Night on a Bare Conurbation, Chapter One

He was back.

Reporters and earnest helpful Mini-Flashes ushering traumatised Grindoes from the ruinous subterranean restaurant heard wail after gibber after lament on the steely sound of shears, and sniggers that were like snips. Though their assailant had struck unseen, intelligent life across the quadrant wasn’t in the dark.

The Grindoes had been though. He’d severed the lighting-cable then gone to work amid pitchy black, transforming business-lunch to Bedlam. Yet for all the flinging-about of food and victims, all the characteristic glee he’d clearly taken in chaos, his weapon of choice had been terror alone rather than the bladed ones on his wrists. No Grindo emerged from the devastation so much as scratched.

Was it a warning? A workout? Or merely some ghoulish game?

The space-conurbation didn’t dwell on such questions, but declared a state of full alert.

Night was drawing on, and Schiss-Zazz was at large.

Flashslip, Flashbee and Flashsatsumas had been a mismatched trio even at entry-level. Now having traded in their beige, they were a mismatched trio of seniors.

Flashbee, dressed in yellow and black, hailed from one of Flashdom’s farthest-flung solar systems and was more insectile than most, for he had antennae and could walk up walls. Flashsatsumas may have been a greater rarity still, insofar as he was a male Mini-Flash with too much power instead of not enough. Though small and shy and wont to hide his timid eyes of soft purple behind his matching hair, his physis fairly burst with supernal energies. He had to wear a special containment-suit whose battery of pneumatic capsules regulated this phenomenal flow. Since these squashy segments were of an orange hue, and their wearer little but packed with juice, an Earthling might have concluded he was curiously well-named.

The third Mini-Flash, blue-clad Flashslip, was more of a typical boy. In this galaxy however that description included a brief hemline and an apprehensive expression.

As a matter of fact, he and his two friends were looking more apprehensive than usual as artificial dusk continued to fall. They rued their decision to brave the conurbation’s crowds that afternoon. A naked maniac running round with scissors was one of the few emergencies for which even male Mini-Flashes were still required to do their bit.

They’d been stationed on a high rooftop at the heart of the advertising district. Fidgety as they already were, it was no help at all when halfway through one of those Alliance public service announcements about The Four Heroes’ cause, a holographic presentment of their very own Mini-Flash 4-H-N beamed forth in such proportions as to dwarf three overwrought boys.

The far-larger-than-lifesize smile was electric in more ways than one. A tunic-bodice made of light fell true to form like sheets of sun over the mountainous topography of 4-H-N’s torso. Her skirt, though proportionately short, resembled the folds of cinema-curtains moving to disclose acreages of thigh.

Flashslip looked as if his underwear was troubling him, for reasons that might not necessarily be the obvious.

“You know,” he pronounced to the other two, “this is kind of her fault.”

“If she hadn’t done what she did, Grindotron and Toothfire would almost certainly be at war again,” Flashbee pointed out fairly.

“I know that, Bee,” said Flashslip with a sigh. “It’s just that Schiss-Zazz didn’t scare me when he was safely shut away in Flash Club custody. 4-H-N knew full well that someone like him would insist on being allowed to walk free if he was going to implicate Scientooth. She must also have known it’d only be a matter of time before he violated the terms of his pardon. All I’m saying is, if it wasn’t for 4-H-N then right now we wouldn’t be…”

They wouldn’t be frightened. Flashslip couldn’t quite bring himself to say it, but it was true.

Even so, the boys were content to stand together by the roof-rail and watch their gigantic idol a little longer. She favoured them with a kind of planetary prettiness, while her voice in multiplex bounced and spiralled from the tower-blocks around, telling the galaxy how proud she was to be part of today’s Flash Club. The Mini-Flash trio melted to a man when an unheard compliment from the interviewer sprinkled the beautiful moons of her cheeks with twinkling pink constellations. It must have been nice to have been at street-level, where crowds had gathered between the tremendous ankles to gaze up as one on a strip of white sky.

Everybody, even Flashslip, felt better by the time 4-H-N blinked out. Few experiences could have summed up so concisely what it meant to be a male Mini-Flash of the present generation, and there was something reassuring about that. It wasn’t even a question of being made to feel insignificant, not exactly. You became used to where you stood in the overall scheme of things, and it didn’t hurt to be reminded of it from time to time.

At length, little Flashsatsumas said innocently: “I bet 4-H-N would think we were brave if we volunteered to go on patrol.”

“She’d think we were out of our minds,” corrected Flashslip, but by now he didn’t mean it. The Mini-Flash boys had started thinking.

4-H-N causing problems for them was one thing.

But solving those problems for her?

So she’d be ever so grateful and impressed?

That was something else again.

END OF CHAPTER ONE