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FANTASYTASTIC!

GALAXY TOUR ADVENTURES - "The Grand Residency" - 82

The ode to the desert city went down as well as can be expected. Nobody laughed, except a couple of mildly intoxicated academics. They would have seen the humour in a patch of paint drying tonight, so their judgement carried no great weight. But they helped the rest of the crowd to sort of appreciate the piece as an artistic quirk delivered by rock stars in a sudden jolt of amusing arrogance.
   Zana quickly switched guitars and gears and got the show back into familiar territory, and did so with all the professionalism they could muster. Because they'd just had their minds blown. Something weird was seriously afoot around the Grand Galactica. Kind of a space-time continuum thing with a dollop of quantum physics on top, or under. Wherever.
   Fadda Bing alive!? This impossible news had their minds reeling. Keeping the performance running after that started to sink in took feats of concentration.
   The Bandroids sensed something was up. The robot band covered any slight distraction on the part of the girls with added showmanship and enthusiasm. Ensuring that the Blonde Plutoz show package held all the way to the final blackout and curtains.
   The crowd roared for more. Behind the curtains the girls stared at each other, not knowing what to say or think. Mister Wizzbipp hurried back onto the stage and confirmed the news.
   "It's absolutely true! He sent me down here to escort you up immediately!"
   "What? Now!?" Zana asked, brushing through her hair.
   "Yes, now!"
   "Seeing as he's been dead for a bit, he can jolly well be patient enough to wait till we finish our encore!" said Rivqua, doing things to her costume that defied logic, topping it all for the final song.
   Five minutes later the crowd roared once again, until the house lights came on. The recorded announcer wished everybody a good night, best of luck over in the casino and see you all tomorrow when the Blonde Plutoz will be back onstage again for another great show here at the Grand Galactica.
   The girls left the stage before the curtain hit the floor. The elevator seemed slower than usual.
   "You saw him with your own eyes did you?" Zana asked.
   "Yessir ma'am," said Mister Wizzbipp, hands clasped over his toolbelt.
   "Look like he always did?"
   The stagehand nodded. He seemed as perplexed, and quite nervous.
   "We never saw him alive, you see," Rivqua said.
   "Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, I know. Especially around here."
   Zana looked at Rivqua. "How do we break something like this to the detective inspector?"
   "Both his heads are so bored that nothing fazes him anymore."
   "He'll go, 'Welcome to Toss Vague-Ass.' "
   The elevator pinged and slowed and stopped, and they stepped out. And over there he stood, saying something to the robot secretary.
   He turned and grinned. "Ah! The Blonde Plutoz! Great show tonight! Step inside!"
   It really was him! Fadda Bing! The girls had to gasp. This was sensory overload, perception trauma, disbelief detonation!
   The door closed behind Rivqua and Zana and Fadda Bing sat down behind his desk. He looked very much like himself. They'd only seen him in a very un-alive state, but it was him alright. He was scanning some papers before him, rapped a bit on a keyboard. His smile, or whatever it was, gradually dropped.
   "I- I don't think we've actually met," tried Rivqua, "Sir."
   "We're glad you're looking so well," said Zana.
   "Could be we laboured under a misapprehension, earlier," said Rivqua. "When we first came here. You weren't looking quite as well as you do now."
   "You looked totally dead," said Zana.
   "So you'll understand if we're a little discombobulated," went on Rivqua.
   Zana glanced at her sister with a quiet snarl, "You pull out a cracker like that at a time like this?"
   Fadda Bing looked up and spoke up.
   "I have to tell you, you're fired."
   "What!?" The girls gaped in shock. "What do you mean fired!? Luffy Bing said-! And he's your brother by the way! We met him! Both dead and alive!"
   "Well, he's more dead now than alive, isn't he? And now I'm in charge."
   "But how did you-!?"
   "That's not for you to concern yourselves with."
   "You were dead! Poisoned! Smoke came out of your-!"
   "Yes yes, but you know what they say, you can't keep a good man down."
   "Well you can't keep a good band down either! We've got a load of gigs to do in this place! And we were promised a pay rise! That's got to be in your documents there somewhere!" Rivqua gestured furiously.
   "Yes, I'm glad you brought that up. You see, unfortunately, that fact is, you're fired. As of tonight. Leave your account number and I'll transfer your pay for the shows you have done. Your room must be vacated by noon tomorrow. Goodbye."

