TTTG: Dragons Like Teslas, 1
Introducing The Thin Tin Gent. He's not really made of tin, but you'll immediately see why we describe him thus; first impressions are always important. And we know that "Thin" has body image connotations - but he's proud that he's kept his "form" for as long as he has. His stories will make appearances here thus: "TTTG: Dragons Like Teslas, 1" tells you that this is chapter 1 of the TTTG book "Dragons Like Teslas" You get the idea. Chapter headings will normally go here instead of this annoyingly large lump of text. Today's chapter heading is "Fixing the frequency." So here it is, as it will be:
Chapter 1. Fixing the frequency. (Pretend all that crap isn't up there above this. It'll seem so much neater...) ©2024 R.O.(Ted) Russ / PTEC3D Please see License at foot of page.
Also normally, a synopsis would immediately follow the Chapter Heading, right around about - here. And normally, it would say something like "in the last chapter, Arthur had received a strange text message. It read 'Arm yourself, step outside, there's a blue telephone box you need to go into.' He entered the telephone box and found himself ... here:"
Oh! And will you look at that! Now there's a synopsis that actually serves as an introduction to The Thin Tin Gent! You lucky lifeforms you! (Terran, aren't you? Ah yes. Call yourselves "humans" among yourselves, "Earthlings" when dealing with *sigh* the bloody Encumber.) Anyhow - strap in.
A thin, only slightly deranged man tiptoes past, trying desperately to stop his tin can armour from making sounds. He's in his fifties, and is wearing a medieval suit of armour, which is made of an eclectic collection of food and drink cans laboriously cut open and flattened, then joined together to form the various sections.
The sections are joined variously with thin garden tie wire, a load of old micro USB cords that he found while rummaging in an e-waste bin, and even (he glances nervously over his shoulder as he catalogues this item despite being half a world away from Jen right now) several balls of his wife's best 8ply knitting yarn. He's tiptoeing past a dragon asleep on a mountain of Tesla cars and tiny lithium ion batteries that occasionally catch fire beneath it, making the dragon purr delightedly in its sleep.
Despite his best efforts, a panel made of Coke can aluminium at his groin crinkles, making that high-pitched ultrasound that sets your teeth on edge, and the dragon's hearing aid goes into full overload feedback squeals - the dragon wakes, screams, grinds its teeth, and falls down unconscious in shock. He sees a desperate chance, and he takes it:
The thin tin gent pulls an enormous stick of sidewalk chalk from his armour and draws a line on the ground from the dragon's snout to the distant reaches of the cave. When the dragon wakes this time, there'll be no escaping from its chicken heritage...
The man also has a custom, lightweight, and flexible epee made from old cans - a tin foil, as it were. Moving ever so carefully and trying not to let his trembling make the Juce cans clatter together any louder, he climbs into the lighter than air craft bobbing at the far end of the cave and flics several of his Bics to begin the ascent process. He slowly begins to rise toward the chink of sunlight way, way, way above him and way, way, way to the northwest.
On the ground, the dragon wakes, stirs - and sees the chalk line. Hypnotised, it stares into its own little private infinity. The man raises his visor (made from a spiced ham can, so it's, kind of, a spam shield, he guesses, and chuckles to himself) and estimates his altitude. (UP. The thought comes unbidden as though someone had frustratedly shouted it from an old house tied to a bunch of balloons or something.) The dragon is now a bit to the southeast, still dazedly contemplating chicken-hypnotic nirvana.
A device catches his eye. Paddling forward (and slightly left of center) he passes Mr Rudd on a podium, handing out packs of "get out of detention free" cards. He takes a pack as he drifts past, and reads the front, which reads, in fine print "Welcome to Manus Island and Papua New Guinea! We hope you'll enjoy your stay at our Last Resort in this outpost community, located within easy reach of Indon-" the print ends here, with an even finer piece of print stating "continued on next card, please take one after the election."
The next card is just printed "die die die foreign refugee scum!" and is signed "Nott Morrison."
He resumes his flight towards the device, which is a collection of old-school transistors, inductors, and capacitors. As his speed decreases, he realises he's out of gas. He raises a flap of his armour across his bottom, appropriately made from a baked beans can, finds another Bic to flic, and generates a jet of blue flame in the biologically appropriate manner which propels him the requisite distance. He chalks up a point to "wind power" and throws out a life-size picture of Mr Hockey smoking a cigar that he'd been using for ballast. He drifts level with the thing that caught his attention.
There's something odd about the device, which he struggles to make out. As he closes the distance to what turns out to be an electronic circuit breadboarded across the remains of a recently-extinct advertising bilby-board, he notices a small spotted wildcat falling from a gleaming copper wire coil which has a capacitor attached to it.
The wildcat meows pitifully before landing in an armoured tracked vehicle immediately below the copper coil. He realises that this is a tank circuit, the wild cat is an ocelot, and that what he's looking at must therefore be an ocelator.
He wryly notes that the billboard - now slowly turning into a breadboard - has been used to advertise "Bill's Shortening Bread."
"MeOoow!" Another ocelot drops from the tank.
Suddenly, an ocelot appears at the top of the coil instead of at the bottom, floats up a small distance, then falls back onto the coil where it shatters into several tiny copies of itself, and they begin to mew, a single, complex chord composed of many notes and timbres.
Oh my! The ocelator is suffering from spurious harmonics. He repairs the dry joint by urinating on it, and the tiny ocelots drift off like a flock of butterflies, now purring contendedly.
But his leak has changed the ocelator. He watches a small plinth of polished walnut begin to form beneath the tank circuit, then an ocelot tail appears to extrude from the walnut plaque, followed by a solid gold pair of ocelot back legs, followed by an ocelot butt, followed by a pair of ocelot testicles.
Please let me know if you like this new format introduced to the Zorganite Encumber. I don't really want to make longer chapters because that' wouldn't fit the short article format here, but I'd just like to know if people like the premise and think it'll be a cool addition.
Mini-Competition!
As will become clear, TTTG resides in the ZE Universe, and there will be crossover points here and there.
Talk to me? Sure - Mastodon link and comments are open. And please donate, I'm almost out of Captain Zorgan Pickle Juice.
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