RUMINATION #11, DUCKS IN PINK (3/4)

Ssssssiiippuh-juice dripped down its beak and onto its tie, the mug impractically held to

its face. “Are you crazy-r’ya out of your blip’n mind!” Bob started to holler furiously.

–SCREEEK-the red dot winked-“Geezus!” he doubled over, a mark, in the shape of a

cigarette burn appeared on his right thigh “-Nickles and blip’n dimes that hurts!”

clutching his leg. Rex threw down the gauntlet, or to be more accurate he threw down the

otter “That’s it!” The mug flew with the bean juice ripping behind it in the manner of a

fermented cape, splashing along the wall, tracing a continuous line until it-CLOINK-Rex

saw the stupid joke up close, it struck him so hard he fell back  hard on his elbows.

Nearly delirious, Rex watched as the flippers slapped the floor, very carful in its steps.

The object rolled on its side when Duckered picked it up.

“Oh, y’left a little ding,” it said “The cups ruined!”

“Y’could’ve used the laser, y’didn’t have to do that!” Rex touched the bruise, the dog

shrank when it raised the cup again.

“Quiet or you’ll get some more.”  

“Your sick in the head, y’skitzo-freniac”

“I said quiet!” honked the Senior Administrator, after a moment, it rested its wing on its

suit pocket, became comfortable, the little laser pen in its slender digits “Up dog, up.”

Slowly, Rex stood on his feet “T’s is penance, you’ve ‘ad coming for a long’t time now,”

it continued, suit rippling in the dark “You t’ought you n’Gianni could just walk al’ over

wa’t we built together?”

“What is that, an accent?” Rex kept his paws raised, feeling more of a bystander in this

situation, while Duckered rambled on. It was as though it was improvising in an ill

scripted pro-duction.

“I was der’ wen’ Antonio Zooga got killed, to this day I can still feel the flames.”    

“You were is driver,” Rex came to the realization “You looked at me when I did it.”

“Good guess, punk,” Duckered nodded with mock respect “Can you guess what

I’m gonna’ do next?” its thumb worked a sliding mechanism.

“There’s no reason to hurt Bob, he’s innocent.” Rex demanded, hearing him whimper.

“Would you still say that if you knew that he was a spy?” it explained, its accent

disappearing and reappearing as it spoke “He was goin’ to alert me to the right moment,

wen you n’G wer’vulnerable.”

“Bob was a drone,” Rex tried very hard to piece it together “He was watching me?”

“I don’t feel like a drone,” Bob muttered on the pile of scrap. Suddenly, Duckered

became aware of something. Turning swiftly to the left only to freeze. From the smoke,

the Captain waddled. It appeared that it had a gun, but from Rex was standing it had more

in common with a remote control.

“I’m confused-”

“Its alright, Rex,” Canard briefly looked in his direction “How’s your head feel?”

“The mug hit me so hard, I think that stupid joke’s written on my face.” The Captain

stepped closer to Duckered, the object pointed between the Administrator’s lenses.

“You’re a friend of Zoogas’s right?” it said to the duck, frozen in the way those marble

statues of ancient times. Canard reached into the duck’s feathered palm and disconnected

the laser pointer from the wire in Duckered's wrist, it slithered back on its own

“Could you imagine these laser things are non-lethal?”

“Yah, my friend’s over there,” Rex complained “He just got zapped in the leg,” Canard

spared a look down, interior lenses whirring “He won’t bleed out, the wounds

cauterized,” it said “The one thing left to figure out is what to do with you?”

The Captain reached to the side of the gun, and pressed two of the forward buttons “I’ve

had a feeling about you Duckered, always sensed there was someone else in there. Lucky

I had this old relic lying around in a box. For just the right occasion.” Minuscule lights

flickered and blinked at the top of the remote. The Administrator shook its head and

reacted as though it had just woke up: “Its one of Zoogas’s boy’s, he’s taken control!-”

“I know, we were just taking care of that,” the Captain said to Duckered, its fingers

wrapped tighter around the grip of the remote.

“Oh,” Duckered sullenly, “You’ll have to lock onto my server-”

“I know,” Canard breathed, adding securely “I’ve done this before.” a small light beam of

light illuminated the spot in its forehead.