WE SALUTE YOU, WOMEN OF EARTH!

Celebrating International Women's Day 2016!
- planet Earth sure could use a bit of Women's Day everyday!

GALAXY TOUR ADVENTURES - "The Grand Residency" - 81

   With the classic synchronous jump the two singers brought the screaming crescendo to a merciful, ecstatic close. Instantly plummeting the Grand Galactica ballroom stage into darkness. Applause erupted.
   A few seconds later a shaft of light split the darkness and there stood Zana in its searing glow, casually bringing her guitar back in tune.
   "Thank you!" She paused for breath. From somewhere in her layered costume she brought out a capo. "And now, ladies and gentlemen, aliens and combos, gamblers and gobblers, we come to the part of the show where we play you a brand new song."
   Some of the crowd, the overly merry ones, found this absolutely brilliant.
   A second spotlight beamed down on Rivqua. "That is, should we be fortunate enough to have one."
   "Tonight, as it happens, we are." Zana struggled a bit to clamp the capo onto the guitar neck, gave up and held it up for a second. "Incidentally, I'm using this little device only because my guitar's robot capo stopped working some gigs back. Here, look."
   She pressed a button on the body of her sparkling six-string, a small mechanism whirred and a narrow rod folded across the neck over the nut, and started moving up the fretboard.
   Rivqua displayed a winning smile, her hands toward the spectacle, like a magician's assistant. The small rod stopped before it even reached the first bar. Zana looked hopelessly out over the audience. "See that? That's what serious thrashing will do."
   "Gotta up your gear, Zana!" someone in the crowd hollered. People laughed.
   "That's what we keep telling our manager!" she replied and got more laughs.
   "Any managers in here?" Rivqua asked the audience.
   "I'm up for the job!" someone shouted.
   "See us after the show!" she replied. "A word of warning - the pay sucks!"
   They enjoyed that one. From somewhere in the wings a phone rang. Zana shouted over her shoulder, "If that's for me, tell them I'm otherwise engaged!"
   It was a good night in the Galactica ballroom.
   Rivqua shook out her hair. "Right. Where were we?"
   "New song," said Zana. She got the trusty old capo good and clamped on the neck.
   "Yes! Folks, this is hot off the hit foundry. Only about six hours old."
   Appreciative voices hollered.
   She went on, "It's kind of a tribute, I guess you'd call it. An affectionate summary of our experiences thus far in this extraordinary, magnificent, incomparable desert city of yours!"
   The room cheered. From out of the dark behind them a figure approached with quick, self-conscious steps, crossing the stage and up to the girls. The Bandroids looked at him. It was the stage hand, Mister Wizzbipp, holding a phone, shielding his eyes from the sudden glare of the spotlight.
   "Don't tell me it's my mother," said Zana.
   Seeing his serious, almost shocked face, the girls turned to him, covering their mikes.
   Mister Wizzbipp swallowed and whispered, "It's Fadda Bing! He's back from the dead!"
   The girls stared at him like he'd taken leave of his senses. He went on, chin quivering, "It's really him! And he demands to see you immediately after the show!"

GALAXY TOUR ADVENTURES - "The Grand Residency" - 80

   "Let me see if I've got this straight," said Sir Morris on the other end of the line. His voice was that of someone who faced a growing problem requiring growing involvement from himself, much to his dissatisfaction.
   Rivqua lay on the bed, phone to her ear, other arm covering her eyes for a comforting bit of darkness.
   Sir Morris laid the facts out for himself. "The Grand Galactica manager, the first one, died."
   "Correct. That was Fadda Bing."
   "He was replaced by his brother, called Luffy Bing."
   "Correct."
   "Then Luffy Bing died."
   "Murdered. Just like his brother, except with a laser as opposed to poison, which we were witnesses to. But we had to identify the last one. After the event."
   "Wait, not so fast." Sir Morris was silent for a second. "And during all this carnage, no money has been paid out to you."
   "Not once cent."
   "Despite all manner of promises of advances, cards issued, visits to the bank, the good shows you've done, solid crowds you've pulled in?"
   "A Toss Vague-Ass welcome, it's called. Makes the old 'your check's in the mail' look good. At least you got hope."
   "Well let's not lose what's left of that just yet. Just out of curiosity, are there any more of these Bing brothers to spare?"
   "Who knows? If there are, the only ones likely to reap any benefit from them would be the undertakers."
   "Mm." He paused for a moment. "Are you eating well?"
   When things got tight, as they inevitably do in show business, Sir Morris had a way of giving off what sounded like fatherly concern, sort of out of nowhere. Perhaps he was buying time while figuring out how to deal with the problem with the least amount of effort, yet not putting the Blonde Plutoz in deeper straits than his conscience would allow.
   "Yes we are," Rivqua sighed. "The food works, as do the coffees. Endless supply actually. Who knows, perhaps we're being slowly poisoned."
   "Let's not run away with our imaginations."
   "Perhaps there's a hidden laser gun trained on my head as we speak."
   "Enough with the ridiculous. Where's Zana?"
   "She's in the other room, composing a satirical ode to this town. Thought we'd play it tonight."
   Sir Morris whistled. "Uh-oh."

