Under Starter's Orders, Chapter Two

“A Mini-Flash? At Disqualification Tablet?” Flashtease exclaimed. “Well, I’ve never seen her before! Surely there must be some mistake?”

There was however no mistaking the spark-like insignia on the girl’s breast, which adorned that of every Mini-Flash including the pair present, nor the beige tunic and matching knee-boots worn by recent starters in The Flash Club. Joe was quickly connecting the dots. Although Flashshadow was by and large a mystery even to her own people, our hero was at least aware she was not receiving the standard Mini-Flash education as her strange powers did not lend themselves to combat applications. With the new gender throwing up more and more discoveries by the year, it followed that Flashshadow could not be the only girl Mini-Flash for whom this was so. Indeed, since she knew this neophyte and Flashtease did not, it even hinted at the existence of some secret subdivision within The Flash Club charged specifically with the training and study of girls whose extraordinary abilities were not yet understood. More to the immediate purpose, if this particular silver-haired girl boasted some power which could help our hero enter the temple on Eshcaton, then that would certainly be a good reason for Flashshadow to bring him here. Indeed, Joe guessed this had already been explained to him in full and comprehensive detail during one of the latter’s lengthy inaudible utterances.

She, true to form, proceeded to render courteous introductions of which Joe could make out not a word. Flashtease however did, and strode forward.

“Mini-Flash Splitsville, is it? Well, stand at ease,” he commanded the silver-haired girl, somewhat thinly. “Just for the moment we’ll overlook your loitering in a disreputable place such as this. Now, I understand from information received you’re in a position to help my friend here in the pursuance of his cause – I’m sure there’s no need for me to tell you who he is – so without further ado let’s be on our way and out of here before somebody sees us. For the sake of convenience you’re more than welcome to use your own transportation, just as long as you remember you’ll be on public space-lanes not some illegal racetrack and thereby required to pay heed to proper driving regulations.”

Mini-Flash Splitsville slowly leaned back with elbows resting on her racer, to better survey these visitors. She had scarlet-lacquered lips that glinted like taillights, and dark heavy lashes half drawn down over eyes the same silver shade as her hair. Nothing about these facial features suggested their owner was impressed by what she saw.

“You’re a long way from Flash Club Headquarters, little boy-scout,” she informed Flashtease in a drawling voice. “And yeah, I know who your buddy is. He’s the big Earthling daddy-o been striding round our turf, laying down some vibe that’s a real scene for the starry-eyed boopers over on Civvy Street.”

Petunia parked her hands on her hips, indignant.

“Just don’t count on that crazy jazz playing here at the Tablet, heart-throb,” Mini-Flash Splitsville advised Joe in summation.

“I do not come demanding your allegiance, Mini-Flash Splitsville, nor that of any life-form here,” Joe replied. “I merely request a favour, if it is within your means to grant it.”

“Here at the Tablet favours don’t come for the asking, dad,” she explained to him laconically. “You want something, you gotta lay something down. I got a rep at this strip that’s bigger than some solar-systems. So put in your request with your top-end and your plasmodic injection and maybe we’ll rap, dig?”

“Is that supposed to mean,” flung out Flashtease, very pink around the freckles, “that it’s so important to you to look all fashionable and trendy that you think you can forget about a little matter like helping the forces of good save the universe?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me in the least, Flashtease, seeing as she’s already forgotten her manners,” Petunia opined.

“You’ve sung enough for one day, little square chickie,” Mini-Flash Splitsville drawled back to her. “Think there’s a tea-dance on Worthworm Alpha that could use your vocal talents.”

“Ooh!” erupted Petunia. “You can go and stick your scabby head in the Seegs, you…you… delinquent!”

Joe held up both hands, in the vague hope this would somehow restore peace.

“Your terms are acceptable, Mini-Flash Splitsville,” he declared. “A contest it is. And should I prevail, you will render the service we need?”

Mini-Flash Splitsville thought about this. Then she announced:

“Only one of you who seems hip to me is Flashshadow here. Gotta be a down girl to make senior sister on the Special Program. So for her, I’ll dig it. Word to the wise though, heart-throb, this tunic doesn’t mean I flip for your code of conduct like some Mini-Flashes do. Only rule here at the Tablet is you get in and wail. You bug me, I shut you down.”

So saying she kicked her bare legs over her racer’s door and slid behind the steering-wheel, then amid resonant reverberations of finely-tuned motors the polished black beast rose from the ground. Flame-jets spurted under each rear fin and Mini-Flash Splitsville roared off, ruffling the skirts of Petunia and Flashtease without the flimsiest pretence of doing so by accident.

“Wonder if anything ever happens here at the Tablet that she’s not the foremost authority on,” the latter conjectured pettishly.

As it was part of Petunia’s booking to function as starter for each rally, she made ready to part from her friends at this point and do duty at the one in which they were now bound to participate. Just before setting off however, the girl took Flashtease on one side and implored him: “Please take care of Joe out there, snigglybobbles, and don’t let that Mini-Flash Splitsville scare you just because she’s a girl. I’ve got something that’ll bring you luck. It’s not only for Joe,” she added magnanimously, “because you can keep just as much of it as you like!”

