Episode 01x37 - Telepathy

Icepunk:

After concluding our business transactions, Thubthub and I buy milkshakes to celebrate. Thubthub slurps all of his before we get halfway home and asks me to buy another. I want to say no, but who can resist a hamster holding up his empty cup and batting his eyes?

Certainly not me, apparently, since I find myself in the local Dairy Duke a minute later, ordering a twenty-dollar extra-extra-extra large milkshake for Thubthub. To my surprise, Poo is behind the counter taking my order.

“So, found a new job already? Man, you guys have good connections,” I say as Poo hands me my change. “We still haven’t made more than two or three thousand dollars off ‘Good Guys for Hire’.”

“That’s not bad,” Poo says conversationally.

“Nope.” I turn to leave, then I realize Poo wasn’t behaving like an anti-social freak of nature. “Say, Poo, what exactly happened to you guys while you were in the clutches of the Dumbbutts?”

“Nothing to speak of,” he replies quickly. To a customer, he says, “Hello, may I take your order? And possibly, your number?”

Whoa, freaky. Is there no end to Poo’s dysfunctionality?

Malex:

“That ought to do it!” Linus said excitedly. “We should have enough smoke detectors to construct the anti-gravity device now.”

I merely grunted in reply. Normally I’d go home and work at the nice, messy table using my nice, unorganized tools. Somehow I didn’t think that was going to be the same with Zilly around.

“Come on,” I said to Linus, “let’s go buy some tools at Electron Hut so we can work in the park.”

After acquiring the tools and coffee makers we need, we settle down at a nice park bench to do the work.

I began following Linus’ directions - disassembling, scraping, soldering.

“You know,” I said, getting excited about the project, “we might even be able to add some motors,” I gestured toward the hinge of the laptop, “so that you can open and close the lid at will!”

After working for a couple of hours, I noticed an old homeless guy who’d been sitting on a bench watching us the whole time. His face was pretty screwed up, like he’d been in an explosion or something.

Maybe I stared too long or something, but he saw me looking, got up, and limped toward us. Petrified, I avoided eye contact or sudden motion. Perhaps if I ignored him, he’d go away.

Instead, he sat down uncomfortably close. “Festering Bubble Monkeys ate my brain,” he said in all seriousness.

“Wow,” I said, “that must have been a traumatic experience...” I quickly began gathering the half-finished anti-gravity device.

The old man surveyed the mess. “Anti-gravity, eh? That’ll never work.”

“Eh...” I was essentially speechless.

“Nope,” the old man waved his hand in the general direction of some parts. “You’ll need to reverse those two bits for it to work. The first will only work right if the pulse has already been modified by the second.”

Even more speechless, I took to gaping.

“Well,” the old man said, looking around. “Festering Bubble Monkeys ate my brain!” He got up slowly, and hobbled away.

“Actually,” Linus said, “he is right. It makes sense when he explains it that way.”

Icepunk:

We arrive home to find the apartment turned into a luxurious penthouse suite, which seems about three or four times bigger than it was originally. There’s even a flight of marble stairs leading up to a second floor.

Zilly reclines in what has to be the most expensive sofa ever, in front of a 175-inch television screen.

“Zilly, this is incredible!” I exclaim. “How did you make the place so much bigger?”

Obviously pleased by my praise, he beams and replies, “It was simple! You now have the only apartment on this side of the building.”

“Sweet. No more of our neighbor’s domestic shenanigans to disturb us in the middle of the night.” I look around a bit, noting how much detail Zilly spent on our new accommodations. “How much is this going to cost us?”

“Nothing!” Zilly says. “It’s all on me. After all, you guys are being kind and forgiving enough to let me stay here, it’s the least I could do.”

“Cool,” I respond. “I guess I don’t hate you that much any more.”

Malex:

I had just finished a proof-of-concept prototype of a set of anti-gravity gliders for Linus. I hooked ’em up and Linus immediately floated up and away from my lap.

“W00t!” he screamed. “Time to terrorize some impressionable youngsters!”

“What?” I asked.

“Catch ya later!” Linus said as he floated away.

I started to jog after him. “Hey, Linus, we need to go home you know.”

He was ignoring me. He zoomed up to an old lady who was apparently carrying groceries home. “Hey lady, boo!”

She started screaming and dropped her groceries. Linus cussed prolifically and immediately flew around a corner and out of sight.

I shook my head and helped the woman with her fallen bags. Of course Linus would repay my kindness with idiocy. How would he survive out there? His battery would die for sure...

Bah. What else could go wrong?

Icepunk:

I’ve just discovered something I didn’t know I could do before: I can read minds. How cool is that?

“Hey, Zilly!” I call out ecstatically. “I just discovered that I can read minds!”

Unfazed, he studies me. “I’m thinking of a number between one and eighty-three thousand nine-hundred and fifty-four.”

“Big deal, I can read minds!”

“Let me try this again,” Zilly says patiently. “What number am I thinking of?”

“Oh, okay. Let me see.” I close my eyes and press my fingers against my temples. A number pops into my head for no obvious reason, so that must be it. “Three! It’s three.”

He looks at me disdainfully.

“Wait, that was how much I owe Linus. Gimme a minute here... eighty?”

Zilly jumps up, points at me and laughs. “Ha! You’re wrong!”

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

He lowers his hand slowly. “Yes.”

“Hot-diggety!”