“What-whats going on?” Rex darted between the two ducks.

“We’re designed that when we detect danger the pilot leaves the host and goes back to

HQ, I’ve just jammed the signal, now comes the hard part,” Canard explained slowly

“With a hijacking, you can’t always be sure who you’re sending back and to where.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout me, Captain, just get him out,” Duckered ordered, although they were

both frozen to the spot, Rex sensed an internal form of communication going between

them. Canard exchanged the remote to the other hand, wiping moisture onto his suit.

“Is that a direct order?” the Captain asked “Are you aware of what I must do?”

“Pfft, you were probably going to do it sooner or later. It was only a matte of time.”

“Okay, then,” Canard pushed the button above the handle, Boooop, beeeeep, suddenly

the numbers stopped generating in its lenses. The Captain lowered the remote, turning

around not to face what he had done. Rex scrutinized the lifeless Duckered, obnoxiously

making faces in reflection of his eyes “Is that it?”-BLOP-Its head popped in a gloppy and

ferocious explosion. Gears and trinkets sparkled in the light and saturated the carpet coated the monitors

as though it were a clockwork melon.

“Probably should’ve warned you about that,” the voice strained to keep from laughing.

“No, its just as well,” Rex spat a bit of something chewy. He’d rather not know what.

Canard held onto the corner of the desk, it seemed as if the Captain was out of breath.

“Road Runner, standard issue….service remote,” the weapon was snug in its pants.

“Did the other one go up like that?” Rex backed away from where Duckered stood.

“No, she went quietly,” Canard half murmured, distracted by the mess on the carpet.

“Wow, careful,” Rex said with a grin “You just said a pronoun.”

“Wha-I did?” the duck looked up “We should round up your friends, get into a shuttle.”  

“Duckered mentioned an officer, why’d he blame the Chief if you put her down?”

“-I didn’t put her down,” Canard jumped to attention “I put her in storage. Lets not focus

on me. Do you realize what a mess you made with Zooga? There’s a war going on.”

“Isn’t there always?” Rex inquired with a shrug “Gianni needed the street cred, I helped.

“He was a far better politician than I ever was, I hoped he’d schmooze the gangs into joining together, that way maybe we could throw

those buro-cats out of the picture. Obviously that didn’t work out, I mean, it’s what Jib intended all along. That’s the Yard isn’t it, a way to

round up all the competition.” he, noticed that Canard was holding his pistol once more “Are you listening or am I just ranting to hear

myself talk?” Rex stepped on something soft, and recoiled with a shout.

“Hi, I’m still lying here,” Bob waved, his face was tight and had become pasty wet.

“It’s barley anything,” Canard said, taking his hand “Now, get up off the floor.”

Rex scowled at the duck “Don’t order Bob around, it was your boss who shot him.”

Chief Pepperoni and Snig, the Emissary, leisurely stepped into sight. The otter had his turban wrapped on his head, but without the jewel.

He regarded Canard with restrained dislike “It seems that the order of this world is fading. My chains are gone and my weapon’s returned,”

the Chief said, his chest out and his head high.  

“This place has been falling apart for ages,” Canard added, lowering his weapon

“Duckered’s never been so strict, that’s how I knew the Administrator was a decoy.”

“A decoy duck,” the voice of the Anchovy cued the dramatic music, Canard gazed up

with an almost irritable look “I apologize, couldn’t resist. Please continue.”

“As I was saying,” the Captain resumed “I Duckered ran this place very poorly, but now I

see it was all so to distract the other pilot. At least, that’s what I’d like to believe.”

“No, he was pretty much a dick,” Rex made very clearly “That’s the way I figured it.”

“Did you get him?” the Chief asked the Captain. They exchanged a brief, cold silence.

“Yah I got him.”

“So, all we have to worry about is getting out, right?” Rex glanced between them.

“A shuttle is out of a question,” Canard said “I assume you had something else in mind.”  

“Don’t look at me,” The Emissary drawled “I was milk nuked solid like a Cup O’Goop.”

“That was more information than warranted,” the Great Anchovy added.

