Hairy, Hairy, Quite Contrary (Book 4 in the Galactic Adventures of Alex McKenzie series)

By Larry Rosenzweig

Neuro has awoken from his slumber and is bent on revenge. By skillfully twisting the truth, he manages to turn the gullible Hairy against his allies. Even Hairy's best friend, Frother, becomes a sworn enemy who must be destroyed.
A variety of new characters enter the fray, including a young Ice Dragon named Newbie and the deadly brain-eating Chisel worms.The sadistic Riboltians and evil Cabats also return thanks to Neuro's prowess in genetic engineering. Old friendships are tested and new relationships forged as the battle between good and evil continues.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Larry Rosenzweig
• Release date: Jun 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310587504

Larry Rosenzweig

Having dashed my way from South Africa to Australia in 1987 - on the back of a very fit and confused looking Springbok, who fortunately also turned out to be an excellent long distance ocean swimmer - I soon settled into the Ozzie way of life. I studied Psychology, only to discover that no textbooks or theories identified any condition that even closely accounted for my level of loopiness.I am married to a wonderful, loving woman, who is also a yet-to-be-discovered comedian. She has such a wicked sense of humour that I’m often reduced to tears. My playful darling has a heart of gold and always does the right thing by everybody. She is a loyal partner and doting parent to our brood of five. She is a lawyer by day and a fluffy toy mender by night. She’s my Cinderella, only much more radiant!I have five quirky children, each equipped with a great sense of humour and wonderful personality. They make me laugh, cry, and often sigh. But I love them all. We have a computer-wiz, a dog-whisperer, a thrill-seeker, a fact-finder and a sugar-diviner.The characters from Books 1,2, 3 and 4 have been alive in my head for years, hence my continual scalp itch. It is great to finally set them free. There are still hundreds of other characters waiting to be released. I anticipate releasing at least ten books in this series ... possibly more!

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

TEMPORARY REPRIEVE

Things had returned to a state of relative bliss since Neuro’s humiliating reduction to little more than a catatonic, speechless blob of flesh that could no longer fend for itself or even perform basic bodily functions without assistance. He was forced to wear these massive nappies and had to be taken for a walk in a wheelchair every day to help alleviate the festering bed sores that resulted from poor blood circulation.

The kind-hearted Sked volunteered to undertake the task of pram-pusher and bum-wiper. As he wheeled the helpless lug around, he would eagerly point out the magnificent trees and plants growing alongside the banks of the meandering stream. The Gold trees were now almost three metres tall and overflowing with spectacular gold, silver and bronze shaded leaves. Sked treated each and every one of these trees with the tender-loving-care one expects a parent to extend towards their child.

Whenever it became slightly breezy, Sked would wrap Neuro’s limbless body in a warm blanket and make sure that he was as comfortable and well looked after as possible. He would tell the tyrant fanciful stories about decent, compassionate creatures and use a tone of voice that was both soothing and welcoming. When they would get home, he would then give the invalid a warm bath and gently wipe the mucus and sweat off his slimy skin. He would also tend to the hideous cold sores and abscesses that adorned what was left of the smelly mastermind’s depleted body.

It was just as well that Neuro was brain-dead because Sethonians absolutely detest water and being washed. They also hate kindness, sincerity and genuine goodwill. It makes them want to vomit.

CHAPTER 2

YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD VILLIAN DOWN

The zombie-like Neuro stared blankly at the front wall of his bedroom as he rocked forwards and backwards and randomly twisted sections of the Rubik’s cube with the stumpy remains of two redundant brain cords. An insect crawled along the wall. Another insect followed close behind. Suddenly, Neuro spoke for the first time in six months.

‘One plus one equals… TWO!’

Something had caused a few of the remaining, dormant, brain cells to reactivate. But that something was no miracle. Rather, it was a colony of microscopic Chisel worms. I know, very confusing. Let me explain...

You see, a handful of Neuro’s super-advanced brain cells managed to survive my taser shock-treatment and intuitively mutated to become highly resilient. They worked out a way to make their cell walls 100 times thicker and therefore much more difficult to destroy. It was pure survival instinct. As the saying goes, once burnt, twice shy!

However, the trade-off was that the outer walls of these brain cells were now way too thick to transmit intelligence signals from one brain cell to another. It was like having 3,000 Albert Einstein’s all gathered in a large hall together, but none of them able to express their brilliant ideas to each other because each was trapped in a sound-proof bubble. Without inter-cell communication, Neuro was literally a prisoner in his own head.

