Wingo

By Neil E. Clement

The sometimes irreverent story of how one man, one woman and their friends battle bravely in the face of long odds to prevent the mass extinction of whole civilizations on a cosmic scale.

For mature audiences only.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Neil E. Clement
• Release date: Jan 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9780998631103

Neil E. Clement

Mr. Clement spent over 26 years designing and programming computer software before involuntarily retiring on full disability in 2008 due to injuries sustained in two separate auto accidents.Establishing a charitable foundation to benefit children's hospitals and animal rescue organizations is a project Mr. Clement began in 2012 with the publication of his first book:'Missygirl the Calico Cat'.This effort was bolstered in January 2013 with the publication of 'Missygirl the Calico Cat Book Two'.Mr. Clement launched the MTCC Publishing Company in June of 2013 based on the concept that the sale of educational children's books could assist in the funding of a charitable foundation helping needy kids and animals.He still devotes part of his limited available uptime to writing children's storybooks.A more complete biography can be found in Mr. Clement's 4th book:'Insufferable Indifference - The Mocking of America'.

Book preview

WINGO

© 2017 Neil E. Clement,

All Rights Reserved.

Smashwords Edition

This book is dedicated

to all who dare to dream.

Contents

Title Page

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Credits

About the Author

Other titles by Neil E. Clement

Connect with Neil E. Clement

One

starburst, starburst, light my way

sunblow, afterglow, darkshine fade

The Immigrant John Taylor, Rhymes of the Ancient Traveler, 50th Edition, cirfyz 2919 everse

xverse: zyear 7423

Crimson pink clouds rippled across half the sky as the sun peeked at me over the horizon.

I was gazing at the strangest, most utterly fantastic cloud formation I had ever seen: a reverse ocean surface image riding the sky; a panoply of unbroken ragged rolling waves and troughs all exactly the same size and shape flowing towards me from the far horizon.

This psychedelic pink shading to purple color extravaganza was honed and sharpened by the background blue-green of the sky and the sizzling red-orange arc of the sun now showing one-quarter of itself above the horizon and spraying iridescent rays in every direction.

The phantasmagorical shape of the cloud, with its sharply defined jagged ridges and furrows, was at odds with the total flatness of the underbelly, as wave after unbelievably huge wave and trough combo came rolling along in exquisitely ordered formation, as if put that way by some unseen hand, only to fade and dissolve into the far distance as if it had never been.

It was at this moment that realization dawned upon me that I was no longer in Kansas.

Not that I have ever been in Kansas. No one has ever been in Kansas. Not for thousands of zyears anyway. But archaic proverbs do still serve their purpose.

I was very obviously no longer where I had been when last mine eyes had been open!

The last memory I could dredge up out of my still befuzzled mind was going to bed in my suite at the bachelor officer’s quarters on Shattertree the previous evening, as was generally my custom when traveling unaccompanied.

And then it clicked. Shanghaied! From an ultra-secure facility! "Ultra no more" I thought to myself, just a bit distractedly.

My nanosensors informed me that I was hale and healthy even if still a bit on the dipsy side from the compound that had been used to render me senseless and that the appropriate counteracting meds had been dispensed to fully dispense with this particular malady, although it would be a few minutes yet until full recuperation was a fait accompli.

I had not scheduled any sleep aid and yet some such agent had successfully bypassed the defense circuits watchdogging my nanohealthsystem for just such an intrusion. R & D would be much interested in this development. Got to admit, I was a bit curious myself, since I had been assured such a development was quite impossible.

I didn’t need to be told that I was being held completely immobile since my head was the only thing capable of movement. Well, almost!

I had been staked out spread-eagle and buck naked. I couldn’t see this but I could certainly feel it and I didn’t need any nanosensors for that. We all know what it feels like to wear one’s birthday suit. Well, I wasn’t entirely bare. There seemed to be some kind of band wrapped around my neck. It was throbbing gently. My best guess said it was sending a zsignal somewhere.

My arms and legs were strapped about as tight as you can imagine to four stakes driven deep into what passed for ground on this planet, placed there no doubt to ensure that I would remain motionless until the local wildlife had had their way with me.

The members of my family have never been what you might call modest, so my nudity was not particularly much of a concern to me at the moment, and I was not in the least bit embarrassed as another less enlightened individual might have been under similar circumstances. Given the other distractions I was currently faced with, it seemed only prudent to put my nakedness at the bottom of my priority list, at least until some reason presented itself to convince me otherwise.

Besides, from what I could see so far, and as it happens I was wrong about this, there wasn’t anyone else around to leer at me, and no real reason to be embarrassed, in any event, because I wasn’t even wearing my own face, something I will tell you more about presently.

Exactly where it was I was was something I would have to attend to presently, although, if the Xengarissian slugbeast I couldn’t help but notice in the distance heading my way was any indication, my location just had to be Xengarissia-29.

Any close encounter with a beast such as this would surely not go well for me.

