Night on a Bare Conurbation, Chapter Five

Blonghé Bliggs and his news-crew arrived in time to film the huge hole in the nightclub wall while it was still giving off smoke, and their shots of the surrounding devastation would look great once studio had added some graphics to chart Schiss-Zazz’s course through the concrete city-blocks. On top of that, waiting for them right there at the site was none other than Mini-Flash 4-H-N herself. Bliggs could scarcely credit his good fortune. He’d been doing this job long enough to know it wasn’t every evening a chance-interview with one the more famous vertebrates tumbled right into your tentacles.

“So my friend Sue’s over from Earth,” 4-H-N began. “She’s really shy, she won’t want to be on telly. Anyway, I was giving her the grand tour when we happened to see your last newsflash. Dear Mini-Flash Meteor, she really had a good go at stopping Schiss-Zazz. If only at some point while she was at it, it had occurred to her to stop Schiss-Zazz. Not that a girl can think of everything, and she probably just concluded that once he’d had a run-in with her, he was certain to consider his evening complete. That’d be very much in keeping with dear Meteor’s view of how the galaxy works. Luckily for everyone though, she wasn’t the only Mini-Flash out on the conurbation tonight.”

True enough, and the present Mini-Flash was thankful indeed Petunia had mentioned Schiss-Zazz was after her when they were on the ledge. 4-H-N however wasn’t talking about herself.

“Three of our graduate males figured it out and went straight over,” she affirmed. “They’re the men of the hour. Details are still a little sketchy, but among the trio was Flashsatsumas whose power’s far in excess of anything the quadrant might imagine. He’s the only one here who could have caused this kind of collateral damage while sending old Schiss-Zazz on his way. So, talk about cleaning up after me. Wonder if the boys would like to tidy my bedroom too?”

4-H-N grinned.

“Earlier on, we heard a fair bit about the puny and weak,” said she. “My advice though is don’t be so quick to write off the first gender. They’ve got a few tricks up their tunics yet.”

Petunia was by now singing in the undemolished portion of the club, and faithful Plunder Dacks had taken his accustomed place among her audience. 4-H-N hadn’t spoken to either of them. She didn’t feel quite ready for that. However, one thing she knew for sure was this was the best she’d felt about the ink bottle ever since that other night. With this in mind she looked to the cameras one last time.

“Oh, and Meteor, dearie?” finished 4-H-N. “We all saw your boobs.”

Flashslip’s clothes were still wedged in the ceiling, so for the second time that night he was at an unlooked-for disadvantage when it came to liaising with girls. Nevertheless he persevered, and keenly too, while 4-H-N’s friend stood in her stockings and sniffed.

“I’ve seen you before,” was what Flashslip kept saying. “Never even mind your powers! I’m sure you must be from round here, not Earth. If I could only…”

But it was no use. Try as he might, he couldn’t place her, and nor could Flashsatsumas or Flashbee. A tantalizing familiarity was as much a part of Sue’s aura as her chocolate-cake smell, yet every time the boys strove to fix her in their minds, they ran up against that one unmissable omission from her otherworldly vestments which proclaimed beyond all argument she could not be one of them.

4-H-N had theorized the ideal disguise. She wasn’t the daughter of scientists for nothing, and though there were many ways in which Mini-Flashes resembled human beings, it paid to remember they weren’t. Get to know them and you gradually started to suspect facial features weren’t their primary modus of identification. This went some way towards explaining the importance Mini-Flashes attached to items which the wider cosmos regarded as functional at best. Flashslip couldn’t have known his favourite girl was playing with his sensory apparatus, though the feeling was more like it than not.

“It’s something to do with those funny clothes you’ve got on,” he grumbled at length, admitting defeat. “I’d recognise you if I could picture you without them.”

“How fortunate for me I don’t have to picture you without yours,” said Sue.

Speaking of 4-H-N. Her interview with Blonghé Bliggs over, she climbed at that moment through the hole in the wall and joined the cast onstage.

Three male Mini-Flashes could do nothing but stare. They had always wanted to meet her. Flashslip felt his heart pounding like the pistons of a runaway space-freighter. Suddenly this wild night had all been worth it.

People somehow always looked bigger on those 3D advertisements. 4-H-N in the flesh was by contrast so adorably pocket-sized that each boy longed for her creators to consider mass-production. Flashbee and Flashsatsumas, who still had their skirts, curtsied meekly. They wouldn’t have made a révérence to Mini-Flash Meteor if she’d been the last girl in the solar system, but this was different. This was 4-H-N.

And she was too stuffy-sweet for words. Rapturously Flashslip breathed her in, mad about her and not caring if it showed. Which was as well, because it really showed.

“Right, Mini-Flash 4-H-N, stand to attention,” he commanded. “This friend of yours has said altogether the very least that I have ever known, but if you ask me there are one or two secrets around here still being kept under wraps.”

“I’ve just given the Interplanetary Broadcasting Service a revealing exposé on what obviously happened,” 4-H-N told him in reply. “You’re more than welcome to pull rank and go tell them Sue did it, using abilities a human girl doesn’t even have. Or instead, you could all just enjoy being my little heroes, and the kind of Mini-Flashes who make me proud to be one too.”

On this she closed, with a teasing smile none of the trio ever forgot.

“Now if you’ll excuse us, Sue and I have a party to go to,” said 4-H-N. Thereupon each girl donned a headband on which were two furry pointed ears, and after that a matching tail, 4-H-N affixing hers to her pants and Sue the waist of her nylons. Then they swept out hand-in-hand, their huge stripey pink raccoon-plumes bumping behind them.

4-H-N had saved Petunia alright. If she’d known how completely and enduringly, and on what terms, she’d have been in much less of a mood to party.

Schiss-Zazz lay, leagues from the nightclub as the starship flies, atop the remains of the first solid building in seventy-two to halt his hurtling frame. He was mangled and mutilated and crushed and contused, but not angry. He wasn’t even sad.

He was ecstatic.

And Petunia, who so late had preoccupied him utterly, was gone from his thoughts as if she’d never been.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t fancied a nice big bowl of peach-halves in syrup. Only when there was Belgian chocolate gâteau, who reached for the tin-opener?

The tasty treat he’d glimpsed tonight, he wanted in ways that gave new meaning to want.

From now on there was only 4-H-N’s friend Sue.

And nobody would stop him, nobody.

THE END