And then, one evening, a colony of over one million microscopically small Chisel worms crawled their way up through his nostrils and made their way towards the yummy handful of remaining brain cells. They began tirelessly chiselling their way through the thick outer walls that encased these brain cells with their razor sharp teeth. It was incredibly hard work, but they knew that an irresistibly-delicious, highly-nutritious treat awaited.

Unfortunately for them, as the walls weakened, the trapped thought signals began to permeate through and travel from one brain cell to another. It is this communication between cells that creates what we call conscious, intelligent thought.

For the first time in six months, Neuro was suddenly thinking coherently again, albeit fairly basically, by his high standards. As he would later arrogantly proclaim, ‘For a few seconds, I got to experience what it must be like to have a primitive human brain.’

The now-communicating, cooperative brain cells viciously turned on the Chisel worms and polished them off by creating a deadly stream of antibodies that turned the vast majority of them into little more than bubbling goo.

The existing brains cells set about creating new brain cells at an alarming rate. And the new ones immediately started doing likewise. Neuro’s loose, saggy, head-skin slowly began to expand and retake its shape. The process resembled a beanbag being slowly refilled with polystyrene beads; only, these were incredibly intelligent beads!

Twelve hours later, the white and yellow sides of the Rubik’s cube were complete. Twenty four hours later, all six sides were complete. And with the return of his intelligence, came the return of his arrogance.

‘Hardly a challenge for a genius like me!’ he smiled. ‘Child’s play!’

Most of the original handful of brain cells still held fragments of memory. But it was like reviewing a very badly scratched DVD or Blu-Ray that skips and jumps parts all the time. Worse than this, the snippets of memory followed no sequential time line. It required a fair bit of deduction to fill in the missing gaps and sort the memories chronologically. Whilst he filled in most of the gaps correctly, some he got completely wrong.

He recalled the article discussing his demise at the hands of Frother and Dementia. He also recalled downloading his brain files into his younger brother’s brain and effectively taking it over. He had no memory of having destroyed Ridfiddle or integrating Pugnacious and Traizon’s intelligence into his brain.

He also had no memory of either the Killzorians or the Letho-bots. He only vaguely remembered the last chapter of the final battle. He smirked as he recalled using Frother as his guineapig to destroy Majika. His smirk soon disappeared though as he recalled the pain and humiliation of his colossal head being fried by that pathetic Earth-kid who had somehow survived being pierced through the heart.

An anger more powerful than he had ever felt, gushed through his body. It made him sweat a vile-smelling black paste.

‘I will capture that Earthling and then eat his brain slowly, whilst he’s awake. I can’t wait to see the pain and horror in his eyes. Revenge will be mine!’

Now that he was fully conscious and highly intelligent, it really irked him having to keep up the charade of being a pathetic invalid. He absolutely hated being lifted and placed into the wheelchair by a goody-two-shoes oaf and then being forced to listen to the twit speak to him as if he were a complete imbecile for hours on end.

And the frivolous, repetitive chatter about the beautiful stream and its spectacular Gold trees, made his stomach literally churn. He could not wait to set fire to every last Gold tree and to turn the entire stream into a smelly, toxic, swamp. But worst of all was bath time. He deplored the feel of soap and water on his skin. And the oaf rubbed his skin so hard that is caused him to suffer serious friction burns.

It took every ounce of self-restraint to prevent himself from swearing at the oversized twit or biting at his gonads. On one occasion, he failed to keep his composure and yelled out, "Piss Off".

Sked had looked at him for a moment with a startled expression. ‘Did you just tell me to… um …um …?’

Neuro recovered well by just staring ahead blankly and saying nothing.

‘Um… um … never mind,’ continued Sked, ‘My brain must just be playing games with me.’ Sked continued scrubbing away and never gave it another moments thought.

But Neuro realised only too well that it was time to move on. He could not bear another second with these wretched creatures. He had stayed long enough in this new conscious state to gain extremely useful information about the allies, their relationships with one another and their fundamental strengths and weaknesses.

He concluded that the relationship he could exploit best would be that between Frother and Hairy. He now knew that whilst Hairy and Frother were very close, the rest of the allies were not so forgiving of the self-obsessed Glutton spider’s continual antics.

He knew that Frother was extremely loyal and would no doubt do anything to protect Hairy. The kind-hearted Doolan dragon was continually trying to defend the revolting Glutton spider’s despicable behaviour from the disapproval and scorn of others.

