair-Men, Sales-Men (some Jovians were reported to resort to using a strong air blaster through those tunnels to get thrust them of their property), Guys who did the Census, Paparazzi (they never had enough of the Jovians) were forced to slither down this vertigo-inducing cheap two-penny tunnel.
But Simon Putter, as already mentioned, was dead set. He had the phaser gun, in his back-pocket, just in case, if he had to resort to violence to get his job done if everything else failed.
The Journey lasted for full ten minutes before he was brought to a halt by the elastic-cushion that countered his impact. He was out of breath and felt weak to his stomach.
He closed his eyes and took deep breaths- it soothed him down in a jiffy.
There were two circular gaping hole-ways on both the side of the tunnel.
“Mr. D?”
“I am here, chicken shit.”
The voice came from the left-hand side. He slid down the tunnel and a potty-yellow coloured room greeted his eyes. A fire was crackling at the farther end, with an upholstered chair directed towards it. The room reeked with the smell of the dead rat (Jovian Cigarette had a tendency to smell like that); he coughed mildly and walked towards the back-turned chair.
“The toilet is that way. No need to bring your smelly hands near me. Go and get the heat-exchanger repaired.
Readers would be surprised to note that Jovians were cold-blooded (in Jovian Sense of way), they didn’t have warm-blooded asses to force down the excreta- so they needed heat exchangers to warm their numb asses, which would excite the volatile partial-formed goo, which would coalesce under temperature and be forced down the drain due to gravity and bladder-pressing.
But he strode purposefully towards the chair, fishing out a syringe from his coat pockets.
His boots clicked the white marble floor. “Hey, I told you the toilet is that way,” Mr. D said, his face directed towards him. Seeing the syringe in his hands, he backed off from the chair.
“You don’t look like a plumber?”
He did not reply. The Jovian was flabbergasted, not expecting a hostile intruder in his den. He threw the pipe that he was sipping on, revealing the burnt, hot charred content.
Simon ducked at the right moment, missing it by an inch. He raced besides the chair, and before the shape shifter try something stupid for his defense, he gripped him by his lapels dug the syringe in the nape of his neck, pulling the fluid out into the tube.
He felt hot breath on his neck. From the back of his eyes, he could see that Mr. D has changed his species.
But before he could be hurt, he pulled out and syringe and held to it tightly.
The dragon that the shape-shifter has transformed into was fierce-looking and dangerous. He had lacerated canines in his mouth (and like some gruesome monsters- more teeth than required for a normal job of tearing and flesh and chewing), he could see the partially eaten food (most probably potato chips), stuck into them- and Simon was dead sure that if he did decide to chew on him, then he would later suffer bouts of extreme indigestion as Human Flesh was not something even the dragon-shaped Jovians preferred. But looking at his piercing claws, he can surely be mauled off.
But Jovians were law-abiding citizens, weren’t they?
He wouldn’t count on that. He was the one who attacked him, so even if he died- the Jovian was acting in self-preservation!!
“Look Mr. D, I mean you no harm in the world,” he said, in as strong a voice as he could muster. “I just want you to do a job for me. I will, no doubt, pay you handsomely.”
The dragon looked angrily at him with his blood-shot eyes. “Why should I not kill you?” He roared.
“Because I have your skin entity in this syringe, and if you try any fishy moves, I would crush it in my hands and force it down this fire,” he croaked. “I beg you to commit yourself to this job, because I have the Interplanetary Mafia, United Police Force and The Port Authorities after my ass.” He tried to look as teary-eyed as possible.
Jovians were emotional, this one was no different. The dragon melted into a penguin and tooted, “Okay, I will do the job. But I, you see, would be extremely pricey.”
Simon sighed with a relief. It was a job half-done, after all.
To be continued…
Alienman 