With both hands Petunia drew in the air in front of her a heart-shape, which took on illusory form resembling plush red satin etched with a frilly elastic border. This object she wafted daintily to Flashtease whereat it popped like a bubble on contact with him, suffusing his senses with a capacious cloud of Petunia’s sweet tinned-peaches perfume.

“Thanks, Petunia,” Flashtease said patiently, once he’d regained the power of speech. Then he and Joe wished the girl good luck, saw Flashshadow safely to a seat on the spectator-stands, and headed back the way they had come to keep their appointment with the chequered flag.

“I don’t know about some of the Mini-Flashes they’re taking on at entry-level these days, Joe,” Flashtease complained as they walked together into the parking-lot. “If you ask me, standards aren’t what they used to…”

Someone or something was breathing noisily down their necks. The companions turned.

Part of what faced them was the bottom half of a brutal-looking dune buggy, all predatory plunges of fender and hub with masses of beefed-up shocks and four rock-hard ridged tyres each several yards in wheelbase, whilst the top half was a gigantic lobster whose spiny segmented shell arched over the imposing bodywork beneath. A razor-edged fan-tail was outspread at the towering tailpipes, two enormous serrated pincers loomed above the front rims, and a frightful whiskered visage which rode at the head of this monstrosity pointed unblinking round eyes and gritted teeth down upon Flashtease and Joe.

It was however like this sector, our hero reflected, that his young friend didn’t seem to notice the giant wheeled bionic shellfish elements of this impending confrontation. What made Flashtease turn pale with dread was the little chubby girl wearing what looked like a yellow tutu and matching mechanical fairy-wings, who perched atop the lobster’s carapace and glared beadily at him from there.

“Oh no,” breathed Flashtease. “Not you again!”

“Earthling,” the crustacean rumbled at Joe. “I know of you.”

“I feel certain I would recall our having met,” replied Joe, looking him up and down.

“I did not say we had,” growled Mile Hunts, for that was the monster’s name. “You are Collective leader. My comrade and I suffered the humiliation of imprisonment at your underlings’ hands. We languished in some dismal dungeon when we might otherwise have loyally served the Solidity and obliterated your miserable world. Know, human, that though it is a time of peace, our war continues on the racecourse of Disqualification Tablet. Darken it with but a bumper, and nothing shall spare you our wrath.”

“That goes double for you, traitor Mini-Flash,” piped up the little girl, whose own moniker had reliably proved beyond the linguistic range of any human who attempted it. “So I hope you brought your little girlfriend to save you from me, like she had to do last time. Unless he’s your girlfriend,” she went on, with a mocking glance at Joe, “which he probably is, since he’s got long hair like a girl’s got, but it doesn’t matter even if he is your girlfriend because no-one’s going to save you from me this time, not even your girlfriend and that’s the point.”

Joe and Flashtease stared at her, not wanting to say anything until they were sure she was done. Mile Hunts broke the silence:

“You would do well to heed the words of,” he warned them, pronouncing the little girl’s name without the least sign of difficulty. “Do not wager on crossing the finish-line with those soft bodies uncrushed, fleshy Collective fools.”

With that the dire duo reversed and trundled away, she throwing a last baleful scowl down from Mile Hunts’s back. Joe and Flashtease exchanged a look.

“Well. It seems the illustrious cause which held its home galaxy in awe might have bitten off more than it can chew here at Disqualification Tablet, when it ran up against an oversized prawn and a fat little girl. I can’t think of a more fitting postscript for the pair of you!”

The high-pitched voice spoke out of nearby shadows. Flashtease and Joe turned, to behold a gaunt young man slouching against the side of a midnight-blue one-seater. His tight-fitting jeans and open leather vest were black, but all the rest of him was bare and composed of white pulsating radiance. Though this stark silhouette obscured most of his bodily features it was possible to determine that his hands ended in claws, whilst his hooded eyes and large sharp-toothed mouth smouldered like embers amidst the brilliant blankness. What was either his hair or the top of his head was slicked back in a diagonal sweep between the high tips of his prominent pointed ears.

“Contamination,” said Joe.

“Nothing would bring me greater amusement than seeing you and everything you stand for reduced to a mangled clump of roadkill courtesy of old Hunts,” that one continued shrilly. “Assuming his small friend requires any help from him in doing it herself, which I doubt. But, that said, as long as the mollusc remains mobile he’s a threat to my prospects of victory too.”

Contamination closed his fuming mouth in a sly smile.

“So should the opportunity present itself, it might just be in both our best interests to work together,” he remarked. “Look for it, human, if you’re as wise as your Mini-Flash admirers take you to be!”

On that portentous proclamation he took the wheel, and next moment was out of sight. Joe was starting to wonder if there was any other way of ending a conversation at Disqualification Tablet. All Contamination would ever say of his chopped-up overpowered single-seat steed was that it ran on the atomic fission constantly occurring within his own molecular structure, and that he had hewn it from the pod in which he escaped the laboratory. Like everything else about him, it did not easily admit of companionship.

“Are you satisfied now, Flashtease, with the number of patrons here known to us?” Joe inquired of his friend.

“Next time I’ll be more careful what I wish for,” promised Flashtease.

NEXT: 'DISQUALIFICATION TABLET'