Squeak, squeak. Squeak, squeak.
He didn’t like this.
He was a magical bear from the Circus World of Calliope named Skarpo.
This was a fetch mission to acquire the weirdo’s services.
The weirdo was the freak who proclaimed himself the Lord of the Lemmings who reportedly lived here.
And here was a floating mountain in the middle of space with a two-story rancher plopped unceremoniously on the flat of a cliff.
Skarpo squeaked in place on his unicycle, juggling idly while worrying at a flappy bear lip. It was a nervous habit he picked up from his papa back home—the juggling that is; he didn’t know where he picked up the lip-chewing.
He didn’t like this.
Skarpo worked for the Bastard Sun as something of a personal assistant. A Bear Friday if you will. Which at present meant doing the things that the Bastard didn’t want to do. Of course, he bothered to occult the whole thing with an array of excuses such as waiting for his socks to dry and needing to check his iMail. Fact was, the Lord of the Lemmings gave the Sun the squiggling wiggins. Skarpo too. Unfortunately, Skarpo’s name wasn’t on the checks.
Skarpo wheeled up to the front door. He bounced a juggling ball off of its surface as a roundabout way of knocking. It creaked open ever so slightly, the way doors do in scary movies.
He didn’t like this.
The Sun totally owed him one. He wheeled up to the door.
“Hey! Hello? Lemming Lord guy thing person?” he called—his voice trailing off toward the end—from the entrance. He wheeled closer and nudged the door open, revealing an increasingly mundane sight: a wooden chair-rail lining the circumference of the room, fleur de lis print wallpaper (not even peeling), wooden steps leading upstairs. Doorways provided exits in all directions.
It was profanely… suburban.
He didn’t like this.
The Lord of the Lemmings was a nutcase who told people he was going to be a god someday. This was not the kind of person Skarpo expected to have fleur de lis wallpaper. He wheeled into the foyer anyway. “Lemmingman, I’m in your house,” he announced. “Y’know, in case you care about that kind of thing.” He said it as much to himself as to any lunatics listening.
A blood-chilling cl-cl-CLANG of some falling metal object—like a pot or pan—echoed from the room straight across from the entrance, so it was all Skarpo could do to tighten his sphincter in time to prevent any unseemly magic accidents.
That’s where his magic came from. He literally pulled things from his ass. Not fecal things, he wasn’t a dirty monkey, just… things. Juggling things, magic things, canned goods, a castle this one time, anything. Pop! Right out his barn door. It made him special. Special enough that the Bastard Sun counted him as friend and assistant. And yet….
He didn’t like this.
He tried to gird himself. He was no helpless cub; he was a magical frickin’ bear. They called him “The Wily Bear Magician” for crying out loud, he could certainly handle himself in a pinch. They didn’t raise no sissies back on Calliope. Skarpo guided his unicycle up to a swinging two-way door.
“Hey. That you?” Skarpo called, edging closer to what he now assumed was a kitchen. “Your highness? Do you get called that?” No response. Only a faint scritching and scratching of nails across linoleum.
He didn’t like this.
He took a breath and wheeled through the swinging door with as much certainty as was forthcoming. The door swung closed behind him with a wooden clonk.
It was indeed a kitchen. It looked just as urbane and empty as the rest of the house. It was actually kind of nice. A little breakfast nook was off to the side that really brought the space together.
Another cl-clonk should’ve provided ample warning that the two-way door was returning before it clipped him in the back and almost knocked him on his snout. Should’ve.
Skarpo wheeled on the door with a kick turn, glowering as if it was responsible for his wounded pride. The door innocently wobbled back and forth on its fulcrum before coming to a rest.
With a mumbled curse, Skarpo turned his attention back to the kitchen.
Only the kitchen was gone. It was replaced by an inky darkness and thousands of twinkling stars.
Balls were no longer juggled effortlessly, but rather spilled in every direction as the bear shielded his face from the threatening abyss. His pants absorbed the brunt of a burst of entirely unmagical ursine urine. The single wheel of his faithful unicycle spun out from under him, putting him flat on his back with a thud.
