Getting Your Foot In The Door
To the beat inadvertently provided by the bees hammering at random buttons on the keypad to the door, Maracun knocked three times in rapid succession, paused, then knocked a fourth time. Held tightly in place by Toony, and keenly aware that that bloody great big rifle was still
somewhere behind him, he squirmed about awkwardly as the door remained closed. Maracun's life flashed before his eyes. His seventh birthday party. His first crush. His first job as a professional henchman. His father's dying words to him. His graduation ceremony from Ofromia Criminal Universi-
The door slid open.
On the other side stood two gentlemen, who were clearly not entirely sure
what was about to happen, but were willing to see how events would unfold. The one on the left looked like a pan-humanoid and a warthog had given birth to a grumpy looking hybrid offspring, and it smelled like one too. Tusks jutted out at uncomfortable looking angles from his mouth. His body was covered in fine hairs and rough scars. Dressed in an angular black and gold suit, his hands clutching a sturdy looking wooden bat, this was clearly the muscle of the trio. Obviously, this left the one on the right to be the brains of the group. It was specially obvious as this pan-humanoid replaced the top of his skull with a clear synthetic material, which afforded unlucky viewers the opportunity to see his throbbing, twitching brain, tastefully lit in blue by strategically embedded lights. He wore the same style of off-the-shelf suit that Boss Hog did, though he didn't fill it out in nearly the same way.
Behind them, a green lump of slime bubbled and moaned to itself.
Behind that, the city of Ofromia loomed. There was no natural light inside the dome. The street level was a headache of neon pink and blue, bustling with crowds of people. None of them seemed to care that a crime had been committed under their noses, and they probably wouldn't give a damn about the crimes that were likely to unfold next.
The Continuing Misadventures Of Fiddlesticks & A Cleaning Robot
The insects continued to dance in the light. Tiny little drinks were being served. Barely audible to most, a little insect band struck up a mournful sort of song. A miniature banner unfurled from the wall of the maintenance tunnel to quiet little cheers. The banner simply said "
End Of The World Party", and their little party went on.
Meanwhile, in the world of regular sized, non-insect based life, the cleaner bot barely suppressed the urge to clean the exposed hand of Fiddlesticks. From the robots perspective, his hand now glowed a bright red, was surrounded by exclamation marks, and flagged with a tag which highlighted the importance of proper hand hygiene. The AI had yet to find a way of turning off this helpful heads up display, and so instead turned to look further down the maintenance tunnel, towards the odd sound.
"
The mission is still on, but this way I can be right there too, to help, you know. To guide you. I'm not jealous of your biological body with it's statistically significant levels of attractiveness or those weird smells, you know," it was for the best that the robot turned away from Fiddlesticks, because the little face on the screen was frowning, "
we should investigate this, maybe, maybe there's a way in this way..."
The nature of the noise changed. There was the rumbling, of course, but now there was the telltale sound of rushing water. The dormant lights in the maintenance tunnel sprang to life, bathing the whole tunnel in a cheery red glow.
"
...that's so much better, I can see where I'm going now!"