GALAXY TOUR ADVENTURES - "The Grand Residency" - 79

   "That him?" The detective inspector's two heads took in the girls as they leaned in for a guarded glimpse at the face of the corpse.
   "That's him," Rivqua confirmed, backing away with a grimace.
   Zana pointed to the entry wound in Luffy Bing's forehead. "What kind of weapon does that?"
   "Cold laser, would be my guess," The detective nodded to the robot who covered up the body again. "Quick, precise, silent. Impossible to trace since there's no actual procectile to match with a barrel." He shook one head. "What wouldn't I give to have the old days back."
   "We have lasers onstage, the safe ones," Zana said as they stepped back out into the sun. "Take out a winged insect at best, but no worse than that."
   "Wish all lasers were like ours," Rivqua said, fanning off a touch of nausea.
   "You're tellin' me. Fancy a cup of coffee? You ladies got time?"
   "Do you, Inspector?"
   "Sure. I'm back to square one, what's the rush? Plus, I might get lucky and you'll confess."
   "For a lousy cup of coffee? Fat chance."
   Both heads stared. "Excuse me?"
   "It was a joke!" Zana said and got in the cruiser.
   Rivqua said, "If you need a confidence booster, Inspector, you could try and figure out why the Grand Galactica has such a difficult time paying us. And when they finally do, they still don't."
   The unmarked police car hovered up to a couple feet above ground and took off down the road, heading back toward the shiny centre of Toss Vague-Ass.
   Fifteen minutes later the three of them sat in the Grand Galactica bar, sipping coffee.
   "What's your next move, Inspector?" Rivqua asked and leaned back in the plush couch.
   "Do I have to have one?"
   "I assume you're being paid to eventually find one. Although, not by this place I imagine. Which should be to your relief."
   He shrugged and looked away for a casual scan of the wide lobby.
   "How about you?" he said.
   Rivqua gave Zana a glance. "I suppose we'll be giving Sir Morris a bell."
   Zana nodded, stirring the frothy white cap of her latte with an absent-minded look. "They do one thing right in this place, and that's these creamy coffee jobs. How long that remains a perk, or the guy who makes them stays alive, I dare not guess."
   The detective snorted and took a sip with one head and spoke with the other.
   "Sir Morris. That was your manager, right?"
   "Executive troublemaker. A former civil servant actually. Stays clear of all the action while being the chief cause of it."
   The inspector sighed. "He has my unsullied admiration."