“Do you have any suggestions, or only jokes,” the Captain snapped, unmistakably rude.

“Now you want suggestions, just a moment ago you were going to put me in jail.

Anyway, this world shouldn’t hold together long,” began the Anchovy wisely “There

are pockets that only be applied with a little bit of pressure, will burst outwardly.”

“Just as it is when baking dough,” Chief Pepperoni jumped to the right conclusion.

“Yah, I see it,” the Emissary concurred “Because life moves in a circle, and we’re the

Toppings stuck in the cheese.” The Chief gazed at the weirdo wit ha twinkle in his eye.

“You are very wise,” He said, the Emissary accepted the compliment with an aloof grin.

Canard attuned to the forgoing metaphor “All we need is the power to do it.”

BOOM-Bob fell forward; the room began to shake as though something had struck it.

“What was that?”

“Great Anchovy?” the Chief cried “What has come to bring us to our doom?”

“Yah, quit holding out on us, man,” asked the very peculiar Snigger-watt.

“You’re about to find out,” the voice was a distant call in a roaring tempest.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOOM-Braded strands of Jupiter’s fire uncoiled in the center of the office-FIZZLE-FIZZLE-FIZZLE-Our heroes knew better

than stand in the way, the anomaly continued to shake their world and the interior storm grew ever more dangerous. It sizzled to a stop

and ended in a jarring explosion akin to the loudest firecracker going off. They peered through the torn and twisted wall, the sizeable hole

out looked dark and cold office, lit only by the large screen in the far end of it, now totally blank. All of the ducks sat at their desks

motionless. Something hit the floor bluntly, in the way that discarded luggage falls out of a drainpipe. Rex recognized three frogs from

earlier, the ones painted orange. Luckily, Atomic hadn’t landed on any of them or they would’ve resembled a few squished sweet potatoes.

When they recovered and assimilated to gravity, Atomic got one good look at Rex and shrieked: “Oh, they were so mean me!” It said in an

extremely high-pitched voice “They don’t like swans and bunnies! How could you not like swans and bunnies?” before he knew it,

Rex was caught up in its steely grip.The smaller of the three approached them with his knees shaking as though they were rubber bands.

“-You wouldn’t believe it, while we were floating in the abyss, we saw a platoon of frogs close by."

“Who’s this?” Atomic looked to the strange man “Yah, he’s ugly,” it exclaimed, although the man was not taken aback by this comment at

all, in fact it appeared as though he took it as a compliment.

Bob was staring at his robot self, “Rex, why does that thing look like me?”

“He’s not a thing, he’s my best friend;” said Atomic grabbing Buddy around the neck. “You know he has a strange resemblance to you. It

would be funny if you guys had the same name that way I could introduce you like this; Buddy meet Buddy; Buddy-Buddy, oooh say that

ten times fast!” the robot began rambled on, lifting the dolls limbs.

“Rex,” Bob mumbled as he crawled back up off the floor “You some need new friends.”  

“I know…I know,” he bowed his head. Something clicked as Canard was attaching the silver pen to the remote gun. “What’re you doing?”

“Just set my laser to Disco,” the Captain said hurriedly “Gather in a circle.”

Canard pressed a few buttons on the control, Rex Bob, Chief and The Emissary walked to

the center with the frogs and Atomic. Curious as to how they should stand or what to do.

“Are we goin’ to hold hands or what?” the Emissary wondered aloud, huddling closer.

“I’m rerouting all power to the X-Blitterator,” the duck began to rant “The pond’s still an

active exit. I’m not going to ask how you got the robot out of the other precinct.”  

“What about you?” the Chief phrased the question in an uncaring sort of way.

“I’ll save a little for myself, stay here-keep the Phibs here, wait till the office collapses.”

“Thanks Canard, I’ll add this to the list of times I owe ya’,” Rex said, feeling the otter’s

eyes burn a hole in his head. He mimed what but the Chief neglected to answer. He

noticed a sound emanating from all around them, the duck pressed down a button on the

remote: “Goodbye.” It was a strange sort-stampeding chorus, or a confounding rush.

“It sounds like water,’ Rex finished the thought, the second he did there was a flash.