He also came to know that Hairy was obsessed with food, insects in particular. Hairy could be heard continually muttering aloud about how much he missed the taste of Drudger worms and how cruel it was for everyone to deprive him of this one little pleasure in life. If food was the key to Hairy’s heart, Neuro would provide him with an endless supply of first grade Drudgers.

The question for Neuro was how he could now move on, yet still maintain the element of surprise. And then it dawned upon him. He hatched up this ingenious plan to genetically engineer an exact replica of himself, but a severely brain-damaged replica of himself. He would accomplish this by literally destroying the replicas brain as it was emerging. And this would be achieved by continually submerging the replica’s entire form head-first into water to deprive it of oxygen as it was developing.

One night, well early morning to be precise, he snuck down to the stream by cover of darkness, whilst everyone was still fast-asleep and started the process. He sliced a few skin cells from his body and set to work replicating his form. The process was fairly slow and awkward because he lacked full dexterity. After all, he had no limbs and the two remaining brain cords had become very week as a result of lying almost completely dormant for so long. Nevertheless, he persevered. He used his patented super-growth hormone to accelerate the process.

As the form started to take shape, he kept submerging it underwater in a fashion not dissimilar to dunking a biscuit into a cup of coffee. He had crudely fashioned a motorised rope and pulley system to perform this task for him. But as fate would have it, the rope snapped and something resembling a grotesque chunk of crudely formed meat began floating down the stream. Neuro tried frantically to reclaim this form. But with two fairly limp brain cords and minimal hover power, he was incapable of doing so and eventually gave up.

He had no doubt that this piece of meat would eventually be discovered. But so what! It looked nothing like him. And he was pretty certain that the water would soften and rot the flesh very rapidly. Still, he would need to take more care and use a stronger rope and harness system for his next attempt.

His second effort the following night was successful. A virtually brain-dead version of him emerged. He pried open the creatures mouth and securely sutured a micro-bomb (no larger than a computer microchip yet capable of destroying an entire building) into its slimy inner-right cheek. He now had a remote-detonable bomb at his disposal for when the time was right.

The creature was completely immobile. So he had to use his own hover-power with rope crudely connected to himself and the clone, to drag this new lug back to his room. By the time they arrived at their destination, the clone was battered and bruised. Having no way of concealing the damage to this new clone, and running out of time, Neuro removed the hideous clothing that Hairy had flamboyantly designed for him and dressed the clone in it. He found no longer having to wear this puffy, frilly, silver and gold outfit extremely liberating.

He could only hope that the damage to his clone would not cause untoward suspicion. In an attempt to avoid this from occurring, he staged the room to look as if he had fallen out of his bed. He laid the clone head-down on the cold concrete floor next to the bed.

And then he fled off to start a new life and plot his revenge.

CHAPTER 3

A COMPLETE STUFF-UP

Only a handful of the million-plus Chisel worms had managed to escape the effects of the antibody stream that Neuro’s remaining brain cells had conjured up. Clinging to life, they returned to their homeland and were immediately summoned to King Chazel’s chambers.

‘What happened?’ shouted the frustrated King. ‘It was a simple task! All you had to do was check whether that last remaining Sethonian still had any active brain cells and if so, return with them fully intact!’

‘Yes, your majesty,’ sighed one of the survivors. ‘Your orders were very clear. Upon entering his skull, we discovered that he indeed had about 3,000 live brain cells. We…’

‘3,000 live brain cells!!’ interrupted King Chazel enthusiastically. ‘More than we could have ever hoped for! After all, we only require a few good brain cells to commence the replication program. Please tell me that you’ve returned with at least a handful of these brain cells intact.’

‘I’m afraid not, your majesty,’ sighed the head of the failed party.

‘Why the hell not!’ screamed Chazel.

‘Well, um,… You see, the moment the front platoons ate through the thick protective sheath, the live brain cells regained their collective strength and released a powerful protective antibody stream that literally wiped us out. Only a few of us who were furthest from these active cells, managed to outswim the ferocious stream of antibodies. But even just breathing in the residual fumes has left those of us who survived, gravely ill.’

‘Tell someone who gives a crap!’ screamed Chazel. ‘Do you realise that this is the last known Sethonian in existence; his brain cells, the key to our eternal happiness!’

‘Yes, your majesty!’

