Report on Sample 717 (Part 11)

Following on from Part 10:

They slept until ten in the evening, awakening simultaneously as a police car with its siren wailing rushed past them. This was not the plan, but Adrig was soon ready to put a positive spin on it.

'It's evening already! The clubs will be open. Come on Edrig, let's find some pole dance action!'

Edrig was more hesitant, asking Adrig if he was sure they could just crawl out of the pod as they were and wander away from it with nothing more than a credit card, some cash, two communicators and two little stunners in their pockets.

'Of course my boy! It's what we're here for! What's your problem?'

'A plan. Should we not have a plan? And the language. You can speak it but your voice is way too high for a human one, and I know only a word or two. Should we not work out a plan, and default options in case of difficulties, or if we get separated, or...'

'Stop stressing,' Adrig commanded. First, listen to this, if I speak really low then it almost sounds like them.'

And Adrig tried out a few sentences as low pitched as he could manage.

'It sounds, perhaps, like a human after inhaling helium,' suggested Edrig. 'I heard them doing that at a party in one of the scenes I viewed.'

'It'll be fine lad. They will be able to understand me. What more do you want? And I'll do the talking. And we have our stunners hidden away and our communicators with emergency rescue buttons.'

'Like the emergency rescue button you just managed to reach when you were spun up in a spider's cocoon?'

'Exactly! What are you saying it like that for? You are so negative. Come on. Look at the screen. There's nobody about. Let's go! To the dancing ladies my boy! To the dancing ladies!'

'And the footballers for our Lady Lord?'

'Of course. I know enough from my studies of 717 to know that footballers may be found where the dancing ladies are. Come on! To the adventure!'

And so, after accepting that there had now been as much planning as there was likely to be, Edrig followed Adrig out of the hatch and onto the pavement, feeling a jolt of fresh concern as the hatch slammed shut behind them.

It was a calm and pleasant evening. The sun had just set and its fire was still lighting the sky with a very pretty mix of pastel reds and yellows reflecting from some high and wispy clouds.

'It's beautiful,' sighed Edrig.

'Come on,' ordered Adrig impatiently, 'Across that park there is the city centre club and bar sector. Just over there! And you question my planning eh? This has all been thought out in great detail. Come on!'

So off they went along the path that crossed the park, dressed in their garish 70s outfits, with Adrig looking like a tall thin human in his sixties with his wispy long silver hair moving gently in the breeze generated by their motion, and Edrig looking like a smaller and rather fat fifty-something following on about half a pace behind. And when they reached the streets they found them crowded, and the lights were bright and the bars and clubs were filling up.

'I feel like everybody is looking at us,' said Edrig quietly, aware that his high pitched squawking in his own language could cause alarm.

'Just your imagination,' Adrig assured him, as he scanned the windows and doorways in search of a place where dancing ladies might be found.

'Lets try here,' Adrig declared enthusiastically as he pointed at a black doorway with bright green lettering declaring The Playroom. The noise of raucous thumping music was billowing out to the street from a stairway leading to a basement that was flickering with bright lights. But two doormen in dark suits blocked the way with outstretched hands.

'Well, well, well,' one of the doormen declared. 'What have we here? Have you just stepped out of a time machine guys?'

'No,' was all Adrig dared to say in English, in his deepest lowest possible voice.

'What did you say?' the second doorman asked.

'I said no,' Adrig responded, trying to get even lower in his natural vocal register.

'Bloody hell!' exclaimed the doorman, laughing. 'What the hell are you on?' Then turning to look at Edrig he added, 'What the hell is your old guy on mate?'

Edrig flushed and panicked a little, but just shrugged his shoulders and held his arms out, hoping that would be sufficient.

'Are you heading for a fancy dress party buddies, or have you just been to one at your old folks home?'

Adrig became rather annoyed, and decided to be firm.

'May we enter?' he requested, making it sound more like a demand.

'May we enter!' one of the doormen repeated in a high pitched squeal that was intended as mimicry.

Then he looked them both up and down, paused, smiled, and said, 'Oh why not lads, if you are sure you want to enter. In you go and I hope you survive.' And he stood aside to let them through.

Adrig hesitated.

'Do you have pole dancers?'

This reduced the doormen to laughter that nearly drew tears from them, as they both mimicked the enquiry together with, 'Oooooh... do you have pole dancers?'

Then they composed themselves sufficiently to say, 'Yes we do you dirty old man. In you go, and enjoy.'

And so they descended into the seething colourful bedlam below, with the heat and the noise hitting them like a wave.

'Over there!' shouted Adrig excitedly into Edrig's ear, for at the far side of the room he had spotted two silver poles descending from the roof and disappearing into the milling sea of customers that surrounded it.

Adrig pushed his way through and Edrig followed in the brief gap that Adrig created as a wake.

And then the people ahead seemed to part a little, to let them through, and suddenly there they were right at the front of a circular black stage and looking up, eagerly.

And they both gasped together.

In front of them, a tanned and oiled and muscled man in tight and tiny black leather hot-pants was writhing around the pole. And then looking over to the other stage they saw another tanned and oiled and writhing man, although that one was completely naked, with his manly bits flying around alarmingly to the music.

'Hello lover boys,' shouted a tall young man at their side, 'I just love the 70s gear. First time I've seen you two old boyfriends in this place.'

Edrig gasped again, as Adrig turned away from the dancer to look at Edrig, and mouthed, 'Go! Get out!'

And so they turned and made their way out, through a sea of men, some of whom were laughing at them. It had occurred to Edrig on the way in that there were only men present, but that had seemed logical to him in a place where he was hoping to find dancing ladies.

'Seen enough already big boys? Changed your minds?' one of the doormen asked as they rushed past, with Adrig stumbling at the final step and falling to the ground.

As soon as the doorman had helped him up they were both walking quickly away in the first direction that occurred to them, and then after a short distance they stopped.

'Gay.' Announced Adrig, looking somewhat shocked and shaking his head.

'What?'

'Gay. Homosexual. Men that want men.'

'What?'

'Oh never mind Edrig. I'll explain later. Come on. Let's try farther up.'

And Adrig began walking fast, while young Edrig, feeling very confused, followed.

And that was when Adrig's communicator began bleeping very loudly.

'What the...? What's up?' Adrig asked, rather flustered, as he pulled out the communicator and looked at its screen.

'What! Our pod is moving!'

'Eh?' said Edrig.

'The pod. It's moving. It's tilting. What the heck? We'll have to get back across there!'

And as they turned they saw one of the doormen from the club approaching, holding out his hand and shouting at them.

'Hey, old guy. You dropped your phone!' And the doorman was holding Adrig's stunner, and had just slid its top open.

'Don't do that!' screamed Adrig, completely forgetting to attempt the low gruff voice that would be required to make him at all intelligible to the human.

'What?' asked the doorman. 'Damned fancy phone this. How do you get the display to come on?'

'Don't!'

But it was too late.

The doorman pressed the central button and, since he was holding the device towards himself, he received its full force in his chest.

There was no sound from the stunner, and no light or visible ray either, but its invisible electromagnetic impulse instantly reduced the big burly doorman to writhing moaning helplessness on the ground. And then he lay completely still.

People gathered as Adrig bent down and picked up his stunner from where it had fallen and skidded across the ground towards him.