If the circumstances I now found myself in remained unchanged that would certainly be the end of me, in a manner that most people would not wish upon their worst enemy, although from all appearances my worst enemy clearly had no such scruples!

Which begged the question: who was behind this dastardly action? This question remained in the back of my mind; churning but silent until any valid conclusions could present themselves.

There was no real need for any hurry on my part that presented itself at that exact moment from what I could see so far.

I was not particularly overly concerned about my health despite the strange surroundings I found myself in, just yet, since there was no imminent danger that I could espy aside from the implied threat of the slowly moving slugbeast.

It was more than obvious to me that someone very much wished that I should have the opportunity to savor the situation I now found myself in with plenty of leisure time to anticipate the eventual outcome.

I was not particularly uncomfortable despite my rather odd circumstances. I felt relaxed and calm and was mainly interested in the changes in my surroundings for what they foretold.

It felt perfectly fine to me to just remain motionless, even if this was currently a forced condition, and contemplate my situation without feeling any particular need to rush things or get excited. I could find no real motivation for struggling uselessly against the bonds that held me; you know, twisting and thrashing about and just generally acting ridiculous, so I relaxed instead.

Another ancient proverb came to mind that said to hurry was to worry, and I generally paid close attention to such notions. I felt that, with my situation coming up just a bit on the strange side, worry was the last thing I wanted to deal with just at the moment.

Now, it is a well-established fact that your average slugbeast can move only about one-quarter as fast as your average garden snail.

A quick calculation told me I had at least twelve zhours before any real danger presented itself in the form of being slowly and excruciatingly dissolved in a decidedly unpleasant fashion by the digestive juices seeping from the underside of the colossal bloated beast which was approaching me so slowly that I might even crawl away with more speed than it could muster.

If only I could crawl!

The unmistakable odor assailing my nostrils plainly indicated that I had been liberally sprayed with the impossible-to-synthesize, quite distinctive, exceedingly rare and extremely smelly pheromone extract of the now extinct Xengarissian slitherbat. This malodorous substance is so rare it cannot be purchased anywhere but can only be found in small deposits inside an egg shaped amber-like substance deep underground on this, and only this, planet. These egg shaped deposits are egg shaped for a very good reason: they once were slitherbat eggs.

Xengarissian slitherbat extract has one, and only one claim to fame: the ability to cause any slugbeast within olfactory range and unlucky enough to get a whiff to go completely bonkers, an event of horrific proportions, especially for the slugbeast, since it was essentially forced into moving in many unnatural ways at speeds it was unaccustomed to, making it quite angry, or so it seemed to the casual observer.

The slitherbat was very likely the first lifeform rendered extinct by the slugbeasts for this very reason, if one chooses to believe the xtraversal guidebook for this place.

This lingering scent was enough to guarantee that I would not be lacking any of the local beasts’ misplaced affections once one got a whiff of the stuff saturating every pore of my body and no doubt spreading out in all directions like some malodorous fog cloud such as one might encounter when passing too close to an organic waste processing facility the size of Rhode Island. Yes, we still say ‘the size of Rhode Island’ even though no one knows for sure just where this mythical island is or how large it might be, although general opinion holds that it must be fairly sizeable.

It was quite likely that the relatively small beasts in my area had never been treated to this sickly-sweet-sour-putrid odor, and this was bad, very bad, as they would have had no chance to develop any coping mechanisms for such a development and would no doubt go completely beyond hog wild when they did notice this odor; far beyond the reaction that would be evidenced by a much older, more experienced, original slugbeast, one with some built-up immunity to the effect of this uniquely pungent bouquet, one that had actually been around and helped rid the planet of the odiferous slitherbat pestilence all those eons ago. There were still a few of these monsters wandering around, although not any near me; and believe me, I would have known had any been in the area: they are so big the ground shakes as they move!

I was an organic lump on the landscape that didn’t belong, and the slugbeast’s main activity; well, let’s face it: their only activity, as it happens, was constantly moving across the surface of the planet flattening and smoothing the landscape as they went. They did this as naturally and as instinctively as mold eats bread.

Naturally, these two points of view were incompatible, at best, and someone was going to come out on top, one way or another. Or on bottom, as the situation would indicate. My fate as the lumpee was, by all appearances, a sealed deal, and not a good looking one from where I was looking.

The one fly in the ointment insuring this would be no simple quality-time leisurely absorption was the sickly-smelly sticky stuff saturating every pore of my skin: the Xengarissian slitherbat pheromone extract. Once the slugbeast’s olfactory sensors registered this scent, it would actually quicken its approach speed considerably, though still slow by snail standards, arriving mad as a wet hen! This extra effort would cause the beast to slow down its metabolism on arrival, reducing its normal absorption rate and extending my torture-time experience considerably.

Oh, I had been properly fixed!

Now, as any schoolchild knows, an agitated slugbeast reacts quite differently than a complacent slugbeast when it encounters the object causing its discomfiture. The rate at