Brenty Four 2013 - Chapter 1

[Lissa]

Things did not feel right as I opened my eyes and looked around the unfamiliar room in which I lay. Banks of computers flashed and whirred while small data screens pulsed with information the likes of which a man like me, who spurned the computing craze as I remain convinced it's just a fax machine for people with spots, would never want to understand. I tried to get up and discovered to my dismay and alarm that I couldn't move at all. Not an inch. I stroked my moustache pensively and realised I was wrong – I could actually move my arms. I was in fact only paralysed from the waist down which was annoying but manageable for now. I was an optimist by nature and felt sure feeling would return by the time I needed to settle the bill and leave wherever I was. Especially if they charged by the hour. Disability is a state of mind and I find avoidable expense extremely motivating.

Suddenly there was a swooshing sound and a metal door slid open with only the slightest of wobbles. A female with tightly pulled back hair and a mask over her mouth came in with a futuristic clipboard. She didn't make small talk (neither did I) and instead picked up a gadget which she waved over my torso.

“Life signs normal” she barked at a smaller, wild haired man who had followed her in. “Heart beat acceptable, blood pressure fine, bone integrity 97.5 percent.”

“Dammit Pen, what does that mean? I roughly understand the blood and heart stuff but give a fellow a clue about bone integrity. I'm a mineralogist not a medi-boffin. I've seen ‘Carry On For the Eighteenth Time Doctor’ once or twice but I'll be honest it made me a bit queasy. I had to leave the 3D cinema pod before I did a few hundred credits worth of damage to the screen. I don't know why Butch makes me do hospital duty. Dammed unfair.”

“This is the first time we've had to use the medical suite for real. It's only ever been used for giving you brain scans and dispensing anti-nuttiness pills when you need your dosage upping, or when the Captain has one of his emergency drills and we all have to pretend to be six different people so he can tick everything off his list.”

“Dammit Pen - that's unfair to a fellow. There are Butch’s nosebleeds too. And the times when I drop clearly empty mineral crates on my foot and they're surprisingly heavy for empty crates but we agreed that if I swear they're empty then you all have to believe me.”

“'Excuse me” I interrupted “Where am I?”

“Dammit, you, not now” said the male. “I need to know what bone infinity means.”

“Integrity” I told him. Medicine was no place for sloppiness, except for lotions and unguents which need the right consistency if they are to be spread evenly at an awkward angle.

“Bone integrity of 97.5 percent means he's absolutely fine apart from two broken legs.”

That explained a lot. Despite her female standing I had to admit that was a diagnosis I could accept. There was only one further thing I needed to know before returning to the matter of where and quite possibly when I was.

“Why can't I feel any pain if I've broken both my legs?” I asked.

“It's lucky for you that in the twenty eighth century we have extremely good painkillers that can temporarily eradicate almost all pain up to and including surgery or being bitten by a lion.”

“Thank you” I said civilly. That would certainly explain my mellowness.

“The only side effects are mellowness – which some people enjoy but I find takes away a warrior's heart, soul and spirit which is why I would never take them, not even if I was bitten by a lion – and hallucinations – about which the same is true.”

“The twenty eighth century?” I gasped.

“Unless I've slept for a few years which isn't impossible but I don't think has happened, yes” said the man.

“But I'm from the twentieth and twenty first centuries” I explained.

“Dammit, Pen, the man's nuttier than I am. People can't travel through time.”

“You mean apart from when we did it” she said.

“Ah” he replied.

“And when Doctor Who and his friends do it.”

“Well” he attempted but when it became clear he was going to leave it at that she continued.

“And when William, Son of Dr Who does it.”

“Hm” mumbled the man.

“And when we did it again only deliberately this time.”

“Ng.”

“And when children do it at the fun fair for ten credits per millennium.”

“S'pose.”

“And when trains do it if they're running behind schedule to avoid fines from the increasingly draconian government in Central City.”

“Dammit, Pen, I’m a mineralogist not a scribe-droid. I can't keep track of everything you say if it's all going to be on the same topic. I'll make you happy and admit that time travel might be possible but not for a ruddy cripple like laughing boy here.”

“I'll have you know that I haven't found anything richly comic enough to laugh at since arriving in your century so your epithet is not apposite” I said wittily.

“John does have a point” said the female. “How did you travel to the twenty eighth century with two broken legs?”

“Don't be pathetically stupid” I said. “I may have absolutely no idea how I came to be here but it's fair to assume I broke my legs after I'd arrived. That is both a logical deduction and means that you are legally liable. My solicitor has been dead for over seven hundred years but I assure you I'll find a suitably upstanding firm to represent me and you will be getting a letter from him in due course.”

If that didn't get me special treatment, wherever I was, I didn’t know what would.

“Legal matters thankfully go to the captain” she told me. “I'm just a space policeman, part time nurse and full time carer for the man John”. She smiled sternly at the last part of this sentence and the pieces clicked together in my drugged up brain.

“Space policeman? The man John? The twenty eighth century? You're Penny Danger. And you're John Manly. But you're fictional characters from the 1960s television series Adventures into Space so your captain is...”

Before I could finish the door swooshed open again and a tall, thin man in a dark grey uniform with rockets on his shoulders came into the sickbay.

“I'm Captain Butch Maitland. Welcome aboard she SS Pioneer.”

* * * * *

Click here for more on Adventures into Space.

[Andrew Curnow]

There literally aren't words. Well, apart from the words 'most unexpected crossover ever'. I have a feeling this is going to be a very exciting December...

[Dirk Gently]

Ooh, intriguing.

[SiHart]

Dammit! What a crossover!