GALAXY TOUR ADVENTURES - "The Grand Residency" - 78

The detective inspector brought the police craft to a sharp halt on a small street. He'd taken them way down the far end of town, passed the spaceport, down where the main Strip was no longer a boulevard but an ordinary road leading through an ordinary industrial district.
   The girls couldn't help noticing how the worn billboards and lack of eye-catching neon signs stood out in sharp contrast to the retina-slamming playground just a few miles back.
   Cisterns loomed in the distance. Not far off the scattered prongs of an electric substation reached for the sky. Beyond all that, mountains. Then desert presumably, forever. The girls got out. The cruiser shut down and settled on the ground. A sudden rumble startled them. A freighter ship thundered past at low altitude.
   "You guys nervous or something?" The detective made an impatient gesture.
   "Just taking in the scenery," Zana said.
   "Welcome to the business end of Toss Vague-Ass. Pretty different, huh? Consider yourself privileged." He headed for a set of doors.
   "Not the vacation spot of choice," said Rivqua. "But oddly reassuring none the same."
   They followed him into the low non-descript building. An old robot looked up from behind the desk. He, or she, hard to tell, that's how old it was, greeted them without a smile, for lack of servo strength it looked like.
   "Identification of the body, Inspector?"
   The detective nodded and leaned against the counter. The robot looked back down.
   "What's that smell?" Zana asked.
   "A whole concoction of carcass-prepping substances," replied the detective. "That and assorted lunches."
   "Smells like baked beans."
   One of the inspector's two heads chuckled. "You wouldn't believe what dead bodies are capable of in the first thirty-six hours, alien ones in particular."
   A door slid open and the inspector led the way in.
   "Wish you hadn't said that, Zana," Rivqua said, following him.
   Tiled surfaces all around. Except the ceiling, which was a maze of ducts and pipes and tracks. An upside down robot hung from there, arms at the ready and a cold, narrow face, at the moment suspended over a long mound on a steel table.
   "Getting a bit nervous now," Rivqua admitted, glancing at the detective.
   "Okay, let's see him," he said to the robot, who whirred into action and lifted the sheet off the face. And there he was, Luffy Bing, face up, with a third eye on his forehead, his head resting in a patch of caked dark-green fluid.

GALAXY TOUR ADVENTURES - "The Grand Residency" - 77

The unmarked squad car hovered up to the side of the boulevard and stopped. The girls came out of the fashion store, empty-handed, fuming. Fists to their waists they looked up and down the street, not seeing the vehicle right there in front of them for all the irritation occupying their minds.
   The detective slid down the side window and one of his heads looked out. "Come on, ladies! Let's go!"
   "What's with the angry faces?" he asked, pulling a one-eighty across the lanes to take off back down the road. One head was focused on the driving and the other stared at the girls in the mirror.
   "We were hoping to do some badly needed shopping," Zana said.
   "Sorry to interrupt your fun, but this can't wait."
   "It's not that," Rivqua said. "Once again, we're being yanked around, either by rinky-dink technology or ill-will or what, we don't know. So we couldn't."
   "How's that?"
   "No money, that's how. Still."
   The detective kind of shrugged. "Well, you're about to identify a possible reason as to why."
   Rivqua met his eyes in the mirror. "Yeah, what's happened now, did you say? I didn't catch what you said, we were a bit preoccupied when you called."
   "Luffy Bing, supposed brother of the deceased Fadda Bing, is in the morgue with his brains blown out. His secretary is too wired up in her circuits to give a reliable ID. I tell you, these robots with personalized programmings ain't worth crap. So you guys are next, and the only ones I consider reasonably trustworthy. Don't ask me to elaborate. Flipside is, you're also the last ones to see him breathin'. Causin' another aspect I'm obliged to consider."
   Rivqua and Zana were looking at each other in disbelief.
   "Luffy Bing? We had a meeting with him just after breakfast. What happened?"
   "His secretary confirmed your meeting. Somewhere around there he was shot. Could you tell me what the meeting was about? You guys disagree on anything?"
   "No! First we thought we were seeing things. He was in the audience last night. We saw him and he looked so much like Fadda Bing we couldn't believe it. After the show he disappeared before we could have a word with him. This morning we went up to the offices to see with our own eyes if Fadda Bing had returned from the dead. Turned out it wasn't him."
   "Is that when you shot him?"
   "You've got two heads on your shoulders and still you come up with a question like that!?" Zana threw out.
   "Shining a light in every angle, that's all."
   Rivqua went on. "He told us he was taking over the operation, after Fadda. And that we were doing a good job. Even gave us a ten percent pay rise! That's not something you kill someone for."
   "Fair point," said the detective.
   "Should've asked for more," Zana muttered.
   "Can you prove that, I mean the raise? Like, new paperwork or something?"
   "He gave us new cards."
   "On which the no money is?"
   "That's right, Inspector."
   "You could argue for a motive there."
   "Oh stop it! We discovered it the same second you called us, standing at the checkout in the shop. For whatever reason, the plastic the Grand gave us is galactically worthless! Good enough only to scrape frost off a windshield."
   "We're in the desert."
   Zana rolled her eyes.
   "Alright, I'll check into that later," added the detective and pulled up. "Here's the morgue."

LATER, MR STARDUST

Wish you could've stayed longer, sir.
Have a good flight back home.
We'll all compare notes later.
Love, Blonde Plutoz