His final thought before the chill grasp of quietus closed around him:
He didn’t like this!
“Boo,” came a voice as playful as it was creepy.
With a swooshing sound, a black cloak came together in front of him, notably less black than the many-eyed darkness it enfolded. The Lord of the Lemmings stood… or floated… directly in front of him. He looked like the Grim Reaper in desperate need of a good meal; his face was hidden within the blackness ‘neath his dark hood.
Skarpo struggled to catch his breath. A thin spindly arm with a thin spindly hand ending in thin spindly fingers was offered to him.
He didn’t like this.
He took the hand hesitantly. A remarkable, unseen strength hefted him onto his feet. “No hard feelings,” Lord of the Lemmings announced, as if that made it true. “I’m studying for my encroaching apotheosis,” he announced further.
Skarpo retrieved his unicycle from under the breakfast nook, frowning. “Yeah, yeah, you’re going to be a god someday,” he mumbled, sadly in need of some clean underbritches. “How’s that going?”
“It’s going.”
Skarpo plopped his arcane ass back on the seat and without further ado was back to squeaking and wheeling in place. “This was a mistake.” He probably hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but there it was.
“I love Ms. Steaks,” Lord of the Lemmings answered. “Also Mr. Cakes.”
Skarpo squinted, swearing he could make out a demented smile somewhere in the recesses of his cowl. “Yeah, I gotta’ go.”
“No you don’t,” his host stated plainly. “Your boss sent you because you need me to deal with your Infi-Net problem. Even though you don’t like me and find me unerringly unsettling, you think I’m uniquely equipped to find the rest of the missing heroes. What with my panopoly of trained lemmings and all.”
Silence ruled the shiny kitchen. Somehow the quiet seemed quite loud, echoing off of the bright surfaces and suburban sameness of it all. Skarpo’s squeaking was the only way to be sure sound still worked at all for those moments.
“Oh, I’m sorry. That’s your part,” the Lemming Lord corrected himself with a sigh. “I’m supposed to say: of course I’ll help,” the enigmatic figure chirped.
More silence (punctuated by the sound of the unicycle) dominated the room.
“I’ve already started helping. Would you like to see?”
“No.”
Lord of the Lemmings motioned toward a door which Skarpo was pretty sure hadn’t been there a second ago, “This way.”
“I said, no,” Skarpo repeated, yet found himself strangely compelled. He wheeled across the room to the new door as his host opened it.
Inside was a sight that called to mind a chicken coop. Rows with thousands of computers were stacked several stories high, attached to thousands of monitors, manned by thousands of lemmings. “They’re plugged in,” came the too-short explanation.
“What is this?” Skarpo realized his question was already as answered as it was going to get.
The Lord of the Lemmings motioned to the closest computer-monitor-lemming combo. “This is Earl. He’s been watching nothing but videos of dogs watching videos of cats for a fortnight.” He nodded sagely. “It’s grueling, thirsty work.”
Sure enough on the little monitor was a dog watching a monitor with a cat stuck in a pillow case rolling down stairs. The dog barked at the end and the camera person erupted in fat gulps of chortling laughter. Then it restarted. Skarpo was pretty sure Earl was dead.
A ding exclaimed from a nearby terminal.
“That’s Cortez the Destroyer. He just reached Level 70,” he announced without further explanation.
Skarpo blinked what must have been a hundred million times. Speechless.
“If you’re going to feel bad for anybody. Feel bad for Juarez. He’s waiting for his serial fiction to update. It’s been a long Wednesday.”
Skarpo’s face scrunched up in ursine consternation, “Wha… buh… huh?” he looked over to seek more answers, or at least more nonsensical babble. And yet, the Lord of the Lemmings wasn’t next to him anymore. He was standing over one of his rodent charges scratching a small black sore on its back.
“You’re going to want to leave now,” he insisted. “I trust you know the way.”
What Skarpo saw next left him alone with a roomful of lemmings with an empty bladder and a serious need for a vacation.
He didn’t like this.