‘Enough nutritional value in each of these brain cells to sustain us for days at a time! Just one of these brain cells packs more punch than an entire Volnet brain! Yes, Volnets live in abundance here. But we have to keep eating and eating and eating their pathetic brain cells just to get enough nutritional value to keep us going! And even then it’s a sluggish existence. We feel tired and lethargic all the time. And we spend almost every waking hour eating this low grade shit!’

‘We understand your frustration, your majesty,’ sighed another subordinate.

‘Do you really!’ shouted Chazel. ‘When last were any of you able to spend time playing with your kids? When last were any of you able to enjoy a romantic walk with your wives?’

‘Um… It’s been years. Not since the good old days when we used to capture Sethonians and bring their live brains back here for consumption. And then the planet of Seth exploded and our lives changed forever.’

‘That is why this last known, living Sethonian is so important to us. The Advancians have provided us with the technology to replicate its brain cells. Even if we capture a handful of healthy cells, we can keep replicating them until we have an abundance and can live lives of complete leisure, forever!’

‘Understood, your majesty!’

‘I need you to summon the most capable soldiers available and prepare for a second mission. I need you to return with the Sethonians entire active brain or at the very least, a few dozen active brain cells.’

‘But he’s probably moved on by now, your majesty! And if he has, how are we meant to find him?’

‘By visiting all sectors of all six dimensions and sampling as many different creatures brain cells as possible! We are unique in our ability to extract information from the brain cells we eat. Someone will have seen him recently or know of his whereabouts! Everyone leaves some sort of trail.’

‘True, your majesty.’

‘Whilst you are tracking his location, I will get our top scientists to start working on a potion to counteract the antibodies being created by him. Did you at least think to bring home a few of our fallen soldiers so that we can analyse how the antibodies work?’

‘Yes, your majesty.’

‘Good. He may have won the first battle, but he won’t win the war!’

CHAPTER 4

NEURO’S NEW START

Neuro set up his new base camp on another deserted, burnt-out asteroid in an even more remote sector of Dimension 3. He had hovered all the way to this new destination and was totally exhausted. His re-emerging brain had not conquered the mystery of thought travel yet. And the remnants of Traizon and Pugnacious’ brains’ secrets had been lost for good. So, even magic-driven teleportation was out of the question.

He had managed to increase the speed of his hovering tremendously though, and was now capable of reaching supersonic speeds. However, the pain centres of his brain had grown back and the G-force that came with such speeds hurt like buggery. Plus there was every risk of spontaneous combustion from the friction caused when travelling so fast without any form of external protective coating.

He had experienced this unpleasant phenomenon towards the start of his journey. He was travelling at a blistering pace when his nostrils picked up that rancid scent of burning flesh. He soon discovered that the top of his head was alight. By the time he patted it out with his brain cords, the scalp skin was charred and crispy. Fortunately, no brain cells were destroyed. And in truth, that’s all that really mattered to him at the end of the day.

On top of being exhausted and cranky, he was also extremely hungry and this asteroid was sparse beyond belief. There was no vegetation whatsoever, not even a blade of grass. And there were no animals or insects … not even a solitary Probe Bat in sight. Still, its inability to support life also meant that there was practically no chance of being spotted. This would give the evil genius time to regain his mental strength and plot his revenge.

As far as food was concerned, he would have to dine out. And he knew exactly where to find an abundance of juicy Probe bats.

With the confidence and ease of a kid who has made the same Lego structure time and time again, Neuro effortlessly fashioned a letho-laser stun-gun with inbuilt sonar detection and went hunting.

CHAPTER 5

IGNORANCE IS BLISS(TERS)

It was Sked who discovered the fake, battered and bruised version of Neuro sprawled on the ground. He felt truly awful that this helpless invalid had spent the entire night on the cold floor. He did not even question how Neuro may have ended up in this predicament.

‘I’m really sorry!’ he apologised profusely. ‘I had no idea you had fallen from your bed. And now you’re all battered and bruised. How awful! Let’s attend to these cuts and bruises right away. I’m afraid there will be no outings for you until your body has recovered completely. I must start checking up on you more regularly, especially through the night.’

The event causing a lot of curiosity rather than concern amongst the residents of the Land of Hope this fine morning, was the mysterious blob of rotting flesh that had been spotted floating in the stream by Squishbucket and hauled out. What was it and how had it ended up here? Not for even a moment did anyone deduce that it was in fact a semi-formed clone of Neuro. After all, it looked nothing like him. It had no face or distinguishing features.

In the end, it was theorised that a